15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Samuel

I'm intimidated when I reach Aidan's building, and the guard at the entrance stops me and asks me a thousand questions before picking up the phone to call Aidan, to confirm what I told him.

I should have shown him my badge, but that would have opened another can of worms and probably pissed Aidan off.

That would have been fun to see, though. I'm kind of regretting not doing it.

"Top floor," Bishop, according to his nametag, says, pointing to the lift.

"Thanks," I say, before pushing myself away from the reception's counter and slowly walking to the lift.

Everything reeks of money in here, from the beautiful chairs and table adorning the entrance, to the high ceilings with chandeliers, and the light-coloured carpeting, still shining as if it's just been replaced. Everything is so clean and so different from our building.

I wonder if these people would be horrified by the condition my building is in. And I'm lucky, because the part of London where I live is still considered a good area.

I'm still comparing the differences between normal human beings and the people who live here when I reach Aidan's door—the only one on this floor.

When I approach, I see it's already ajar, so I push it open and take a step in. And fuck me, this place is like a palace; I wouldn't be surprised if royalty walked out of the rooms.

Everything is white, making the massive place seem bigger than it already is. There are huge windows and a view of London that many will never see.

"Aidan," I call, surprised when my voice doesn't echo.

"On the left, the first door on the left."

After closing the door behind me, I follow his instructions and enter another big room. A study this time, like the ones you see in old movies. There's a massive desk of dark brown wood, posters of old movies on the walls, and a sofa with two chairs. There's still space for a bed in here, but Aidan doesn't seem overpowered by it. If anything, he actually seems more powerful than ever.

Did he invite me here to show off, to make me feel even more unworthy than I'm feeling right now?

"Have a seat," he says, and I'm surprised when he points to the sofa instead of the chairs in front of the desk.

He notices that and smirks.

"We're among friends," he says, then laughs aloud at my questioning face.

Since when have we been friends? He hasn't done anything more than bully me and treat me as if I was a nuisance.

Sure, I allowed a fucker to kidnap me, but I was sure Martin was in danger. I needed to save him, even more than I needed to save everyone else.

"Are we?"

"Sure, we are. I don't give info to people I don't count as friends."

"Then why do you act like a bastard all the time?"

"Because I'm tired of seeing you wasting your life."

"What the fuck?" I say to him, words escaping me, outraged at his comment. "You don't even fucking know me," I continue, jumping up from the sofa where I'd just sat my ass down, and I bite my lip to keep the hiss of pain inside.

"Sure, I do." The confidence behind those words pisses me off even more.

"Researching my history and reading it online, or in one of your fucking folders, means nothing."

The smirk on his face takes an evil turn.

"I know more than you want me to." His smirk gets sadder for a second, just to go back to evil the next.

This guy fucks with me and it pisses me off. But a picture of Rory's relieved and crying face comes to mind, and I bite my tongue to avoid voicing my mind.

"Can we get back to business?"

"In a second. Why are you helping this guy?"

Here we are again with him, trying to get inside my head.

"Because I want to." I stand my ground when his eyes go dark.

"Why don't you help yourself first?"

"I don't need help."

"So, killing your own training officer didn't affect you at all?"

What the fuck? This fucking bastard!

What kind of question is that? And why should what I did be discussed here?

"That is not your business," I say, taking a step forward, ready to leave the room. Another image of Rory comes to mind, but I push it away. I'll find another way to get that info. Because even if Aidan isn't helping, I'm invested in it, and I want him to have closure.

"Sit." His order is delivered as a greeting, like someone used to have it his way.

"F—"

"Don't finish that. I don't like people disrespecting me." His voice is like ice with a hint of poison.

"What do you want?" I shouldn't lose my temper or show him how affected I am, but he gets me, every single time.

"I want you to sit down. I want you to talk to me. And I want you to stop trying to kill yourself and live your fucking life for once."

"I—" Another one of his glances, and I do the fish-face, opening and closing my mouth.

"Adrian was my friend."

Fuck. I killed his friend.

"I . . ."

I can't think, the only thing I want is to run away. I take another step forward, but this time, Aidan stands and takes a step towards me. He's not that big, but his aura is frightening. I'm not sure I can take him down, not with this leg. Though, I'm not sure I could, even if my legs were both functioning.

"Sit."

There is no room for argument, so I take two steps backwards and sit on the sofa.

"I was devastated when I lost another of my friends. Another person I loved. He was special."

I nod because Adrian was phenomenal. He was straight, but fair. He was always ready to help everyone, even at the cost of his own life. He saved me and lost his life.

