Fragile Truths (29 page)

“He loves you, Jude, very much.” I said it quietly and wasn’t even sure he had heard me but he answered almost straight away.

“Did he tell you what he did?”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “He did but he also told me why. I know he was foolish and he did everything the wrong way round but I understand why he did it. I’m not condoning what he did but we all do things wrong when we’re desperate.”

Silence descended and we both slipped into our own world. “Is it worth it?” I asked finally.

“What?”

“This. Fighting against Tate for something that happened years ago. You’re making yourself miserable and lonely for past mistakes. What about the future? Is it worth losing someone you love for?”

“I don’t know, you tell me…” he countered.

My heart jumped at his words as I finally faced my own counsel. Was this worth it? I had lost my daddy, he had died because I was too stubborn to let go of the revenge. I wouldn’t allow myself to grieve for him yet, he deserved my own private time for that but I admitted to myself that I had put my own needs before the ones that I loved. What would they do next? Kill Maggie? Kill Tate. My heart beat faster as panic ate at me, guilt and shame bringing with them deep regret. “Oh god, what have I done?”

“Fran, there’s something you need to know…”

“I need to get out, Jude. Tell them; tell them they can have the damn thing. It’s theirs.”

I needed to end this. I knew my plan could backfire, but I was dead anyway. Whatever happened, they would kill me, it was inevitable, especially when Don figured I wouldn’t give it up, there would be no point to keeping me alive soon. Alive or dead, he would still go down and he would end me just to save face. I needed to finish this before he took Tate and Maggie with me.

“Are you sure?” he asked hesitantly as though he had suddenly changed his own mind and now didn’t want me to.

“Yes. I have to, to keep them alive. But you tell him I’ll only exchange it in promise for Tate and Maggie’s safety.”

“Do you know what you’re saying, Tiger?”

“Yes,” I answered simply, because I did. For the first time in years everything was suddenly clear and easy. Just give it up and free the ones I loved. I had been a fool. Tate was right; my momma would be cursing me for this. My daddy had paid a price so high for me. I knew he wouldn’t have given up the whereabouts of the USB and my stubbornness would now leave me with the guilt of his death forever. But I refused to add to that guilt, I wouldn’t lay the lives of Maggie and Tate on top of my parents. But I did have an ace up my sleeve that Don would never see coming.

“Okay,” Jude answered as he removed his fingers slowly, his resignation heavy in the tone of his voice.

My heart ached and I gulped at the desolation in him, “JUDE!” I shouted before he left me with the darkness for company again.

“I’m still here,” he answered quietly.

“They…” I sighed as my heart clenched for Tate. “After you’ve told Don, you need to go.”

“Go where?” he asked curiously.

“Anywhere. They’re…” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “I can lip read Jude. I watched them through the window the day they asked you if Tate and me were having a relationship.”

“I remember.”

“Well… Don gave Yard the order to finish you. You need to go, just get out.”

I heard him sigh before he pushed his fingers back under the door, wedging them under the wood so he could gain better access to me. “I know, Tiger. I’ve known for a while.”

“What?” I gasped, “Then what are you doing here?”

I waited for him to answer and he took so long I didn’t think he was going to but he did and his confession broke my heart. “Because I have nothing left in life to fight for, Frannie.”

His nickname didn’t hurt me but his pain did. He was as lost as me, always fighting against life to take another breath. Whereas I was always challenging that fate, Jude had surrendered to it. “No, you need to fight.”

“Take care, Tiger.” He whispered before I heard his footsteps fading across the floor until they disappeared.

Life was so fucking unfair. It broke people down until there was nothing left to give. Jude had lost not just hope and aspiration, but his family and his soul. He had turned to the enemy in hope for retribution but all it had brought was regret and loneliness.

Although I, like him, had lost my family and my soul, I had used that regret and loneliness to fight with. I had turned my hopes and aspirations into courage and vigour and I had used those emotions to fight the enemy with instead of yielding to them.

