Trust Me (Trust Me, Find Me 1)

“Is Sion alright?”

Since Claire called, I’ve been worrying too. Why would someone suddenly go offline for a whole week? Even if they were mad busy, they could still send a quick text. Make a call, surely?

“He’s fine. He’s been crashing at Jase’s place in London.”

“Why’s he not phoned her?”

“Jase says he got into a fight on a night out. Got a few bruises on his face. He didn’t want Claire to know. Or to see the state of him.”

It made sense, but it wasn’t going to please Claire.

“What you smirking about?”

“Nothing. Just wouldn’t like to be in Sion’s shoes, that’s all. Claire’s pretty pissed off with him and that’s not much of an excuse not to send her a text.”

“Jase says Sion’s gonna call and see her on his way back.”

“Brave man.”

“Jase said we can stay at his place when we go see Matt.”

A nervous knot forms in my stomach.

“Cool… I can’t wait to meet Jase. Get all the dirt on you from your army days.”

“Hmm, on second thoughts, p’raps we should stay with Cal. Less you know, the better.”

???

Hearing her ringtone, Claire rushed over to her bag stowed under the bar. She’d been waiting over a week. If it was him, she’d tell him to do one.

Her pounding heart told her she wouldn’t.

“Gotta take this, sorry.”

Kevin frowned, but she didn’t care what he thought anymore. The lunch shift was nearly over. Anyway, he was always on his phone. And no way was it always work-related, either.

She moved into the recess by the glasswasher. Her stomach was suddenly full of butterflies. And dread.

“Sion?”

It came out too enthusiastically, she reigned herself back in.

“Everything okay? Where the Hell have you been?”

“... Yeah, right.”

He’d explain it all and he wanted to meet up.

“Why should I, when you can’t even be arsed to call me?”

He wasn’t making much sense.

“Look, Sion, I’ve gotta go. I’m at work.”

He was persistent, she gave him that. He really needed to see her, he told her. It wouldn’t wait.

In the end, she relented.

“Alright, alright. I’ll see you at seven.”

She turned back towards the bar.

“Shit! You gave me a fright.”

Kevin was standing there, right in front of her. Had he been listening in?

Staring indignantly, she put her phone back into her bag.

Thank God she was off for a couple of days after this shift.

“Yer boyfriend back?”

“Sion’s not my boyfriend. But since you ask, yes he is. I’m seeing him tonight, so I’ll need my wages before I go, if that’s alright?”

“No can do, sweetheart.”

His scouse drawl irritated her even more than usual.

“You know the score. I do the wages Monday.”

“Any chance I could have it sooner, Kev? Please?”

Kevin considered it

“Alright, darlin.’ Seein’ as it’s you. Come pick it tomorrow before the lunch shift.”

“Great, see you at eleven.”

???

Sion drove fast.

His heart raced when he thought of Claire and he couldn’t wait to see her again. But, the call he’d made to her, she’d sounded upset. Angry, because he hadn’t called. He could understand why. He’d seen all the times she’d tried to contact him and had listened to the messages she’d left.

After he’d dodged the train guards and got himself back to Wrexham, his boss at the NCA had told him in no uncertain terms to get his arse to London. They’d put a twenty-four hour detail on Jason’s flat and strict instructions for him to lie low. No contact and no calls. He’d felt bad about that, but he had spared her seeing his badly bruised face and beat-up body. She’d have freaked out.

It had been a crappy two weeks. He’d screwed up his job, his life.

But he had found Claire. In their late-night chats, he’d shared more about himself than he’d told any other woman. He hoped she’d understand when he explained it to her; face to face.

He glanced over at the small sports bag on the passenger seat beside him. It was his toolbox and his security for the next forty-eight hours. In it, he kept the essentials for his job, knives, rope, ties and a handgun.

And how would she react when he asked her to come with him? It wasn’t exactly the backpacking around the world she was planning, but it’d be a one-way ticket out of here to somewhere far away.

He still wasn’t sure what to say to her. If she knew the whole truth, what were the chances that she’d go with him?

CHAPTER 23

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“Claire.”

She stepped into the street from her flat above the shop looking like she wasn’t sure what to do next.

And for the first time ever, Sion wasn’t either. Her large dark-brown eyes were stormy and proud as she approached his car, talking to him from the pavement through the driver window.

