Chapter Text
10:17 Madrid, Spain.
The crudely-dubbed ‘archangels’ of the Blancos leave a certain oppressive, heavy kind of weight on the police station that Jude can’t quite get used to. He stays in his seat, watching as Nacho types away on his laptop, the rhythmic ticking and clicking of the clock and the keyboard making him feel like he’s going a little mad – the pit in his stomach that has opened further and further, and a sort of twisted unease has made itself a home inside of him.
“You just… let them handle it?” He breaks the silence eventually, his voice thin and watery. “Jesus Christ, Nacho. They’re gonna kill this guy.”
“It’s not my responsibility,” Nacho says, and he sounds a bit too cold for Jude’s liking. He wrings his hands uselessly before picking up his coffee mug. “Look. You signed up to be a cop. Cops kill. Not often, but sometimes, and it’s part of the job. This isn’t really any different.”
He drinks, and Jude desperately watches a drip of his espresso race down the side of the green porcelain.
“It’s- sure it is! It’s preventable! We can’t just sit here and watch them kill someone!”
“It’s a blood feud, Jude… it’s not something you wanna meddle in, take my word on this, okay? I know… I know how it sounds. Heartless, cruel. Disgusting. But trust me when I say you don’t want to touch this.”
“I won’t,” Jude says, careful. “I’m just… Don’t take this the wrong way, but how can your conscience get behind this?”
Nacho laughs, and it’s really bitter, flavoured by his coffee. Jude, perhaps on instinct, flinches; then, the laugh is cut off, leaving a dense quiet lingering behind.
“You’ll know something is wrong when you start to see my point of view,” Nacho says eventually. “At first, you think I’m crazy. Then, you’ll start to feel pity for me. Next thing you know, you’ll do equally as bad things, and think of even worse. Give it a decade or two. It’s terminal.”
Jude blinks. He can’t bring himself to say anything, so he doesn’t, only stands up from his chair and reaches for his coat. The grey English wool is soft beneath his fingers, and far too warm for the Madrid air.
“Who even is he?” he asks finally. “Diaz.”
“You think I’ve met him?” Nacho deadpans. He closes his laptop with a dull, satisfying thunk . “I know as much about him as you, or Vini, or anyone else. Probably some sleazy moneybag like the rest of them are. They say he used to work for the Security Service in Britain or something like that, but I honestly doubt it. It just sounds scary, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Jude says. He’s beginning to feel a headache coming on. He gathers his papers and tucks them into his bag as much as he can without crumpling them up.
“You can go,” says Nacho. “Careful. Don’t answer any questions, that’s my job. And remember, our priority is finding the servers and finding out who’s behind the site.”
“Right. Didn’t expect a full Freudian analysis,” Jude mutters. Nacho laughs again, a bit less hollow this time.
“Don’t take it serious. I’m just saying, you’re new. When you’re new, you have everything backwards – everything the pros say seems wrong. Everything seems so simple, so black and white. It’s easy to fall into that trap. But I’m being honest, Jude. It wrecks you if you make this business personal, if you let it get to you. Best to take my word for it and not want to find out on your own, even though I know you’re itching for it.”
Jude nods.
“Oh and… Jude?”
Jude turns around, halfway out the milky glass door already. “Yes?”
“Nobody can know that us and they are friends.”
10:17. Málaga, Spain.
“I’m a little lonely now.”
Brahim’s voice is meek in the golden morning air, breaking the inert, residual silence that remains settled on top of the graveyard.
“I really miss you a lot. I still text you all the time. Even… even after so many years… it’s shit, man, honestly… I kind of hate you for leaving me, when you promised you wouldn’t. I have so much to tell you. I texted you everything, of course, and I imagined what you would say back, but… I didn’t get you any flowers because you fucking hated flowers. And you hated when I told you that I loved you but I did. Still do. All I want is for you to know.”
Brahim picks his head up slowly, wiping the tears that run down his reddened cheeks. Against the glare of the sun, he can’t make out the carving on the headstone – but he knows it by heart, knows the gilded letters like they’re his own.
