If I was honest, I was somewhat in awe of Nessa. As the Bratva princess, as Denny Barnes wife, as Noah’s killer, Nessa had so many secrets, and she had been successful at hiding them all.
Until now.
Until the Game Master.
What was puzzling, though, was how the GM had found out Nessa’s secrets. Even the force had no record of her involvement with the London mafia, and I would imagine only Nessa knew about Noah’s death. Also, if Noah hadn’t publicised the file, how the hell did the GM know of its existence?
So how. How?
Day 15
13:46
Nessa
“It’s good to have you back, Nessa.”
Looking up from where I had been staring at my cold coffee for the last ten minutes, Sally, one of the theatre nurses, smiled down at me.
“Are you feeling better?”
I returned her smile and nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
She frowned as she poured herself a drink. “Have to say, you look like shit.”
Laughing, I gave her a wry look. “Yeah, this flu is riding my ass.”
I liked Sally, she was an excellent nurse to have onside, and she told it like it was. The trouble with hospitals was that gossip was rife, and Sally and I had soon discovered a mutual like of each other because we didn’t entertain all the nurse’s bullshit. Hell, I’d been the subject of many of the speculations doing the rounds, but I always shook my head and laughed it off. If only they knew the real secrets in my life, not who they thought I was sleeping with.
“Chose a right day to return,” she said, yawning. “It’s been brutal today.”
“Tell me about it,” I replied with a yawn of my own. “It hasn’t let up since I came on shift.”
“What time you off?”
“Not till ten,” I grumbled. I shouldn’t have returned to work, and although I needed the distraction, I couldn’t help but worry about Sam and Carolyn. My father had put his security guys on them, and although it was understandable to be anxious leaving them, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that trouble was on the horizon. My sixth sense had been on high-alert since I’d walked into the hospital, and I was continually texting them both.
Caelan was another person to frequently invade my thoughts. I’d toyed with the idea of going to visit him, then in the next moment rage overtook at what he’d done. Did this make us quits? I wasn’t so sure. Now I knew Noah had had a family, my soul ached at what I had robbed from them. He’d been undercover, taken an entirely new identity, and to me he had been a single guy working for Denny.
Tears burned my eyes, and I forced them back.
My pager bleeped, and I groaned.
“No rest for the wicked,” Sally moaned as she placed her cup beside mine on the countertop and we hurried to attend the emergency just brought in.
My team were already working on the patient when I entered the room. A woman I presumed to be his wife was stood by the sink watching her husband with a frantic look as she spoke to Tom, one of my nurses, while I scrubbed up.
“Are there any allergies we should know of?” Tom asked, requesting the usual information as he filled in a preliminary report.
She shook her head and covered her hand with her mouth when a loud sob left her.
My heart always went out to them. Yet, their suffering only made me work harder.
“Have you any idea what your husband’s blood group is?” Tom asked, quickly adding, “Just a precaution, Mrs French.”
“Umm.” She shook her head again. “I’m not sure. A Negative…uhh, it could be B Positive…. I don’t know!”
A negative mind will never allow you to be positive.
Blood.
A- B+
The room rushed at me, and my breath caught in my throat. My mind shuddered with a specific memory, and recognition made my knees buckle.
“What did you say?” I barked, scaring the poor woman, and the rest of my team.
Her mouth moved, but she couldn’t form words when I snatched hold of her upper arms and shook her.
“Fuck!” I cried out as the world slipped off-kilter. “Fuck!”
“Nessa?” Sally came into my view, worry and confusion on her face.
“You need to take over!” I ordered Henry, my assistant, as I peeled my gloves off, and broke into a run.
Day 15
14:26
Caelan finally opened his front door after my ten minutes of frantic knocking drove him nuts.
“Come in,” he mumbled when I pushed past him.
Doing what we both did best, I grabbed his bottle of whisky from the cupboard and poured us a large measure.
He frowned, watching me with caution when I downed the entire contents in one swallow and refilled my glass. He didn’t look pleased to see me. Then again, I didn’t particularly care.
“What’s going on?”
For a long moment, I struggled to speak. The revelation that had hit me on the way over to Caelan’s house was beyond implausible. Except I knew it was the truth.
“Sit down,” I told him as I picked up his cigarettes and lit one.
“I take it you’re out of alcohol and smokes,” he grumbled but did as I asked and sat.
“I solved one of the clues.” My hand shook as I brought the cigarette to my lips and drew a long drag.
“Nessa?”
Wetting my lips, I moved my gaze to his. “When Denny was twenty, he was badly beaten,” I started.
Caelan gave me his full attention, but I noticed him flinch and clench his jaw with the mention of Denny.
Taking another pull on the cigarette, I blew the smoke upwards and tried to settle my racing heartbeat. “He had internal bleeding, and one of his kidneys was completely destroyed. I rushed him to the hospital, and as they were prepping him for surgery, they asked me a few standard questions. One of which was if I knew Denny’s blood group.”
Caelan nodded and lit a smoke of his own.
“I thought it was A negative.”
“Okay.”