Jude and I were on complete opposite ends of the spectrum, our lives as opposite as they could be but something strong held us together, something brought us to meet in the middle and hold the fuck on – our love for Tate.

Tate

“What the fuck?” I stuttered as I opened my eyes and instantly held my hand to my throbbing head. The bumps in the road had roused me, woken me from the forced slumber fat bastard had put me in. I pulled my body up from the back seat and peered through the window to try and gain some knowledge of my whereabouts.

I frowned as my eyes landed on the driver of the car. He flicked his eyes to me in the mirror but didn’t acknowledge me. “Are you gonna tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

Jude pursed his lips and sighed as though my consciousness irritated him. “She’s given in.”

Pulling myself upright, I clambered between the two front seats and climbed into the passenger side as I stared at Jude. “What? But she wouldn’t.”

He snorted and shook his head in annoyance, “Of course she would. Your life was on the line.”

I hated the pop of happiness that bubbled in my heart at Jude’s statement. It felt wrong to be feeling joy when Frankie was in trouble. I knew she loved me, she had told me but for someone who had stood on the side-lines and watched us to say it then I knew her expressions and actions had shown it too. “I’m still not getting this. The bastards shot her dad, why now?”

Jude huffed angrily, “You don’t get it do you? You’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

“Fuck you!” I spat angrily, “Don’t you dare give me the holier than thou crap, you fucking hurt her so don’t act like you care now!”

He scoffed and shook his head but bit his lip to stop the retort, his common sense telling him he couldn’t win. “So they just let me go?” I asked sceptically as I frowned at the motorway sign telling me we were heading towards Surrey.

“Yeah, it was one of Frankie’s conditions that you and her friend would be left alone.”

“And Don just… agreed to this?” It wasn’t making sense. None of it, Frankie’s surrender, Don’s guarantee, Jude’s ‘help’.

“Fran made sure that you were released before she took them to where the USB is hidden; hence why you’re in the car with me. They needed us both out of the way.”

I paused and narrowed my eyes on him, “Why would they want you out of the way?”

He rolled his eyes, “For Christ’s sake, Tate. I never took you for the stupid one between us. I care about her, okay? Sue me! I don’t give a damn, but they know. They know I’d put her before them and try to save her so they sent me off track with you, knowing how much I hate you that I’d probably end up driving you to a cliff and throwing you over.” His dark eyes narrowed on me as his lip curled.

I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat as numerous factors in his admission confused me. “You care about her?”

“Leave it!” he demanded angrily as his eyes flicked to each of the cars mirrors, checking for company.

“But you… you fucking hurt her. How the hell can you care? You burnt her; you tortured her in that fucking chair for fuck’s sake. How the hell does that constitute for caring about someone?”

His face tightened in anger as his knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. “Yes, I did and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you it hurt me more than it did her.”

I snorted at him, “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Then stop fucking questioning me if you’re not gonna believe me.”

“Humour me!” I growled. He was pissing me off. His obscure answers and statements were doing nothing to calm my rage with him. “Come on!”

He flicked the indicator and turned off the motorway, pulling onto a slip road as he checked the rear-view mirror again. He sighed and his brow furrowed slightly, as though his guilt was consuming him, “It was either me or Yard. So I
offered
.”

That was all he said but I understood. I gave him a simple nod as I turned my head back to the window. “And the saving her bit,” I rolled my lips but refused to look at him as I waited for his answer. “They’re gonna kill her aren’t they?”

The silence in the car was hungry, eating away at both of us as neither of us wanted to accept the inevitable. But he eventually nodded slowly. I swallowed as pain roared through my heart. “Then we need to find them!”

He rolled his eyes again. Next time I would stab the arsehole. “Where the hell do you think we’ve been going?” he growled as he pulled into a gravel car park beside a picnic area.

I frowned as I glanced around. There was nothing but fields and trees. A small shack offering refreshments resided to one side of the car park ready for summer hikers but no one occupied it at this time of year. A huge post housed a map and small signs pointing in numerous directions and I strolled over to it.

