Page 47 of The Redemption of Alex Cade
He went to the kitchen, and flipped the switch on the kettle. As I watched him drop tea bags into two mugs, hysteria built within me. Tea, he was making tea. My world was falling apart, what I would say next would either destroy it for good or patch it up, but whatever, it’d be done with a cup of tea.
In silence he put a mug in front of me, and retook his place on the sofa, eyeing me warily over the rim of his own mug.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes, and then I want you to leave. Fuck knows why I’m giving them to you because you don’t deserve them.”
Fifteen minutes. It was a lifeline I’d cling to with every ounce of my strength.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ALEX
“Running away, being on the streets,” I began, picking my way through the words, “it was terrifying. We had to survive, anyway we could. You know what I did.” I looked up and met his eye. “What you have to understand is that when you have nothing you’ll do anything, because you have to.” I picked up the tea, and clutched it tight between my hands. “We were easy prey, but Kelvin did his best to protect me.”
“Protect you? Is that what you call it?”
“But that was exactly what he was doing. He made sure I was safe and that the punters didn’t get rough. He didn’t push me into it, Kit. What I did, I did willingly. Did he talk about building the wall?”
Kit nodded.
“He said, if we wanted to be safe and to have a life we needed to build a wall between us and all the chaos, and to do that we needed to take control. I got it, and I agreed, becausewe were sick of our life being a filthy basement. We wanted the penthouse.” Yes, I’d got the penthouse in the end, but it could end up costing me everything I wanted. “So we built that wall, brick by brick, each one taking us further from the anarchy of the streets where we were constantly looking over our shoulders. The more we succeeded the safer we felt.”
“You and Kelvin were on the make, exploiting others. What about Rob? You and Kelvin leeched off him. Bit by bit you took over his business. Were you conmen as well as the rest of it?”
Disgust and anger shone in Kit’s eyes, but he was letting me talk, he was listening, and for that I was grateful. I just had to make sure he kept listening.
“When we arrived at Euphoria, it was on the verge of closing its doors for good. Kelvin and me, we brought it back to life. We made changes, made smart decisions and yes, we exploited Rob’s interest in me?—”
“Exploited, it really is the word isn’t it? Funny how he changed his will to benefit you and Kelvin, only to conveniently go and die. Did Kelvin kill him? Was that the next brick in your wall?”
My heart crashed against my ribcage, because hadn’t I silently pondered that same question I’d never had the nerve to ask of Kelvin? My mouth turned to sand, and a clammy sweat broke out over my skin.
“Rob was a drunk. He was a drunk when we met him. We found him dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs, but it hadn’t been the first time he’d gone down them head first.” Because that’s how it had happened, it had to have been.
“You’ve not answered my question. Do you think Kelvin killed Rob to get hold of the club?”
“I—No. Kelvin’s done a lot of things. Bad things. We both have. But I can’t believe he’s a killer.”Couldn’t I?“Robhad broken his ankle falling down the stairs, he’d dislocated his shoulder, he’d knocked himself out more than once. Breaking his neck was only a matter of time.”
“For god’s sake?—”
“It’s true. But what’s also true, because I won’t deny it, was that getting control of Euphoria was the first real big break, the one that set me and Kelvin on the path. It was the base everything else was built on. You want the truth, you want it all, well this is it. We started out as foster home runaways selling sex in dark side streets or in the backs of cars, but we soon found we had good business brains. We made Euphoria work when Rob had the place, but when me and Kel inherited, when we really did have free range, we flew. The money started rolling in, but it would only do that as long as we could operate unhindered.”
“What do you mean?”
“We cultivated contacts. In the police and local government.”
Kit’s eyes widened. “You’ve got bent coppers and councillors in your pocket? That means you’ve something on them.”
“Yes. They’re all part of the wall. But the thing is, one day you wake up and realise the wall you thought was for protection has turned into a prison. And I want to break free of it, Kit. I’ve told Kelvin I want out, that I don’t want this life anymore. He wants to take the business in a direction I refuse to go. Do you remember Mehmet Aksoy? He came over to us in the bar that night.”
Kit shivered. “I didn’t like him, I felt like there was something dangerous about him.”
“You were right to think that, because there is. He’s involved in stuff I’d never agree to be part of and Kelvinknows it even though he pushes all the time. But I’m scared?—”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m scared that one day he’ll push and I’ll fall. If I don’t get out now, I know I never will.”
“So what are you doing? Breaking down that wall you’ve built around yourself?”
