Blood Reckoning: DI Jack Brady 4 Read Online Free Page B

reasons. He didn’t want to wake her, if she really was asleep. And his body still ached from the violence that had been enacted upon it. His left knee had been shattered beyond comprehension. His right hand and fingers had turned to mash under the weight of a crowbar. Then there was the bullet to his chest that had somehow missed his lung and spared his life.
    He allowed himself this moment as the afternoon sun stabbed through the partially open curtains. He needed it. He needed her. He wanted her back. The old Claudia. The one who would attack him with words that startled him. A constant reminder that she was from a different background and class to him. She was well-educated. He wasn’t. She was everything to him. He was nothing to her. Without her, he was empty. Purposeless. Her refusal to let him in, to let him save her, was killing him.
    He had already saved her once. Trading his life for hers without hesitation. Over five months ago she had been held hostage by two Eastern European gangsters known as the Dabkunas brothers. They had wanted Brady’s brother, Nick. He had infiltrated their organisation and betrayed them. It was simple maths. Someone had to pay. So they had taken Claudia hostage in the hope that Brady would trade. And they were right. Not that he would ever reveal his brother’s whereabouts. Instead, he willingly exchanged his life for his ex-wife. He owed her. He loved her.
    But she was punishing him. He didn’t need to be a psychologist to understand that much. Her boyfriend DCI Davidson had died at the hands of these men and their accomplices. Claudia had lived. Simple roll of the die. But she had taken it personally. And here she was living like a ghost, clinging more and more to the shadows in his house – their old marital home – refusing to leave Brady and yet refusing to acknowledge him. It was a living death. The house, a mental asylum. The two of them, the only inmates. She only stayed with him because he understood. He had been there. So she stayed within reach. Not that he could touch her. But she was there. And slowly and surely, she was poisoning both of them. Worse still, he was willing to take it.
    Her red unruly hair fell in knotted curls across her shoulders and back. It was longer and significantly wilder than it had ever been. Feral, even. Just like her. She had regressed to a state where she could barely cope. Even eating seemed to pain her.
    Brady watched as she breathed in and out. Her shoulders, delicate and fragile, moving ever so slightly. He didn’t know how to fix her. All he could do was watch and wait. And hope.
    Ironically, as she got weaker, he got stronger. With his body crippled, he had had no choice but to work out. Refusing to allow the bastards to defeat him. Physiotherapy had been the start. Then he had joined the YMCA in Shields. The gym was basic and unpretentious. The members worked out – hard. It was North Shields after all. No one had money to throw around or the lifestyle that went with it. The gym was there for one reason only – an out from their shit lives. A quick fix of endorphins; a natural high rather than buying it from the dealer on the street corner outside. Whether they were there with a prescription note after a stroke or they needed to work out their frustrations and disillusions, no one cared or noticed. And that suited Brady. No testosterone-fuelled guerrillas looking to prove themselves or Barbie-doll lookalikes. Just real people, trying to reclaim some control over their otherwise pointless lives.
    Claudia had taken a different approach. She had made the unspoken decision to disappear. Fade into nothing. She now slept through the day – or at least pretended to. At night she danced to the cruel tune of insomnia. He would hear her wandering around from room to room, checking the windows and the doors. Then the white noise of the TV in an attempt to drown out her pain. She would not allow him entry into this netherworld. It was her