Chapter Text
The first time Rhys realizes that something is wrong is when he’s at the gym.
He’d decided to stop by the gym for a quick workout, even though he doesn’t really have the time. He has a political dinner later in the day and he doesn’t really have the time to work out and then make himself presentable afterwards, but he’s not going to be able to put up with all the social climbing and political bickering if he doesn’t get rid of some of the tension curled up inside him.
He reaches forward to open his gym locker when he freezes, staring at the lock. The number 6 is at the top instead of 8. Growing up like he did, he became almost paranoidly obsessive about his possessions. He always locks everything away and if it’s a combination lock, he always leaves it pointing at 8 so he knows if someone tried to mess with it.
Rhys quickly does his combination and rips the locker door open, rifling through everything he left in the locker. Nothing seems to be missing. His gym clothes are there, his water bottle, and the gym towel he’d used during his last workout. Still, Rhys feels a sense of foreboding.
He tells himself that he’s being paranoid. No one at this expensive gym in one of the poshest parts of London has any interest in stealing gym clothes and water bottles. Someone probably tried to open his locker by mistake. That would make the most sense.
He forces himself to push it out of his mind, but despite his best efforts, he can’t shake the feeling that someone had been through his stuff.
——
For awhile, Rhys is able to throw himself into his campaign, giving interviews and doing everything he can to help the people of London.
And yet, he can’t shake the feeling of being watched.
His therapist tries to tell him he feels that way because, metaphorically, everyone’s eyes are on him. He feels like someone is watching him because he’s a public figure and every action he makes in public is up for scrutiny.
Rhys tries to explain that while that might be true, the feeling he gets is different than that. He feels watched at his home, the gym, and even when he’s picking up Indian food at his favorite restaurant.
His therapist insists that maybe what he needs is a a break, that the pressures of political life are getting to him. Rhys finally agrees, not because he believes that’s true, but because he doesn’t feel like arguing any more.
Then the Eat the Rich Killer starts making headlines in the press and Rhys wonders if maybe they’re the person who has been following him.
But no. He’s not sure what this killer’s goal is, but as far as the profiles went, Rhys doesn’t fit. Malcolm, Simon, and Gemma were all born into wealth and doing basically nothing with their lives despite having the type of head start that made doing anything they wanted to achieve laughably easy. To be perfectly honest, Rhys is relieved that they’re gone. The more successful his campaign was, the more anxious he was about his ties to these people being brought up again. His friendship with them doesn’t mesh well with the image he’s trying to present to the public.
It’s strange though.
Out of everyone in the group, the ones who he’d been the most anxious about are the ones who had died. Malcolm had known about his gambling habit and Gemma was…well, the most unpleasant and bigoted person he’d ever met. There was nothing on the surface that he could hold against Simon, but Rhys wasn’t stupid. There was a large part of him that suspected Simon wasn’t the artist behind all of his paintings and a secret like that would come out sooner or later.
Well, maybe not any more. For the most part, whatever secrets Malcolm, Gemma, and Simon held died with them. Both his and their own.
It feels almost like he has a dark guardian angel watching over him, taking out anyone who could harm his campaign.
——
Still, he’s relieved when the Eat the Rich killer is eventually found and brought to justice. Rhys feels sympathy for her. A poor woman who was so desperate for connection that she made it up in her mind. During his next interview, he promises to donate more funds to mental health services and to make it a priority during his time in office. It might seem a bit opportunistic given the circumstances, but he really means what he says. As someone who has struggled with his own mental health, he knows how important it is.
The other good thing about the police catching the Eat the Rich Killer is that he doesn’t have to worry that the watched feeling he’s been getting is from them. If the killer had ever had Rhys in her sights, he doesn’t have to worry about it any more.
——
Rhys wakes up to his phone ringing. He considers just ignoring it, but the last time he ignored an early morning phone call, his publicist had chewed him out for thirty minutes.
