Want to know if it’s worth it?

Then here, read the first chapter of Worth the Wait (Worth It Book 1)…

OUT in KU, paperback and eBook on July 31st 2025

Chapter One

Clear and Present Danger

Worthbridge always looked prettier from a distance.

Up close, the cracks showed. Empty shopfronts. Kids with their hoods up and nowhere to be. The wrong vans pulling into the wrong lockups at the wrong time of night. And PC Freddie Webb had spent the last six months watching it get worse.

Taking a reluctant sip from his battered travel mug, he grimaced. “Jesus, that’s vile.” He screwed the lid on tight. Not that he was trying to preserve it, more contain the damage. It tasted like tar scraped off his boots after a rainy shift. “You trying to off me, Becks?”

Behind the wheel, PC Becca Lambert smirked. “Brewing anything drinkable with that urn’s like raising the Titanic with a teaspoon. Be grateful you’re still alive.”

“Pretty sure that kettle predates the Bronze Age.”

“Like Tony in Custody.”

“The one with the pager?”

“Vintage chic, mate.”

Freddie snorted and slouched lower in his seat. The patrol car hummed along Worthbridge’s narrow back lanes, tyres whispering over damp tarmac. The Sunday morning shift always brought a peculiar hush. Not quite peace, not quite quiet. It was the town catching its breath after a long Saturday night. This morning was no exception. The April sky hung low and sulking, a thick blanket of cloud turning the sea into a sheet of dull metal. April showers were getting ready to wash the town away while the gulls shrieked overhead, wheeling in lazy circles as if they had grievances to air. They shouldn’t. They’d already hoovered up the scraps from Saturday night’s takeaway benders.

The air smelt like brine, damp concrete and leftover chips.

And…home.

Yeah. It smelt like home.

Because for Freddie, this scruffy little Essex seaside town was home. The place that raised him, roughed him up, and, at least once, nearly choked the life out of him. Literally.

Stretching out his legs, he relished the lull. Mornings like this were rare. No drama yet. No one screaming down the phone about stolen bikes or domestics. Not even any drunken lads spoiling for a fight. The shops were only just stirring, shutters rattling up like yawns, and the pubs hadn’t rubbed their eyes open yet.

For a moment, it was the sea, wind, and the quiet hum of the car.

“How’s it going with the history teacher?” And Becca’s too personal questions.

That was the thing about sharing shifts with Becca. She came armed with shit tasting caffeine, boatloads of sarcasm, and an endless supply of personal questions. Prying ones. Ones that made him want to crank the window down and roll himself out onto the A-road.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Freddie tipped his head back with a groan. To buy time, he took another sip of the coffee, immediately regretted it, then leant out the open window to spit it out onto the tarmac.

“Oi!” Becca barked, eyes still on the road but tone filled with mock outrage. “That’s a criminal offense!”

Freddie fastened the lid shut on his travel mug. “The gulls’ll clean it up before you even dig out your ticket pad.”

She snorted. “Did you spit on the history teacher, too?”

He shifted in his seat, suddenly fascinated by the scuffed trim on the dash.

“Swallowed?”

He side-eyed her. “Christ, Becca. I know I ain’t your superior by rank, but can we roll with the pecking order, anyway?”

“You don’t like him then.”

“I do. He’s…sweet.”

“Knew it.” She grinned, triumphant. “You don’t like him.”

“I do like him,” Freddie said, far too quickly for Becca not to pick up the subtext. “I said he’s sweet.”

“Which is code word for boring.”

“No, it’s code word for—wait for it—sweet.”

“Then you’re clearly a diabetic.”

Freddie laughed, but it caught in his throat, and he turned back to the window, watching the gulls wheel over the flat grey sea, their cries piercing over the stillness of the morning. Jude was sweet. Polite. A bloke who remembered birthdays and opened doors and would make sure he drank water between pints.

Safe.

But that was the rub. Safe didn’t do it for him. Never held his interest long. Didn’t light him up or make his pulse jump. No. He always gravitated towards the messier options. The ones who bit back. Had shadows behind their smiles and chaos stitched into their bones. The ones who burned too bright and left scorch marks when they went.

The ones who were oh so very unattainable.

