by Victoria Fox
Before surrendering to sleep, Leon’s mind threw up a flash of his brother, coming home from the track and ruffling his hair as he looked down and said:
You can do it, little bro. You can do it.
Morning came, and Jax Jackson devoured the breakfast of champions: a bowl of wholegrain cereal mixed with raisins and nuts; two hard-boiled eggs with a buttered sesame bagel; a platter of sliced bananas topped with crunchy peanut butter and yoghurt; a handful of grapes; a glass of milk and two cups of green tea followed by a shot of coffee.
He was feeling confident. How could he not? Leon might have put the burden on back in LA but out here the guy was lagging, the gravity of the occasion getting to him just as it had in London. Jax would be sealing his gold-medal victory, no problem.
The road trip with Turquoise had cemented his resolve. For years there had been this lurking, latent terror…terror that the Danny Fu scandal would emerge and the shame would force him into an early grave—or an early retirement, and they might as well be the same thing. Now the risk had been removed, Turquoise had vowed it was done with, and his sun had slid out from its eclipse. He was burning bright, unfettered, the world number one.
Bumping into Danny the previous night had made him more grateful than ever—these international comps were always tinged with hazard. Gymnast Danny had taken a silver medal on the pommel horse—the word ‘pommel’ alone enough to make Jax gag—his feminine features (and they were feminine, they were!) overshadowed by defeat that any other nation would have traded for pride. Danny and his squad rejected second best.
As Jax made his way to the locker room, the gateway to battle that was scene to so many rituals and anxieties, he recalled how Danny had blanched and the men had turned from each other, disgrace coursing through their veins. Danny didn’t speak a word of English and that was for the best. Jax wondered how their night together would translate as a Chinese character. Two swords crossing. A viper in a cave. A sausage in a bun.
A relay baton…
It was finished. He was free—and he was here for victory.
The locker room smelled of salt and the synthetic of the kit, a heady, addictive aroma each took with them and would never forget. Some athletes were stretching out their routines, headphones on, a pumping soundtrack guiding them towards the track. Others were crouched on the floor, head down and hands over their ears, blocking out the world while they talked themselves up to the race. Jax zipped into his kit and decided he was long past needing any security blankets. He was buzzing and ready to go and that was about all there was to it.
Only when the volunteers arrived to escort them through to the stadium did he acknowledge the first frisson of strain. He could hear the crowd baying, the drum of the event and the roar of the fans. Tension sparked in his stomach and snaked through his organs, a fizz of potency all the more strident for having been kept in check.
This is it, baby. The King returns.
Coach Simpson fell into step alongside him and Jax snarled at him to fuck off—he didn’t need guidance now; he was on a different plane. The girl chaperoning him attempted conversation, scarcely believing she had been assigned this role to the man myths were made of. Every step arrived with a fresh punch to Jax’s gut and his muscles started to twitch.
Only when he turned to tell her to quit gassing did he register that she was supremely hot, and batting her eyelashes and pouting ever so slightly. An invitation, if ever he saw one.
‘You got ten seconds?’ Jax growled under his breath.
The girl was shocked to have been addressed directly. ‘Er, yes, yes, I have—’
‘Make it nine-and-a-half.’
Was he really about to do this? It seemed he was.
Jax unstrapped the watch from his wrist, at the same time as gripping the girl’s arm, checking they were out of sight, and pushing her into an empty closet.
Getting sucked off before a race was the most cardinal of sins. It was kamikaze! It was suicide! Jax needed the testosterone to burn for him like fuel out on the track but right now his need to expel was greater. He was on the cusp of another triumph; it was as good as done. This wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.
Jax commanded the girl to the floor, her eyes wide and her mouth open, giggling with a lust for adventure…and more work experience than she had ever banked on acquiring.
‘Get set,’ he told her, as his erection pounced free as cleanly as a sword.
Leon saw a different man when he looked in the mirror. This one had grown up. He had arrived. Shades of his brother—the eyebrow, the jaw—were fainter now than they used to be, because Leon looked less for Marlon these days than he did for himself.
The man he saw was stronger, braver and fiercer than the twelve-year-old who had witnessed a crime in the darkest hour of his life. He didn’t weep. He fought.
Alone in the locker room, Leon closed his eyes and visualised the race, a technique psych had taught him. It prepared the brain for the sudden burst of action, focusing on the end point and imagining the achievement before it was realised.
The finish, always the finish…
But it wasn’t the line he saw; it was Marlon in the road.
He wouldn’t change that. It was the thing he had always been running towards, and today, when he won, it would be no different.
‘Holy shee-it!’
Jax grabbed the stopwatch and blinked through the riot in his head to make sure he was seeing clearly. He was! Fuck, yeah! 9.56 seconds, baby!
He’d only freaking done it!
‘You’re a genius, d’you know that?’ He kissed the girl passionately on the mouth, dragging her to her feet through a dazed stumble.
‘Wow,’ was all she could say, unable to tether her delirious smile. ‘Wow.’
Jax puffed out his chest. He didn’t believe in signs or any of that superstitious crap, but if ever he had wanted confirmation that this race was in the bag then there it was.
