13 | Shiver

I'D LIKE TO SAY ALEXEI'S offer didn't weigh heavily on me for the following weeks, but that would be a lie. Every time I went to work, I would pinpoint my least favourite parts and think about how much better they might be if I were to leave. The early starts, for one. Or late finishes. After all, how many men could Alex possibly have working for him? The truth of the matter was that I was tired—exhausted, even. But on my salary, I couldn't afford to take a break.

For the most part, I tried to push all thoughts of Alexei away. He was dangerous, and our third meeting had only confirmed that. Unfortunately, it also confirmed just how impossibly alluring I found him; how his scent, or the feel of his skin, could drive me wild. The darkness of his eyes electrified me, and much as I pushed it down, a part of me craved that feeling.

I tried to feel the same way about Jonah. We went to movies if I had a spare couple of hours, we cooked together, we did couple-stuff that should have filled me with a sickly giddiness.

None of it did.

He never questioned me about Alexei, which I was grateful for, though it was also a cause for concern. Who in their right mind wouldn't have asked a couple more questions? Out of curiosity, at least. Instead, he never brought the topic up; never even asked what we talked about.

Several times over the last week I had been pushed to crisis point, my fingers hovering over Alex's number in my phone. Half of the time I was planning on calling him, the other half I was planning on deleting his number altogether. I shouldn't, I told myself, but I want to.

It was a Tuesday night when everything changed.

Jonah and my dad usually spent Tuesdays watching football and sharing a crate of Stellar, so I was on cooking duty. Our tiny apartment was oddly divided, with half of the living room visible from the matchbox kitchen. I listened idly to the roar of the crowd on TV as I chopped an onion, watching my dad and Jonah as they bantered back and forth.

"Smells good, Gracie!" my dad called out, even though I hadn't actually started cooking anything yet. It was almost like his catch-phrase by this point; he said it whether or not the food did, in fact, smell good.

"Thanks!" I grinned, sliding the chopped onion into a frying pan that I'd been heating up. It sizzled and sent a cloud of steam into the air which made my eyes water.

"Could you pass me another beer, Grace?" Jonah asked, shooting me a too-white smile over the back of the sofa.

"Sure." I grabbed him a bottle from the fridge and popped the cap off before handing it to him. He pulled me down gently and kissed me on the cheek, then released me with another grin.

"Thanks."

"You're missing the match," I teased him and he chuckled, turning back around.

In the kitchen, I added diced pepper and chicken to the pan, allowing it to cook while I stared absently at the swirls of steam rising into the air. It was as I did this, leaned against the counter, that my phone began to ring. At first I went to switch it off but the caller ID made me hesitate: it was Alexei.

I glanced up and found dad and Jonah staring at me inquisitively. "Just my insurance company," I told them, hoping it sounded at least a little more believable to them than it did to me. They shrugged and turned back towards the telly.

Meanwhile, my attention diverted back to my ringing phone. A sense of red hot panic had swelled in my chest as I debated what to do; I knew I had only seconds before dad or Jonah would get suspicious. Acting on impulse, I closed the kitchen door and pressed my back against the wall, hitting accept before I could think too much about it.

"Grace," Alex breathed before I'd even had the chance to say hello. I gritted my teeth and pretended his voice didn't make my body tingle. I didn't care about him. He wasn't attractive. Nope, not at all.

"Um, hi," I whispered back. I was conscious that my dad and Jonah were only in the next room.

"I need you to listen to me for a second," Alex commanded. "Can you do that, Grace?"

"Yes."

"Are you alone?"

"Sort of."

He let out a sharp, irritated breath. "What do you mean, sort of?"

"I'm in the kitchen, but dad and Jonah—"

"Right." I imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "I need you to grab your car keys and tell them that something has come up at the hospital."

"But today's my day off," I told him, already running through other excuses I could feed to dad and Jonah instead. "They can't call me in today, I've worked too much overtime already this week."

"I don't care what you tell them, I just need you to tell them something. Can you do that?" There was a sharpness to Alexei's voice I hadn't heard before. As if he was sucking in breath through his teeth.

"Are you in pain?" I asked.

"No," he snapped, but then he groaned ever so slightly and I knew he was lying.

"Alex," I hissed worriedly, "what's happened?"

"Just...come. Ahh," he groaned again, though it was half way to a growl. "Please, Grace."

The gravelly desperation in his voice made my knees weak. I'd never heard him so vulnerable before, there was something completely sexy about it. Focus, my subconscious chided and I quickly shook my head.

"Where?" I asked.

Alex took so long to reply I thought he wasn't there anymore, and for a moment the cold stone of dread dropped into my stomach. What if he was seriously injured? "I'll text you the location. Hurry—"

The call cut off, and I couldn't tell if it had been intentional or accidental.

Faster than I'd ever moved before I slipped my trainers on and rushed into the living room, making sure not to tread in front of the sofa. That way they'd never let me leave. "I'm so sorry..." I began, shoving my arms into the sleeves of my denim jacket. Jonah and dad turned around, surprised. "Lena just called me, she's having some sort of crisis—"

"Can't it wait?" Jonah asked irritably but I shook my head.

"She says it's urgent."

"What about dinner?" I wanted to roll my eyes at that comment but I refrained.