He stared out the window, the scent of salt and old chip fat curling through the crack in the glass. He scrubbed a hand over his stubble and forced a grin to cover the shift in his gut. But, as if right on cue, they passed the weatherbeaten pier, and he got the same old ghost of cider on his lips. An echo of a laugh tangled in the sea wind. And remembered when, for a heartbeat, life had been simpler. Lighter. When everything still felt fixable. By a crooked grin, a bottle passed between trembling hands, and a kiss that wasn’t sweet, wasn’t perfect, but lodged itself in him, anyway, rewriting the blueprint for every kiss that came after.

“It ain’t cause you’ve still got feelings for that Reece, is it?” Becca took her eyes off the road to deliver that punchline.

“The fireman?” Freddie laughed. “Nah. Not sure I ever had feelings for him. He was…”

A stop gap.

They were all stop gaps.

Distractions. Warm bodies and easy smiles. Stop-gaps between the job and the bits of his life he didn’t want to sit with for too long.

He was starting to think they’d all be that way. Temporary.

Sighing, he looked back out the window at a group of late teens carving lazy arcs across the promenade, wheels rattling over the cracked concrete of the skatepark. Hoodies up. Heads low. Same faces, same patterns. No harm in them. Yet.

Worthbridge had always had edges. None the tourists ever noticed. Cause, sure, it looked like bunting and postcards in summer, but when the sun went down? Different story. Uni students necking pints, fights outside chip shops, lads shouting karaoke until their voices cracked. Freddie knew the routine. Not only because he was the poor fucker who had to clear up most of those things, but he’d also been one of them once. Young, stupid, and three sheets to the wind under the pier with someone whose name he barely remembered. Those were reckless, golden nights. Sweetened by vodka and a cocky grin. But they’d left their mark too.

Irreversibly so.

Lately, though, Worthbridge had become dangerous.

He knew he probably shouldn’t be policing in his hometown. All the complications. The conflicts of interest. He’d listened to the warnings when he’d joined the force. And for a while, he earned his stripes with an extended stint in Southend, saw the other side of the patch. But Worthbridge needed him. His mum was here. His little sister. His niece. New baby nephew. He had to make sure this town was safe for them. He couldn’t trust anyone else to do that for him.

Which, yeah, he was well aware and had been told sounded cliché as fuck.

Maybe there was something deeper going on. A reason he’d stayed put all these years, wearing this uniform in the same streets he’d got drunk in as a teenager. But he didn’t like to over-analyse it.

Especially not on a bloody Sunday.

“You’re doing it again,” Becca cut through his thoughts.

Freddie arched a brow. “Doing what?”

“That constipated thinking face. Usually means the Radley case is crawling around in that brain of yours again.”

Freddie grunted, resting his elbow on the window ledge. He didn’t have to answer. They were both thinking about it.

Six months. That’s how long he’d been embedded on community detail, quietly feeding anything useful upstairs. Six months of tailing ghost vans and jotting down license plates leading nowhere. Six months of watching Whitmore Estate kids wander home with new trainers and older eyes.

Still nothing stuck.

Because Graham Radley was careful. Generous. Untouchable.

Everyone in Worthbridge knew the name. Radley Developments. Proud sponsor of the local sports teams, the Christmas lights, the bloody community day stage. Vivienne Radley chaired the town’s cultural committee. Their photo was still framed on the council website, cutting ribbons and shaking hands.

But Freddie had spent too long chasing ghosts to be dazzled by high-gloss charity work. The real Radley estate wasn’t made of bricks and ribbon-cuttings. It was made of silence.

The East Docks moved at night. Vans in by five, out by six. No names. No cargo manifests. No CCTV that couldn’t be explained away. Cash passed in corners. Girls from the estate disappearing for days, coming back quieter. Some didn’t come back at all. Drugs flooding the estates, but never in Radley hands. Always some teenage runner who “couldn’t say” where it came from.

And everyone was too bloody afraid to say the word out loud.

Trafficking .

Because saying it meant admitting it was real. That it wasn’t just happening in cities or headlines, but here, in Freddie’s hometown. In alleyways he used to ride past on his bike. Behind doors marked with Radley logos. In the silence between neighbours who knew better than to ask.

Becca had been there the night they pulled that girl from the van behind Whitmore garages, too. Seventeen, half-starved, wearing a men’s coat three sizes too big. She hadn’t said a word.

Radley’s name wasn’t on the van.

