Kate
Reece is sat at the table, head in his hands, burned leg straight out in front of him. My heart aches. I’m also conflicted. I thought I didn’t care if my stalker lived or died, but he’s a bloody mess. He’s laid on the floor, Ethan close by him, watching him, but I doubt he’s fit to even stand let alone try anything.
His face is grotesque. So swollen and battered it’s barely recognizable as human. One eye looks bloated and enlarged, the other collapsed. His jaw is hanging at an odd angle, and his ribs are already blooming with bruises.
Reece did this.
He did it, and I don’t know how I feel about it.
He looked like a crazed animal when we entered the warehouse, naked, battered, blood on him, and not his own. The way he kicked and punched, to see it turned my stomach however much I hated my stalker.
“What the fuck, dude?” Liam is talking to Reece, voice low but I tune into them.
“I don’t know, mate. I lost it.” Reece sighs and scratches his cheek. “I kept thinking of what he would have done to Kate. Bastard cattle prodded me, on the fucking balls, and tasered me, around my kidneys a few times. Think he might have damaged them.” He stops talking for a moment, then lifts his eyes to Liam’s, meeting his friend’s dark gaze. “He has a teapot, two cups, two china saucers, and a cake stand. A fucking cake stand. He rapes them, tortures them, and then forces them to have some sort of fucked up afternoon tea. I saw that cake stand and I lost control. I’m gonna make it right, though. Face up to it. He’s not going to walk because I lost it.”
And with those words, those simple words, I suddenly get why Reece lost it. My eyes track to the cake stand and the cups and saucers and they are the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen.
“You’re not facing up to anything,” Liam says. “Not without the best fucking lawyer money can buy.”
Reece laughs. “Mate, I know you’re minted, but the type of lawyer we need to sort this shit? You’re talking five, six, thousand a day!”
“When the jury sees what he did to those women he murdered, when they hear the letters he sent to Kate, hear how he used a cattle prod on you, and a taser on your kidneys. Hear how he tortured a goddamn hero, they won’t convict you.”
Liam is confident, final.
I only wished I shared his belief. I’m terrified Reece will go away for this. The UK law isn’t the greatest when it comes to self-defense. As if reading my mind, Liam continues.
“We won’t only fight through the courts, either. We’ll make it clear to the Crown prosecution service that if they decide to take this further then we will fight in the court of public opinion, too. They’ve already had cases where the papers got hold of the details of some person or other facing a trial for defending themselves or their property and it provoked a strong reaction, imagine the reaction to this! A war hero, facing trial because he beat up a guy who raped and murdered women, stalked them, and furthermore, took said war hero and tortured him. It would create a furor.”
Sirens sound in the distance and I’m half relieved Reece is going to get medical help for the burn to his leg, and the damage to his lower back the taser has done. I can see burns and bruises forming on his body and it makes me sick. But, I’m also half terrified he’s going to be dragged into custody as soon as the medics declare him stable.
And I still don’t know how I’ll feel about all of this when it settles. About him, and what he did. I knew he was a warrior, a man who could and did dole out violence when it was necessary. But today, he went beyond that, and yet his explanation made sense. We all have the capacity to lose it, to let our inner demons take over. I glance to the cake stand once more and suppress a shudder.
A horrible gurgle comes from the floor, and my tormentor is watching me through his one half open eye. “You ruined it,” he slurs.
“Shut the fuck up, or I swear I’ll finish what Reece started.” Ethan’s words are cold, hard, and leave little doubt he means it.
“Do it.” My stalker spits out blood onto the floor. “Do it. I don’t fucking care. Never did. It’s all so pointless and boring. My girls are the only thing that made it worthwhile, and I suppose they’ll be taken away from me now. No new ladies for me to get to know, to woo, to play with. And I did like playing with them so much.”
He stares at me, then looks to Maggie. “Do you know, the female body is remarkable, really. It can take so much punishment. So much pain, and not break.”
“Holy shit,” Ethan looks to Liam. “I’m going to fucking wring his skinny neck.”
There’s a darkness in Ethan’s gaze that tells me he means what he says. His isn’t an out of control anger like that Reece displayed. Ethan is more than capable of putting his hands around this man’s neck and squeezing the life out of him, and doing so because it would make the world a better place.
Something odd happens, a moment of communication between Ethan and Liam. I see them both consider my stalker, their faces set, hard. Are they weighing up killing him?
“Put your hands where I can see them.”
The shout comes from the door where a gaggle of police burst into the room. “Hands,” one of them shouts again. He seems to be the lead as he heads into the room, pointing to his men to cover each wall.
The spell between Liam and Ethan is broken and they move to do as the cops say.
We all hold our hands out or up. Reece puts his flat on the table in front of him, palms down and doesn’t move. He’s only in his boxers and he’s starting to look like utter shit. Pale, with a sheen of sweat on his forehead and upper lip.
Liam moves forward, hands out in front of him. “I called you, officers. I’m Liam, and I work in private close protection, also government contract work, too. You can check my credentials if you wish by taking my wallet out of my back pocket.” He nears the police and turns around.
One of them reaches forward and pats Liam down, before plucking his wallet out of his pocket and looking inside as Liam continues.
“The man at the table is Reece and he works for me. He has been working on a protection case for Kate here, against a man who has been stalking her. We had reason to believe her stalker had perpetrated crimes against other women, so we were using some help from sources in MI5 to try and track him down.”
I see one of the officer’s eyebrows shoot up when Liam namedrops the intelligence agency.
