When we reached Simon's street, Chase let Ben and me do some recon, while he waited out of sight around the corner. We needed to know whether Jaxson was still here without anyone noticing us. And we could hardly hide a man in a wheelchair.

I was praying harder than I had ever done before in my life, which, admittedly wasn't exactly a mean feat. I am ashamed to admit that I was a typical "I pray when I need help but forget God's greatness as long as things go my way"-type of girl, and at least I had the good grace to be scared that God would throw me a curveball now because he held all the cards and I was a dick. At least, that's what I would have done if I had been in God's shoes.

But thankfully this job went to a much nicer, merciful person than I would ever be. When we rounded the second corner, Ben showing me how to keep to the shadows and move silently, I spotted Jaxson immediately. He had just stepped out from wherever he had been hiding and was walking towards his brother's front door, his face a stony mask.

"No!" I screamed, all newly-gained knowledge about the advantages of a stealth approach in a combat situation forgotten, and started running.

Jaxson spun around on his good leg, limp-running towards me, his expression furious. "Run freaking faster!" he hissed at me, when he reached us. Ben fell into step with us and, when we passed Chase, he simply started rolling with along with our little party, not asking any questions, instead leading us back to the car.

Jaxson nearly collapsed when he stopped running, holding himself up by sheer will. His voice was thunderous, though, and he looked as if he was about to rip my head off.

"What the hell were you thinking, Tessa?" he shouted, then swung his gaze towards his friends. "And you, too! For crying out loud, do you have any idea what you've done? How am I going to take down my flipping brother now, eh? And how can I protect Amy, not to mention Alex's colleague who just took Amy – or any of you?"

"We'll find a way, Jaxson, but not your way," I countered gently. My statement did not have the desired effect, though. If anything, it infuriated Jaxson more.

"Thanks to you, my way is out of the window, that's for sure! You just ruined a perfectly good plan. Christ, Simon is probably on the phone as we speak, sending people after Amy. God knows what's going to happen to Alex's colleague then." He hung his head.

"I'll get in touch with Alex. She'll be able to give me her colleague's contact details. I'll find those two and get them somewhere safe until we've sorted this out," Ben stated calmly before jumping in the car with Chase, who volunteered to stay with Alex and Joshua for now.

"We should probably go with them," I suggested to Jaxson, who stared at this latest stupidity from my mouth with undisguised disbelief.

"You should go with them, Tess. I've come here for a reason. The job is harder now, but the mission objective stays the same. Simon is evil, and I'm the only person who is able and willing to stop him."

Outraged by the implied accusation that I had just made his death more complicated for him, I shouted, "You're going for a suicide-by-cop scenario, only in this case the cop is a bloody criminal instead. That doesn't matter to you, though, because all you want is to die. That is your mission objective, not anyone's safety, you liar!"

Tears were rolling down my face. I knew that I was being unfair. Jaxson's main goal was to make sure Simon wouldn't hurt any of us. But I was convinced that he saw his possible death as a welcome by-product.

Jaxson gave me a one-armed hug, slapped the roof of Chase's car twice, thereby ordering Chase to drive off, before grabbing hold of a fence post for balance.

"Don't cry, Tess. Please! I have to make this work, have to know you, Hayley and Amy are safe. If I don't get my brother, Amy will go back to him. This is just the way it is in Blue Church. You won't be safe, either, because Simon knows about our connection now, and he knows that I would try to protect anyone I know, especially from him. I've always been like that. He sent you the second message to get to me. And he'll keep using you until he's succeeded."

"No, you and your friends can keep me safe for a while, and we can protect Amy!" I protested. "I did what Alex asked me to do; I kept records of every injury, everything she said, everything she did that pointed to some sort of domestic abuse. I told you, I've even got photos. It won't be easy, I know. But we will all fight for her. Together. And once we get him for Amy's abuse, you will be shot of him, and I'll be safe. Together, we can win!"