“I had it wrong. Luckily, they gave him O negative as a precaution. It turned out that Denny’s blood group was actually B positive.”
Caelan shrugged, his brow creasing slightly. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at.”
Grabbing his notebook that was open on the table, I circled the clue and underlined the words,
‘A negative mind will never allow you to be positive.’
And then I circled the clue, ‘Blood’.
“Well, fuck me,” he breathed, leaning back in his chair as he stared at the clue.
“But don’t you see, Caelan!” I said, tapping the list of clues with the tip of the pen. “There’s only one person who could have known this!”
Caelan had written the numbered clues down separate from the word clues, and something occurred to me when I scanned over them. I had thought the numbers and words were linked and would only reveal the answer if melded together. But maybe the numbers were a different clue.
Grabbing my phone, I quickly brought up the calculator…
729 +
11520 +
0124349 +
143 +
7248 +
16593 = 250582
I couldn’t breathe when I stared in horror at the number, and a whimper broke from me as I fell back into my chair.
Caelan looked at the number created from the five clues and shook his head. “Two hundred and fifty thousand, five hundred and eighty-two. I don’t get it.”
“It’s not a number,” I choked out. “It’s a date.”
He blinked at me when my head shook from side to side. The impossible had suddenly become possible. Everything in the world felt wrong and I couldn’t grasp hold of a single thought from the hundreds that fled through my mind.
“It’s Denny’s date of birth, Caelan. Twenty-fifth of May 1982.”
“But he’s dead. I shot him…”
I froze. My mouth had suddenly become so dry that I struggle
d to say the words. Vomit was threatening to clog my throat, and I forced it back down. “No!”
Taking a deep breath, his gaze on me was sad. “I’m sorry, Nessa, but I did…”
“No, Caelan.” My voice wasn’t my own, and I swiped at the river of tears that were cascading down my face. “Denny wasn’t shot.”
“What the hell?” He shook his head, growing angry. “I put a bullet in him, Nessa. I watched him die, and then I walked away with a smile.”
“H E WASN’T SHOT!” I screamed. “He was burned alive! His body was found in the boot of a burnt-out car, and he was only identifiable by his dental records!”
Blanching, he drew in a sharp breath and fell backwards. Shaking his head from side to side he looked to the floor as if it would help him figure it out. “It wasn’t Denny’s body,” he uttered when it all started to make sense. “I didn’t kill him!”
As shell-shocked as Caelan, I lifted my gaze and fixed my eyes on his. “I think we just figured out who the Game Master is!”
Day 15
14:56
Caelan
Nessa stared at me. Tears spilt from her eyes, and as if ashamed of them she swiftly wiped them away.
“How could he do this?” Her voice was small, and the amount of hurt glaring in her eyes made my chest tighten. “The only two men I have ever loved, and they both betrayed me.”
“You can’t think like that, babe. Those thoughts will suffocate you.”
Taking another cigarette, she lit it up and fixed her eyes on mine. “I loved your brother, Caelan. So very much. And I know I can’t possibly expect you to understand why…”
“I understand,” I told her. “Doesn’t mean I can forgive, though. Whatever, whoever Noah was, he was still my brother, and Oliver’s dad.”
Lowering her gaze, she nodded. “I had no idea he was even married. To me, he was just Noah Marsh. He lived in an apartment on Tervis Lane. He told me his parents had been killed in a car accident when he was eleven.” She shook her head and twisted her lips in anger. “Jesus. We got one drunk one night and he sobbed telling me that story. I held him in my arms and cried with him. So gullible.”
“Noah was always a good actor, that’s why he made an excellent undercover agent.”
“You know what stumps me,” she uttered. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or me when her eyes misted over, and she frowned. “Why didn’t he hand over the file? He obviously knew I had discovered his secret. So why did he hide the file in a locker? And even more so, why did he still go to that hotel where I had arranged to meet him?”
“Even more puzzling is why he didn’t disclose your existence.”
She blinked and frowned harder. “What do you mean?”
“The MET has no intel on you at all. All the information we have on Denny, and you aren’t anywhere. It’s like you don’t exist.”
A small smile played on her lips, and she sighed. “After being brought up by my father, I was adamant I would have nothing ever to do with that life again. My mother fled Russia after Papa found out she was having an affair, and he killed her lover. However.” She smiled wider. “Papa had contacted Denny at the time and asked him to look out for us.”
“And you eventually fell in love with Denny.”
Nodding, she laughed lightly. “God, I gave that man a hard time. I wasn’t easy to deal with. A rebellious teenager who hated her father, consequently hating the man he’d asked to watch over us. Especially a man who controlled all of London’s organised crime.” Taking a sip of whisky, she swirled the rest around the glass and lost herself to the memories. “Eventually, unable to resist his charms, I fell head over heels. Denny was supportive of my vow to never be involved in the firm. He sent me off to med school, which was my passion, and encouraged me to be my own person. Plus, there was the risk factor with the business, and he saw it as another way to keep me safe. If I couldn’t be associated to him, none of his enemies would come looking for me. There was speculation, of course, but no one could ever prove my connection to Denny.”
