My voice is like a whiplash. For the first time I actually feel enough raw fury to end his life. ‘Don’t even fucking go there,’ I tell him.
He shrinks and begins coughing and spluttering.
‘Good.’ I stand and look down at him for a few seconds longer, and then I turn away and open the door. I take the stone steps two at a time and see the car with my back-up pair, Eddy and Mace inside. Eddie lifts his hand. I nod. As I step onto the pavement my phone rings. It’s Lily.
‘Hey, baby,’ I say into the phone. And there is nothing but love in my voice.
TWENTY-NINE
Dom opens the passenger door to a blue Mercedes-Benz sedan and I slide in. I want to ask whose car it is, but I don’t. I feel too numb and cold to actually care. Some part of me is still in that disgusting flat, still with Rob. Yes, I was so afraid of him.
I turn to Dom urgently.
‘What will Jake do to Rob?’
‘I hope he kills that miserable fucking coward,’ he rages.
‘I don’t want him to be killed,’ I whisper.
He turns on me. ‘Why do you care so much? Fucking hell, Ella, he had a knife to your throat and he’d already torn your skirt.’ He clenches his jaw. ‘God knows what he would have done if we’d not come when we did!’
‘I don’t want his blood on my conscience, Dom. Please,’ I say with a sob.
His face softens. He grabs my forearms and pulls me toward him. ‘Listen. Jake is honorable in the old-fashioned way. In the gypsy way. But he’ll arrange it so that pathetic pussy never comes near you again.’
I start to cry softly. ‘Just take me home, please.’
‘Hey. Don’t cry, baby. You’re safe now,’ he cajoles, and pulls me tight against his chest, careful not to hurt my throbbing jaw.
‘Just take me home,’ I whisper tearfully into the hollow of his throat.
He takes me home and parks outside the entrance.
‘You’ll get a t
icket,’ I warn automatically.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, and, getting out of the car, helps me out. Together we walk up the three flights of stairs. When we get upstairs, I realize that I have no keys. I look up at him. My head is spinning, my jaw is throbbing and I can’t think properly.
‘I don’t have my keys,’ I wail as if it’s the end of the world.
‘It’s OK, Ella. I have mine,’ he says gently.
He lets me in. I stand in the hallway of my little home. The first thing I see is the phone book on the floor. I can’t understand why it is there. I look around me. Everything is the same, and yet everything is different. It has been invaded by a man who hates me. The thought makes me feel almost ill. I press my lips together to stop from breaking into tears again.
‘I need to take a shower,’ I say in a trembling voice, and start walking toward the bathroom. Dom catches me and tugs me back so I’m pressed up against his body.
He takes my chin in his hand.
‘I feel so dirty,’ I say.
‘You’re not dirty, Ella. We got to you before anything really bad could happen.’
I frown. ‘How did you find me so quickly?’
He curls his hand around my wrist and lifts it up to my eye level.
‘What?’ I ask, confused.