Jaxson smiled at me like you smile at a naïve little kid. "Simon will win. He always does. I won't take that chance with Amy, or with you for that matter. You don't have all the facts, Tessa. And you are reading this whole thing wrong. I am not trying to die. This is not some silly suicide mission."

"Of course, it is!" I protested. "You even wrote a suicide note."

"I wrote a farewell letter, Tess, not a suicide note! My objective is to get Simon, and to keep the people I care about safe. If I can only achieve this by giving my life, I'm okay with it. But that's nothing new. I've been a soldier all my life, babe. I've been okay with it for many years. But I'm not gunning for it."

"So what then? Kill Simon first and maybe even his boss, and then go on the run forever? In your condition?"

I clamped my mouth shut, but the words had already fled.

Jaxson did not even flinch.

"Might not be running any marathons for a while yet, but it's not that bad." He stated this untruth without blushing. But before I had a chance to make him a whole head smaller for it, he carried on, "But, no, that would be plan B, plan C involves me ceasing to breathe, and plan A aims at getting a confession out of Simon and making it go viral on social media. The cops can't ignore Simon anymore then, and hopefully Peinelt, either. It's the plan I favour, but it's also the least likely to go without a hitch. I figured it'd be better not to include it my letter. Didn't want to get your hopes up."

"Well, 'But I have to act now because I don't know how much longer I'll be able to take care of things physically.' Or 'Dying isn't the worst that can happen to me these days.' What about that, eh?" I quoted his letter.

This time, Jax did flinch, and his cheeks went bright red. "I might have been a bit of a drama queen there, Tess. There is something... I... I will tell you, but now is not the time."

He was right. Now was not the time. Ben was on his way to make sure Alex's colleague and Amy were safe. Chase was going to give everything that no one would be able to get to Alex and her son. But none of them would ever be safe if we couldn't stop Simon.

"What are we going to do now then?" My voice was small because I wasn't sure anymore that I had done the right thing earlier in front of Simon's house, that I had actually been saving Jaxson. Maybe he was right. I had just made his job so much harder because his brother could have noticed the ruckus I caused right outside his front door and would be prepared now. Would Jax have to abandon plan A due to my rash actions?

"You will wait here now. I will go back to my brother's place. Plan A still stands. Social services had just taken his daughter. He was probably on the phone to his million lawyers and his enforcers, or whatever you want to call them, and didn't hear a thing. I'm still banking on the element of surprise to loosen his tongue."

Right at that moment, Jaxson's leg buckled, and he nearly went down.

"Simon wants me to stop going up against him. Let me go in! I will definitely be an element of surprise for the bastard. I'll get him to talk," I suggested and did not even stop speaking to take a breath, anticipating Jaxson's rising blood pressure. "He's already tried to kill you; he bloody shot at you, man! And... don't take this the wrong way, but you belong in a hospital, not on a battle field."

"You don't belong on a battle field either, baby. You are a teacher, for God's sake, not some hot-blooded Ninja. Simon would have you for breakfast. You are not going into the lion's den on the off-chance that Simon might say something incriminating and the good chance that he'll toss you out with the rubbish tomorrow morning. This is definitely my job. I've got the training, and the arsehole is my brother! Stop arguing now! This is my final word."

Of course, I didn't stop fighting with him. But the more we argued, the more unsteady Jaxon seemed to be on his feet. I realised that we had to put an end to all of this, and fast before Jaxson, barely upright, lost his battle with Mr Gravity, never mind with Mr Bowers Junior.

In the end, I believe it was his failing strength that made him give in. He fiddled this tiny camera out of his shirt button and fixed it into my necklace. It came with an in-built microphone, he added with pride, which I found was strange because he hadn't built it himself. It must have been his customer choice that he was proud of. Men and their toys. I, in turn, felt like someone had heaved me from reality straight into a James Bond movie. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Camera firmly in place, we both sat down on the pavement. Luckily, Chase had stopped his car in an industrial area. There were more lorries than people. The few people who trudged past us were dreaming about holidays and days off work and didn't pay us any attention.