"I need to make amends." I need to honour his memory. I need to make this place a safer place for his kid. A kid who's never going to know his dad, and that's my fault. My fucking fault. I was a coward.

"It wasn't your fault."

"You weren't there."

"I wasn't. But I saw the videos and I trust Adrian."

I raise my head to look at him, because I don't understand what he's trying to say.

"He used to talk about you all the time and was so proud of you. He would never have allowed someone he didn't trust to cover his back."

Yeah, and trusting me killed him. I should have been the one to die that day.

"Do you think he'd be happy to see you putting your life in danger to save people? Do you think he would be happy to have given his life to save you, knowing you're doing everything you can to die?"

"I don't want to die?" But the words come out uncertain, making them sound like I'm agreeing with what he just said.

"He would be so fucking sad to see you doing what you do."

"What do you know?" I ask, because he wasn't there, and he didn't and doesn't know me.

"We talked. A lot. Before he died, most of our conversations were about you. How proud he was of you and how he was sure that you'd become a good cop."

I clench my fist to avoid punching him. How can he say these things to me? How can he put himself on a stand and judge me? How can I be so close to believing everything he's saying?

I'd never heard his name before meeting Keegan, and now he's implying he was in my life all this time?

"Even if this is true—not that I believe you—why are you telling me this?"

"Because I don't want the work Adrian did with you to be wasted." Aidan's voice has a tone I've never heard before. His snarky tone is gone and replaced by one of respect and love. From Aidan? Is he really capable of loving anyone?

"I'm not wasting what he taught me. I'm honouring him by trying to save the people around me."

"What you are doing right now is bending the rules to save someone that doesn't need saving."

"Rory needs to be saved. He needs to know what happened to his lover."

"Yes, but why did it have to be you?"

"Because I was there."

Aidan's scoff leaves me stunned.

"You could have asked me to help him and I would have done it."

It's my turn to scoff.

"You? The same man who needed to be begged for information?"

"I wouldn't have had Rory begging me. That was only for you. I was trying to teach you a lesson, but you never learn. Not even Adrian's death, and the fact he died because you needed to help someone, has put this behaviour in the right perspective."

What is he saying? I never put myself in danger. My aim is to help people, just like Adrian did.

"You really don't understand, so let me spell it out for you. You were injured while trying to help someone, when the right course of action would have been to ask for help. You broke the police code to help someone breaking the law, for information he shouldn't have. You reached out to someone, me, who bends the law every day for his own satisfaction without even thinking of the consequences." He looks at me as if waiting for me to say something, but what can I say? He's right.

I did all of that, but my life doesn't matter.

"I'm not important."

"How can you say that when someone lost his life to save yours?"

Shame, on a level I've never felt before, fills me, and this time I don't have words.

"Why didn't you come to the funeral? Why didn't you visit his grave? Why don't you visit his family?"

Silence is the only thing I can offer him.

"Go talk to Lucy, see Daniel, and move forward. Do your job, make a life for yourself, and make Adrian proud."

I look at him, surprised by everything he said and how different he looked for just those few moments.

"Now, here's the file. I don't have a lot of info on this guy. I have all the teams busy with another issue. I'll call you if I find more, but this time, you'll have to do some legwork to get the full picture." He laughs at his own joke, knowing very well that there is no legwork when I'm involved.

"Thank you," I say to him, but I'm not sure if it's for the pep talk or the file . . . or for both. I always thought there was only icy darkness inside Aidan, but I might have been wrong. Very wrong.

"Now, leave my office and home." With those parting words, he stands and walks to his desk, giving me his back.

I pick up the folder and walk out, still feeling like I've been through the grinder.

Once I'm out of the building, I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and dissipate the overwhelming feeling of falling down a dark hole.

I walk to my car and when I get in, an overwhelming need to do what Aidan told me to do comes over me. I drive to Adrian's place, the one where his wife and kid still live. How do I know? Because I used to come here every week, because even though the shame was too much to handle, I still needed to see that they were okay. Even if I could never reach out to them.

At first, seeing Lucy dealing with her grief while raising Daniel, who was still looking for his dad, was too much to bear. Every time I came here, every time I saw them, growing faster and older, while I was stuck on that day—that time, that moment—that changed my life forever.

I'm never going to be my old self again. The overexcited rookie, ready to take on the world head-on, to make the world a better place. I'm only going to be the man who caused my partner's death, who made his wife a widow, and his kid an orphan.

How can I ever move on from that? What am I going to be other than a murderer? Where can I find my redemption if I don't save the people around me? If I don't put my life on the line like Adrian did?

