Chapter Twenty-One
Night edges into dawn,and still Bryce and I are up waiting for more news. It has been hours since Max last called, and I am getting increasingly panicked. Sleep evades usboth.
“What if he’s killed her,Bryce?”
“Shh, don’t think like that,” he says, holding me close. We are sitting on the sofa in the living room watching the clock. I stare at his mobile phone, willing it to ring. Then itdoes.
Bryce snatches it up. His eyebrows pull together as he answers in singlesyllables.
He flicks off the mobile. “They’ve foundNisha.”
“Is she okay? Are they bringing her home?” I ask, the words coming out in arush.
“She’s at Chelsea and Westminsterhospital…”
“What has the bastard done to her?” I say,standing.
“She’s being checked out by a doctor. I could hear her in the background cursing like a fishwife. From what I can gather, Nisha gave her captors as good as she got. They think she’ll be fine to come back home in a couple ofhours.”
“What aboutSmithy?”
“According to Cal, he got away. Saw the guys coming and did a runner. The police are on to himnow.”
“Where did they findher?”
“Clifford tracked his mobile back to a warehouse in Brixton. She was being kept there by some of Smithy’s men. Max and Hudson got into a scuffle with them. Max was slashed across his bicep with aknife.”
“What?!”
“He’s okay, they’re sorting him out now. He needed a fewstitches.”
“A few? How many is afew?”
“Fifty orso…”
“Fifty? I want to see them. Now,” I say, striding towards the stairs. Bryce catches up withme.
“Louisa, they’ll be sent home in a few hours. Clifford has already got the police in to take statements. Once there, it’s unlikely you’ll get a chance to speak with them forlong.”
“But…” I can feel my body begin to shake with relief. Adrenaline courses through me. “Thank God she’s okay.” Suddenly I find that my legs seem incapable of holding up myweight.
“Hey, come sit,” Bryce says, capturing my arm and steering me back towards the sofa. “I’m going to grab you some tea and toast. You need to eat and sleep, you’re exhausted.” He leaves me for a moment to fix me some breakfast. I watch him as he moves around the kitchen. He looks exhausted too. I remember how I spoke to him last night and I feel a surge of guilt. None of this was his fault, neither was it Max orHudson’s.
“Here we go,” he says, placing a tray on the coffee table in front ofus.
I pick up a cup of tea and take a sip. My stomach grumbles as the liquid hits mystomach.
“Who’s Clifford?” In all the worry, I’d forgotten toask.
“He heads up our security detail. Calum is part of theirteam.”
“Security detail? Why do you need a team ofsecurity?”
Bryce sighs. “Freed Corp is a multi-million-pound company, Louisa. This isn’t the first time we’ve been targeted by criminals.” Bryce looks at me, as though he’s trying to weigh up his options. “There’s something you shouldknow.”
My stomach does a little summersault at the possibility I am not going to like what he’s about to tell me, but I follow him back to the sofa and take a seatanyway.
“A few years back, when the company really took off we hooked up with a business man called Luke Amory. He was a great guy who gave us some sound business advice. He introduced us to a gentleman called Santiago Garcia who owned some real estate in Columbia. Luke thought it would be a good idea that we start broadening our horizons and look for places to build our luxury holiday apartments abroad. Max and I weren’t keen. I didn’t know much about Santiago, but Hudson always liked taking risks and at the time he was seeing Luke’s daughter Beth, so his business sense was skewed by his feelings forher.”