He grabs his cellphone and glances at the number, confirming that it is his publicist calling. No one else would dare call him at such an ungodly hour. The sun hasn’t even risen yet.
He reluctantly answers.
“Hello?” He asks, his voice rough with sleep.
“Check the news, Rhys.” His publicist says, her tone just as straightforward and cool as it always is. There’s no hint of panic, but the fact that she’s calling him so early means that something significant must have happened.
He puts the call onto speakerphone and pulls the phone away from his ear, quickly opening up one of the news apps on his phone.
He’s slightly worried he might have to search for it, but that isn’t the case. Because on the front page of the results is his face and an article claiming that he faked parts of his memoir. Personally, Rhys prefers the term embellish, but either way, he knows this isn’t good.
“We knew this might happen,” he says, skimming quickly through the article. It’s a bit overly critical, in his opinion. Nobody would have ever wanted to read the complete truth about his life.
“We did,” his publicist replies and even over the phone, he can hear her clicking away at her keyboard. “We need Emma to stand by you and to corroborate your story.”
Rhys resists the urge to sigh. “Is it actually that important?
“Yes, Rhys. We’ve been over this. Emma’s family has been involved in politics for decades. Her lending you support on this will add legitimacy to what you wrote in your memoir. She’s the only person who can confirm or deny most of what’s written there.”
Logically, Rhys knows that’s true. He could do this without Emma, but it would be an uphill battle. He’s fairly certain that he can convince her to stand with him, but there will be tears and crying from her. A part of him feels bad. He knows Emma still loves him and every visit almost always ends in an argument about all the reasons Rhys doesn’t want to be together and Emma getting angry for his feelings not lining up with hers.
In the end though, if he asks, she’ll stand by him. He just has to suffer through her tears to get there.
“Fine,” he relents. “I’ll stop by the country house later today and talk to her.”
“Good. Until you get her agreement, don’t say anything to the press. I’ll handle what I can on this end.”
“Thank you, Anne.”
“Of course, Mr. Montrose. It’s what you pay me for.” The second she’s finished speaking, she hangs up the phone. Efficient to the very last second.
He tosses the phone back onto his nightstand and groans. It’s been ages since he’s had a day free from obligations, so of course a story like this would pop up today. He should have known better than to hope for some rest.
There’s no point in trying to go back to sleep now and Rhys forces himself to stand and get ready for the day ahead of him. As the time slowly turns to a more reasonable hour, his phone starts to ring and beep with calls and notifications from his email. The people of London are starting to read the story and they all want a comment from him.
Rhys flips his phone over to silent.
——
A few hours later, in the middle of the ensuing arguement he knew Emma was going to put him through, he’s starting to wonder if this is really worth it after all.
There are tears streaming down her face and her mascara has tracked dark stains across her cheeks. She’d already been crying when she opened the door to let him in.
“Emma, please,” he begs. “I just need you to confirm the parts of the memoir that you were there for. That’s all.”
“You always come here asking for favors and asking if I can do something for you! Not because you care about me!”
Rhys resists the urge to groan in frustration. “I do care about you.”
“If you cared, we would still be married!”
“You hated political life,” Rhys reminds her. “You said that you hated talking to people who would smile at your face and not hesitate to stab you in the back.”
Emma sniffles. “I do. But I love you more than I hate them.”
“But I don’t love you like that any more, Emma. I’m sorry.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. More tears immediately spring into her wide brown eyes and she turns from him, running to the door.
“Emma!” He calls out, chasing after her as she throws the door open.
“I need time to think!” she says, rushing to her car.
“Emma, wait!” he shouts desperately. “What happened was such a long time ago.” They’ve been divorced for years and Emma is an attractive and sweet woman, he has no idea why she’s still holding onto him.
“You don’t love me any more. Why should I give you my help?” She asks, voice barely audible.
“It doesn’t matter! Why can’t we talk about this properly? Emma!” He snaps, as she throws the car door open and climbs inside. “Please, why can’t we just talk?”
