Wicked Ambition (49 page)

Donna’s expression settled when she thought she understood. ‘Honey, Hollywood adores you. They’re not gonna pull out on this one, because if they do—’

‘I don’t mean that. I mean…’ Turquoise faltered. ‘I just mean…thanks. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me. You’ve always been there. Just thanks.’

Donna was worried. ‘Turquoise, what’s going on—?’

‘I’ll call you.’ She climbed into her car and slammed the door.

At home, Turquoise opened the patio doors and let the sunshine in. She wanted to feel open when she did this, at peace with the world for the first time since she had left Emaline’s porch eighteen years before.
My little star…
At last, she was shining.

Turquoise had pondered if, when the time came, she would procrastinate. In the event, the delay lasted mere minutes. She paced her office. She stood silent at the mirror, remembering who she was. She poured herself a cup of coffee and waited for it to go cold.

Such a quiet thing to do, all alone, unseen and unobserved at her desk—the click of a finger was all it took to let loose cataclysm. She had been telling the truth when she’d informed Donna that Hollywood was about to change. In moments the industry would be transformed by calamity. How would it cope with the death of its prince?

Already she could see it happening, impossibly huge,
unreservedly scandalous, the perfect, most fitting revenge she could think of. It would destroy the Angel powerhouse once and for all. Ultimate vengeance would be hers, and this would be how she got it.

She wondered how many people would see the footage before it got taken down.

Enough.

Turquoise withdrew the tape from its hiding place, uploaded it on to her Mac and thought of what Cosmo Angelopoulos had said to her that night.

That bitch is nothing to me, and neither are you
.

This was a gift from both of the bitches.

Fuck you, Cosmo
. And she set it free.

68

T
he crowd erupted the instant Jax and Leon walked out on to the track, their thunder chasing around the stadium in an ear-splitting Mexican wave.

Cameras passed down the line, introducing the athletes one by one. Leon unzipped his jacket, totally focused, bouncing on the spot to get his blood pumping. Jax swagged it out, hip-hop beats—his own—blasting from gold-plated headphones, which he lifted momentarily to absorb the masses’ adulation. His gold-bullet vest gleamed in the sun.

Each athlete was obliged to applaud the fans when they heard their name. Leon gave a single brief salute when his time was up, never once taking his eyes from the finish—one hundred metres, there it was again: his old friend. Jax held his first finger up and nodded like it was a done deal—number one, for the entire world to see. He would have no problem retaining his title. Victory was in his blood.

Ahead of the start the men slipped into their individual routines. For a guy to Leon’s left, back to full strength after
months of injury, non-stop pacing, back and forth, back and forth, getting a feel for the ground under his feet and locked inside his own head space. On the end, a controversial twenty-year-old who had endured a four-year doping ban and was only allowed back into competition thanks to new laws, crouched low, head down, as if glancing up would let in too much of the event and the pressure would overwhelm. This was vital to them all. Leon kept his eyes on the line. The line was all that existed.

Leon’s lane was alongside Jax’s. He was aware of Jax throwing his headphones into a proffered box along with his kit, the girl holding it chewing her lip in brazen worship.

‘Hey,’ murmured Jax before the launch, an arrogant sneer pasted across his face. ‘Don’t it kill to know your brother should have been here?’

Leon didn’t think he had heard right.

‘I figure you’re used to coming second,’ elaborated Jax cruelly, ‘seeing as you ain’t as fast as him. Kid might’ve stood a chance of beating The Bullet…but you never will.’

Focus on the line. Focus on the line
.

Jax wanted a reaction. He wanted sabotage. He went for the kill.

‘Some say he coulda lived if you’d been faster…’

Words that sliced Leon like a knife.

He fought the urge to push Jax on to the track with his fists and beat the crap out of him; knew that would mean disqualification and that was exactly what his rival wanted. Jax was riling him, he’d done it before, and Leon knew sometimes when it came to his brother he thought with his fists before he thought with his mind, but not today, not today…

The line…The line…

You can do it, little bro; you can do it…

‘On your marks…’

Quiet settled on the crowd—dead quiet.

