A wry grin deepens the curve of her bottom lip. “But I’m nothing if not savvy. I used a fake name and an account that I opened just for this venture. And I knew, Damien—I knew that I could never let any of it get back to me or my head would be on a pike. All I needed was the skeleton of the site, anyway, and I could manage the rest. So, I had him build me a website that catered to selling second-hand clothing worn by England’s rich and famous because—”
All I hear is the roar in my ears.
Beyond it, there’s the sound of her voice.
Beneath it, the quickening of my pulse.
I step back then step back again. Twist around at the waist and find myself leaning against the window, staring blindly at the garden that overlooks Swain’s Lane beyond a brick outer wall.
My hands furl into fists at my sides, which I plant heavily on the window frame. “The name,” I utter, my gaze trained on the sycamore trees bracketing the street. “What was the name of the clothing site?”
“I . . .” She clears her throat, and I hear her feet pad in my direction. “I actually never took the time to make one up. In the email I sent, I said just to leave that part blank.”
Jesus Christ, I think I’m going to be sick.
“Damien?” comes her soft voice, just behind my right shoulder. “Are you okay?”
No.
No, I don’t think I am.
“It was me,” I rasp, looking back at her. “You hired me, Rowena.”
Her porcelain skin pales to a ghostly white. “I didn’t. There’s no way. I hired—”
“You paid me twenty-thousand pounds.” Turning around, I face her directly. Openly. “And you spent five paragraphs rattling on about how you wanted everything to be top-notch and anonymous, so that celebrities wouldn’t feel embarrassed that they were forced to sell the clothes straight off their backs to make ends meet.”
“But you . . . but, Damien, you—”
“I took it on as a whim.” Because M. had sounded desperate in her emails. Plus, turning down a twenty-K gig, when the job itself only would take a matter of two or three hours, was the very definition of madness. “And I said yes.”
“You work for Holyrood!” Her eyes are wide, the color in her cheeks swiftly returning to bloom a furious red. “You worked for Holyrood. Why in the world would you take on anything else?”
Boredom, mostly.
But also because, back then, it had amused me to peel back the clandestine world of MI5 and steal their secrets for Holyrood.
“Thanks to me, you managed to—what did you say?—make almost a million pounds in a year.”
Before she can respond, my mobile goes off and I reach it for in my pocket. One glance at the screen and the pit in my stomach grows. “I have to take this,” I mutter, flicking my gaze back to Rowena. Something compels me to add, “It’s Matthews.”
“Is it about Margaret?” she asks, worry creeping into her voice. “Is she all right?”
“I’ll let you know.” The mobile continues to vibrate in my hand, and I hover there, wishing that I could ignore Holyrood’s surgeon. But he wouldn’t be calling unless he had news, and I’m not ready to face the consequences of avoiding the outside world to stay in this bubble with Rowena. “I may have to step out this afternoon,” I tell her.
Her lips press together in a straight line. “Is that a smart idea when there’s a bounty on your head?”
Because the Mad Priest is wanted. Fortunately for all of England, they only have to wait a little while longer to get what they so desperately crave. Unfortunately for me, with Carrigan and Guthram on the hunt, I already have one foot in the grave.
27
Damien
The Bell & Hand is a husk of ash and rubble.
The windows are gone, the outer walls nothing but mangled, half-melted steel piers that reveal Christ Church Spitalfields across Fournier Street. The stairwell leading up to Guy’s flat stretches north toward an open night sky, and Saxon’s bar—once a hub of activity—sits like a soot-covered cavern near the back of the pub.
It’s a fucking disaster.
Hunching my shoulders against an icy breeze, I light a cigarette and bring it to my lips. Inhale slowly, drawing the nicotine into my system, before exhaling on a soft breath. I shove the Zippo into the pocket of my armored vest. “I know you’re there.”
Debris crunches under near-silent feet. “You’re playing a dangerous game, brother.”
“Not