Jax Jackson was hotter than ever! He was so hot he was on fire! They’d need a fucking fire extinguisher to put him out once he crossed that finish!
Nothing could stop him now.
He was going to win.
67
Turquoise had spent the morning in a casting for a new movie. This one had her name on it, a British fantasy romance about love, loyalty and friendship. Donna wanted to keep their options open and experiment with a wide canvas of characters. True Match had been a hard-hitting thrill ride; this one would be its tonic.
‘I’ll touch base as soon as I have news,’ Donna promised. ‘Want to grab a bite?’
‘Can’t,’ Turquoise replied. ‘There’s something I’ve got to do.’
Donna’s brow creased. ‘Anything I can help with?’
‘No. But thanks.’
‘There she goes again.’ Donna grinned. ‘The woman of mystery.’
Turquoise remembered Harry Dollar calling her the same thing after her slot on his show. How far she had come since then.
‘Donna, listen,’ she said, touching her manager’s arm. ‘Things aren’t going to be the same tomorrow.’
‘What?’
‘Hollywood. It isn’t going to be the same.’
Donna’s expression settled when she thought she understood. ‘Honey, Hollywood adores you. They’re not gonna pull out on this one, because if they do—’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean…’ Turquoise faltered. ‘I just mean…thanks. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me. You’ve always been there. Just thanks.’
Donna was worried. ‘Turquoise, what’s going on—?’
‘I’ll call you.’ She climbed into her car and slammed the door.
At home, Turquoise opened the patio doors and let the sunshine in. She wanted to feel open when she did this, at peace with the world for the first time since she had left Emaline’s porch eighteen years before. My little star… At last, she was shining.
Turquoise had pondered if, when the time came, she would procrastinate.
In the event, the delay lasted mere minutes. She paced her office. She stood silent at the mirror, remembering who she was. She poured herself a cup of coffee and waited for it to go cold.
Such a quiet thing to do, all alone, unseen and unobserved at her desk—the click of a finger was all it took to let loose cataclysm. She had been telling the truth when she’d informed Donna that Hollywood was about to change. In moments the industry would be transformed by calamity. How would it cope with the death of its prince?
Already she could see it happening, impossibly huge, unreservedly scandalous, the perfect, most fitting revenge she could think of. It would destroy the Angel powerhouse once and for all. Ultimate vengeance would be hers, and this would be how she got it.
She wondered how many people would see the footage before it got taken down.
Enough.
Turquoise withdrew the tape from its hiding place, uploaded it on to her Mac and thought of what Cosmo Angelopoulos had said to her that night.
That bitch is nothing to me, and neither are you.
This was a gift from both of the bitches.
Fuck you, Cosmo. And she set it free.
68
The crowd erupted the instant Jax and Leon walked out on to the track, their thunder chasing around the stadium in an ear-splitting Mexican wave.
Cameras passed down the line, introducing the athletes one by one. Leon unzipped his jacket, totally focused, bouncing on the spot to get his blood pumping. Jax swagged it out, hip-hop beats—his own—blasting from gold-plated headphones, which he lifted momentarily to absorb the masses’ adulation. His gold-bullet vest gleamed in the sun.
Each athlete was obliged to applaud the fans when they heard their name. Leon gave a single brief salute when his time was up, never once taking his eyes from the finish—one hundred metres, there it was again: his old friend. Jax held his first finger up and nodded like it was a done deal—number one, for the entire world to see. He would have no problem retaining his title. Victory was in his blood.
Ahead of the start the men slipped into their individual routines. For a guy to Leon’s left, back to full strength after months of injury, non-stop pacing, back and forth, back and forth, getting a feel for the ground under his feet and locked inside his own head space. On the end, a controversial twenty-year-old who had endured a four-year doping ban and was only allowed back into competition thanks to new laws, crouched low, head down, as if glancing up would let in too much of the event and the pressure would overwhelm. This was vital to them all. Leon kept his eyes on the line. The line was all that existed.
Leon’s lane was alongside Jax’s. He was aware of Jax throwing his headphones into a proffered box along with his kit, the girl holding it chewing her lip in brazen worship.
‘Hey,’ murmured Jax before the launch, an arrogant sneer pasted across his face. ‘Don’t it kill to know your brother should have been here?’
Leon didn’t think he had heard right.
‘I figure you’re used to coming second,’ elaborated Jax cruelly, ‘seeing as you ain’t as fast as him. Kid might’ve stood a chance of beating The Bullet…but you never will.’
Focus on the line. Focus on the line.
Jax wanted a reaction. He wanted sabotage. He went for the kill.
‘Some say he coulda lived if you’d been faster…’
Words that sliced Leon like a knife.
He fought the urge to push Jax on to the track with his fists and beat the crap out of him; knew that would mean disqualification and that was exactly what his rival wanted. Jax was riling him, he’d done it before, and Leon knew sometimes when it came to his brother he thought with his fists before he thought with his mind, but not today, not today…
The line…The line…
You can do it, little bro; you can do it…
‘On your marks…’
Quiet settled on the crowd—dead quiet.