She slams the door shut in his face and starts the car and Rhys reluctantly steps back. He wouldn’t put it past her to run over his foot in this state. “It doesn’t fucking matter!”
She starts driving off and Rhys feels his temper spike, realizing he’s stuck waiting around the country house until she calms down, which means an even further delay on his statement to the press. Fucking hell.
“Fuck off!” he shouts in the direction of the car, turning to head back inside the house.
He’s contemplating on whether or not it will be worth it to raid Emma’s liquor cabinet when there’s a knock at the door. Rhys feels a rush of relief. Emma must have turned around at the end of the street and come back. It usually takes her longer to return than that, but he’s glad to get this whole experience over with as quickly as possible.
He moves over and throws the door open, stopping short when instead of Emma, there’s a man on his doorstep. Rhys scans him over quickly, taking in the artful tumble of his dark curls and the beard along his jaw. He feels a brief spark of recognition, but he can’t place from where.
The man is glaring at Rhys like he knows him and he feels a flash of worry that he might know this man from before, back when he was young, violent, and reckless. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” He asks, doing his best to keep the kind and helpful persona in place despite the storm of feelings he feels.
“Really?”
Whatever. Rhys has had his fair share of strange people track him down too.
He goes to shut the door, unable to hold back a dismissive groan when the man suddenly moves lighting fast, sticking his foot in the door. Rhys only has time to make a shocked sound before the door is flying back and hits the side of his face at a brutal speed, sending him hurtling into darkness.
——
Rhys groans as he slowly wakes up. His head pounds violently and his thoughts bounce around in a disordered flurry. What happened to him? He remembers fighting with Emma and then…
He slowly cracks his eyes open, slightly wincing. He quickly recognizes where he is. He’s only been inside Emma’s gardening shed a few times, but the gray planked walls and random items strewn around the edges of the room are familiar.
It’s only then that he notices the man who has his back to him, seemingly muttering to himself.
That’s when Rhys starts to panic as the situation starts to become startling clear.
His automatic reaction is to jerk against the zip ties in an attempt to stand. He gets nowhere, the ties biting into the flesh around his wrists and ankles.
His shirt is open in the front and he’s completely naked below the waist…which has horrifying implications no matter which way he looks at it.
He tries to stay as quiet as possible, but his panicked breathing and shuffling must have tipped the man off that he’s awake because he suddenly turns to face him, eyes dark.
He steps towards him and Rhys loses it, desperately struggling in the chair violently enough that he almost tips it over. The man is there in seconds, grabbing onto Rhys’ shoulder to settle him and force the chair from tipping back.
Rhys freezes, staring up into his eyes. He knows he should say something, anything, but all words have deserted him, washed away by the panic coursing through his veins.
The man suddenly pulls out a piece of cloth that is obviously meant to be a gag, and Rhys does the only thing he can think to do.
He bursts into tears.
The man stops, seemingly caught off guard by the strong display of emotion. Rhys only cries harder, loud wracking sobs that sound pitiful and panicked. Crying is an easy trick and one he learned to utilize incredibly young, but for once, there’s more than a little true emotion behind the tears.
“Rhys…” the man starts, and he’s a bit surprised to find that the man has an American accent. What would an American want with him?
Rhys knows the next thing he says is incredibly important. Obviously this man wants something from him, but if he says something even slightly wrong, he’ll get the gag shoved into his mouth and lose all ability to talk himself out of this.
He slowly looks up at him from underneath his eyelashes, his expression as innocent and pleading as he can manage, “What’s going on?”
The man quickly narrows his eyes, but thankfully he doesn’t reach for the gag. “Like you don’t know.”
“I don’t!” Rhys pleads.
“Quit acting!” The man yells and Rhys flinches back as much as he’s able in the chair. The man takes a few shaky breaths, seemingly composing himself. “Tom Lockwood wants you dead. Despite what either of you think…I’m not a killer, so I’m not going to kill you…”.