Dear Brahim,
I will never send this letter. I don’t even know where I’d send it to. Perhaps you did go home to Málaga, like you said you wanted. In which case I am incredibly jealous. Not that I have a home I could go to if I wanted, aside from the warehouse. I guess Oli and the others are like my family. I have grown so much closer to him thanks to you, last Tuesday he told me he loves me like his own son.
I just want you to know that I miss you much and that you have been on my mind for the past few months. I am not good at all at writing letters but you not being here hurts a lot and sometimes I catch myself imagining what you would say or do if you were here. So I thought I would try writing you and maybe it will help ease the pain a little bit. Or at least it will give me something to do.
Mike has forbidden me from doing anything at all except loitering around Milanello, so I have nothing new to say. Sandro said sorry to me but I’m so tired that I can’t even forgive him. I want to, I hope I can tell him soon so that he stops bothering me with that awful word. Sometimes, and this is a secret so don’t tell anyone, when I can’t sleep I imagine you are here with me and it makes it both easier and harder. Easier because it’s comforting to not be alone, and to not be so cold all the time. And harder because even your imagined presence makes me nervous. But I do wish we could at least talk through the darkness because I’m scared of it again. I thought I stopped after I turned six but maybe I was wrong. Maybe you would even hold my hand.
I remember when you said you would take me with you to Málaga to watch the waves and eat ice cream and honestly I would take that over anything else in the world. More honestly, mostly just because it’s you. I have never felt so at home with a person I have just met before I met you. It’s probably naive of me and also very stupid because thinking back, I don’t think I knew you very well and you definitely didn’t know me. Which is why we kept hurting each other and that’s bad. I promise that if I had the chance I would go back and live through that hell again just to be kinder to you because it’s what you deserve.
I have tried to avoid thinking about what you said about going back to Madrid. I’m stupid and have managed to convince myself that you must be alive and okay because if you weren’t I’d surely somehow feel it. As if we were somehow connected on that deep of a level. I don’t even know if that is possible but I hope in another life we can be. It’s really dumb to say I’ve fallen in love because we only knew each other for a few days, and barely at that, but I really think I have. And I really hope this feeling never goes away because it’s the only real thing I have.
Always,
Theo
16:57. Madrid, Spain.
He’s running. He isn’t sure from what, or where, because it’s pitch-black, but his knees ache and he can taste copper in his mouth from how hard he’s breathing. The air around him stabs, cold and dry, and it feels like his lungs are giving up.
“Jude.” The voice doesn’t belong to anyone. Jude turns around, but he’s lost his way in the dark, and he can’t tell which direction is the one he came from, which direction he’s meant to be running from. He looks down, and he can just barely make out thick, crimson blood on his hands.
Jude awakens with a start, his heart pounding, and grabs for his phone on the bedside table.
THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS OF CONFIDENTIAL VALUE.
THE TEXT IS A PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERPERSONAL TEXT MESSAGE CONVERSATION AT 6:33:51 PM, MADRID, SPAIN AND 5:33:51 PM, MANCHESTER, ENGLAND
PROPERTY OF TELEFÓNICA S.A. & LIBERTY GLOBAL LTD.
34 608 ****** Hey man, I hope you’re doing ok
44 7547 ****** Judee
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ Long time no talk mate
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ How is work?
34 608 ****** Good, settling in nice
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Was off early today, had a nap
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Listen
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ You don’t happen to know a Brahim Diaz?
44 7547 ****** Yeah why?
34 608 ****** So he’s worked with you
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Phil are you taking the piss
44 7547 ****** Some years ago yeah
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ Why’d you ask
34 608 ****** Fuck sake
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Work stuff
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Mate is there any way you can put me in contact with him?
44 7547 ****** Maybe an email
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ Haven’t spoken to the lad in ages man
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ Proper forgot about him
34 608 ****** Go look will you
44 7547 ****** Wait
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ Ok
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ [email protected]
34 608 ****** Gorgeous
⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Cheers mate
20:12. Just outside Milan, Italy.
