Rae

I’d never seen so many police around here, even when they’d raided us a few months back. Apparently they came in droves when someone like Dom called them. Or maybe it was Isha. I was struggling to keep up.

An officer cornered me by Fletch’s barbecue. I sat on a soggy deck chair, my knees pulled up to my chest. Lucky stood behind me, his thin fingers digging into my shoulders.

“When did you last see Ciaran?”

“Cash,” I corrected for the third time. “He doesn’t go by his real name.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

The officer’s eyebrow twitched. He made a note, and tried again. “When did you last see Cash?”

“Yesterday. He was standing with Sprig when the hunt ended. Your lot kept me behind, and when I came back here, he was gone.”

“Gone where?”

“He told Sprig he was going home.”

“And that’s in London?”

“Yes,” Lucky said. “We share a house in Tottenham.”

“And you’re sure he hasn’t been home?”

“Yes. A mate of ours is there now in case he shows up.”

The officer’s gaze flickered to Dom and back, and I could almost see him putting the pieces together. Remembering media coverage of the gay footballer who’d given up the premiership highlife to be with his boyfriend.

Fury rippled through me. Seriously? This was going to be about that? The hell Lucky and Dom had been through was going to be the only thing that made the coppers believe Cash was in danger?

“Is Cash your boyfriend?” the officer asked.

I closed my eyes.

***

Sprig, Fletch, and Isha were going with the police officers who’d been tasked with searching the woods.

The officer hovering over me wouldn’t let me go. “Best stay here,” he said. “If you’ve had beef with this landowner before.”

I opened my mouth. Shut it again as I watched Isha ditch his banker outfit for clothes more suited to tramping through the woods. What was the point? I knew when a copper was unmovable, and arguing would delay the search party setting off—a prospect I couldn’t cope with.

They left. My teeth chattered as I watched them go, and I clutched at Lucky’s hand on my shoulder. “What if they don’t find him?”

But what if they did? Lucky’s silence said it all and fresh panic rushed through me. And guilt. I didn’t understand how this had happened, but the longer it went on, the more my own pig-headed selfishness carved me up. I’d taken Sprig’s word as gospel, assumed Cash was being a dick, and gone to bed cursing him. If I’d sat up and worried why he hadn’t answered my spiky messages, perhaps he’d be safe by now.

Meg brought me a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. I ignored her, got up and walked away, drifting to the treeline with my minder on my tail.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” he said. “I appreciate that you have a lively time of it round here, but is there anything you can think of that’s been out of the ordinary?”

“I’ve already told you about Goon’s thugs attacking us. Shooting pellets at us, ramming us with quad bikes.”

“I meant apart from typical hunt stuff.”

“You think that’s typical? Don’t normalise that shit.”

“Rae,” Dom cautioned.

I hadn’t realised he’d joined us.

The officer glanced at him, then back at me. “Look, I’m new to this area, so I don’t know as much about the hunt as I should, only what I’ve heard over the last few months, and that’s all been reports of vandalism at the huntmaster’s property. What you’ve told me today is the first I’ve heard about retaliation.”

I wanted to punch him. Perhaps reading my mood, Dom stepped between us, and then around me to stand at my back, the perfect position to restrain me if I lost my mind and twatted a copper. “I don’t know why you’re asking me all these questions anyway, when it’s obvious you’ve got someone on the inside.”

The officer raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

I glared right back at him. “The greebo who’s been messaging me. He turned up last night with a mate, claiming he could leak information from Goon’s inner circle.”

“That’s an interesting development,” the officer said. “But it’s unlikely to be an undercover operation. As far as I know, the budget for policing fox hunting has been stripped to pretty much zero.”

He was amused. His face didn’t change, but I could tell. “You don’t believe me?”

“I think it’s farfetched—”

“For real?” Dom cut in. “You think the police haven’t pulled this kind of thing before? Infiltrating activist groups and destroying them from the inside out?”

If I hadn’t been so worried about Cash, the way the policeman looked at Dom when he spoke would’ve infuriated me. The way his words, though the same as mine, carried more weight because he was rich as fuck. But there was no time. I handed my phone over, complete with the sneaky snap I’d taken of the mysterious men in the woods, and gazed after the officer as he disappeared with it.

“What if he calls?” I clutched Dom’s arm. “What if Cash calls me?”

Dom covered my hand with his. “Then they’ll answer. They want this over with as much as we do.”

Over. The word lingered ominously. I shook my head. “It’s Goon, Dom, I know it is. He’s so fucking sure he’s untouchable, there’s no limit to what he’d do to Cash if he caught him.”

“Revenge?”

“More than that. We fucked the hunt yesterday, and publically too. Anyone seeing that fox cub on the news can’t deny Goon’s hunt was trying to kill it. It could change things for them, and he won’t take that lying down.”

Convincing Dom was easy. He’d been worried enough to come searching for Cash in the first place, but with the police preoccupied with my phone, and searching the woods, there wasn’t much we could do but wait.

It began to rain. I took Dom and Lucky to the van, then immediately wished I hadn’t when Lucky broke down. His tears terrified me. A helicopter buzzed above the camp.

“Police,” Dom confirmed.

And something inside me broke. I didn’t cry, didn’t scream, or lash out, but as the crack inside me widened, I knew whatever happened today, nothing would ever be the same.

A torturous hour later, Dom’s phone rang.

He stepped away from the van to answer it, but I knew the moment his face changed that something had happened.

I scrambled out of the van, pulling Lucky with me. “What is it?”

Dom held up his hand, still listening to whoever was on the other end, then hung up, his expression grim. “Nothing in the woods, but the squad car up at the house have found something in the kennel block. Blood, and some boots. It could be from some dead animals they’ve found too, but they’re sending that copper a picture of the boots. You’d recognise them if they were Cash’s? We might not…he never brought them in the house.”

“Yes.” Of course I would. How many times had I fantasised about easing them slowly off his perfect feet? Of kissing him from his anklebone to his dick, and so much more?

Too many in comparison to the occasions fantasy had become a reality, and the very real possibility that our story had ended hit me like a truck. Blood. Death. Please don’t let those boots be his.

But they were. I stared at the grainy photo and horror built in my chest until I couldn’t breathe. “They’re his,” I gasped out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. They’ve got him.”

Dom was in motion immediately, dashing to his car. I shot after him, Lucky right behind me, and we were in the powerful Lexus before I could blink, me and Dom up front, Lucky thrown into the back.

“Direct me,” Dom ground out as he spun the car around. “We won’t have long before they pull us over.”

Dom’s car was designed for rich people to rumble around London, blocking the roads and parking badly in disabled bays, but beneath the bling were huge off-road tyres and a powerful engine. I directed him to the farmer’s track that cut through the woods, and prayed he could drive like Cash.

He wasn’t far off, but I hardly noticed the breakneck speed of the tight bends, or the narrowing of the already claustrophobic lane. My gaze remained fixed on the horizon, waiting on the first glimpse of Goon’s house of horrors.

“There it is!” I hit the dashboard with my fist as the house came into view. “The gates are open!”

Dom sped up the driveway. Three police cars were already outside the house. He skidded to a stop beside them, and I hit the ground before he’d even shut off the engine.

I followed the trail of coppers through the grounds, past the stables and kennels. The orchards. Past the gardens, a gate half hidden by the ornamental hedges was open. I shot through it, and then stumbled, pulled up short by the sight of three police officers in the distance, crouched on the ground at the edge of the woods.

They were cradling a lifeless body.

It was Cash.