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I am not sure how long I am lost in my own thoughts but Pete’s behaviour changes and pulls me back to reality; something must be going on. Pete grabs my legs and cuts the rope between them, just leaving my hands still tied. He pulls me up and drags me out of the green house and on to roof. The wind has picked up and I shiver and shake in the cold. Pete puts his left arm around my front, holding my arms down against my body. My hands are tied at my wrists so I can’t really move. I am also realising that I am becoming more and more weak by the minute. I think I was running on adrenaline before and it is quickly running out. I feel very weak and light headed. With Pete’s right hand he pulls out his knife and holds it to my throat. “Please Pete. Don’t do this.” I feel his head dip and his hand drop a little but only for a second and then it’s back up with the cold blade resting below my voice box.
There’s a banging sound coming from the door to roof. The door opens with a fast powerful swing. Smoke comes bellowing out of the building as it does. Two large figures appear out of the smoke. They’re wearing oxygen masks on their faces, yellow helmets and thick fireproof suits. I assume they must be firefighters until one takes off his mask and I hear his voice. Damien.
“What the hell are you doing Pete!?” Damien demands.
“I am finally going to get justice for my sister! You killed her Damien! You broke my parents’ hearts!” Damien just lets him speak. “We have never been the same since. You ruined our lives, you MURDERER!” Pete is getting angrier. He’s tightening his grip on me and the knife is pushing into my neck.
Damien eyes meet mine; he’s speaking to me through them. He’s asking me the be calm and trust him. I do. I say back, with a tear in my eye. He understands and puts his eyes back on to Pete. “I am sorry, Pete. I never meant for Claire to get hurt.”
“DO NOT SAY HER NAME, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!” Pete’s anger rises even more and he pushes the blade further into my neck. I feel my skin break under the sharp blade. The release of warm blood runs down my neck on to my chest. I see the pain in Damien’s eyes as he looks at me.
“It’s me you want not Bella - please Pete let her go. I will do whatever you want, just let her go- she’s done nothing wrong.” Damien’s pleading with him.
I haven’t seen Damien in this situation before. He normally has control of every situation but here he has none, and he will hate it. I look at him like this and I love him even more. It must be using all his strength not to come over here and beat Pete to a pulp. But he can’t he’s protecting me. I see Damien’s eyes flicker to his left, just for a second. Has he seen something?
Pete then starts to talk about his sister, and their time growing up. How she used to look out for him. I get a glimpse of the man he was pre his sister’s death. It’s horrendous what grief can do to person. I am feeling extremely weak now, my vision is very blurry and I’m hearing sounds like I am under water. I feel Pete’s anger building again and there’s a lot of raised voices now. My legs give way and I slump to the floor. The knife penetrates my skin again and I feel the rush of warmth down my neck. It feels good. I am so cold. It warms me up for a moment. I hear Damien shout and there’s a bang as I reach the cold hard floor. I am exhausted, so I let my eyes close, and I drift into a deep state of unconsciousness.
Chapter 22
Damien
“He’s down!” I shout into my microphone. We had a sniper on the roof next door. They shot Pete in the back of the head. We won’t have to worry about him anymore. I push his body away from Bella and assess her situation. She is breathing thank goodness- her pulse is a little faint but it’s there. She has two cuts to her neck, the b**tard, if he wasn’t already dead, I would be killing him now. They’re bleeding but seem to be stopping. I think they’re more of a surface wound thank goodness.
I pull out my first aid kit and quickly bandage her neck. I wrap her in a fireproof blanket and put a spare oxygen mask on her face. I lift Bella into my arms and carry her back into the building. There’s not as much smoke now, the fire fighters were putting out the fires on way up here and they have since made good progress. King Security work closely with the fire services as well as the police. We’ve helped each other out on many of occasion. I take the stairs with ease and stare at my Bella. I am never letting her go now.
