Sir James Walter gazed out the window of the car, utterly absorbed in his latest audiobook. The streets of Westminster rolled by, unnoticed, as political intrigue and high-stakes tactical operations played out in his earbuds.
The real world barged in with a sudden, sharp, deafening bang. The car lurched around him, swerving wildly on the road; then, with a crunch of fibreglass and the explosive hiss of an airbag deploying, it all came to an abrupt stop.
Walter sat there, dazed, for what seemed like an age.
Finally, he gathered enough of his wits to call out, “Arthur?”
There was no answer.
“Arthur?” Walter tried again. He struggled to sit up. “What just happened?”
Arthur lay slumped over the steering wheel, airbag slowly deflating beneath him.
Walter heaved forward and reached awkwardly into the front seat to shake his assistant’s shoulder. “Arthur?”
Arthur didn’t stir. His head lolled to the side, blood trickling from his slack, open mouth.
“Oh, god.” Walter fumbled for the door handle and staggered from the car. The front tire was a shredded mess of rubber, the grille dented from the car’s collision with a streetlamp.
Sunlight glinted off something above. In a window overlooking the street, just barely visible between the curtains, was the sleek, dark shape of a rifle.
The gun moved, sighting down on Walter where he stood exposed on the pavement.
Panic seized control of Walter’s limbs, and he fled.
Walter’s footsteps faded into the distance, and Jay sat upright in the passenger seat of the car.
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stuck his tongue out in distaste. The fake blood capsule he’d crushed between his teeth had a strong, chemical mint flavour, which—combined with the fact that the stuff still looked like blood—was somehow more disgusting than the usual syrup-and-dye taste.
The process of unbuckling his seatbelt and wrestling the door open jarred something in Jay’s chest, and a sharp pain lanced through his ribs. He gasped, doubling over on the pavement.
Jay had assumed he’d hear the gunshot; from what he’d read, all a suppressor did was bring the noise of a rifle shot down from “deafening” to merely “loud.” But the report of Sebastian’s rifle had vanished easily beneath the sound of the tire exploding, and the crowd of gawkers forming around him was less concerned about the loud bang they’d just heard and more concerned about the car crash that followed.
Police response time in Mayfair, however, was measured in seconds. Jay hurried away from the wreck.
As he ducked down a side street, a hand landed on his shoulder.
Jay swore and spun around, then swore again, louder, as the motion jostled his aching ribs.
“Easy.” Moran raised both hands in a placating gesture. “It’s just me.” He paused, no doubt observing the pain in Jay’s posture, the arm curled protectively around his chest. “You’re hurt.”
“You’re supposed to be following Walter,” Jay grated out.
“He’s run off home. We can afford to let him panic for a few hours.” Moran tugged gently at Jay’s arm. “Let’s get that looked at.”
They took a cab back to Jay’s flat, where Moran herded him inside and sat him down on the sofa. “Take your shirt off.”
Jay stiffened. “I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.” Moran glowered at him with the air of an annoyed nurse. “It would be inconvenient for us both if you died of a punctured lung.”
Jay had to concede the point. He shrugged out of his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt with quick, jerky movements.
Seeing what Jay wore beneath it, Moran said, “Is that a chest brace?”
Through gritted teeth, Jay replied, “Binder.”
This was where it could all fall apart. Jay watched Moran’s face for any sign of shock or disgust, the bigot’s sense of betrayal at having been “tricked”—or, even worse, pity.
Instead, without any change in demeanour, Moran said, “Compression wear and chest injuries don’t mix.”
The sheer anticlimax of it left Jay reeling for a moment. Moran simply raised an eyebrow at him and waited.
Finally, Jay lifted his arms to pull the binder off—then aborted the movement with a sharp hiss as his ribs protested.
“Fuck,” he snarled.
Moran considered the situation and came to a quick conclusion. “Got any scissors?”
Jay tilted his head toward the kitchen. “Kitchen shears.”
Moran went to retrieve the shears. When he returned, he perched sidelong on the sofa and put a hand on Jay’s shoulder to turn him until they sat back-to-front.
His thumb rested against the bare skin of Jay’s nape, warm and gentle. Moran could snap his neck any time he liked, and yet Jay had a mad impulse to lean back into him, to feel that warmth all over.
He swallowed. “This thing wasn’t cheap, you know.”
Moran’s hand on his shoulder tightened—a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
There was a quick sensation of cold metal along Jay’s spine as Moran slit the binder up the back. Jay piled the remains in his lap, fingers twisting and bunching the fabric.
Moran’s breath fanned against the back of Jay’s neck, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke. “How does it look?”
A large red mark arced across the front of Jay’s chest where he’d collided with the steering wheel before the airbag blew. “Looks bruised,” he reported back to Moran.
“Everything the same shape it usually is?”
“I suppose.”
“Good.” The sofa cushions dipped as Moran shuffled a little closer. “I need to touch your ribs.”
Jay took a steadying breath, winced at the pain, and nodded.
Moran’s hands came up from behind, resting carefully on either side of Jay’s torso, along his ribs. His fingers slid from front to back, prodding lightly every few inches, then dropped down and repeated the process along the next row of ribs.
His fingertips were rough with calluses, his large hands easily spanning most of Jay’s back, but his touch was delicate and soothing—at least until he reached the middle ribs and pressed against something that sent pain spiking through Jay’s chest.
Jay swallowed a yelp.
“Hurts?”
“Yeah,” Jay gasped.
Moran continued the process, locating a few more sore spots as he went. Then his hands withdrew, leaving Jay oddly bereft.
“You’ve got a few cracked ribs,” he explained. “They’ll heal on their own, as long as you don’t do anything stupid. You can put your shirt back on.”