It never was.

“We’re running out of time,” Freddie said, more to himself than her.

Becca drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Maybe. But Carrick wants more. Wants them caught in the act.”

“Yeah, well, while we sit on our hands, more kids get chewed up and spat out.”

Becca didn’t argue. There was nothing to say.

Freddie stared out at the low tide, the black slick of sand glittering like oil under the gulls. He thought about his niece, Tilly. Six years old. Fairy wings, glitter pens, boundless trust in the world. It made his stomach twist to think of what could happen to kids like her if they didn’t move fast enough.

A beat passed. Then, quieter, Becca asked, “You ever thought about going for the detective pathway?”

“Thought about it. Loads of times.”

“You’d walk it. You’ve got the instincts, and the way you read people? That’s half the job already.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s not just about instincts, though, is it? It’s all politics. Exams. More desk time than I can stomach. Then there’s the paperwork. Endless bloody forms and sitting in briefings where half the room couldn’t find their own arse with both hands.”

“You already sit in those. And I know you have no problem locating your arse, or anyone else’s, for that matter.”

“Ha fucking ha. But at least I get to chase down scrotes in the rain. Talk to people. Be on the ground. You go down the CID route, and suddenly you’re buried in case files and red tape.”

“You say that like you wouldn’t be bloody brilliant at it.”

Freddie was quiet for a moment. Then: “I don’t know. There’s something about being in uniform. Visible. There when something kicks off. When someone needs you. It feels real.”

“And personal.”

Yeah. It was.

Really fucking personal. This was his town.

Freddie glanced back at the skatepark. The teens had moved on, but the image lingered. Young, stupid, vulnerable. All it took was one of them getting in too deep. One bad choice. One promise of easy money. And that was the part he never talked about with any of his casual flings. Certainly not history teacher Jude. The man he’d been dating for a few weeks, whose conversations with remained surface level and flirtations ended with a goodnight kiss. He wouldn’t understand. The not knowing. The dread. The gut-deep fear of what might happen just out of reach. Or what could happen if he didn’t move fast enough.

“Quiet one today, though.” Becca tempted fate with that.

As if on cue, the radio crackled to life.

“Control to Delta Two One, report of a disturbance at the seafront skatepark. Multiple youths involved. Possible assault in progress.”

Freddie shot Becca a look.

She winced. “Yeah, I know, I jinxed it.”

He grabbed the radio mic. “Delta Two One—received. Show us en route.”

Becca swung the Astra around at the next junction, tyres crunching over loose gravel as she switched on the blues. The flashing lights tore through the sea mist, scattering a few lingering gulls.

“Better not be some kid pissing about with a scooter.” Becca tutted, already scanning the grey sprawl of the promenade.

Freddie stayed quiet.

Because his gut, the one that hadn’t let him down yet, said this wasn’t just a fight.

Not today.

Not with Radley’s shadows creeping closer to the kids who couldn’t defend themselves. And if he was right? Then whoever was about to get their name written up in Freddie’s notebook wasn’t only a teenage thug looking to score points.

They were a spark.

And the whole bloody town was soaked in petrol.

The skatepark hunched at the edge of the promenade like a broken tooth. Concrete bowls tagged with graffiti, bins overflowing, the air heavy with stale weed. Becca swung the car in hard, tyres squealing a warning. Freddie was out before it stopped fully, boots slamming onto cracked tarmac, scanning.

Movement. Voices. The distinct edge of a scuffle behind the far ramp.

He sprinted towards it, Becca on his heels.

Two lads legged it across the grass. Skinny, fast, and gone before Freddie could even get a shout out. Another kid remained on the ground, hands up over his head, trying to shield himself from the blows raining down from a feral teenager above him.

“Oi!” Freddie shouted, closing the gap.

The aggressor looked up, then ran.

Down the far side of the bowl, up the concrete bank, slipping on wet grit, and tearing off across the park in a jagged sprint.

Freddie launched after him.

“Whitmore foot chase,” he shouted into his radio. “Male, mid-teens, grey hoodie, black joggers. Heading east, towards the seawall.”

The wind tore past his ears as he pounded after the boy, closing the gap with every stride. The kid was fast, no question, but running scared, making mistakes. Cutting across open ground. Glancing back.

Freddie saw his moment.

