Page 88 of Into These Eyes

Finally, I brave a look at his face. His eyes are closed, his skin pale.

I’m glad he’s unconscious. He doesn’t need to endure this pain.

Concentrating on the rise and fall of his chest, I drift into some sort of disconnected state.

All I can do is watch, making sure each breath expands his chest at the same rate as the one before.

When the front door smashes open and armed men storm in, I don’t even flinch. Orders and responses are shouted, heavy footfalls pound the floorboards, but I don’t see flashing blue and red lights through the windows. I don’t remember hearing sirens approach.

Then a blanket’s being wrapped around my naked body.

I see Pete’s kind eyes as he kneels beside me, and I have the ridiculous urge to tell him he’s ruining his pants.

When he places an arm around my shoulders and pulls me toward him, I try to resist. I have to keep the pressure on the wound. That’s my job. My only job.

“The ambos’ll take care of him now, Jamie. Let them get him to hospital.”

I hadn’t even noticed them kneeling at Gavin’s head, one on each side, an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, their impatient faces staring at me.

Dazed, I nod as I release the towel over the bullet wound and let Pete help me to my useless legs. Sagging against him, I manage to point at the floor. “My phone … recorded what I could.”

He snatches it up, guides me to the couch, and lowers us both down. I catch a glimpse of my knees smeared with Gavin’s blood just before Pete drapes a throw-rug over them. Then he calls over a paramedic to examine the wound on my hip from Jarrod’s stray bullet.

“I’m sorry,” Pete says, his hand tight on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. We fucked up. I fucked up. I let you down. I’m never going to forgive myself.”

As the paramedic cleans and dresses my wound, I look into Pete’s tormented eyes, not understanding what he’s talking about. It’s only then that I realise it’s not just my whole body that’s numb, it’s my mind, too.

“Can you ever forgive me?”

I stare at the people going about their business from the fourteenth floor of the police headquarters. Must be nice to be in a hurry to get somewhere and actually be free to do just that. But who am I to judge? I don’t know what any of those strangers have been through.

Turning away from the window, I gaze at Pete standing beside the uncomfortable couch he tried to get me nap on last night. “I told you, I can’t answer that until I see Gavin with my own eyes.” Until that happens, I won’t sleep.

He nods, then goes back to studying the ugly brown industrial carpet at his feet.

I should feel sorry for him. He’s carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders. But, for now, I can’t bring myself to feel anything but anger.

Even so, he hasn’t left my side since the moment he found me applying pressure to Gavin’s gunshot wound.

Under the cover of darkness, he escorted me through the police headquarters’ back entrance and up to this room.

He’s done everything right. Besides what should have been done right in the first place.

I’ve been in this room for sixteen hours now. Sixteen. Sixteen hours, sixteen years. I hate that fucking number.

Over those hours, Pete filled me in on the operation internal affairs have been conducting on several high-profile politicians and police.

Detective Inspector Jarrod Reid being one of them.

They’ve known of his corruption for some time, but had held off bringing him down, wanting to go after the bigger fish they knew, but couldn’t prove, he was involved with.

When the fire broke out in the historical building next to the high-rise apartments in The Rocks, the investigators knew it had been deliberately lit.

After hidden security cameras across the road revealed the identities of the thugs who ignited it, they crumbled and pointed the finger at Reid. He’d hired them to do the job.

Pete’s team knew Reid didn’t stand to gain anything from the destruction of the historic building.

But they knew of a certain politician who, a few years prior, had tried to get his hands on that land.

Greed had set in motion a plan that went terribly wrong.

A plan that cost the lives of seven innocent people.

Once Pete’s team had the phone taps in place, a false media report stated the fire was caused by an electrical fault.

Ever since, the police have been listening and gathering information on the involvement of the suspected high-ranking police and politicians.

But it’s one thing to know what they’d done, and another to prove it.

And those involved were careful not to let anything slip.

While Pete’s team waited for the evidence to arrest them all, I came along.

Wanting to overturn Gavin’s conviction, which would directly lead to an investigation into Jarrod.

And I’d alerted him to that fact. To allow such an investigation to take place would risk uncovering links to those in positions far higher up the chain.

The people he worked for would eliminate him before they let that happen. So he took action.

First, the threatening note under my door.

