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Halloween had passed, yet the spooky vibe lingered among the streets of Surrey as I drove to Thurrock to meet Dex for a job. Between traveling and working on preparing for a new volume of poetry, I’d blown off most of Dex’s calls.
I couldn’t keep this up, and Dex only grew more a
The group of men huddled around the bar at Jack’s Pub, and I spotted Adrian with an easy smile and glazed eyes. Dex and his two other men pushed drunken Adrian around in amusement, and I stood over them, most of the blokes shorter than me, to assess the situation.
Smith, one of his men, noticed me first and squeezed my shoulder. “Nice of you to show up, mate.”
“I was busy,” I said, my voice vacant. There were a million other things I’d rather be doing right now.
Dex stood from his barstool, and the men subconsciously took a step back. “How was the wedding?” he asked with an all-knowing grin. Bloody hell, he knew. And if it were up to me, and under entirely different circumstances, the whole world would know Mia Rose was my wife. I’d climb the tallest mountain with a smile and six-pack of Red Bull to chisel our two faces into the rock with those exact words etched above our heads. But this very news was enough for Dex to know how deep my love for Mia ran. It meant another card in his back pocket, and another lure to keep me coming back. His sinister gaze confirmed it. “Ah, I understand. Our friend here gets married,” he turns back to face me with a hand over my shoulder, “and what happens in Gibraltar, stays in Gibraltar.”
Smith slid a shot in front of me, and I picked it up and slammed the liquor down the back of my throat. “Something like that.”
Adrian shot up from his chair and held his drink above his head. “To endings and new begi
The next breath I sucked in filled me with guilt, and it slid down to my lungs and fed my heart. I pulled Adrian off to the side, and his dead stare never faltered. “How are you doing, my friend?” I asked, low, hoping he was sober enough to make conversation.
“Fuck you,” he spat, shrugging my arm away. “All this talk about brotherhood and trust, you’re just like the rest of them, so you know what? Fuck you, and fuck your new wife too.”
As soon as the words left him, my hand snapped over his jaw, squeezing it in a firm grip, and I twisted his head to the side and lowered my mouth to his ear. “You’re hurting right now, I know. I feel it, mate. But if you so much as disrespect her again, that pain your feeling? Nothing less than a glorious high compared to what I could do.”
Shoving Adrian’s head backward, I let go and returned my attention to the group. Dex’s gaze was fixed on me, an amused smirk playing behind his shot glass. I adjusted my hoodie before throwing my finger up for another drink. With Adrian drunk, James gone, I was on my own, and the night was still young—and a job still ahead.
After about an hour, I’d walked Adrian to my car and let him pass out in the backseat. Dex and I were going over plans. “The thing is, Ghost doesn’t make appointments. As soon as I get the time and address, I’ll call you, but you need to pick up your bloody phone,” Dex lifted his finger in my direction, “are we going to have any problems?”
“No.” I wanted this to end as much as he did, and I’d realized the only way for that to happen was to kill Ghost.
Dex rested his glass over the bar. “I’m going to need more than that.”
I leaned in and squinted my eyes. “You think I get off on your presence? I can’t fucking stand you. Trust me when I say, there won’t be problems. I’ll answer, kill that bastard, and be done for good. And if it were up to me, it would have been done months ago.”
“Situations such as these need pla
The thought of Mia ever losing me punched a hole in my chest. The pain and suffering I knew she’d face were enough to call back the fear. A month ago, I’d told her I wasn’t scared anymore. But I was a fucking liar. I was terrified. “Then why choose me to do your fucking bidding,” I nudged my head toward his entourage, “why not them?”
“It’s simple. If the plan goes up in flames, you’re disposable,” Dex scoffed. “Plus, don’t forget what I’ve done for you. You made your bed, now shut the fuck up and lie in it.”
“You still haven’t told me this plan of yours,” I pointed out.
“I’m working on it.”
Since Adrian was in no shape to take on the job tonight, I left him at the Links house and drove with Dex into BOG’s territory with Smith behind me in the backseat. Deliberately, Dex was moving his chess pieces across the board, taking out competition one by one. Once Ghost was killed, the BOGs would still be an issue on the east side of London. As far as I understood, no one within the Links knew of Dex’s devious betrayal aside from his i
This all started with me.
Me and my desperate deal to find Mia had been the first move in his inconspicuous game, giving Dex all the tools he needed to take over and light a match under the Links from the bottom.
Under Dex’s instruction, I turned off the headlights and pulled up to an abandoned warehouse on the opposite side of town. Magazines loaded, first round chambered, the ominous sounds of criminals handling illegal weapons played in the car, having a much better beat than any MGK song. Dex’s eyes slid over to me. “Going in clean, baby O?”
“I have one bullet, and I’m saving it for Ghost.”
Dex chuckled under his breath and turned to face Smith in the backseat. “Alright, simple grab and go,” he tossed black cloths over our laps, “we’ll take him back to the house and question him. They’ll be in the middle of a deal inside that building, and I prefer taking him after, not before. The other player can’t know.”
“Sounds easy enough,” Smith confirmed.
Then Dex added, “My sources say James may be with him for training, which could be a snag. And if that’s the case, we have to separate the two. Oliver, that’s where you come in. James is useless to us. He’s new and won’t know anything. After the buyers leave, we’ll snatch the BOG while you get rid of James.”
“What do you expect me to do with him?” I asked, having no intention of murdering anyone tonight, especially James. He may have been responsible for Reggi’s death, but I already had enough blood staining my conscience, and plans for the bullet burning a hole in my pocket.
Dex’s black brows pinched together. “I don’t care what you do with him. Kill him, turn his lights out, fuck him in the arse. Just be quick and get back to the car.”
The three of us abandoned the car and surrounded the building. I went in through the back while Dex and Smith went in from the side. Hidden behind a wall, I peeked around the corner to see four men in the middle of a drug deal, James present. I shoved the black cloth over my head and lifted the hood of my hoodie, spotting Dex through a window at the side door, waiting.