Rhys doesn’t even have time to contemplate the idea that Tom Lockwood has apparently sent a fucking hitman after him. All he can focus on is the brief ray of light the man has given him. He doesn’t want to kill him. It’s a dreadfully low bar, but Rhys is glad that doesn’t seem to be his goal. Not that he thinks for one second this man isn’t incredibly unstable.
While Rhys was distracted by his thoughts, the man had pulled out another zip tie and he steps closer to Rhys. “But, will I apply pressure?”
Everything clicks into place incredibly quickly as he realizes what this man intends to do to him. Rhys feels another press of tears against his eyes, more genuine than they’ve been in years.
Think, he begs himself desperately. You’re a politician. You can talk your way out of this.
“Please, you don’t want to do this,” he begs, latching onto the scant information about this man that he has. Tom Lockwood sent him to kill, but he seems reluctant to do that. Maybe he’s just as reluctant about the torture and they can figure something out.
“Of course I don’t want to do this! But you haven’t given me any choice! You made me frame that woman for your murders and then you took Marienne.”
Rhys can only stare, lost and confused. “My murders?” he asks weakly.
“I’m getting really sick of the act, Rhys.” The man moves to kneel between his legs. “Now tell me, where is Marienne?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
For some reason, it’s his panic that suddenly brings the memory of where he’s seen this man before to the forefront of his mind.
“Simon Soo!” he blurts out. “I saw you at Simon Soo’s funeral.”
The man pauses, looking up at him. “I’m sure you enjoyed that. Giving a eulogy about the man you killed.”
Rhys stares and suddenly laughs, despite how unfunny the entire situation is. “You think I’m the Eat the Rich Killer?”
The man scowls at him. “I know that you’re the Eat the Rich Killer.”
“Mate, you’ve got the wrong guy. They caught her. It was a woman who had erotom—“ Rhys suddenly cuts himself off, studying the man below him.
The Eat the Rich killer had erotomania and believed she was Lady Phoebe Borehall-Blaxworth’s best friend despite the fact they’d never spoken once. If this man had been invited to Simon’s funeral, he must have been slightly close to him. Had this man projected the idea of the identity of the killer onto Rhys? It’s a shaky hypothesis, but it’s all he has.
“Why would I be the Eat the Rich killer?”
“Because you’re a heartless psychopath,” the man says with a roll of his eyes. “But fine. Malcolm knew about your gambling debts, Simon’s mistreatment of women and young artists was about to come to light, and you were worried Gemma was going to talk about the times you slept together to the press. All of that could have hurt your campaign, so you got rid of them.”
All the information the man has related is surprisingly accurate, except, “I’ve never slept with Gemma.”
Despite being one wrong word away from torture, the idea is still so ridiculous that he can’t help but say something.
“You told me you did. A ‘few drunken shags’ or whatever.”
Rhys screws up his face in distaste. “Knowing where I come from, why would you ever think I would sleep with her?”
“Because you told me that you had!” The man’s voice is insistent, but the look on his face seems slightly uncertain.
“Gemma was the most unpleasant person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. She treated the people around her horribly and she didn’t see anyone who was lower class than her as a true person. I would have never touched her.” He’s surprised by the venom in his voice, though maybe he shouldn’t be. He spent years holding his tongue around her and putting up with her inane comments about the way he’d grown up. Frankly, he’s glad she’s dead.
The man seems caught off guard as well because he doesn’t respond. So, Rhys keeps going.
“And I’m not the Eat the Rich killer. On the night that Simon was killed, I was at a charity dinner in Paris. There are pictures on my phone. You can check.”
“Shut up,” he snaps. “You told me that you were the Eat the Rich Killer. You gave me Simon’s ear and made me frame that woman!”
Jesus Christ.
“Do you have my phone?”
The man slowly nods.
“Check it,” Rhys pleads.