Leon’s chest was pounding, rage and injustice spiralling through him, sparking every muscle and galvanising him to action.
Before Jax fixed his stare on the hard red ground, he uttered so softly it was imperceptible to anyone save his opponent:
‘Bad luck, Sway. No hard feelings, huh.’
69
The pistol shattered the air. Leon pushed from the blocks, fury pouring into his every tread so that he thought no matter how wild or how far he ran it could never be spent.
He was back there. The track fell away and he was on the road, slippery wet, adrenalin rioting through every vein and sinew like gasoline.
The crack of gunfire that tore at the sky…his brother clutching his stomach and staggering out on to the street, head bent, knees buckling…the lights of a car in the distance that, moments after, had melted away in the rain…the ground beneath his feet, glassy and black, his sneakers sending up a flat spray and a trickle of water coursing down his hairline, freezing cold…
His breath got ragged, scorching his lungs with acid, heart slamming with every pace, as much now as then. The voice told him to keep going, not to stop, however much it hurt.
He had watched his brother collapse, knowing the moment he went down that he would never be getting back up. No, Leon had thought. Don’t do that.
Nine seconds, nine seconds, nine seconds…
It had meant everything on that night and it meant everything right now…
He was almost home. With a last push Leon broke through the pain.
But Jax was there, coming up against him, refusing to back down, pulling away in the final stretch as he always did, head dipped, the bullet visible as it powered forward as unstoppable as a train. The bullet he had to beat. The bastard he had to beat.
Just like that, Leon found his fuel injection.
He thought he had been running before, but he hadn’t known what the word meant until that moment. Speed made him flat-out, optimal, ultimate. The asphalt rose up to meet him, heaving back against every stride and now he was running fast, so fast, impossibly fast, running until the blood was hot in his legs and tearing at his throat.
Time was rushing away quicker than water.
Be faster! Be faster!
He had held on to Marlon’s slack body, his brother’s eyes beginning to glaze. The wound hanging open, bright red, and Marlon’s hands attempting to contain it, crimson with death. Leon had been consumed by the absolute fact of it, the certainty that the most terrible thing that would ever happen to him had just happened.
And Marlon had whispered something to him. Until today he had never been sure what it was, and now it came to him, a gentle affirmation.
Keep going.
He crashed over the finish line.
There was a sliver of sheer silence before the boom unleashed.
70
Nearly six thousand miles away, at home in Los Angeles amid the opulence of his mansion, Cosmo Angel yawned. He and his wife were entertaining guests. Ava had given the housekeeper the afternoon off and had prepared an impressive spread of Beluga caviar, saffron-infused arancini, white truffle mousse and Kobe beef parcels.
A couple of their guests had expressed interest in watching the hundred-metre Championships sprint, a hot topic in light of the Leon Sway/Jax Jackson rivalry. Cosmo was irritated at the disruption because he had been about to unveil his impressive collection of Japanese Samurai shuriken, amassed since a memorable trip there years ago, but clicked on the plasma above the fireplace graciously nonetheless.
They were in time to see the men spring from the start, and almost ten seconds later it was over. Cosmo couldn’t understand the appeal himself, although as the athletes accelerated he found himself high-fiving a director to his right and felt his masculinity reaffirmed.
What was the big deal about being a sprinter? Anyone could do it. Being handsome enough to make millions of dollars from movies and be adored the world over for bringing joy and aspiration into people’s homes was not, however, something anyone could do.
Disengaging from the group’s po
lite smatter of conversation, Cosmo padded into his study, slipping his feet into a pair of Arctic-fox-fur slippers Ava had given him for his birthday. Mounted on the wall behind an impressive glass-fronted cabinet was his collection of ninja blades. He grinned at his reflection as he slid the cabinet open and withdrew his favourite kankyuto, running his fingertips over the dagger-sharp points.
His cell rang.
‘Talk to me.’ It was his manager. There was a long silence, before:
‘Cosmo, are you sitting down?’
‘No, but I can be.’ He dropped into a plush leather chair and put his foxy feet up on the mahogany desk, smirking. It had to be an Awards nomination—he’d been waiting long enough; perhaps True Match had finally sealed the deal. ‘Tell me the good news.’
There was another silence. Cosmo twirled the shuriken in his hand. ‘I haven’t got all day,’ he said. ‘Fucking get on with it.’
‘Cosmo, we’ve got an issue. I suggest you get online…now.’
Ava called through. ‘Darling, are you there?’
He rested the phone on his shoulder as he reached to click on the PC. ‘Be right back!’
‘This better be good,’ he hissed into the mouthpiece as he tapped the letter C into the engine. As the list of entries scrolled down, his mouth filled with bile.
Cosmo Angel sex tape.
Cosmo hooker orgy.
Cosmo crown shagathon.
No. No. No!
Blind with fear, he followed the link. The video entitled ‘Kingdom Come’ had been removed, but stills of it remained, snagged in the barb like rot. There he was, plain as day, reclined naked on a bed and wearing the Crown Jewels. The whores on their hands and knees rising to meet him, heads buried in his lap, his hand pushing them down.