In the boot of the car was a teenage boy, beaten and kidnapped.
That wasn’t what worried him.
What worried him, was what he intended to do.
Chapter Twenty
It had been a frustratingly busy Monday, with the monthly board meeting overrunning by an hour due to the HR Director’s insistence on a new sickness absence policy, but Paul Etheridge was still smiling. As he approached the gated border at the end of the private road he lived on, he slowed his Porsche 911 Carrera GTS to a stop. Leaning out of the window, he held out his fob to the receiver, triggering a loud groan as the metal gates began to slide open. The weather was relentless, the winter paying the country back for a hot summer and it upset him that he couldn’t roll the roof back and feel the wind rush through his hair.
He chuckled at the thought, especially as the final strands of his hair had abandoned him long before his forty-second birthday.
As the gate slid wide enough for him to move forward, he felt his blazer pocket rumble against his chest. His work phone was always on and constantly buzzing even though he had a PA. As the founder of BlackOut Software, he was in demand. The revolutionary data security software had made waves in the last five years, a pet project he had undertaken when he left the army. As a computer whiz, he was never cut out as a soldier, but his sharp intellect and ability to navigate systems had made him a useful weapon. As he pressed down on the clutch to shift gear, he felt a sharp pain, the remnants of the shattered leg he had suffered all those years ago. It was what had spurred him on to make such a success of his life, knowing that he tumbled down a mountain side into a terrorist out post and only the sharp shooting and pinpoint accuracy of his friend had saved his life.
Sam Pope.
His life had flashed before his eyes but was returned to him thanks to his friend.
Paul Etheridge was given the gift of life and he wasn’t going to waste a moment of it ever again.
As he glided down the road, passing opulent houses that celebrated money, he thought back to those cold nights under the stars, discussing their tactics as they marched to the border of Sudan with blood-thirsty intentions and cut-throat orders. It was a world away from the multi-million-pound company he had founded and the grandiose lifestyle that his second wife had been attracted to. Kayleigh was twenty years his junior and an aspiring model and although he was hardly the Elephant Man, Etheridge knew it wasn’t his shiny bald head and slightly tubby stomach she was attracted to.
As he pulled onto the immaculate driveway, he parked his Porsche next to the pristine Range Rover that he used as his ‘weekend car’ and he chortled.
The papers were saying that Sam Pope was waging war on the London underworld, murdering criminals and shutting down their supply lines. In the same papers, they were lauding Etheridge as an entrepreneur and his six-bedroom mansion, forty-six miles out of London in the picturesque Farnham was testament to that.
Life took people down some strange paths.
Whatever path he was led down, considering the man had saved his life, there was no way that Etheridge would ever see Sam Pope as anything other than a hero. With a deep sigh, he pushed open the door of his car and gingerly pushed himself from it, his leg stiffening, the bones creaking as the cold wrapped around his long-standing injury like a python. The large house was a brilliant white, with floor to ceiling windows across the entire front of the house. Kayleigh appreciated the modern décor, but Etheridge was sure she wanted them simply to boast. To show off their leather corner sofa and matching recliner chairs. The marble fire place, the open kitchen with stainless-steel work tops.
It was all extravagant.
All a world away from the gravel paths he had trudged with his fellow soldiers, backpacks full and guns loaded.
As his expensive, Italian shoes navigated around the puddles forming on the driveway, he looked across at the Kayleigh’s Aston Martin Vanquish, its custom paint job a brilliant yellow.
What startled him most was the hooded man leaning against it.
Etheridge dropped his satchel, the documents fanning out into the water and rapidly decreasing in importance.
‘Sam?’
‘Evening, Paul. Long time.’ Sam Pope flashed him a welcoming smile as he pushed himself off of the bonnet, his drenched hood stuck to his head, and his leather jacket soaked through. Etheridge stood still, the shock rooting him to the ground. Eventually, he reached out and took Sam’s outstretched hand and smiled, blinking a couple of times.
‘Jesus. It has been. Come in, you must be freezing.’
Etheridge scurried towards the front door, his limp visible to Sam who absorbed details like a sponge. Just as the memory stayed with Etheridge and spurred him to make the most of his life, Sam had never forgotten that moment in the northern planes of Sudan, watching his good friend tumble to a likely death. Sam had acted instinctively, rushing to the edge and whipping his rifle to his eye, discharging three bullets in quick succession that ripped through the skulls of the approaching enemy.
He had saved Etheridge’s life.
It was a selfless act, but one he knew carried an unwritten debt.
As he stepped in through the grand front door, he slowly lowered his hood and looked around. The welcoming hallway was white, with a black, tiled floor. A large piece of art adorned the wall, a bizarre structure of colour that Sam speculated was incredibly expensive. The hallway led on to the spacious living room, the large sofa the centrepiece that faced the magnificent fire place. A TV the size of Sam’s bedroom wall stood
