Fighting to Be Free (Fighting to Be Free 1)

Ray had pulled up in my truck and was standing against the hood with his arms crossed, a hard expression on his face. The other car that was in the field was the sleek looking dark blue Porsche Boxster, sitting next to my beat up old rusty truck, Dodger was sitting behind the wheel. I nodded in acknowledgement and he smiled in return. He was actually a really good guy, I wouldn’t have been able to do tonight without him, he was definitely good at his job and I’d be recommending to Brett that he get him in his employment when my time was up with him. They’d work well together.

I headed over to Ray and shook my head. “This is all shit!” I grunted.

He nodded and held out a brown envelope, probably full of my fee for the night, plus extra cash because of the size of the job. “Yep it is. You gonna be okay? Who you calling?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

I sighed and closed my eyes, not wanting to say it out loud. “Ellie I guess.”

He gripped my shoulder, squeezing supportively. “If she’s as awesome as you always claim she is, then everything will be fine,” he reassured.

I nodded, flicking my eyes to Dodger again. “You need a ride?” I asked, looking back at Ray.

He shook his head. “No. Boss said you need to get your alibi sorted quickly, so go do that now.

Dodger will give me a ride,” Ray answered. The transporter pulled away, waving a hand at Ray as he left. “If for whatever reason she doesn’t want to do it, then call me. I have a slutty cousin, you could probably pay her to say that you spent the night with her,” he suggested.

I laughed humourlessly. It would be so much easier to just do that, pretend I’d hooked up with some random girl for the night and let her give me a pass, but I didn’t want to do that - knowing my luck it’d somehow get back to Ellie and she’d think I cheated or something. I didn’t know which was worse, but at least if I went with the truth then I’d have a chance of keeping her.

“Thanks, Ray. I’d better get going,” I suggested, shoving the envelope into my hoodie pocket. I turned to Dodger and smiled. “It was good to work with you, you did a great job tonight,” I congratulated.

He smiled and held his hand out of the car window. “You too. Kid Cole is just as badass as I’d heard. Looks like the rumours were true. Maybe we could work together again sometime,” he suggested.

I shook his hand and laughed. “Maybe. We’ll see what Brett lines up.” Once I’d said bye to Ray, I climbed into my truck, twisting the key and making it roar to life. I hated the thought of what I had to do now. Now I had to risk everything, put myself out there and tell Ellie exactly what type of person she’d been dating unknowingly. Not only that, but after I’d told her that I’d been lying to her for the last three months since we’d met, I then needed to ask her to help me out of trouble. I sucked right now. I looked upwards, praying for the meteor, but there was not a cloud in the sky. Just my f**king luck.

Chapter 19

I drove to her house quickly, parking down the street a little. I took a couple of deep breaths to calm my nerves, trying desperately to think of some other person - maybe Callum? Would he help me so that I didn’t have to do this? I couldn’t risk telling him, I had no idea what he would say about it when I told him, at least with Ellie I knew she had feelings for me, if she didn’t want to help me I was pretty sure she wouldn’t shop me to the police. Callum had no such loyalty really; we were just friends who worked together, nothing more.

I needed to get this done quickly. I could maybe sound her out and see her reactions before I told her the full truth. If she looked like she was going to flip out then I’d pull back a little and not tell her the full extent like I knew I probably should at this point.

I forced myself to get out of the truck and closed the door quietly. The street was deserted but I didn’t want to take a chance in someone seeing me when I was supposed to be in bed sleeping. I walked swiftly to Ellie’s house, stopping off to the side so I could call her. I felt sick doing this, this was the last thing I wanted, I never wanted her anywhere near trouble, yet here I was, bringing trouble right to her front door.

Pulling out my cell phone I closed my eyes and pressed call. It rang for a while and my nerves seemed to double as I chewed on my lip. I had never been more terrified of anything in my life.

“Jamie?” she croaked, her voice filled with sleep.

I winced knowing that I had woken her - of course I’d woken her, it was well after four in the morning! “Err, yeah, hi,” I mumbled, rubbing my forehead trying to relieve some of the tension headache that was building up.

I heard her yawn before she spoke again. “Everything okay?”

I took a deep breath and mentally crossed my fingers that someone was watching over me right now and that I wasn’t about to lose the best thing that had ever happened to me. “Actually…. no, it’s not. I need to talk to you.”

“Okay, what’s up?” she asked, sounding more awake now.

I flicked my eyes over to her house, her room was in the back but I still found myself searching for signs of life, but nothing stirred. “I need to see you. Can you come down?”

“Down? You’re outside?” she asked, her voice filled with shock.

“Yeah.”

The line disconnected and a minute later the downstairs light flicked on before the front door opened. Ellie stepped out, immediately hugging herself against the cold seeing as she was only wearing a tank top and what looked like a pair of my boxer shorts. Her hair was whipping around her face as she looked around, an adorable little confused expression on her face.