Jay tugged his shirt on and buttoned it up to the throat. He’d have to wear jumpers until his ribs healed. Or hoodies. Anything loose and bulky.
Moran levered himself up off the sofa. “If you have trouble breathing, or you start to feel feverish, I’m taking you to A&E.”
Jay’s skin still buzzed from Moran’s touch. He wanted those hands back. He wanted to push Moran off the balcony. It was probably best to forget this whole incident.
He didn’t want to forget.
“If you’re done mothering me,” he said, somehow managing an even tone, “I have work to do. And so do you.”
Moran replied with a lazy, sarcastic salute and made for the door.
With shaking hands, Walter poured himself a glass of whiskey. He’d reached his home without further incident, locked every door and window he could find, and closed all the curtains. Now he sat in his study, quietly panicking.
From downstairs came the sound of a door closing.
Terror gripped Walter by the throat. Both of his children were away at university. His wife had been “visiting her sister” for months, and wasn’t likely to be back. Walter should have been the only one in the house.
He grabbed a golf club from the bag in his study and, quietly as he could, crept down the stairs.
Sebastian Moran sat in an easy sprawl across a stuffed armchair in Walter’ parlour, tapping away at his phone.
He glanced up as Walter reached the bottom of the stairs. “Off for some midnight golfing, Sir James?”
Walter swallowed and clutched the club tightly in both hands. “Are you here to kill me?”
“No.”
“My car—”
“Was just the start of it.” This wasn’t the distantly amiable man that Walter had come to know over the years. This was what had always lurked beneath: the mercenary. The killer. “Do you recognise the name Arthur Shang?”
Walter shook his head.
“He was a passenger on Sumatran Airlines Flight 887,” Moran said. “He was also the grandson of Evelyn Shang, who owns half the real estate in Singapore. Very old money. Very powerful. Arthur was the favourite—he was going to inherit everything.”
“No.” Sweat dripped into Walter’s eyes; he hastily wiped it away. “No, that’s—I would have known—”
Moran shrugged. “Look it up, if you don’t believe me.”
One-handed, Walter retrieved his phone from his pocket and searched the name “Arthur Shang.” The headlines didn’t lie—the grandson of Evelyn Shang had died on Flight 887.
On one of Walter’s planes.
“She can’t possibly think—”
“Oh, she does,” Moran said, as if it were a minor concern. “Shang holds you personally responsible for her grandson’s death. And she’s hired someone to punish you for it.” He sat up, leaning forward in the armchair. “Today was a warning. Tomorrow, they start cutting bits off you.”
“No, no, no—” Walter stumbled forward, the golf club dropping from numb fingers. “Moran, you—you can’t let them do this. You have to help me.”
Moran scoffed. “After you tried to shove me in a big black van?”
“A misunderstanding,” Walter insisted. “I wasn’t—I—please.”
Moran’s demeanour remained cold, but he said, “I want double what you owe me from the security test.”
Walter nearly collapsed in relief. “Thank god—”
“And you’ll call off your dogs.”
“Yes, of course. Anything.”
“Right.” Moran uncurled from the chair. “You should leave the country for a bit, until I’ve taken care of everything.”
“I’ll fly out tomorrow morning,” Walter said in a rush. “How long?”
“Hard to say.” Moran strode to the door. “I’ll contact you when it’s done.” He paused in the doorway. “Stay safe, Sir James.”
Jay returned to the flat late. A cool nighttime breeze wafted through the open balcony doors, where Moran stood with his elbows propped up on the rail, shirtless and barefoot, smoking a cigarette.
He’d just stepped out of the shower. A bead of water dripped from his still-damp hair and slipped between the muscles of his back, down the curve of his spine, eventually disappearing beneath the low waistband of the joggers he wore. He’d had to borrow them to sleep in, as all his own clothes were still at his flat; they were too big on Jay, but just slightly too small on Moran.
Over his shoulder, Moran said, “Did you get it?”
Jay flushed and plucked the flash drive from his pocket. “Walter never did get around to reporting his assistant’s unfortunate demise. My key-card still works.”
“Good.”
Jay joined Moran on the balcony. “Did Walter bite?”
“Oh, yes.” Moran drew his phone from his pocket and pulled up his bank account; the latest transfer into the account had a satisfying number of zeroes in it. “I think it was the articles that sold it. How did you do that?”
“Walter’s phone was connected to his home Wi-Fi network,” Jay explained. “Whoever set it up never changed the default password, so once your phone was in range it wasn’t hard to get in. Then I just redirected Walter’s browser to a spoofed news page.”
“‘Just.’” Moran chuckled, stubbed his cigarette out on the railing, and turned to face him. Tiny droplets still clung to the hair on his arms, his chest, his belly—“I appreciate you letting me stay here, by the way.”
Jay cleared his throat and looked away. “Well. It’s just for one more night, isn’t it?”
Moran nodded. “Walter flies out tomorrow morning. If he doesn’t call the police.”
“He won’t,” Jay replied, with certainty. “If the authorities started sniffing around BPA, they might expose the cover-up. Trust me—Walter deals with his problems by throwing money at them.”
Moran drifted closer; the shortened distance forced Jay to tip his head back to maintain eye contact. “You don’t leave much to chance, do you?”
“Neither do you.” Jay licked his lips. “I’ve seen how you play cards.”
Moran laughed quietly; his breath tickled Jay’s face, laced with the lingering smell of the cigarette he’d been smoking. He was so, so close—
—and then, as if he’d suddenly remembered something important, he stepped away.
“Early morning tomorrow.” Moran made for his makeshift bed on the couch. “You should get to bed.”
Jay clutched the balcony rail in one hand, collected his wits, and put serious thought to killing Moran in his sleep.
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