Read Chapter 12: The Turn: Trust Game

The fake row needed to look real. Jack had insisted on the carpark of a garish west London supermarket, surrounded by gleaming Range Rovers and mums buckling toddlers into seats. He’d wanted witnesses. People who would remember the captain shouting.

Elena checked her watch. He was late. Four minutes late, which was unlike him. She adjusted her grip on her phone, rehearsing the lines that would make their staged fury feel genuine. Then she heard his voice, already raised, booming across the tarmac.

“—I don’t care what your editor thinks, Elena! You have no idea what you’re doing!”

She spun around. Jack strode towards her, his face flushed, fists clenched. He wasn’t acting. Or he was very, very good.

“This is my club!” he yelled, jabbing a finger at her. The two women loading shopping into a nearby boot turned to watch. “You come here with your little notebook and your big-city theories, and you think you can tell me about loyalty?”

“Loyalty?” Elena stepped closer, her voice rising to meet his. She let her own temper bleed through—the easy fury of a woman who’d been dismissed her whole career. “Your owner was ready to sell your best friend out from under you! And you call that loyalty? You’re delusional, Dempsey.”

“Get out of my sight.” He was close enough that she could smell his aftershave. His eyes, though, were scanning over her shoulder, hunting. “You’re just like the rest of them. Fabricating stories to sell a headline.”

“Fabricating? You gave me the story!” she spat.

It was all theatre. The argument. The accusations. The threats. But the anger underneath was real, a live current humming between them, and for a dizzying second she forgot which parts were scripted.

Jack turned his back on her, shaking his head. “I’m done. Get away from my club, Marsh. This conversation is over.”

He stalked off toward his car without another word, leaving her standing alone in the carpark, panting slightly. The audience of shoppers pretended they hadn’t been watching.

She felt the phone buzz in her pocket. A single text from Jack: *Trailer door of the white van. He was filming. It worked.*

Her skin went cold. She didn’t look around. She simply walked to her own car, sat inside, and waited for her hands to stop trembling.

---

The knock came at 2:47 AM.

Elena woke with a start, her heart hammering. It wasn’t a knock. It was a scratch. A key sliding into the lock of her hotel room door.

She’d left the deadbolt on.

The scratch paused. Then the deadbolt clicked back, sharp and metallic, and the door swung inward.

She stayed frozen under the covers, her phone clutched in her hand, a single number pre-dialled. The room was dark except for the faint city glow through the curtains, but she saw the silhouette cross the threshold. Tall. Shoulders broad. It paused at the foot of her bed, staring at her form under the duvet.

Her notes were on the small desk by the window. The USB drive was tucked inside the lining of her jacket, hanging in the wardrobe. All of Frank’s evidence.

The figure moved. Not toward the bed. Toward the desk.

She heard pages rustling. The zip of her bag. The soft clatter of her recorder being lifted.

Then the silhouette turned back toward the door, and paused.

A piece of paper floated down onto the carpet, landing with a faint whisper. Then the door closed, and the deadbolt slid back in place from the outside, through the lock’s mechanism.

Elena waited sixty full seconds before she moved. Her legs were shaking. She slid out of bed, crossed the dark carpet, picked up the paper.

It was typed. Crisp block letters on white stock.

*BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL. HE DROPS YOU FIRST.*

She walked to the desk. Her notes were gone. Her recorder was gone. Her laptop was untouched, but the bag she kept her interview transcripts in had been emptied onto the floor.

They knew. They had a key to her room. They knew exactly what to take.

She dialled.

Jack answered on the second ring, his voice thick with sleep. “Elena?”

“They came for me.” Her voice came out thin and hollow. “They took everything. Frank’s transcripts. My records. They left—” She choked on the words. “They left a note.”

“Read it to me.”

She read it. There was a long silence.

“Who knew where you were staying?” His voice was low. Dangerous.

“My editor. Whoever booked the room. The front desk.” She shook her head, her teeth chattering. “Everyone. No one. I don’t know.”

“Is the USB still safe?”

Her heart lurped. She crossed to the wardrobe and pulled her jacket from its hanger. Her fingers found the seam. The tiny lump was still there.

“Yes.”

“Get dressed,” Jack said. “Pack everything. Leave the room exactly as it is and walk out. Don’t go to reception. Don’t stop. Call me when you’re in your car.”

She was already moving, dragging open her suitcase. “Where am I going?”

“Somewhere they won’t expect you to be comfortable.”

---

An hour later she pulled up outside a small terraced house on a quiet street in Shepherd’s Bush. Jack was waiting on the steps, in a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, looking nothing like a Premier League captain. He watched her climb out, her duffel over her shoulder, and something passed across his face. Not pity. Recognition.

He led her inside without speaking. The flat was spare. Sparsely furnished. It smelled of fresh coffee and old laminate.

“It’s my brother’s place. He’s in Dubai for six months.” Jack gestured at the sofa. “No one knows about it. No one will find you here.”

Elena dropped her duffel. She sank onto the sofa, exhaustion ripping through every muscle. “The note said you’d drop me first.”

Jack sat on the low coffee table across from her. His elbows rested on his knees. “Whoever it is, they know how to hurt us. They knew the exact story we were feeding them tonight. The confrontation. The threat to your career.” He shook his head. “No one outside this room should have known that was a setup.”

She met his eyes. The fear was still there, standing behind the adrenaline, but something else had taken root beneath it. She trusted him. Not because he’d saved her. But because he’d chosen to show her who he was tonight—all the cracks, the doubts, the lonely terror of a man carrying a club and a secret on his shoulders.

He hadn’t blinked. He hadn’t run.

“Whoever they are,” she said slowly, “they wanted to push us apart.”

Jack’s jaw tightened. “Then we do exactly the opposite.”