The early night embraces the old coal power plant next to Milanello like a bad dream. The abandoned cooling tower is pitch-black, and Theo can barely tell which way he’s looking, his eyes struggling to adjust to the gloom. He can barely breathe; he bites his lip so hard that he can nearly taste the metallic tang of his own blood, his hands pale and shaky as he reaches out into the darkness.
“Mike,” he mouths. There’s barely any sound to it, yet it still feels far too loud in the empty tower.
He gets the sinking feeling that something is terribly wrong. But he trusts Mike, and his gut feeling has never before led them astray – so when he’d come into Theo’s room with a strange glint in his eye and two guns tucked into the pockets of his jacket, Theo had followed him wordlessly to the overgrown hideout just across the road from their warehouse.
Mike puts his hand over his mouth, and Theo’s heart drops before his senses register his Rabanne 1 Million and Spanish cedar smoke. “Cut the crap and follow me. Shoot when I tell you,” he whispers.
The gun Mike gives him feels strange in Theo’s clammy hand, and he desperately wonders whether he’d even be capable of aiming at anyone in particular. They edge along the curved concrete wall, their footsteps muted on the underbrush that has crept up through the asphalt from years of disuse. The air is heavy and wet with mildew.
Briefly, Theo thinks about whether Olivier is safe at home, in his silk sheets and perhaps some pretty woman. He feels sick at the idea – he’s not sure why, if it’s from the mental image, or rather the sudden understanding that the sardonic little voice in his head sounds exactly like Sandro. He almost wishes he’d gone with him and Rafa and Davide to get drunk in Milan.
“Theo,” Mike says, and the harsh whisper snaps Theo out of it. “Out. Now.”
Theo blinks. Mike is holding the door for him, and they scale down the rust-chewed stairs and step out into the inky night, onto the endless lot of dead grass and dirt. The stars are out above.
“I’m scared,” Theo says shakily, and he knows the version of him from months ago would laugh in his face. “Mike. Who are they?”
“Cops.” Mike wipes his palm on the leg of his jeans. “Jesus. This is surreal.”
Theo silently agrees. Something about the dead of the late summer night, the sheer dimension of the cooling tower makes him feel even more mortal than usual.
In the distance across the road, around the edge of the tarmac lot, are three or four police cars – their lights strobe across the sorry cluster of buildings, bathing the drab greyness in crimson and blue. If Theo squints, he can just make out a few sniffer dogs, ears pricked up, silent, malignant shadows.
They walk in silence to Mike’s scratched-up Fiat, and it almost feels too casual for what it is. Theo can’t help but smile in sick disbelief as he gets in the passenger seat and hears Mike click the doors shut.
“What’s funny?” Mike asks. He’s a bit out of breath, wiping the sweat from his temples with the back of his hand.
“Nothing. Just… not the way I imagined it. I thought… never mind.”
“You wanted more trouble?” Mike fumbles with his keys, the quiet jingle cutting through the tense night air. "Enough trouble already, figuring out who the fuck tipped us off."
“Not necessarily. I just thought… I thought police raids were supposed to be... I don’t know. Bloody. Vulgar. Not casually walking away.”
“We’re okay.”
It’s only when Mike says it that Theo lets his body register the full scope of his fear. He breathes in, so deep that his lungs ache and fill with the wintergreen air-freshener dangling from the rearview mirror.
“I’m sorry. I should be used to this.”
“It’s fine,” Mike dismisses. “You got too comfortable in the month we spent coddling you and Sandro, eh?”
It’s meant to be a joke, but Theo somehow can’t find it within himself to laugh. The most he can manage is a tense smile, one that makes him feel awfully ill. “Maybe.”
He realises he’s still holding the gun, and he gently places it down by his feet, letting it get swallowed by the shadows rampant where the moonlight can’t reach.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Theo breathes out. “God, I always… always get unlucky. If only I didn’t stay here tonight.”