He lunged forward, arms out, and tackled him. They both hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and grit. The teen squirmed, kicked, thrashed like a cornered animal, but Freddie rolled with it, locked a forearm across his chest, got a knee into the small of his back.

“Stay down!” he barked.

The kid wriggled, shoving back hard, until he saw the uniform over his shoulder.

“Calm down. Now!” Freddie gripped the kid’s arm while pulling a set of cuffs free. “What’s your name?”

The boy didn’t answer.

“I said, name!”

The lad’s eyes snapped towards him. “They started it!”

“Started what?”

No answer except for a spit on the gravel.

Freddie hauled him up to his feet. “You have anything on you? Knife, blade, anything I need to be aware of?”

Knife incidents had crept up in towns like Worthbridge. They weren’t only city problems anymore. Gangs didn’t care if a place had bunting and ice cream vans in summer. They saw bored kids, no prospects, no one watching. Then moved in. Targeted the vulnerable. Offered cash and power in exchange for loyalty and silence.

And it worked.

Small towns were ripe for the picking.

Freddie had seen it too many times. How fast a schoolyard punch-up could turn into something you didn’t walk away from.

The boy stiffened, eyes darting sideways, then looked back at Freddie with a mix of fury and panic.

“They were—” He stopped. “Forget it.”

Freddie’s instincts buzzed. That wasn’t nothing.

And it sure as hell wasn’t over.

“You’re being detained under Section Five of the Public Order Act. Disturbing the peace and suspected assault. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence…”

Freddie delivered the caution. Words he’d said a hundred times before. To youths as young as, if not younger than, the one in front of him. But as he spoke, he watched the boy’s face change. Not in fear. Not in guilt. But… harden. As if he’d slipped a mask on.

Then Freddie caught his eyes.

Angry. Rabid. Almost feral.

But blue. Deep and startling, a bright clash with the shadow of his dark hair, damp and curling beneath the edge of his hoodie. Freddie jolted. He’d seen eyes like those before. And it twisted in his memory bank like a faulty bulb refusing to switch fully on. He shoved it down to do his job.

Before walking him back to the car, Freddie gave the standard instruction. “I’m going to search you now under Section One of PACE. Anything sharp I need to know about?”

The boy said nothing.

So he patted the kid down, checking pockets, waistband, shoes. Nothing. No weapons, no phone, no sign of drugs. Just a skate tool and a scrap of paper with a half-smudged number on it.

He shoved it all into a clear evidence bag, more for process than concern.

Then, as they made their way to the car, the kid muttered under his breath, “Should’ve let me finish it. Would’ve done you a fucking favour.”

Freddie glanced sideways but didn’t bite. “Yeah? How so?”

Kid clammed up again. Probably wise.

Becca joined them, wiping her hands on a tissue. “Other kid’s banged up but conscious. Says he doesn’t want to press charges.”

“Doesn’t mean we don’t log it,” Freddie said. “Get his name?”

“Yeah. He’s known to us. Low-level stuff. Shoplifting, pushing boundaries, usual teenage crap. The two that fled are the interesting ones.” Becca returned to Freddie’s side. “This one, though,” she tilted her head towards the cuffed teen, “new face.”

The kid glared at her.

“Proper lost his rag. Other kid reckons he flipped.”

Freddie tightened his grip on the lad’s arm. “You might have picked a fight with the wrong people.”

“Couldn’t give a fuck who they are!” the lad shouted over his shoulder.

Across the park, the other teen held up two fingers to his mouth, waggling his tongue between them. Real mature.

Freddie felt the tension roll through the cuffed boy and prepared for him to launch a counterattack. “Oi. That’s not gonna help anyone.”

He opened the back door and guided the lad into the car. The kid didn’t resist, but he vibrated with fury. Shoulders tight, breath shallow. Controlled chaos. The usual shit. Freddie slid into the driver’s seat, adjusted the mirror, and watched him through it.

“You gonna tell me your name?”

Nothing.

Freddie turned halfway, resting one arm on the seat. “Right. Listen. If you’re under eighteen and you refuse to ID yourself, we’ll have to bring in Social and a responsible adult to sit with you at the station. And until we know who you are, we can’t let you go. That’s the law.”

Lad clearly thought he could stare his way out of this.

“I’ve got all day, mate.” Freddie widened his eyes. “You?”

