My vision swam. “What? Why?” My hand shook, spilling some of the vodka and tonic on my jeans. Absently, I brushed it off.
“They will know about his previous conviction and on the basis of that probably decided it was better to keep him in.”
“Keep him in? It’s not a fucking hospital!”
Darren gave me a sideways glance, then turned the volume down on the TV.
“Can I go and see him?”
“I don’t think so.”
I screwed up my eyes, willing the tears to go away. I’d shed enough over the past few hours. “Then what can I do?”
“You could have told him about Carl’s threats.”
My hand froze mid-air as I lifted the glass to my lips. Somewhere in my befuddled brain I remembered telling Jonas. But I hadn’t told Tris, or the police. What if that was the evidence which made a difference for Tris.
“Has Carl been in contact since last night?” asked Jonas. “You’ve still got the messages he sent you, right?”
I took my phone from my ear and put Jonas on speaker. For some reason, it seemed my notifications had blown up. Wearily, I scrolled past them, wondering which gossip columns had got wind of the fight or whether Scott Lincoln had posted some other lie.
When I saw Carl’s number on the screen and read the words, my glass slipped from my grasp, smashing into smithereens as it hit the floor.
Always was queen of the gossip columns, weren’t you, darling? How’d you like it now?
There was a link toThe Goss.
Nausea rising in my throat, I clicked on it.
There, in grainy black and white, was the picture I’d dreaded him putting out there.
The picture that could ruin my career.
The picture that could ruin my relationship.
The picture that could end it all.
I wished Tris had killed the fucker.
The phone went the same way of the glass and I leaped up, only just making it to the bathroom in time heaving and retching until I was convinced there couldn’t be anything else left in my body.
After a couple of minutes, Darren appeared in the doorway. “Saff? You okay?”
“What do you think?” I hugged the toilet bowl as some sort of comfort and gulped in some air as I tried to regulate my breathing. “You saw the picture.”
Darren’s expression was hard. “I saw you being manipulated by someone only out for their own gain. Saff, why didn’t you tell someone about this sooner?”
“Because it’s me, Darren! How many times have I ended up as clickbait? Who would believe I was being blackmailed by some lowlife loser?”
“Tris would have believed you.”
He was right. Tris would have trusted everything I told him. Now he was in prison for protecting me when if I’d confessed the truth sooner, none of this would have happened.
It was all my fault.
“Here.” Darren thrust a glass of water at me. “Drink this, wash your face, then we need to call Jonas back. Work out what to do next.”
I’d never seen him this efficient before.
