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We reachthe Mercedes as the first wave of cop cars come zooming up the road, their red and blue lights flashing.
Guiding Ada into the passenger seat, I circle around to the driver’s side, keeping my body close to the paintwork to hide the bloodstains on my jeans. Pulling the door shut, I glance over at her as I adjust the mirror.She’s trembling from head to foot again. Her hand is clamped tight across her mouth.
“Ada?”
She shakes her head, and I can see that she’s crying.
Fuck.
I sit there for a moment, listening to her walls come down, her tears falling hard and fast, and cutting dirty trails into her cheeks and knuckles.
I don’t intervene because I see them for what they are. This isn’t the time for bullshit pats and soothing words. It’s not my job to make right what happened to her before me. It’s my duty to see that it doesn’t happen again.
“I promised my mother I wouldn’t cry for them,” she sobs. “This is the first—”
“You don’t need to explain.”
This is seven years-worth of her tears.
Seven years-worth of her hurt.
More cop cars come screaming past us.
Rooting around the Mercedes, I find a bottle of water in the side pocket. Pouring it over my bloody hands, I wipe the excess on my jeans. We need to leave the city. My spur-of-the-moment decision to kill her bodyguard means we’re running for our lives. We have less than an hour before O’Sullivan finds out Ada’s gone. Maybe a couple of hours before he gets a copy of the CCTV footage and has my face blasted out to every criminal network in town.
Sliding the gear stick into first, I click the handbrake off and crawl the Mercedes out of the space, taking care not to jolt her grief.She’s not crying anymore. She’s just a sad kind of silent now.
We’re nearly at the Blackwall Tunnel when she finally speaks again.
“Wait… We have to go back.”
I brake too hard at the lights. “Ada—”
“I’m serious, pull in here.”
Swerving into a BP garage, I find a parking bay away from the bright lights and slam the brakes on again. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? There’s no way I’m going back. Half the cops in the city are out looking for us, and they’re the least of our problems.”
“I know, but we need to do this.”
Her face is swollen, her cheeks red raw, but her eyes are sparking with that irresistible green fire again.
“I have a brother, Frankie. A whole other family I only found out about last week. A father I never even knew existed. They turned up at the house, and O’Sullivan killed them all,except…”
“Jesus. Ada.”No wonder she looks like hell.
“He’s been torturing him. I hear him screaming. He’s the same age as us…” she falters, before adding in a whisper, “I can’t leave him in that place. I just can’t—”
“What’s his name?”
She hesitates. “Razor. Danny Razor.”
It feels like another cold wave just smashed into me. “Wait. You’re Charlie Razor’sdaughter?” She must have seen something terrifying in my face because she’s shrinking down into her seat. “As in the Red Compass Razors? The new fucking Firm?”
She nods as I fumble for my cigarettes in my jacket pocket. Ramming one between my lips, I spark up a light and inhale violently.This can’t be happening.
“How much do you know aboutmyfamily, Ada?” I say, exhaling white smoke and bitterness.