Leon’s chest was pounding, rage and injustice spiralling through him, sparking every muscle and galvanising him to action.

Before Jax fixed his stare on the hard red ground, he uttered so softly it was imperceptible to anyone save his opponent:

‘Bad luck, Sway. No hard feelings, huh.’

69

T
he pistol shattered the air. Leon pushed from the blocks, fury pouring into his every tread so that he thought no matter how wild or how far he ran it could never be spent.

He was back there. The track fell away and he was on the road, slippery wet, adrenalin rioting through every vein and sinew like gasoline.

The crack of gunfire that tore at the sky…his brother clutching his stomach and staggering out on to the street, head bent, knees buckling…the lights of a car in the distance that, moments after, had melted away in the rain…the ground beneath his feet, glassy and black, his sneakers sending up a flat spray and a trickle of water coursing down his hairline, freezing cold…

His breath got ragged, scorching his lungs with acid, heart slamming with every pace, as much now as then. The voice told him to keep going, not to stop, however much it hurt.

He had watched his brother collapse, knowing the moment he went down that he would never be getting back up.
No
, Leon had thought.
Don’t do that
.

Nine seconds, nine seconds, nine seconds…

It had meant everything on that night and it meant everything right now…

He was almost home. With a last push Leon broke through the pain.

But Jax was there, coming up against him, refusing to back down, pulling away in the final stretch as he always did, head dipped, the bullet visible as it powered forward as unstoppable as a train. The bullet he had to beat. The bastard he had to beat.

Just like that, Leon found his fuel injection.

He thought he had been running before, but he hadn’t known what the word meant until that moment. Speed made him flat-out, optimal, ultimate. The asphalt rose up to meet him, heaving back against every stride and now he was running fast, so fast, impossibly fast, running until the blood was hot in his legs and tearing at his throat.

Time was rushing away quicker than water.

Be faster! Be faster!

He had held on to Marlon’s slack body, his brother’s eyes beginning to glaze. The wound hanging open, bright red, and Marlon’s hands attempting to contain it, crimson with death. Leon had been consumed by the absolute fact of it, the certainty that the most terrible thing that would ever happen to him had just happened.

And Marlon had whispered something to him. Until today he had never been sure what it was, and now it came to him, a gentle affirmation.

Keep going
.

He crashed over the finish line.

There was a sliver of sheer silence before the boom unleashed.

70

N
early six thousand miles away, at home in Los Angeles amid the opulence of his mansion, Cosmo Angel yawned. He and his wife were entertaining guests. Ava had given the housekeeper the afternoon off and had prepared an impressive spread of Beluga caviar, saffron-infused
arancini
, white truffle mousse and Kobe beef parcels.

A couple of their guests had expressed interest in watching the hundred-metre Championships sprint, a hot topic in light of the Leon Sway/Jax Jackson rivalry. Cosmo was irritated at the disruption because he had been about to unveil his impressive collection of Japanese Samurai
shuriken
, amassed since a memorable trip there years ago, but clicked on the plasma above the fireplace graciously nonetheless.

They were in time to see the men spring from the start, and almost ten seconds later it was over. Cosmo couldn’t understand the appeal himself, although as the athletes accelerated he found himself high-fiving a director to his right and felt his masculinity reaffirmed.

What was the big deal about being a sprinter? Anyone could do it. Being handsome enough to make millions of dollars from movies and be adored the world over for bringing joy and aspiration into people’s homes was not, however, something anyone could do.

Disengaging from the group’s polite smatter of conversation, Cosmo padded into his study, slipping his feet into a pair of Arctic-fox-fur slippers Ava had given him for his birthday. Mounted on the wall behind an impressive glass-fronted cabinet was his collection of ninja blades. He grinned at his reflection as he slid the cabinet open and withdrew his favourite
kankyuto
, running his fingertips over the dagger-sharp points.

His cell rang.

