Page 233 of The Black Trilogy

Did you ever watch those cartoons where Sylvester runs at Tweety, Tweety neatly sidesteps, and Sylvester knocks himself out? Well, there you go. There was a sickening crunch when Theo hit the bricks, then he slowly crumpled to the floor. I waited for the little stars to start twinkling around his head, but nothing. Zilch. Real life was nothing like the movies.

I prodded him with my foot, but he was out cold. His pulse beat steadily, and I only hoped his stupidity had knocked some sense into him. Ten minutes passed, twenty, and I answered a handful of emails and took a phone call from Tokyo while I waited for Theo to rejoin the land of the living. I’d just started playing solitaire when he started to blink.

Once he’d mumbled a few choice phrases and rolled onto his stomach to puke, I made my exit, remembering to grab Tia’s bag on my way out the door. An early morning dog walker gave me a strange look and a wide berth as I hurried along the pavement, probably because I was laughing like a drunk.

But honestly, I needed that.

Laughing was better than crying.

CHAPTER 31

WHEN I GOT back to Albany House, I grabbed a couple of hours sleep then checked on Tia. Her bedroom was on the floor above mine, and I knocked softly on the door to see if she was awake.

“Come in,” came her groggy reply.

I stepped inside, dropping her bag on the dresser as I went.

The curtains were open, and in daylight, her face looked even worse. Despite the ice we’d put on her eye last night, it had swollen into a puffy mess and she couldn’t open it properly. I felt a small pang of regret that I hadn’t knocked out at least one of Theo’s teeth.

“How are you feeling?”

Tia struggled to sit up, blinking her good eye in the midmorning sun. “Like I just did ten rounds with a cage fighter.”

“Can you move over by the window? I want to take a closer look.”

She climbed out of bed and shuffled over. Outside, there was barely a puff of cloud in the sky. Would it be one of those glorious crisp, clear winter days? Oh, who was I kidding? This was Britain—we’d have rain by lunchtime.

I turned Tia to the right angle and peered at her damaged eye. The bruising had blossomed overnight and turned a lovely shade of plum, which by freakish coincidence matched the ridiculously ostentatious curtains chosen by Bradley. The cuts on her cheek and lip had both scabbed over into ugly crusts, and while the lip looked worst, I knew from experience it would heal the fastest.

“I’ll give you some anti-inflammatories to help with the swelling. And I’ll bring up a hydro-colloidal dressing for your cheek. It may look hideous, but it’ll help the cut heal faster.”

“Thank you,” she said.

My bigger concern in all this was her mental state, and perhaps more important, how to deal with Luke’s reaction.

“How are you feeling up here?” I asked, tapping my head.

“Pretty stupid.”

“It’s not you who caused the problem. Always remember that.”

“I guess. I just can’t believe I didn’t realise what he was like before I said yes to going out with him.”

“It happens more often than you’d think. If you tell me the name of the next guy who reckons he’s good enough for you, I’ll run a background check. Deal?”

She spluttered on the water she was sipping, then her lips quirked up in a smile. “You’d really do that?”

“Of course. I don’t want you to go through a night like that again.” I paused. “Or what happened when you got kidnapped. How are you holding up?”

She shrugged. “Okay, I think. I was drugged for most of it, so really it’s more like a bad dream. Luke sent me to some therapist, but she was a patronising old biddy. Kept asking, ‘Soooo, how did that make you feel?’ I managed two sessions then for the third, I went to the cinema with Arabella. Channing Tatum made me feel better than the counsellor ever could.”

I cracked a smile. Tia seemed to be coping with things better than I was. “I’m glad you’re doing okay.”

“I’m a bit worried about the trial though,” she confessed.

“Don’t fret over that. You won’t have to testify.”

“But I’m a witness.”

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