Death's Ink Black Shadow by John Wiltshire

and look where they were now.
    Breaking Nikolas had clearly only been a temporary solution. He’d regrown his shell, tucked his head back in, and was hunkered down for the long haul.
    Ben wasn’t worried about Nikolas now. He was okay.
    Nikolas appeared torn and twisted with worry and exhaustion, but that was fine. Ben had endured a shitty few days, too.
    He went back up over the wall and landed in the alley. He abandoned the Land Rover where he’d parked it illegally in a nearby hotel car park. If it was towed, it was.
    He found his bike back where it should be.
    Perhaps he should instigate a new policy of testing all of Nikolas’s pronouncements if they were as easy to prove false as this had been. Maybe he should assume everything Nikolas said was a lie and be done with it. Except Nikolas hadn’t deceived him about everything . He hadn’t actually said anything about Jackson. He hadn’t mentioned one word about his relationship with Ben.
    Ben had seen what he was meant to see and made up a truth all his own.
    § § §
    Ben climbed onto his bike, no helmet, and told himself that if he was going to prison anyway, then it was better to go out with a bang.
    He went to an apartment in Battersea. Jackson Keane lived in The Tower. Ben had been to his place a few times, to a few parties. He’d once called it a block of flats, and had seen the anger flick across his host’s face. Nikolas paid Jackson too much money, in Ben’s opinion, for loyalty that should have been given freely. But it was Nikolas’s money. He was entitled to waste it as he saw fit.
    He rode the elevator to the seventh floor and exited.
    Jackson didn’t answer Ben’s ring.
    He picked the lock and let himself in.
    The apartment was a homage to excess. Without its occupant, whom Ben had never denied was extremely good looking, it was a tribute to vacuous male vanity. Did anyone seriously have black satin bed sheets? A mirrored ceiling? Ben had seen enough of Jackson’s naked body recently. He checked through a few drawers but found nothing of any interest. It was hard to tell, but they didn’t appear cleared out. The wardrobe wasn’t depleted of clothes, as far as he could judge. He had the distinct impression that Jackson Keane wasn’t aware that he’d cheated on Ben Rider. He wasn’t running .
    Ben stood at the floor to ceiling window in the living room, gazing out over the view of the river and began to get very angry. Even if there was nothing going on between Nikolas and Jackson, which Ben believed was now the case, he had been put through the emotional wringer. Shock, denial, and heartbreak were now followed by seething rage that Nikolas’s arrogance had brought him to this—giving credence to anything Jackson Keane said or did, skulking around his apartment like a thief in the night. Why didn’t he go back into the bedroom and sniff the sheets? See if he could smell a familiar scent of—actually that wasn’t a bad idea. Ben was halfway there before he swore, kicked over the glass coffee table, which unfortunately didn’t shatter, and left.
    Riding back down in the elevator, no further forward and at something of a loss, Ben pulled out his phone, tapping it idly while he thought. Before he could talk himself out of it, he dialled Jackson’s number.
    It was answered quickly, and Jackson appeared to be shouting over loud music. “Ben?”
    Ben held his phone away, staring at it incredulously, before realising this gesture was becoming a bad habit. “Where are you?”
    “Dormant Club. What do you want?”
    Again with a glance at the phone. “What do I want ?”
    “Uh-huh. Wait.” The background noises faded, and Ben could hear ice clinking in a glass as Jackson strolled to find a quiet spot. This casual attitude only added to Ben’s slowly forming certainty that Jackson Keane was unaware of the little drama he was participating in. If he knew, he’d be moving a great deal faster.
    “’kay, buddy, ’sup?”
    Ben had been