There’s an ambulance waiting outside, I get into the back with Bella in my arms. I let them get her stable and then direct them to my home. Kingston Manner. I have already arranged for a medical team to be there waiting for Bella’s arrival. I have explained the situation to Penny and I’m sure she will have sorted out everything else. This time, I will not be leaving Bella for a moment.
Everything is in hand at Kingston. Bella is set up comfortably in my, well our, room. She has a medical team on hand 24/7. Bella has had a few stitches to her neck and is on some strong antibiotics as she had started with pneumonia. Bella’s parents and Chloe are also staying with us. Josh is here a lot too, keeping an eye on things- one thing/person in particular if I’m not mistaken.
“Hey my beautiful Bella, how are you feeling?” I say as I walk into our room. Bella is sitting up in bed reading. It has been a week since the hospital and Pete incident and she is getting stronger by the day. “Now it has quietened down with visitors and you’re feeling better, I wondered if we could have a chat? I think I have some explaining to do.”
Bella puts her book down and straightens herself in bed. She takes a deep breath and looks a little worried. “That’s if you’re up to it of course?”
“Yes, its fine Damien please, go on.”
I sit on the end of the bed and gather my thoughts. I have known I needed to speak to Bella about Pete and explain. I haven’t wanted to upset her or slow her recovery, so I haven’t yet spoken to Bella about what happened. I have also been putting it off, as I am not sure how Bella feels now and how she will feel after I explain. Bella obviously knows that Pete was angry at me and that he was willing to take her life because of that. She also must know that he blames me for his sister’s death. She hasn’t mentioned anything to me about it.
With family and friends visiting and the medical team, we haven’t really spent any time alone, apart from at night where I get into the sofa bed at the other side of the room when Bella is asleep.
“Ok well I am going to start from the beginning.” I take a deep breath. “When I was in college, I met a girl called Claire. She was so beautiful- everyone wanted to date her and unfortunately for her the only person she wanted to date was me. At the time I thought it was great. I had what everyone else wanted. After a while, Claire started getting very serious. She was talking about engagements and moving in together. It was definitely not what I wanted. I just wanted to have fun. I tried to explain to her that we were too young for that and we should enjoy life. Claire didn’t get the message at all. I even broke up with her a few times but she still came back. At the time I was young and naive and I decided the best way to get her to move on was to go with someone else- so I did. I slept with her best friend. I got a friend at the time to take photos of us together and email them to her.”
I bow my head in disgust. Bella looks shocked and saddened by my words but nods to encourage me to go on. “A couple of days later I found out that she had committed suicide. She had written a note saying how much she had loved me and that I had broken her heart. That I had also taken away her best friend and she could no longer live with the pain.”
My voice breaks as I finish and I realise I have never actually spoken those words out loud. My family and Josh knew about it all when it happened but I have never had to explain it to anyone before. Bella takes my hand in hers and gives me a sad smile.
She’s about to say something but I stop her. “Please just let me get it all out while I can.” I am not used to talking about my feelings. “Since then, I have never let any woman get close to me. I have never dated or slept with anyone more than twice. To be honest there’s never been anyone I wanted to see more than that until I met you. I have never wanted anyone to be hurt again because of me but with you Bella I just couldn’t stay away. I am sorry- I was selfish.” My voice breaks again.
Bella moves over to me and wraps her arms around my neck. I put my head in her chest and she kisses the top of my head. She then lifts my face, kisses me gently on the lips and wipes the fallen tears from my eyes with her thumbs.
“When you were kidnapped, I completely lost my head. I have never felt pain like that of losing you, and when I found out that I could have prevented it, I realised it was all my fault. I had hurt someone else and you could have died because of me.”
“What do you mean, you could have prevented it?” Bella asks confused
“John was working for King Security. He was one of our new recruits and his first job was the hairdressing event. I literally handed you to him.”
“No Damien you weren’t to know -you cannot blame yourself for this.”
“Yes, I can, Josh had asked me to go through the short list of CVs for the new recruits and I didn’t bother. If I had, then I would have seen him. I would have known it was him and I would have known he was after you. I could have stopped him.”
