Page 6 of The Reaper

They’d moved him into a smaller ward of his own. The other hospital inmates had been moved. Scotland Yard and MI5 had waved their magic wands. He was being held under special custody. Jack hadn’t liked it. But they couldn’t move him to another secure hospital, due to the nature of his head injuries and his Reaper’s affiliation. He was better left here, and they had decided she was fine to carry on working. They’d thought her presence might help his memory return. It seemed everyone had questions about Jack. Even Jack.

She was on her way to being interviewed, Scotland Yard Detectives, men in suits. This was serious. They would ask her all about him, their relationship. And she was going to have to lie through her teeth.

What was she doing? This was madness? She should just apologise, say she made a mistake, that the man, Jack, looked like her ex and she got confused in the trauma of the moment, she had a temporary black out due to the nature of his injuries… or something like that. She couldn’t actually go through with this, could she? This had been a totally spur of the moment decision, a slip of the tongue really. She had wanted to enter a parallel universe, she’d prayed for a miracle.

He had answered her prayers.

Pretend that he was her boyfriend, and she’d be immune from Roper’s threats. The Bratva and the Reapers MC were enemies. Roper and his Bratva debts couldn’t be paid while a member of the Reapers MC was in the vicinity. Maybe even Reapers MC property. She gulped, knowing that she was making up something that had to stand up in such a serious situation.

She bit her lip. Maybe she should use this opportunity to actually just report Roper. But what if the corruption went higher, like he said? She’d be in a whole load of hot water. Reporting Roper was not going to be the best course of action here, she didn’t know anything about these detectives, she couldn’t trust them.

She thought about Jack. The tattoo’s. The warmth. The strength. She gulped. Imagining those hands holding her. Her body. Her naked body.

Why her mind had gone there was beyond her, but it felt taboo. It felt elicit and yet intimate. It felt right.

She was nervous now, she was scared, she wasn’t sure what she was doing. Yes she was lying, yes he was suffering because of his injuries. But she was also thrilled, she’d slipped across that line and into a parallel world and it felt right.

A hand roughly grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back.

She gasped, feeling suffocated though the hand was not near her neck. She felt the hairs on her neck rise. She felt a little wave of fear.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind. Roper.

And he did not look happy.

“Hannah, Hannah,” he said, shaking his head condescendingly. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

She wanted to bolt, she wanted to rip him off her skin.

“If I’d have known you liked it a bit rough and ready, I’d have had a lot more fun in the bedroom-”

“Fuck off, Paul.”

“This has forced my hand, you know that, don’t you?”

She shrugged, trying to play it cool. “I told you, I won’t do it.”

He got nasty. “And I told you, you don’t have a choice. I owe the Bratva money, I promised them I’d get this done-”

“That’s your concern, Roper, not mine, You want the wrath of the Reapers MC coming down on you if you upset me or in any way lead to the poor care of Jack?” she said, coolly.

He snarled, “Just because you opened your legs for one of them, doesn’t mean they’ll protect you, Hannah, you’d probably nothing to him-”

“Want to test that theory?” she asked, holding her chin in the air, not wavering. Imagining Jack’s arms around her body. His hand around her throat. It was all the fire she needed to hold her nerve right now.

“All you have to do, Hannah, is sign the fucking delivery slip, just let the boxes come in and out-”

“Smuggling drugs into the prison, Paul, that what it ultimately is and it’s wrong-”

“Just a few bits and bobs going missing, some over-ordering, nothing worth worrying about. They’d be coming in some other way-”

“It’s wrong-”

“Hannah, I owe them! Fuck, you are such a goody-two-shoes.”

His hand dug into her wrist. It was cold, it tugged painfully, nothing like the warm firm grasp from Jack earlier.

It was too late, she’d decided her course of action, she couldn’t change now. She wouldn’t. Her fate was tethered to Jack, as his was to her, though he didn’t know it.

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