The Enemies We Destroy

Table of Contents Join the Reader’s Club for exclusive gifts Books by Meg Jolly One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-One Twenty-Two Twenty-Three Twenty-Four Twenty-Five Twenty-Six Twenty-Seven Twenty-Eight Twenty-Nine Thirty Thirty-One Thirty-Two Thirty-Three Thirty-Four Thirty-Five Thirty-Six Thirty-Seven Thirty-Eight Thirty-Nine Forty Forty-One Forty-Two Forty-Three Forty-Four Forty-Five Forty-Six Forty-Seven Forty-Eight Forty-Nine Fifty Fifty-One Fifty-Two Fifty-Three Fifty-Four Note from the author Join the Reader’s Club for exclusive gifts About the Author Copyright Join the Reader’s Club for exclusive gifts Want to be in the know? Members receive regular exclusive gifts (like this cool interactive case map pictured!) available nowhere else – bonus content, stories, interviews, and more, for a truly immersive reading experience that will pull you into the DI Daniel Ward series. Find out how to join the free Reader’s Club and claim your gifts at the back of the book. Books by Meg Jolly The DI Daniel Ward Yorkshire Crime Thriller Series: The Truth We Can’t Hide The Past We Run From The Revenge We Seek The Mistakes We Deny The Justice We Serve The Power We Exploit The Stakes We Kill For The Enemies We Destroy Visit www.megjolly.com for more news. One Running. DI Daniel Ward was running as fast as he could. His lungs burned; each breath sharp as a knife strike. It was dark, almost pitch black, save for the light of a cold, waning moon far above. There was barely enough illumination for him to see the treacherous path ahead, a rutted track that threatened to turn an ankle with every gamble as he plunged relentlessly forward. He sprinted, every step jarring through his shins and mashing his feet into pulp. It was all he could hear—crash, crash, crash—as he fled, and they chased him. Except, in this nightmare, Ward was not himself. He was Marika Milanova, running through the Slovakian wilderness to her death. These were the woods he had studied on online maps and image databases near the safe house where Ivan Petrik and his family had been slaughtered in cold blood. The last known location of Marika Milanova, Ward’s Slovakian counterpart. DI Ward had never been there, but it was as real as ever in the prison of his mind as a low-hanging branch slashed across his face, leaving a stinging trail upon his cheek in its wake. Now, he was her, running for her life as he so frequently imagined, except, in the grip of this nightmare, he could not turn away from the horror of this thought. Forests of pines surrounded him, dark and foreboding for endless miles in every direction, their branches overhanging the path and reducing that light to a narrow strip high overhead. He could see nothing but the path ahead. To the sides, darkness under the enveloping canopy. Behind him... something that chased, something he could not turn to perceive, but that sent a clawing chill down his spine. This was the nightmare that haunted him every night now, as he wondered with anguish where Marika Milanova was, wondering if, by some miracle, she remained alive, or whether she was murdered, as he dreaded. Since the discovery of the woman’s body in the industrial estate, Ward had all but given up hope. How could he not? Through the murk, nameless things hunted him. However, these were no beasts of nature, but something far more monstrous and terrifying — the threat of Bogdan Varga and his men. Cold killers without mercy who would stop at nothing to eliminate any threat to them. Could Ward hear them shouting and catcalling him? It was hard to tell over the deafening soundtrack of his own heart thundering, the crunch of his feet upon the stones and dirt, and the whistle of wind stirring the trees into a creaking frenzy around him. The treetops swayed, closing that slim channel of dim light overhead as the very forest around him seemed to cheer for his demise. Daniel Ward knew that if he—she—stopped, death would follow. The threat of that was enough to keep him running. Running, endlessly running, until the darkness of his nightmare ended. But it always ended the same, for he had no control here. He despised it. He dreaded it. It ended with the forest of deep night morphing into an orange, street-light-lit industrial estate crumbling into ruin. The wind was no more, the howling of the pines changing into an eerie silence. In the distance, the grind of the city rumbled, a constant low-level noise that sounded muffled to Ward’s nightmare-self. It did not matter. Too far away—that was what it sounded like. There was no help coming. He knew what happened next. He had seen this place in all its gory details before. A warehouse, its remaining walls a tall skeleton reaching up to the seething clouds, offering no protection from the danger within its bounds. There, those amorphous threats materialised into something corporeal. The dark forms of men, stalking. The glint of guns. The harsh, cruel sounds without words making the threat of their intent clear. And then an all too familiar face emerged from the periphery as rough hands shoved Ward’s dream self to his knees. Bogdan Varga. Slovakian crime lord. Internationally wanted, with a tally of deaths following him longer than Ward had ever seen. From Marika’s eyes, Ward stared up. Varga was all the more imposing in that moment. With every recount of the nightmare, he grew taller, shrouded in shadow and darkness, a glint of his eye and the curl of his cocked lip staking his dominance on that moment. Was this how it ended? Was this how it had ended for Marika Milanova? Varga raised a gun. His words came, muffled, but the wrathful tone was clear. Cold and unfeeling, Varga passed his verdict and sealed his lips. Pain and fear clutched Ward’s heart into stillness and silence. Just in time, as it always was, for that absence of