“Looks like we’re gonna have to take a little trip,” Mike says. He twists the golden ring around his finger, and Theo watches in a daze as it catches the dull glint of the moon shining through the dirty windshield.
He knows the flat in San Siro far too well, despite never having seen it – notorious as perhaps the only unclaimed ground in all of Milan, the only square of land that’s neutral and the only treaty nobody involved would ever dare to break. It’s strangely beautiful, in its own sick, twisted way, the way even people like them can unite against the one force against them all. It makes him feel oddly a bit more safe.
Mike fires up the Fiat as quietly as he can. Theo leans back, hiding behind the collar of his jacket as they start towards the heart of Milan.
To: Brahim Díaz < [email protected] >
BCC: < [email protected] >
From: J. B. < [email protected] >
Subject: Word of Caution
Dear Mr. Diaz,
I hope this email finds you well. There’s something I feel compelled to share, even though I wish I didn’t have to. Through trusted sources, I have found out that some people wish to do you and perhaps your loved ones either bodily or mental harm. I cannot get into any more details for my own personal safety, but I do wish to advise you to stay alert.
You have every reason to find this message suspicious, and I understand if you wish to ignore it. However, I feel it is a necessary step to take in order to both ease my guilt of standing by while such things go down, and to give you a fair warning. If I find any method of proving the legitimacy of this message, I will do so immediately. In the meantime, take care.
Yours faithfully,
JB.
Sent at 20:12 PM
22:34. San Siro, Milan, Italy.
“Theo, thank God you’re okay,” is the first thing Sandro says to him when he steps through the door of the San Siro flat, and there’s a strange kind of relief on his face that’s entirely new to Theo.
He shifts a little on the worn sofa, making himself smaller beneath the thick, scratchy army blanket. The mug of tea in his hand has gone stone cold.
“Sandro. Hi.” He squints as Sandro clicks on the lamp on the coffee table, bathing the room in a soft orange glow. “Turn that off.”
He expects a catty remark, but Sandro complies. “Where’s Mike?”
“He went to talk to Oli. Left me all alone.”
Sandro sighs, then settles beside him on the sofa so that their knees touch.
“I’m sorry I got upset with you,” he begins. “I wanted to tell you you were right. In everything. It hurts me to admit it, but… tonight made me realise I have to do it at some point. I never know when my last chance is until it’s staring me in the face. I came as soon as Mike called. I know it’s against the rules, and Rafa and Davide warned me against coming here, but… oh, if I catch those bastards that caused this mess, I-”
Theo breathes in. “I forgive you, Sandro. A million times… If this is about forgiveness. I do. I do, I do, and I always will.” He feels a lot lighter suddenly, but also kind of like he wants to cry.
“I just want things to be the same as before. Not before what happened with the Bianconeri, but before that. When we first met. It was wonderful, and I regret taking it for granted.”
“I don’t…” Theo begins, but finds he can’t quite finish the sentence. He puts his mug down on the table, because he fears he may drop it.
“I know it’s something far out of reach. I know, and it’s okay. Please don’t say sorry to me because I should be the one saying it to you. I didn’t mean any of what I said last night, about you being stupid, or stubborn, or… I don’t even know what I said. I got desperate, and I’m sorry. I'm so glad you're okay.”
“I don’t have a problem with you, Sandro,” Theo says. “I have a problem with myself.”
The front door creaks open, and a small sliver of light strays in from the hallway. Theo instinctively reaches for the gun Mike had left him, tucked away beneath the blanket.
“Oh thank God,” Giroud says. He opens the door all the way, letting that glorious golden light in the room – immediately, the air feels lighter and easier to breathe. Theo loosens his grip on the cold weapon.
“Oli,” he sighs in relief. He stands up and lets himself be swept into his arms, smelling of smoke and sweet rain. He closes his eyes, losing himself in the leather of Giroud’s jacket.
Sandro sighs, reads the room and decides to leave it.