While Aidan's words replay in my mind, I spot the people who suffered the most because of what I did. Or didn't. How can I look them in the eyes and tell them I'm sorry, when what I did comes from a place of cowardice?

What I'm doing by helping others and staying away from the people I've hurt is the best thing I can do—even if it costs me my life.

I follow Lucy and Daniel with my eyes, watching them walk towards the little park near the house. I've watched them take the same path more than once in the last two years. She looks beautiful, and is so close to the strong lady I met so many times when I went to their house for dinner. Daniel is a little man. He's so grown up and so similar to Adrian, even if he barely knew his dad.

I watch them until they turn the corner and are out of sight. Only then do I turn the car on and, with a renewed focus, drive home.

Legwork it is. I'm ready to make Adrian proud, so maybe one day I can stand before his wife and son to show them that even if they lost Adrian because of me, I did everything I could to keep his memory and teachings alive.

Maybe then they'll be able to forgive me.

Now, my focus should be on Rory, and making sure he's okay and ready to let go. Maybe with a story so similar to mine, he can help me.

Maybe I'm a hypocrite because I want him to move forward while I stay attached to the past. But then, he didn't murder his boyfriend like I did my friend.

Once back at home, I display the folder on the small table in front of the sofa. Aidan was right; the info here is not much. Something to get started with though, and that's enough for me.

I'm beat, and it's not even the end of the afternoon yet. Between the emotional rollercoaster of discovering Aidan's friendship with Adrian, his pep talk about becoming the man Adrian wanted me to be, and the pain of walking around too much, I'm like a drained battery needing a fast charge to get to the evening. I'm glad I didn't plan to go anywhere, and I'll be ordering out for sure. My plan is to spend my evening sitting on this sofa, making a head start on gathering the info I need to find the next person.

I take my laptop, pen, and paper and sit back on the sofa. A sigh of relief leaves me when I relax against the cushion. I put my feet up, but not before taking the first paper on the pile Aidan provided.

It's a list of names. I go through them and try to let my gut lead me, but there's not enough information. So, I pick up the next piece of paper, and it's a more detailed insight of every name on the first sheet. They could all be the potential receiver of John's lungs.

I make myself more comfortable on the sofa by lying down and resting my head on a cushion. The papers are on my chest with my phone, just in case I need to search for something. I check the first name, trying to fit all the information I have on the other pages to what there is on the first. It's like a puzzle and that's the part of the job I love most—investigating, unfolding an intricate situation so that the key information can be read. It's a hard and sometimes ungrateful job, but it's so rewarding when it leads to the arrest of bad people.

I'm glad when I can take out a name. At the time the ‘real' Joseph, the recipient, was receiving John's lungs, this ‘fake' Joseph was on his way to a different hospital for another issue.

I keep searching, but the info is getting jumbled in my head and my eyes are getting heavy. I glance at my phone and see it's just a few minutes past seven. I pick it up and order some food on the app.

While I wait for it to arrive, my mind goes to Rory. It's as if my thoughts can't stay away from him and what he's going through. Before I can think better of it, I shoot him a text.

Hey, how are you?

While I think about what else to say, I accidentally press the send button.

It doesn't take long for Rory to reply.

I'm okay, thanks. You? How is your leg?

I'm okay, and my leg is still attached ;)

I'm glad to hear that.

I wait for a few seconds just in case he writes more, but when nothing arrives, I send my next text, bringing the conversation to the only thing we have in common—finding John's organ recipients.

I've got more info. I'm trying to make sense of it. I'll call you in a few days, or when I'm done with all the paperwork.

Do you need any help? I'm good with this kind of thing.

I'm not sure what to say, and I think spending more time together is not a good thing. Not when his closeness stirs emotions inside that I don't want to feel.

I must take too much time to reply because before I can think of an answer, I receive another text from him.

Please. Let me help. I want to do something to find John. I can't stay in the house all day while I wait for you to call me.

Ah, fuck. How can I say no to that? Also, I want to see him. Can I want to see him when he's still so focused on his dead ex?

What the fuck am I thinking? Nothing is going to happen between us.

Okay. Let's meet tomorrow.

Again, I send the text without it being complete. And once again, Rory is so fast in replying to me he gives me no choice but to agree with him.

I'll come over to your place, so you won't have to walk around. Your leg must be hurting. Is twelve okay? I'll bring coffee and something to eat.

Okay. Sounds good.

I don't have the time to think about having him here in my personal space, because my bell rings. I abandon my phone to get up and get to the door.

Tomorrow, I'll think of something, so we won't be in a closed space together.