On the Sly : The Grange Complex Book 2
On the Sly: Chapter 24

Ellie

“Fair enough. I just thought I would ask,” Claire said, nodded to Mack, and left with her laptop, shutting the door behind her.

I knew that this whole conversation was going to be difficult, especially after such an intimate, intense night at the hotel. When I looked at Tobias my heart started beating with overwhelming emotion. I was struggling to feel indifferent about him. He lied to me, yes, I couldn’t deny it, but we had something here, something deep and precious. Now he was Tobias Stanley, a man with a new name but an old identity.

“Tobias, I want to do this. I know that you’re trying to protect me, but I have made my choice,” I said, trying to be calm. I didn’t want to anger him. Yes, we had our issues, but we had to work together to lock Adrian up.

Tobias’s expression wasn’t revealing anything, but I knew he was mad. I could tell just by looking at the way he stood, the set of his shoulders, and the twitch near his eye. The temperature in my body shot up when he walked up to me.

“Did he kiss you? Tell me, Ellie, or I swear to God, I’ll lose my fucking mind.”

I swallowed, remembering how much Adrian wanted me. I didn’t know why Tobias was so against me working with them. We were sleeping together and, although I wanted it, we both knew that we didn’t have any future beyond that.

“Yes, we made out on the sofa, Tobias,” I said, looking into his eyes. Whatever the odds were, it was hard for both of us to carry on like this. As soon as I said it, he reacted with a sharp intake of breath, the muscles on his face tightening.

“This isn’t a game, Ellie. If you carry on, you will have to sleep with that piece of shit,” he growled.

“I know what I’m doing, and I really don’t think that it will come to that. You shouldn’t act like you care. I gave you my whole being and you lied to me. I understand why, I get that you were bound to keep this as a secret, but I want the story. I’m sorry, but I won’t change my mind.”

I’d had to sacrifice my love, my career and my life before. Now I’d have to do it all over again once this was finished, but he was making this very difficult for me. Tobias and I—we were from two different worlds. This operation was going to be over soon, and I was stuck here in this complex. Tobias would move on to the next one. That was the reality of the situation and I accepted it.

“Ellie, I lost someone special to me already—my wife—and I’m not ready to go through that again,” he said, looking at me with those grey eyes. I had seen the sadness in them before, but I wasn’t expecting this. Tobias had been married before? I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, I didn’t know who he really was. Whatever facts he had told me in the past were fabricated. “I do care for you. We have this crazy connection and I lose my fucking head when I’m with you. Do you think it’s easy for me to stand here and pretend that I’m all right with you going out with him?”

A storm of emotions passed through me and I wanted to throw myself into his arms. Heat scorched me when I thought about what we shared, the passion and lust. When we were together it was like fireworks exploding through my body.

This whole situation was complicated enough and, although I wanted him badly, I couldn’t allow myself to be pulled under his spell. He had too much power over me and he could destroy me.

“What happened to your wife?” I asked.

“That’s not relevant. All I want for you to do is to stay away and let us work. We are so close. Adrian will lead me to Hodges; there is no doubt about that.”

“I’m sorry, but you know me well enough by now to see that I’m not planning to give up.”

“So you’re going to date him? Despite what’s been going on between you and me?” he asked.

Oh God, why did he have to say things like this? I had thought he was married, and I still slept with him. Now that obstacle had been removed and another appeared.

“We both know that this way I’ll be able to help with the operation.”

“The only way for you to help is to get in touch with your ex. I can’t ask you this, because it’s unfair,” Tobias said and sat down on the sofa like he was done talking to me. I hated when he became so distant and cold, hated that he could switch to being closed off within moments.

I was torn between my newly formed feelings for him and the fact that I wanted to achieve something in my life. I was repulsed even thinking about touching Adrian again, but I knew Claire was counting on me.

“Tobias, please keep me in the loop. This isn’t straightforward anymore and I want to be part of this,” I said.

“Whatever, Angel, just go. Claire will be in touch. You’ve obviously made up your mind.”

He was right. I knew what I had to do, but it was killing me that he was so indifferent suddenly.

I picked up my stuff and left, knowing that we weren’t going back to being okay.