"Could you make it tonight, please?" I bent down and kissed Jonah on the cheek quickly. "I'll be grateful forever, thanks. Bye, dad!"

I ran out the front door as fast as I could, clutching my car keys tightly in my fist. When I climbed inside and gunned the engine, I finally checked my phone. Alex had texted me some obscure address I'd never heard of to a place called the docks. I hoped the name wasn't literal, though I had a sinking feeling that it was.

Any sort of dock yard was the perfect place to kill someone and dispose of the body. I shuddered at the thought, but then I reminded myself that Alexei had sounded like he was in pain on the phone. Real pain. I put the route into my satnav and set off, speeding down the London streets as fast as the traffic would permit me—which, as usual, wasn't very fast at all.

It took me a good twenty five minutes to reach my location, a big, looming structure of warehouses and other small buildings right next to the Thames, shut off by a long, tall fence with barbed wire and glass shards at the top. There was a rotting sail boat in the midst of it all, toppled onto its side with its wooden frame decaying. As I pulled up to the supposed entrance of the fence—which was still shut—two Rottweilers ran out from under the boat and bared their teeth, growling at my car through the metal mesh.

Leaning forward over my steering wheel, I peered past the fence and noticed a small, square shed-like building a couple of meters away out of which someone was peering. They gave my car a once over and then, suddenly jolting to life as if someone shouted at them, they vanished inside and the huge gates began sliding open. A sharp whistle rang out through the air and the two dogs cowered, running back under the boat.

Slowly, I put my car in gear and began creeping forward. Don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me. Every time something flickered in the corner of my vision I jumped, half of me expecting to be shot. I pulled into a space marked by crumbling white chalk, the bonnet of my car too close to the river for comfort.

I didn't dare get out.

Frozen with fear, I watched through the wing mirror as whoever had been in the hut exited it and began marching towards my car. I was paralysed. If they shot me now—and they could—they could so easily dispose of my body. They could so easily make it as though I'd never even been here.

They tapped on my window and with numb fingers I rolled it down. The mechanism in my old Toyota didn't work too well so it took a lot of strength to push the handle around. The man looked in. He was about thirty, and his expression was serious but not hard.

"Follow me," he commanded, and before I'd even got out of the car he was strolling away. Was I crazy for following him? Probably. But I did anyway, because for some stupid reason, I cared about Alex.

"Where are we going?" I called out, stumbling over the potholes that littered the cracked concrete. Puddles splashed up my faded jeans but I couldn't even feel the cold dampness; my whole body had been flooded by adrenaline.

The man in front gave no answer.

We were nearing a large warehouse type building, built from corrugated metal. It loomed up into the foggy London air. There were two huge doors that were probably designed for getting big ships in and out, but they were firmly closed. Instead, we headed for a small door that was almost unnoticeable against the red-rusted building.

The man halted by the door and glanced back at me. His expression darkened with annoyance when he realised I was still far behind. "Hurry," he barked, and for the first time I recognised that he had a Russian accent, just like Alex.

Oh god, I thought.

When I approached he flung the door open and with a final apprehensive breath I stepped inside. "Are you kidding?" I scowled and the man glared at me. I'd been expecting some sort of computer network, some interesting spy gadgets or a secret lair, but instead the inside of the warehouse truly was for ship building. Was that Alexei's dark secret? That he liked building ships? I could have laughed. The cold concrete floor stretched for a couple hundred feet, interrupted by a small, decrepit sailing ship in the middle that was propped up by scaffolding. The ceiling seemed endlessly high, adding to the stale, eery atmosphere.

"Shut up," my guide snapped, "and follow."

I pursed my lips obediently. We crossed the huge expanse of the building to the other side, where there was another door. This one was seamless; you'd never have known it was there if you hadn't been told. My guide pushed the wall and it just moved back, sliding to the left to reveal a tiny room. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. There was hardly enough space for the two of us in there!

Without another word, the man beside me bent down and slipped his fingers beneath a secret panel that I hadn't noticed. This whole place really was turning out to be some kind of spy lair. He shifted the concrete slab and set it aside. A dark hole stared back at us.

"We're supposed to go down there?" I pointed sceptically.

"You go first."

"Um..."

"Go."

I was beginning to feel like this whole thing had been a huge trick. This was definitely the part where I got murdered, I could tell! "Actually, I think I should just—"

The man grabbed my shoulder and shoved me in the direction of the hole. "Hurry," he urged.

I could just make out a set of stairs descending down. The moment I put one foot on them I could feel the cold, draughty air on my skin of the underground. I shivered, but kept moving. I had no choice.

Minutes later, my feet hit flat ground. I tried to keep moving forward but I collided with something hard. "Ouch!"

Suddenly the man was beside me. We were stood in complete darkness as he had shut the grate at the top, and everything was so quiet I could hear our breath. When he moved, I could feel it in the air.

He seemed to type something into a pad somewhere—though I couldn't see it, I could just hear successive beeps—and then, as if by magic, the wall in front of us wasn't a wall at all. It was a door. One that had swung open.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I became aware of several things. Firstly, that the room in front of me was like nothing I had ever seen before.

And secondly, that Alex was slumped against a sofa, bleeding out...

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