Then he bribed that snake at work, Simon, who deleted Liam’s affidavit, and informed Jarrod when I saved my father’s video confession into the file.

Unless Reid could eliminate the reason he was about to come under investigation—me—he knew he was a dead man.

But police procedure tied Pete’s hands. He couldn’t tell me anything.

It all made sense now. How he’d discouraging my involvement in overturning Gavin’s conviction, then his insistence that I promise to hold off for a few months.

I know he was bound by rules he’d vowed not to break, but if I’d only known, we could have taken steps to protect ourselves.

Now, after a second false media report—my death—those involved in the fire haven’t been quite so careful with their phone conversations.

“Jamie?” Pete tries again. Before he can continue, his phone rings. “Yeah … Yeah, send her in.” He looks at me, his face grim. “Your sister.”

I haven’t seen her yet, but I’d filled her in over the phone, making it clear that I was safe, that it was Gavin who she needed to be with. So she should be here.

A moment later, the door unlocks, and a heavily armed officer shows Anika in. As soon as she spots me, she bursts into tears and runs at me, grabbing me in a bear hug.

“I fucked up,” she cries. “I fucked up, Jamie. I’m sorry.”

I hug her tight, fear blooming in my chest. “Gavin?”

She nods, then quickly adds, “He’s okay. I just … I’m … I’m so fucking stupid.”

Ignoring Pete’s questioning gaze, I wrap an arm around my sister and lead her over to the uncomfortable couch. Holding her tight, I wait until she calms down. Finally, she looks at me with haunted eyes that do nothing to calm me .

“He … he hadn’t woken up yet, and I thought … I’d just go to the loo and get a coffee. A few minutes, that’s all.”

Her lip trembles as she swallows hard, trying to stay in control. I’ve never seen her this upset before, and it scares me to death. “Okay,” I encourage. “So, you went to get coffee …”

“And when I came back, he was on the floor … bleeding … he’d turned on the TV and seen the news … he thought—”

She bursts into tears again. I cradle her head to my chest. She doesn’t have to say more. If he saw the news, there was only one thing he could think.

“I had one job,” she cries, “and I fucked it up so bad.”

I hold her closer, half to comfort her and half to comfort myself. I’d told her on the phone that I needed her to be with Gavin so when he woke up, she could tell him what was going on before he saw or heard something he shouldn’t. “But you said he was okay.”

She pulls back, swiping at her face with her sleeve. “Yes and no.”

“Ank. What does that mean?” My heart doesn’t know whether to stop or burst through my chest.

“He ripped his stitches open. They’ve fixed that up. But … I’ve never seen someone look like … like all the life had drained from him. It fucking crushed me, Jamie. And it was all my fault.”

I place my hands firmly on her upper arms and squeeze. “Now, you listen to me. It’s not your fault. It’s Jarrod’s fault. Not—”

“It’s my fault,” Pete says from beside us.

We both look up at his desolate face. It’d be really fucking nice to blame someone. Someone who wasn’t dead. Someone I haven’t killed. Over the last gruelling hours, I’ve discovered blaming the dead isn’t as satisfying as I’d like.

Pete runs a hand over his face and takes a deep breath. “Because I should have trusted our friendship and … told you more.”

“Yes,” I say without blinking, “you should have. But rules are rules, right?” I ask bitterly.

He nods, his eyes downcast, remorse rolling off him in waves. When I’d tried to discuss it with him earlier, he was stoic on his reasoning and unapologetic. Seeing Anika’s distress—distress I’ve buried—has clearly affected him.

After a moment, he meets my eyes. “I am truly sorry, Jamie. My judgement was clouded. I wanted them all to go down so badly, I couldn’t risk screwing it up.

It should’ve been me in that surveillance car watching your house Christmas night, not a couple of jerks who thought it’d be a smart idea to sneak home to their families instead of doing their job. I’m a shit friend.”

“Yeah, well. I’ll be the judge of that. Just not right now.” I know it’s harsh, I know it’s not what he wants to hear. I also know I’ll forgive him. But I’m so fucking furious, I feel no guilt in letting me suffer a little longer.

I don’t want my sister to suffer, though. Taking her hands in mine, I look into her eyes and tell her again. “See? It’s not your fault. You get that, right?”