Tobias

When she was gone, I sat there wondering if we could have had a chance if I’d met her under normal circumstances. She did something to me and I felt I needed to stay close to her. Maybe I even loved her.

Claire came back to the room but didn’t say a word to me. I was pissed off that she thought it was above board for us to use Ellie like this. Yeah, I was determined to get into Lurkin and Hodges’s inner circle, but this whole thing was getting complicated and I felt guilty for putting Ellie in unnecessary danger. I knew that the sooner we built the case, the sooner I would be able to move on.

But was I ready to move on and just forget about her?

I didn’t think I would ever be.

Hours later when Claire went to bed, I stayed up, switching through the channels on the TV. We hadn’t spoken further about Ellie. She probably realised that it was a sensitive subject.

I went to bed at twelve, knowing that I wouldn’t get much sleep anyway. The nights that I spent with Ellie were restful and gave me peace so that I woke up refreshed in the morning. Without her, I tossed and turned for several hours before I finally drifted off. Lying in bed thinking of Ellie and her soft vanilla smell, wishing I were lying next to her caused another problem. This time it was my dick that was a problem. I masturbated, but that didn’t give me any relief. That deep connection I had with her, both of us being completely sated and exhausted, the scent of sex in the air just wasn’t there when I was alone.

In the morning I woke up feeling like shit after very little sleep, but my mood brightened a little when I read the text messages from Lurkin.

He asked me to show up at some address once I was done with my shift, and that sounded like progress. I didn’t dare to ask about Hodges, not yet. He needed more time to trust me. Lurkin was most probably hiding more skeletons in the closet and I needed to pull all of them out one by one.

That name ‘Hodges”’ boiled my blood. I couldn’t wait to replace him and make him pay for what he had done.

I was reluctant to talk to Ellie about Charlotte, and I didn’t want her to know that the man that she had an affair with was involved in my wife’s murder. She wouldn’t take this well. She was already upset over the fact that I deceived her. Maybe I had to accept that we were both too damaged to even consider a future together.

Claire was already working when I showed up in the living room. I told her about the text and we agreed to inform the team to put surveillance in the area. We needed to get some results fast, so I hoped that tonight I would replace out more.

When I left my apartment at seven in the morning, I collided with Ellie. She was just leaving her apartment, probably to get to work. She saw me, paled a bit and then quickly vanished behind the door that led to the stairs. She was running away from me. Well, that realisation hurt like a bitch, but I guess after our last conversation I deserved it.

I dragged my hand through my hair when I got into the car. My cock was at half-mast all the way to the depot. I had never experienced this kind of frustration before, this kind of longing for someone I’d just met. I wanted to punish her, fuck her hard until she ached, begging me to stop. I needed to end these kinds of thoughts. I couldn’t expect her to continue to fuck me, and it was obvious that she didn’t want me anymore.

Once I arrived at work, I chatted with the guys for some time, asking them about the stock, when Lurkin showed up and asked me to walk with him to his office. I didn’t expect to see him today, especially after last night.

“I need you to take the other truck. I have an urgent order that needs to be delivered,” he told me, grinning like it was fucking Christmas. I didn’t like that smile on his face.

“What’s in that truck that you’re asking me to change my usual schedule?”

He winked and smiled again before he continued. “I need you to focus today, because you will be going to Newcastle. I realise that this is pretty short notice, but another driver bailed on me and you have proven to me that you can be trusted with more delicate assignments.”

“I’m ready, whatever, just give me directions,” I assured him, thinking about the moment when I could cuff him and throw him into the prison cell.

An hour later I was on the road heading to deliver what was probably a significant amount of drugs. Maybe it was a good thing that Claire was tracking my phone. At some point, I needed to check the truck, to make sure that it contained exactly what I was expecting. This was a step forward and I was getting closer.

The roads were busy, traffic was terrible, and by the time I managed to stop it was late, almost lunchtime, and I was very close to my destination. I opened the back and went inside. The truck was filled with Asian food products: spices, cans and packets of dry seeds. It didn’t take me long to figure out that Lurkin was putting coke into the spices. He had wrapped small balls of coke covered in cling film typically known as an eight ball and dropped it into the bags of spice. I took some pictures, knowing that this was good, but not good enough. I needed to replace out where he kept all the paperwork and the name of his contact in Spain. The team was looking into the Irish Brothers. I had learned that body parts in a box meant that there was a dead body out there somewhere. I knew that once we tracked the body we would be able to link it to the Irish Brothers. That was their M.O. To keep a body part as proof for loved ones.

