Saturday morning I was woken by a knocking at my door. My eyes objected to the bright sunlight streaming through a gap in the curtains as I sat up in bed.

"Yeah?" I called out, my dry mouth not ready for a long conversation.

The door opened slightly, and Mrs Jones poked her head around it.

"Good morning, Olivia," she said, cheerfully. "Detective Collins has come to see you."

"Jay? What's he want?" I asked. My head was not awake enough to process enough thoughts yet.

"He just wanted to see you," said Mrs Jones. "He is in the kitchen when you are ready."

"Okay," I mumbled, as I flopped back down under the duvet. "Thanks."

Mrs Jones carefully closed the door and went back downstairs. I laid in bed for a moment, then rolled over to check the time. The clock said it was just before 9am, so still early for a Saturday.

I sighed, then rolled out of bed. I probably shouldn't keep Jay waiting too long if he wanted to see me. He probably had important police work that he needed to go and do, rather than waste all day on a social call.

For a moment, I considered getting dressed. But then realised that I would want to have a shower before I got dressed, so I decided to have breakfast first and shower later. So instead I just grabbed my robe and put it on over my pyjamas.

When I got down the stairs, I could see Jay sitting in the kitchen. He was at the table, and Mrs Jones was just pouring him a fresh cup of coffee. They both looked up as they heard me come down the stairs.

"Good morning, Jay," I said, cheerfully.

"Hi," he replied, in a more gruff and serious tone than he usually spoke with.

Mrs Jones poured out a cup of coffee for me as I sat at the table next to Jay. Then she brought me over a bowl of oatmeal with honey and raisins sprinkled on top.

"I'll just leave you to talk in private," she said, as she placed a spoon down in front of me.

"Thank you," said Jay, and he smiled at her as Mrs Jones left the room.

It seemed slightly unfair that he had smiled at Mrs Jones, when he had just acted so grumpy with me. It made me wonder if something was bothering him, or perhaps he had come to give me some bad news.

I noticed there was a large brown envelope on the table in front of Jay. Once Mrs Jones had gone, he reached out and slid it across the table towards me.

"You want to explain what this is?" Jay asked.

I shrugged. "An envelope?" I said.

Jay rolled his eyes at me. "I meant what's inside the envelope," he said.

"Oh, sorry," I said, as I reached out and picked it up.

I carefully opened the envelope and looked inside. There appeared to be a few photographs in there, so I tipped them out onto the table. When I did, I saw that it was photos of me and Lucas coming out of his club, and then more of us walking up the street holding hands.

"You wanna tell me what the fuck I'm looking at?" Jay said, in a quietly threatening voice.

"It's not what it looks like," I said, nervously.

"Really? Cos it looks like you getting friendly with the son of Dominic Salvatore," said Jay.

"No. Well, not really," I said. "I'm just pretending to be friends with him."

"Right, and why are you doing that?" he asked.

"It's what you told me before, about not having enough evidence," I said. "I thought if I was friends with Lucas then maybe I would get some evidence against him."

"Have you any idea how dangerous that is?" said Jay. His voice was raised, but he seemed like he was trying hard not to shout at me.

"I know, but it's fine. They don't suspect anything," I said.

"And how long do you think that is really going to last?" Jay asked.

"Well, I'm not sure," I said. "But I have it under control."

Jay sighed and then shook his head. He sat looking at the photos on the table for a moment, then quickly picked them up and put them back in the envelope.

"I promised to look after you," he said.

"I know," I replied.

"But I know you well enough to know how stubborn you are," he said.

"My mum always said it was my best feature," I said, my voice trembling as my thoughts touched on that sad memory.

"So whatever I say, you're going to keep seeing him, right?" Jay asked.

I shrugged. "Yeah."

Jay sighed. "Fuck," he said. "I don't really have a choice here."

"Well, not really," I said.

"If you are going to do this, you need to do it properly," said Jay. "You need to be wearing a wire at all times. And you will need me around to keep you safe."

"That sounds reasonable," I said.

Jay shook his head. "I don't think reasonable is the word I would use," he said.

Jay looked deep in thought as he paused to drink his coffee. I had a few mouthfuls of my oatmeal as I waited to see what else he had to say. It gave me a chance to consider what I had agreed to, as things had seemed to move quite quickly.

Having Jay to back me up did sound like it would be useful. I had been worried that he would just force me to stop, it hadn't occurred to me that he would offer to help. But what help would I need? He probably wouldn't give me a gun, but what else could I ask him for?

One thing that I hadn't dealt with yet was my identity. I had foolishly used my real name when I had applied for the job in the coffee shop, so now Lucas knew my name was Olivia. But he didn't know my surname yet. If he did, he would definitely connect me with the two other Browns he had just killed a few weeks earlier. What I needed was a different name to use. And possibly some kind of fake ID to go with it.

"Hey," I said. "Would you be able to get me a fake ID?"

Jay looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "Why, you wanna go out drinking?" he asked.

"No, I mean so I don't have to tell them my real name," I said.

Jay grinned. "Yeah, I know. I was messing with you," he said. "I can sort that out."

"Although, yeah, if you could change my age too, that would be good," I said. "I kind of told him it's my 21st birthday coming up in a few weeks."

Jay frowned and looked at me for a moment before sighing. "Yeah, I can do that," he said. "Just don't use it to buy any guns or alcohol, or we will both be in trouble."

I turned and looked down at my bowl of oatmeal. "Haha, yeah. I won't do any of that," I said.

Jay finished his coffee then stood up. He looked down at me for a moment, then shook his head again. "Just don't make me regret this," he said.

"I won't," I said.

Jay sighed, then reached out and patted me on top of the head. "Okay, I gotta get to work," he said. "Thanks for the coffee, and I'll come back when I've got everything ready for you."

"Okay, I'll see you soon," I said, then I jumped up and gave Jay a hug.

Once Jay had left, I finished off my breakfast. Then I headed back upstairs to get dressed.