‘Talk to me.’ It was his manager. There was a long silence, before:

‘Cosmo, are you sitting down?’

‘No, but I can be.’ He dropped into a plush leather chair and put his foxy feet up on the mahogany desk, smirking. It had to be an Awards nomination—he’d been waiting long enough; perhaps
True Match
had finally sealed the deal. ‘Tell me the good news.’

There was another silence. Cosmo twirled the
shuriken
in his hand. ‘I haven’t got all day,’ he said. ‘Fucking get on with it.’

‘Cosmo, we’ve got an issue. I suggest you get online…now.’

Ava called through. ‘Darling, are you there?’

He rested the phone on his shoulder as he reached to click on the PC. ‘Be right back!’

‘This better be good,’ he hissed into the mouthpiece as
he tapped the letter C into the engine. As the list of entries scrolled down, his mouth filled with bile.

Cosmo Angel sex tape
.

Cosmo hooker orgy
.

Cosmo crown shagathon
.

No. No.
No!

Blind with fear, he followed the link. The video entitled ‘Kingdom Come’ had been removed, but stills of it remained, snagged in the barb like rot. There he was, plain as day, reclined naked on a bed and wearing the Crown Jewels. The whores on their hands and knees rising to meet him, heads buried in his lap, his hand pushing them down.

The debauched soirée in Crete, the grape-sucking honeys…

There he was, donning the tiara, sprawled on a four-poster and high as a kite.

Oh, baby, yeah!
someone had commented.
You can be my king any day of the week!

‘We took it down in less than ten,’ his manager babbled, ‘but it’s too late. Millions have seen it. The papers have got hold of it.’

Cosmo blinked through the nightmare, rigid in his seat.

‘It’s hitting newsstands tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do. Cosmo, forget whatever embarrassment you might be feeling. This is a fucking legal nightmare.’

He stared blankly at the screen, at his fully and disastrously stripped form, at his most private, sickest fantasies laid bare for all the world to see, and only then did the enormity of it register. In that moment he knew unambiguously that life as he knew it had been snuffed out.

‘Cosmo? Are you listening? We’ve called a crisis meeting
downtown. Whatever you’re doing, cancel. Just get the hell out of there. The press are on their way.’

Cosmo’s brain shut down. Its magnitude was incomprehensible. Its destruction was unthinkable. He clenched his fist around the
shuriken
, pricks of scarlet blood flowering and spreading through his tightened fingers.

Grace Turquoise da Luca
.

Cosmo buckled to the floor on the altar of his sin and after that there was nothing.

71

T
he board said it all:

1. SWAY, LEON (USA): 9.5632s (WR)

2. JACKSON, JAX (USA): 9.5724s

He had won. He had won. He had done it. He had won.

I’ve won
.

Behind him, a strangled cry was released into the air. Jax Jackson was on his knees, imploring the sky before crashing to the ground, tight as a ball, groaning like an animal.

He had won.

By an infinitesimal margin but a margin all the same.

72

R
obin watched Leon’s race on TV. She had told herself she wouldn’t but in the end she couldn’t help it. She killed the channel as soon as his win was confirmed.

‘You should go to him, you know,’ advised Polly, curled up on the sofa with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. ‘Tell him how you feel.’

Once, Robin would have denied having any feelings whatsoever, habitually on the defence. Now, she didn’t bother. It was plain to see. She had even been honest enough with Steffen to give him the real reason when she had called it quits with him.

Is it someone else?

Yes
.

Are you with him?

I should be
.

But she and Leon were torn, and even more so now he was officially the fastest man on Earth: the new world record holder, unreachable, immortal.

She was happy for him. She was sad. It was confusing.

The girls were recovering from the
Beginnings
tour, by all accounts an unqualified success, before the ETV Platinum Awards at the weekend. After that they would be returning to the UK. For Robin, it couldn’t come a moment too soon. She had plans to sell her flat, putting an end to the roller coaster of the past few months. Her new London address would stay strictly confidential. No more unwanted contact. No more fear. It was over.