Eventually, we came up with an action plan. Jaxson and I would both be ringing the doorbell together; we would inform Big Bro that Jax had made me see the light and that I would take no further action regarding his daughter. We would insist that I had had nothing to with social services taking her. Jax would say that he was there for my protection, seeing that we were an item and that good old Simon had not exactly been welcoming to any of us. But he was also there to reconnect and to make it absolutely clear that he was no threat to his brother because he was not interested in getting involved with the business. He would not be Simon's competitor for the second most powerful position within the organisation, now or any other time in this life, but he would always have Si's back.

"We're family, man!" he would say. "And that counts for more than anything else. I'm sorry it took me so long to figure this out!" He'd add that he was not a great fan of the men in blue after his fictitious latest run-in with the so-called upholders of the law, who had allegedly accused him of starting a bar fight because the bloody barman had refused to fill up his whiskey glass.

'What was a man to do?' he would ask his brother, outrage in his voice. After all, he had just come back from tour, and some snot-nosed pimple-faced nappy-pisser whose bravest action in life so far had been crossing a road when the traffic light was red in order to catch the bus home to Mummy was telling him that he, Jaxson, had had enough to drink for one night. Yeah, right. Two or three teeth short, the barman had seemingly seen the light and refilled the glass, but poor Jax had never had the chance to sample the shiny liquid because two coppers had shown up, having been notified by pimple-face via text message, would you believe it, and nicked him. Him! A decorated soldier enjoying a quiet drink.

We'd all bond and start reminiscing. Our perfect childhoods, getting our backsides tanned on a regular basis by parents who lovingly dished out blanket punishments to all their kids - and, yes, what a blatant lie in my case that was, but hopefully effective - and then move on to whine about how we mollycoddle today's kids. I wondered whether I should pray for a dose of acting skills, not wanting to test God's patience too much.

God's help or not, there was still a good chance that things would go sideways and that Simon would still want to help his little brother to kick the bucket hard and fast. Jax warned me that the situation could spiral out of control at any moment, possibly ending up in a real fight. But as long as we could get something on tape, Jaxson hoped that utilising modern channels of virtual mass communication, Twitter, Instagram and Co, would expose the Peinelt gang to the world. We would upload everything we had anonymously, of course. Chase would know how to do this or know someone who could, Jaxson assured me. I was hopeful that my documentation of a Blue Church childhood nightmare would be more than sufficient to touch the public's heartstrings and ensure the police had no recourse but to put Big Bro behind bars for an obscene amount of time.

Jaxson hardly made it back into a standing position, when the plan had been finalised and we were as ready to go as we would ever be, but he refused any help I offered to get him back to Simon's house at first. His gait was unsteady, though, and his face pinched.

A minute into our walk, I slipped my arm around his waist again. Jax did not protest.

"You've got to lean on me more, Jax!" I ordered. 'I'm not breakable."

Jaxson's compliance spoke volumes. He should really not be doing this at all. He wasn't overdoing it; he was exploding it, and I feared that he'd be paying dearly for this tomorrow and the rest of his life – if he even had a tomorrow.

This five-minute walk took us a good twenty minutes. Towards the end, he was hopping more than walking.

I shot him a glance. He stopped, clearly unable to walk and talk at the same time.

"I can do this, baby! Plan A deploys the mouth, not the fists. The brain is still in working order for now. And even if that fails, I've still got some fight left in me. Trust me!"

"And how are we going to get back to Chase's place, Genius? You're not as heavy as you look at first glance, but I ain't carrying you!"

Jaxson laughed, and this noise nearly made me sing the Lord's praises right there and then, but it didn't solve the problem.

"We'll figure it out!" he answered me with the confidence of a man used to dangerous missions, while I feared I would be losing my lunch, just contemplating the possibility that, if Plan A went out of the window, B or even C would inevitably follow. Once we rang that doorbell, there would be no going back.