The man glares at him but he stands, moving over to the side of the room where a bag sits. He pulls out Rhys’ phone. “Code?”
Rhys tells him and there’s silence for a few minutes as the man starts going through his phone. He doesn’t dare say a word, hoping that whatever this strange man can find in his phone will help to prove that Rhys is telling the truth.
“This…this doesn’t make sense,” the man finally stammers out. “These are fake.”
“Why would I have fake time stamped photos on my phone just in case I was randomly kidnapped?”
“For an alibi.” The man states quickly as if that should be obvious.
“Then check on a news article for the event. I’m sure some of the pictures have me in them.”
Silence falls again as the man seemingly goes to do exactly that. Rhys lets a few minutes pass before he quietly asks, “What’s your name?”
The man quickly looks back up at him, face pale. “Joe.”
“Okay, Joe.” Rhys forces himself to smile. “We can figure something out, okay? Tom Lockwood made you do this. Nobody got hurt. Let me help you.”
Joe quickly shakes his head. “Something…something is wrong.”
No shit. Rhys is sitting zip tied to a chair with his dick out. But he keeps up the calm smile anyway. “Have you read my memoir?”
Joe slowly nods.
“Then you know that I’ve made mistakes. But we’re more than our worst actions. We can always choose to be better.”
Joe is watching him, eyes wide, suddenly looking like he’s now the one close to tears. “Do you believe that?”
Rhys nods. “I do. Did you see the story that came out about me today?”
“Yes. Tom Lockwood told me that it would be coming out and that it would drive you here where you’d be vulnerable.”
He doesn’t have time to look into that statement right now, so he forces himself to continue. “Some of what I wrote was exaggerated, sure. But I…I didn’t recover in a straight line. I would be doing better and then I’d do some stupid shit again and slide back into old habits. But hearing about the endless back and forth of that isn’t exactly inspiring. At least, that’s what my editor said.”
Joe is suddenly moving across the room to him and Rhys can’t quite help the minute flinch he does when he comes close, but thankfully, Joe doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes seemed focused on a point somewhere over Rhys’ shoulder, though he had no idea what Joe could be looking at back there.
“Joe?” he asks shakily.
Joe quickly looks back at him and kneels in between Rhys’ knees, hands coming up to gently cup his face.
Rhys freezes, shocked by the sudden gentle touch from the man who was threatening to torture him moments ago.
“I’m going to fix this,” Joe promises him. His face is so earnest and open that Rhys finally gives him a genuine smile, believing him.
“Okay. Let’s fix it together, alright? Just let me go.”
Joe nods. “Alright. I’ll get something to cut the restraints.”
Rhys isn’t exactly thrilled about Joe holding a knife anywhere close to him, but he’ll suffer through it if it means he can get out of this stupid chair. And a pair of trousers.
Joe heads back over to his bag, blocking Rhys’ view of what he’s doing with his body. Eventually, he pulls something out of the bag, keeping it hidden behind him as he approaches Rhys again.
He suddenly feels a rush of foreboding go through him. “Joe? Everything is okay, right?”
Joe gives him a soft smile. “Everything is fine.”
Joe steps closer, threading his fingers through Rhys’ hair. He feels his stomach lurch with fear and he quickly makes eye contact with Joe, unable to stop the naked look of fear on his own face. “Please,” he begs desperately.
“I’m going to take care of you. Everything is okay, Rhys.” Joe promises seconds before he shoves a cloth over Rhys’ mouth and nose, tightening his grip on Rhys’ hair so he can’t move away.
He panics, jerking against Joe’s grip but there’s nowhere to go. Chloroform, he thinks desperately or at least he hopes. If it is, then at least that means this might not be the end for him.
He holds his breath as long as he can, but in the end, instinct wins out and as his vision darkens around the edges, he takes a desperate breath and breathes in whatever Joe put on the cloth.
Rhys gives up on fighting, taking shaky breaths and letting the creeping darkness carry him away.