“Makes sense. So that’s how you know Frank Johns.”
She nodded and glanced at me. “Obviously, Frank isn’t my cousin. There has only ever been a select few who knew about me. Since Denny’s death, I hadn’t visited Connaughton Street, and Frank had been gracious enough to leave me alone. By rights, because Denny and I didn’t have kids, the firm is technically mine. But I left it in Frank’s hands and refused to have any involvement. We were both happy with that arrangement.”
“So, you’re the heir to both London and the Russian mafia,” I stated with a snort.
“Lucky gal, eh?” she replied sarcastically. “Throughout my life, I have managed to keep away from it all. And now…” She froze as if she’d had a sudden revelation. Huffing, she shook her head and clenched her jaw. “You sly cunt!”
“Charmed.”
“Not you,” she muttered.
I jumped in surprise when she launched the glass across the kitchen, and it shattered in the sink. “That’s two you owe me now.”
Anger contorted her pretty face, and she shot upright. “Idiot,” she mumbled as she ran her hands through her short hair. I had to admit the style suited her. After Kasym had hacked off the length of her hair, she’d had it restyled. The new cut accentuated her cheekbones and small nose, subtly enhancing her beauty.
Dropping back down into the chair, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
“Nessa?”
She held me tight when I moved my chair next to hers and pulled her into my arms. The crook of my neck muffled her cries, but they still sounded loud and haunted in my ears.
“Tell me,” I pressed gently.
Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, she sat back and looked at me. “Frank. Denny knew that I would go to Frank for help.”
Nodding, I reached out and wiped her tears away with the pad of my thumb. “And?”
Shaking her head, she swallowed rigorously and covered her mouth with a hand as if she was about to be sick. “I knew to get you through that street alive, I would need Frank’s grace. We made a deal. A deal that Denny knew Frank would demand.”
Anxiousness slithered like a bug under my skin, and my heart stilled in preparation for her coming revelation.
“What deal, Nessa?”
Her cheeks paled, and she choked on another sob. “He gets me.”
Narrowing my eyes, I scowled at her. “What do you mean he gets you?”
“In two weeks, I’m due to marry Frank.”
My eyes shot wide, and I reared backwards. “What the fuck?”
“It was the only way I could guarantee your life!” she argued. “In return for your life, he gets mine.”
“Jesus Christ!” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to drop at her feet and idolise her or smack her one for being so stupid.
Scoffing, she snatched a cigarette and slid it between her wet lips. “Don’t you get what a catch I am, Caelan? Not only does Frank get me, he gets full control of the firm, and he also gets the Bratva if anything happens to my father and me. Denny knew this.”
“This is just crazy. You can’t marry him.”
“I made a deal, Caelan.”
“Bullshit, you made a fucking deal! What the hell were you thinking?”
“You selfish prick!” she yelled. Shooting upright, she slammed her hands on the table and thrust her face into mine. “I did it to keep you alive! Thanks for the gratitude!”
Grabbing her bag from where she’d flung it on the table, she muttered something under her breath and left me to reel in her news alone.
Day 15
17:11
Nessa
“What are you doing?”
I glanced from the mass of paperwork surrounding me to Papa when he walked into my living room. He was scanning the mess covering my carpet and then looked to me with an expression on his face that told me he thought I’d gone slightly mad. Perhaps I had.
“I need you to do me
a favour, Papa.”
“Anything, darling.” Lowering himself down on to the floor next to me, he gave me a soft smile.
“I want you to take Carolyn and Sam, and Caelan’s family, somewhere safe. I need you to do this alone and tell no one of their whereabouts. Including me.”
His brow creased with confusion, but he nodded. “Consider it done. When?”
“As soon as you can arrange a safe house for them.”
Nodding, he returned his gaze to the papers encompassing us both. “What are you looking for?”
“Denny’s autopsy report.”
“Why?”
“Because I need the name of the fraudulent bastard who signed it.”
Papa stiffened. “What’s going on, matryoshka?”
As if the truth physically pained me, I felt the words stab my heart, and I winced. “Denny is the Game Master.”
Only silence greeted me before Papa started to laugh. When I quirked an eyebrow and stared him out, his laughter abruptly halted. “You’re serious.”
“Unfortunately, I am.”
Anger flared in his eyes, and I was reminded of who he was when he fisted his hands, trying to calm himself. The room seemed to shrink around me when his rage swelled. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“And what are your intentions with the coroner?”
“I need a lead, any lead I can get, Papa. My best bet is to start with him.”
“You’re going after Denny?” Looking worried, I knew he thought it wasn’t one of my better ideas. Yet I wasn’t his little girl anymore.
“Damn right I am. You don’t know who I am now. I can look after myself.”
“I don’t doubt that for a single second, Vanessa. However, Denny has proved how hellbent on revenge he is. He wants his vengeance, and the promise of retribution fuels even the meekest of people. Hell.” Guilt crossed his face, and he looked away. “I sure know how that feels.”
Shuffling around, so I was facing him, I took both of his hands in mine. “I need their bodies, Papa. I need to bury my parents.”
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