“You go quiet for a week, and then you show up wanting to see me?”

The sulky challenge was deserved. He knew how it looked.

“Like I told you, I had a spot of bother.”

“You never answered my messages.”

“I lost my phone. Got a new one, but my contacts were wiped.”

“Don’t sell me that horse shit, Sion. You could’ve got through to me, messaged me off your laptop. You work in IT for Christ’s sake!”

She had a point. She was the first person ever to blow a hole in his cover story.

“Look, I get it. You don’t wanna come travelling with me. You’ve thought it through and decided there’s no point carrying this on if I’m going off for a year. You could’ve just told me. Instead of ghosting me.”

“Ghosting you? Claire, it’s not about you going travelling. I wanna go with you too. I’ve got something I need to fly by you. Get in and let me explain properly.”

She came closer towards the window.

“Jesus, Sion! What’s happened to your face? It’s all bruised.”

“Get in. We’ll go down to the beach.”

“What? Now?… It’ll be dark soon.”

“Come on, Claire. We need to talk.”

She shook her head, but moved around the car and opened the door, warring against her better judgement. Sion quickly lifted the sports bag off the passenger seat, got out and stowed it in the boot.

She sat silently by his side all through the drive down to his favourite cove. This wasn’t quite the reunion he’d had in mind, but he took her moodiness as a good sign. The fact that she was upset meant that she must like him, at least a little.

Parking up, they walked over the dunes to a small beach, a perfectly formed crescent set in between the headlands. By now, the moon was high in the sky, and it was light enough to walk without needing a torch. The weather had been warming up a little, even though they were both wrapped up against the chill sea breeze.

Tentatively taking Claire’s hand, they walked without speaking along the shore, and she didn’t pull away. They headed across the cove over to the far side, where a pile of rocks jutted out from the sand.

There, they climbed and sat side-by-side on top of a clump of smooth black boulders.

“Claire?”

She remained fixed on the waves lapping insistently onto the shore.

“What I tell you, you gotta promise you won’t repeat it. Can I trust you?”

“‘Course you can. What is it, Sion? What’ve you been hiding from me?”

She was the only one who’d ever seen him for who he was.

Taking a deep breath, he told her everything. About the work, the contracts and his job undercover for the security services. About the Helbanianz and the Scousers.

And he explained why he’d not been able to call her.

And then he told her how he’d thought about her when he was tied up in the boot of the car, and how he’d been determined to stay alive so that he could see her again.

She sat, listening intently.

And when he was done, he waited in the quiet. The rhythm of the rolling waves, a drum-roll prelude to her response.

“How did you get into it?”

It was a valid question. Not one he’d anticipated.

“A friend of mine, from the first care home. The one I told you about. He was in the shit. He’d racked up some massive debts, got in deep with some well dodgy types. I was his only way out. They were after a specialist to do a job, and I was fresh out of the army. He asked me, explained it all and I agreed. It meant getting the heavies off my mate’s back, and he agreed to go away after, to start fresh. In Spain.”

This was the friend he’d talked to her about. The one who’d protected him from the two violent bullies who’d set on him on his first night in care. With a razor and ink, they’d performed an initiation. Tattooed his arm and beat him. His friend intervened before the next part, thank God. He'd been spared from being violated unspeakably. After that, Sion had been safe, under his new friend’s wing. And he'd owed him.

“The gang got me a contact where I could source the equipment I needed.”

“What? Like weapons?”

“Guns. Anyway, on the ferry back from Dublin, I was hauled in. Turns out, I’d been under surveillance the whole time. They’d read my army records, saw my skill set and wanted to keep me in play. So, I ended up working for the NCA deep undercover.”

“But, you’ve killed people?”

He couldn’t hide from that.

“Yes, I have.”

“Shouldn’t they have been arrested? Put on trial?”

Her voice rose.

“What about their right to defend themselves in court, Sion?”

She had a point.

“Look, everyone I’ve killed’s been a street soldier. A real villain outside of the law. Guys like Prifti, Irish even; they’re far too smart to get caught. They’re untouchable. And they hire people like me to bump each other off, settle scores in their battles between each other over turf and control. And the information I’ve passed to the NCA has saved many more lives. It’s given them the evidence they needed for arrests. I’ve helped close down whole operations, sent lots of really bad people to jail.”