Still nothing.

Freddie clucked his tongue, turning back to face the road. The kid didn’t look scared. He looked braced. As if whatever was waiting for him at the end of this was worse than anything he or the station could offer. That was the part that got to Freddie. The silence screaming louder than any teenage bollocking. He knew that look. Had seen it too many times before in kids dragged in from rough homes, from estates run by gangs, from families where trust was a foreign language.

But something about the shape of the lad’s jaw, the stubborn tilt of his chin…it snagged on Freddie’s memory.

“Control’ll love us bringing in a no-name on a Sunday.” Becca got back into the passenger side.

Freddie drove.

Something told him this wouldn’t be another quick tick-box caution and release. Because despite Becca’s best efforts to build a rapport with the lad on their way to the station, he remained mute. So when they arrived, Freddie guided him out of the car, through the secure doors, nodding to the sergeant behind the desk. Becca followed, filling in the details on the tablet, already ticking boxes and logging the time of arrival.

“Male, mid-to-late teens,” she said. “Brought in under Section five, suspected common assault and disturbing the peace. No ID given.”

Mick, the custody sergeant built like a wardrobe with the patience of a saint, arched a brow. “No name, huh?”

“He’s not talking.” Freddie stepped back.

Mick leant on the counter. “Alright, son. One last chance. What’s your name?”

The boy stared dead ahead. Not angry. Blank. Silent.

Mick sighed and gestured to the back. “Cell Two. He’s under eighteen by the look of him, so I’ll get Youth Services in. Can one of you pull a photo from school records or Missing Persons, see if we can get an ID?”

Becca nodded, already scrolling through the tablet.

Freddie lingered for a second, a tug at the back of his mind not letting him move on. But eventually, he turned and headed back out into the corridor. Statements needed taking. Paperwork needed drowning in.

Which he did for the next hour and was halfway through writing up the incident report when the door creaked open, and DS Bowen stuck her head in.

“Webb. Interview room two. We’ve ID’d the lad from this morning. Minor. His appropriate adult’s arrived. You were the arresting officer, so I want you in there.”

Freddie rubbed his eyes, groaning inwardly. “Alright. Gimme a sec to log off.” He closed the report mid-sentence and stood, stretching the knot out of his shoulders. “Is he talking yet?”

Bowen shook her head. “Not a peep. Maybe having you in there’ll jog something loose. Name’s Alfie Carter.”

Freddie froze. The name snagged in his brain like a thorn catching in cloth.

“Alfie Carter?”

The words echoed, meaningless at first. Until something clicked. A long-forgotten connection tugging at the edges of memory. It made little sense. Couldn’t be. But the feeling had already settled deep in his gut, crawling under his skin.

He followed Bowen down the corridor, the world narrowing to the tunnel of strip lights and the hollow hum of the station. The distant voices faded. Even his own breath felt far away.

They approached Interview Room Two, and Bowen reached for the door. But before they went in, Freddie peered in through the reinforced glass.

Fuck.

There was no other word for it, and it slammed through his skull with the force of a dropped weight.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

His heart kicked hard, each beat thudding out those curse words in synch. Because sitting in that room, to the left of the boy he’d arrested, was Nathan Carter.

Freddie hadn’t seen him in over a decade. Fifteen years, give or take, since everything had collapsed. Since promises had cracked beneath the pressure of real life, fear, and timing that was never quite right. And yet, in one glance, it was as if no time had passed at all.

Nathan’s lighter hair was cropped shorter now, almost a buzz cut. Or growing out of one. His shoulders broader. Still built as though he carried the weight of everyone else before his own. That same posture. Tight. Guarded. Composed. He hadn’t changed. But there was a shift now. A break in the armour. And as he sat hunched, bouncing one leg beneath the table, hands clenched in his lap, he looked worried.

No, scared.

The crack in Freddie’s chest, the one he’d papered over with work and quick fucks, split wide open as if it hadn’t ever healed.

Bowen paused at the threshold, nudging the door with her shoulder. “You coming in?”

Freddie didn’t move at first. Couldn’t. His body felt like stone, held together by instinct and uniform alone. For a second, he wasn’t a copper. Wasn’t anything. Just a man standing outside a room that had cracked open a past he wasn’t ready to face.

Then Nathan looked up.

Fifteen years of silence shattered in that glance…