“We pretty much figured out the man stalking Kate was Duncan Jacobs. We’ve built a compelling case, which of course we will share. As we were about to move on him, he found where Kate and Reece were holed up, broke in, terrorized Kate and tied her naked to her bed. He proceeded to knock Reece out, then bring him here, where he proceeded to torture him, including tasering him repeatedly in places like his kidneys and his genitals.”
One of the cops winces, and I see him glance at Reece, and then at the man I now know is called Duncan, on the floor.
“I know you guys won’t get a say in this, but know this and pass it on to the lawyerly folks. My boy here gets prosecuted for defending himself against a raping, murdering piece of shit, and I’ll make a stink so fucking loud that all the major papers will run with it.” Liam holds the head copper’s gaze for a moment and then leans back against the sink.
“I don’t have any clothes,” Reece mutters.
I hate this. He’s somehow defeated. Not physically, but inside, mentally or emotionally, he’s shutting down. I’m not sure what’s going on.
“We’ll have to take him in,” one of the officers says.
“Not going in a fucking cell, not after this and not after before,” Reece whispers the words, but I hear them, Liam does too, because his face pales.
“Look.” Liam turns to the lead officer. “You can’t take him in now, he’s injured. You can cuff him and have an officer ride with him when the ambulance gets here, but you can’t take him in.”
The police man nods to his colleague. “Stay with him.”
He goes to Reece and starts to read him his rights. Then he slaps the cuffs on him and Reece stares at them with a sigh. The officer has cuffed Reece to the front, not behind his back. The guy seeing to Duncan doesn’t give him the same courtesy. Despite his grave injuries, Duncan is cuffed with his arms behind him, and then pulled unceremoniously to his feet.
“What regiment did you serve in?” The guy I presume is the lead officer asks Liam.
Liam laughs. “That obvious, eh? Royal Marines then Special Boat Service. You?”
“Paras mate. Never made the SAS though.”
“Reece here served, too.” Liam nods at Reece. The lead officer nods back.
“I’ll take over, Nigel.” The lead officer addresses a younger policeman. “I’m going to ride with Reece.”
“Sir?” The younger officer seems confused and this is obviously not normal protocol.
“You provide back up for Derek with our other suspect here.” He points to Duncan.
“I’ll need all the info you’ve got,” the lead officer says to Liam. “Quick sharp. The minute we get into the ambulance, follow us and get onto a damn good lawyer. Tell him to meet us at the hospital, okay?”
“Will do.”
More sirens are approaching, and I’m starting to feel major anxiety bubbling up in me. I don’t know what to do. I want to be with Reece, but I’m not sure he wants me with him. I don’t fit in here with these people, with his life. With the violence of it. I’m a loner and my violence is metered out in words on paper. His is given out in real life, and these men are hard and tough, and I feel pathetic with the way I want to curl in a ball and cry.
Paramedics rush into the warehouse and then they are seeing to Duncan, and I am so conflicted. I almost feel sorry for him when I look at his battered face, but I also want him gone. Disappeared from this world, so I don’t have to ever think about him again or deal with what he did to me, because with this most likely going to court, I will have to.
Two more medical personnel arrive and they tend to Reece. I’m hoping they say the burn isn’t too bad. They do, and I am sucking in a breath of relief at the news, when one of them says, voice serious and urgent. “You need to get to hospital, I think you’ve got a fractured skull.”
“I know,” Reece replies, all matter of fact as I cover my mouth to keep my gasp in.
“Can I go in the ambulance with him?” I ask the paramedic.
“It’s a big rig,” she replies. “Are you coming, too, seen as he’s cuffed?” she asks the lead officer. He nods.
“Me too,” Liam says.
She sighs and rolls her eyes, then makes her decision. “Okay, let’s go. Now. Can you walk?” she asks Reece. He laughs and nods.
“It’s my head he’s smashed up not my legs.”
A fractured skull. My God, could he die? I feel faint, but I clench and unclench my hands, pumping blood around my system, determined not to wuss out now.
The ride to the hospital passes in a blur. We get into the ambulance and I know they mean business when they go with the blues and two’s, the blue light flashing and the siren blaring out. They are driving fast, too. I wonder if we will be near Duncan when we get to the hospital? Could he still somehow hurt me or Reece?
“Is he going to be okay?” I ask the paramedic as she looks him over, making notes on her clipboard every now and then.
“Hopefully. I think he’s got a simple fracture, but we won’t know until we’ve done some x-rays and scans. His burn is going to be treatable, I’m a bit concerned about his kidneys too, they’ve taken some punishment from the taser. But, he should be okay once we get him treated.”
Fuck. I can’t hold back the tears as they start to fall, and I feel something touch the tips of my fingers. Reece has brushed the edge of my fingers with his own.
“I’ll be fine, Kate.” His deep voice rumbles in the space between us. “I’ve been through worse.”
“He really has,” Liam supplies, but somehow this doesn’t make me feel any better.
More stupid tears come and soon they are falling fast down my face. “I’m sorry.” I sniff as I wipe them away with the back of my free hand.
“It’s okay, you’ve been through a lot,” Liam reassures.
“I’m not crying for me,” I say.
Then I remember, Reece shut this thing between us down. Turned cool when I turned needy. He probably hates this show of emotion. Worried I’m causing him more discomfort when he least needs it, I try to get the tears and emotion show under control.
I glance at him, and I freeze.
His face isn’t hard or cool and remote. He’s looking at me and his gaze is warm…almost soft.
He smiles at me and it’s a smile that says things are going to be okay. Things beyond the immediate stuff like the hospital and the police.
I daren’t hope for too much, but that smile, it gives me some strength to face the next few hours.