“Holy Shit!” I gasped when I studied the map to see where we were. I spun round and looked across one of the fields, squinting against the low winter sun as I focused on a large house in the distance. “She’s gone home.”

Jude didn’t have the chance to give me an answer as a car drove in and parked beside our car.

Two people climbed out and nodded at Jude before they walked over to him and started talking quickly as they suited up in bullet-proofs and ammo belts. My knees jarred as my legs endeavoured to hold me up. The last five days became lies, false truths that confused me. Disbelief and shock drove my heart rate up to a worrying pace as I stared at them.

“We have roughly around an hour to get in there,” Nik informed us as he opened the boot to his car then reached in and handed Jude a rifle and a box of ammo.

Jude nodded, “Okay. I’ll take position behind the south trees. Any idea which window I’ll need to mark?” he asked as he turned to the ghost.

“Top left,” Frankie’s dad informed him. “That’s where the safe is. Nik and I will take the back door. I have roughly around twelve men marking posts that we won’t be able to gain position on.”

“How many in there with her?” Harry asked Jude as I just stood there staring at each of them in astonishment.

“She left with Don, Yard, Bruno and Jack. I’m not sure if they picked anymore up en route. We stopped at Bridgegate services and although I managed to hang back, I didn’t have a permanent view. It was too open.”

Nik nodded, “That’s all he’ll probably take. My intelligence on him, he usually carries three Guards and always the same guys, so Jude’s info holds.”

“Okay,” Harry sighed heavily as he turned to me finally. “Get suited up and let’s go save our girl.”

Frankie

I blew out a breath as my stomach twisted angrily. My nerves were shot. After nearly seventeen years of vows and perseverance, the finale was racing towards me at lightning speed. Seven years of fighting and anticipation, of preparing myself for this moment and now… now the conclusion gave me a calm I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

I could feel her, momma, with me. Her courage and strength surrounded me, along with the echoes of her laughter as I lead my captors into the house that held so many happy memories… and so many bad ones.

Don snorted behind me and I closed my eyes in annoyance when he disturbed the last moments I had with my mother. “Well, I have to hand it to you Bubba, I never expected you to bring me here. I can’t remember the last time I was stood here…” He smirked cruelly as I turned and narrowed my eyes on him. “Oh wait, yes I can; my dick was inside your mother’s filthy pussy as my gun fucked her pretty little mouth.”

The pain that tore through me was unreal. He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d physically gutted me. Every single inch of my body recoiled in horror as vomit surged up my throat and I shivered as I strived to step out of the visions tormenting me. I needed to keep calm, just for a few minutes longer.

“You know something, Don. We both know what happens after this. We both know I’m dead and you’re still going down. You can’t hurt me anymore, I win.”

He frowned at me as rage filtered across his face, “And how do you work that out?”

I didn’t answer him straight away. I walked across the room and beckoned them to follow, leading them up the large double staircase to the top floor. “I’ve put my life on hold for this day, Don. I vowed since the day you killed my mother that I would find you, and when I did find you, that night seven years ago in your casino, I made a promise that I would bring you down, whether it be via death or prison, I would finish you. And now, I will.”

He laughed loudly from behind me as we walked into the huge study. My father’s old office still offered me comfort, even now, many years after he had last sat at his huge wooden desk and barked orders to his minions. Whatever he was discussing, whether it be the latest bank robbery or assassination they were planning, I was always welcome on his knee. He had known from my young age that I would follow him down that path, that I would one day work for the family. But then everything had changed that day September 3
^rd
1997, the day my mother lost her life because of the route my fathers had taken. Then I had taken the opposite direction in life and promised myself that I would spend my life bringing the drug lords and the gangland criminals to justice, until the final day when I brought Don Knight to ground.

I strolled across the room to the large family portrait hanging behind his desk. My parents smiled at me, almost like they were ready and waiting for me, which I knew they were. I clicked the switch behind the piece of frame on the right hand side and swung the picture across the wall.