Chapter 15 of A Net Too Wide To Break His Fall, by Matt Boothman
I wrote this story chapter by chapter, without outlining first. It was an experiment in writing consistently, producing a chapter once a month, without fail, for the Foggy Outline newsletter. So don’t expect something polished or finished; but what it does have is momentum, and a fluidity that came from wanting to change things up enough to keep myself interested enough to write more.
If you’d be interested in a properly edited, fleshed out, finished version of this story, let me know!
“I can’t imagine a world where this goes to plan,” muttered Autumn Wray Benjamin, biting their nails in the back of the van.
“You don’t know the plan,” said Lisaveta, watching the rain blur the windscreen, watching for lightning.
“So I can’t imagine it working.”
Vivian Hithercombe’s empire was collapsing and her town house on Bronze Street was tainted with the debris. Of all her properties, she’d always kept this one aside for entertaining friends. It was meant to be the shop window where she exhibited her public image: socialite, philanthropist, matchmaker. She’d been careful not to contaminate it with her real business.
Until now. Lately, Vivian Hithercombe was running out of places to conduct her real business.
Callum slipped past sweating accountants and storming lieutenants, propped in doorways tickling cradled laptops, or making breathless calls on the narrow stairs. He waited for bodies to shift, for paths to open up. He could charge straight through them all to the top floor office – not one person outside that office could know he was there – but he was taking his time. This was a conversation he’d been playing in his head for a long time, but it wasn’t one he was looking forward to.
There was a guard on the office door, fox-faced, no one Callum had seen before. She had to be churning through people. Callum tried the office door, found it locked, patted the guard down – he jumped, swept the landing, reassured himself it was just the tension of the evening – gently unlocked the door, dropped the key back in the guard’s pocket and let himself in. As soon as he eased it shut behind him, he heard the guard check the door, find it unlocked, and dutifully lock it again.
For his part, Callum found himself locked into place between the delicate click of the lock and the ratcheting click of Vivian Hithercombe chambering a round.
No backing out now.
“Simply can’t get good staff these days,” said Vivian Hithercombe flatly, resting the butt of her handbag gun on the desk she sat behind, among a jumble of papers, phones and drives. “I said I wasn’t to be disturbed.”
Callum shrugged. “Maybe if you’d been a bit less stingy with the intros, you’d still have people left who could have stopped me.”
“So it has all been you.” She allowed herself a curt confirmatory nod. “Though I doubt all on your own initiative. Who’s giving your marching orders? Is this your sister’s idea of a long game?”
Marielena? Callum hadn’t heard from her since she’d introduced him to Vivian Hithercombe here, in this house, years ago. These days he did his best not to think about her; it was too hard not to blame her for how it had all turned out.
“This isn’t Marielena,” he managed.
“No?” Vivian scribbled a note in an open ledger. The gun still rested steady on the desk. “Then it’s as Anton said. You were induced to turn coat.”
“Big Anton was afraid of me,” said Callum. “Once he knew what I could do, he tried to kill me first chance he got, and you were happy to believe his justification for it. I didn’t exactly feel welcome after that. Not that you exactly made me part of the family up to that point, either.”
“You didn’t feel welcome.” His words were cold and dull on Vivian Hithercombe’s lips. “And for that, you went this far. Took my people and turned them against me. Undermined everything I’ve built.” She scoffed, and he could see she’d dismissed him. The unknown enemy striking at her organisation was just a petulant boy. And the gun, previously a crop to steer that enemy with, was now just a prop to entertain the boy. “Because I didn’t make you part of the family. I’ve seen how you were with your actual family, Callum. You took the bridge your sister built for you and burned it without a look behind. I watched you do it. And you thought I’d bare my bosom to you? How naïve.”
“We made a deal!” The words burned in a way they never had when he’d played this conversation in his mind. “I did everything you ordered me to, and this is just your latest excuse for not holding up your end. Naïve, yeah – to think all your fancy houses and parties made you different from any other crook. I hurt–”
“I gave you what you wanted.” Now Vivian Hithercombe matched Callum’s heat. “Once you’d earned it. And the very same second, you threw it back in my face. I opened my armour the barest crack and you slipped the dagger in. Oh, it’s connection you want? People you can rely on? Then you must learn to be reliable yourself. You tire so quickly of everyone who lets you in. One glimpse of another person’s heart and away you turn, blinded, burning another bridge and running for the next. You must know that burning this one only isolates you, Callum. I’ve built other bridges. I’m still connected. Everyone I’ve ever done business with. The buyers, the suppliers, everyone I ever paid to look the other way. I may not like all of them, may not like how the connection could reflect on me, but I put in the hard work to maintain those ties because the stronger they are, the stronger I am. I’ve got strings I can pull to get whatever I need. Money. Protection. Bullets in the right heads. Despite everything you’ve done, I’m going to be fine. But you? You’ll just keep doing this, over and over, until your name is poison in every mouth that ever spoke it, and not a soul sees or hears you ever again.”
Vivian Hithercombe was on her feet. Below them, the remains of her network danced on their strings, weaving protection around her.
“You’re not wrong,” said Callum. “Considering my condition, I really need to get better at this. But I am learning. This time, I built a bridge before burning the old one. It was hard to make friends in your circle, so I made some new ones.”
He pulled down his collar just enough to show Vivian Hithercombe the microphone.
“Would you like me to introduce you?”