Lurkin was a great actor. He hadn’t been caught after all this time, but his time was running out. For years he thought he had been careful, making sure that his private life was separate from his business and the drugs. He wanted Ellie too, probably to add her to his collection of conquests. It drove me insane that she was so deeply involved.

This delivery was straightforward. There was someone waiting for me in the city. He picked up the delivery, signed the paperwork, chatted to me for a bit, and then I was on my way back to Edinburgh.

By the time I was done with work, I was fucking exhausted. Lurkin wanted me to show up at the club. I called Claire instantly and told her to keep Ellie out of there for tonight.

I headed to the club, knowing that there was probably going to be an initiation of some sort. When I got there, Ellie was on all the CCTV cameras; if Lurkin was the owner, he was going to see her sooner rather than later. I was fucking worried out of my mind about her. I had never come across anyone so stubborn.

It was Thursday night and the club was dead, except for a few intoxicated youngsters by the door. I headed straight to the private offices, when some guy showed up.

“Anything I can help you with?”

“Mr. Lurkin invited me over here,” I told him. Didn’t want to waste any more time.

“Oh yes, the party. Please follow me,” he added, with that stupid smile. The party—what the hell did he mean?

I really wasn’t up for drinking tonight. I had shitloads to do, checking out the files on other members of his crew. Claire had some gems, but still nothing on that Johnny fucking Hodges.

I followed him through the long corridor, passing the private rooms on the way, and remembered what had happened behind one of the doors. Ellie’s mouth around my cock, sucking until I exploded. She was amazing.

Finally he led me through a wide brown door to a room filled with people. The music was loud, pumping its heavy bass line through hidden speakers.

I was surprised to see that Lurkin had organised a full-on party. Quite a lot of members of his team were there. On top of that, I spotted a few people there that weren’t supposed to be in the country.

Topless girls walked around serving drinks. There were a few Asian men there too.

“Mack, you managed to make it. Everything went smoothly?” the prick asked, patting me on the back like we were best fucking buddies. He looked high; his pupils were massively dilated. This astonished me because I hadn’t expected this from him. It seemed he liked control too much.

“Yes, Jonas seemed happy with the stock.”

“Superb. Now let’s get you a drink, and maybe a little something extra.” He grinned. My pulse was speeding and I wanted to smash my fists into that perfect face.

He slapped a girl’s arse as we were passing by and winked at me. Something was wrong here and I sensed that the party had only just started. I asked for a pint of beer when the topless hostess showed up and went back to the lounge where Adrian was sitting with some other guy.

“This is Stew. He works closely with one of my partners,” he said, introducing me to the ginger fellow, who didn’t look too pleased to be here. I shook his hand and sat down next to Lurkin. “By the way, we made a great profit last week and as a thank you I thought that I would throw this party for everyone.”

He was almost bouncing out of his seat talking about people that he had invited to come. I tried to chat to Stew, but Lurkin kept interfering. After a while he took a bag of white powder out of his pocket and spread some of it on the table, chopping it into thin lines with his credit card. Of course, I should have noticed it sooner—he was as high as a fucking kite.

“I guess this is from the stock?” I asked, casually watching him as he carried on dividing it, laughing at his own stupid joke.

“Straight from sunny Spain. My supplier there knows that I only want the best shit,” Adrian replied, and pushed the mat with coke towards me. “You need to relax a bit, Mack. It’s been a hell of a day,” he said, as he rolled up a twenty- pound note into a tight tube and handed it to me.

I didn’t move for a second, staring at him and wondering why the hell he wanted to drug me. There were too many people out here that were watching me. The Irish brothers were sitting on the other side of the room and their eyes were following me from the moment I showed up here.

I fucking hated drugs. I wasn’t a saint, but I had seen enough shit in my life to know that I wasn’t into getting high every day. Right now I didn’t have a choice. Lurkin was waiting, and I didn’t want to screw anything up now, so I leaned down and picked up the rolled note and inhaled a complete line.