Foreword
Welcome back to the Darkest Skies world. As with Redemption, Deliverance is set in modern-day South-East England and uses street slang that international readers may not be familiar with.
“Road man” and “on the road” refer to gang life. Similarly, when you see the police being referred to as “feds,” it simply means the regular police, not the American FBI. “Ends” means the neighbourhood where you’re from. Like, if you were from Queens or Brooklyn or Lambeth, that would be your ends.
Like Redemption, it goes without saying that street talk is fluid. If you’re reading this beyond 2021, it’s likely that language has, as it always does, moved on.
Also, a note on the use of “poppers” in this book: At present, they’re legally sold in the UK under various and ever-changing guidelines to what they can be called. They are widely used in the queer community as a safe enhancement to a healthy sex life. I haven’t written them into many books, but it would be an inaccurate representation to pretend they don’t exist at all, so you will find the occasional sprinkle of them in this book.
1
It was a zombie knife. Curved and spiny, as the blade pierced Benito’s skin.
Blood oozed, thick and red, and the sight of it shocked him, though it shouldn’t have. He’d been running from the knife his whole life.
Metaphorically.
Literally.
At this point, who the fuck cared?
Not him. Only the anger coursing through his juddering heart exposed him as a liar.
You killed the wrong king. Figuratively speaking . . . that was the right adverb, right? If Dante Pope wasn’t dead?
Stop thinking about Dante Pope. It ain’t him that just shanked you.
Benito forced his eyes open, and a gasp rattled through him. Blood dripped down his torso, soaking into the grimy floor of the abandoned warehouse. Dizziness set in, unnerving him more than the searing pain radiating from his left side, and panic hit him, sharp, cruel, and more painful than any blade. His cool head was his best weapon, and it was slipping away.
Everything was slipping away.
I just want to sleep.
Cold laughter kept him awake.
Grinning, Asa Gerrard crouched in front of him, still clutching the zombie knife. “I like this version of you. It’s better than not knowing your plays before they happen, even when you tell me all about them.”
Benito swallowed a groan and spat on the floor. “It’s not my fault you’re too slow to keep up.”
“Wasn’t tonight, though, was I? Kept up with you just fine. And here we are.”
Asa’s smirk grew.
Benito shivered. “What do you want?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Whacking you would be the easiest option. Then I’d never have to think about you again.”
“Do it then.” More blood poured from Benito’s mouth, choking him. “I don’t care.”
“You see, that’s the problem, though, ain’t it?” Asa twirled the knife in his hands. “You do care. About someone. You love them. And that makes you too useful to kill.”
Benito’s heart jolted against his throbbing ribs. He searched for the emptiness he carried on the street. The echoing chamber his heart had become when he wasn’t around the only soul on earth he cared about. “Whatever, mate. I’m a selfish motherfucker. When have you ever seen me be anything else?”
“Last week.”
Asa’s tone was casual.
Too casual.
A growl built in Benito’s chest. “You’re full of shit, Gerrard, unless you’re talking about me boning your girl every Friday night.”
“I don’t have a girl,” Asa retorted. “So whatever bitch you’ve been drilling is nothing to me. Nah. I’m talking about the pretty brunette who takes the bus to St. Marc’s High School every day from Barnfield Court flats in Bletchley. And her mum who walks the red ways to Santander five days a week. You care about them, right? Your mama and your baby sister?”
Benito closed his eyes, unable to watch as it dawned on Asa that he’d hit gold. The jackpot of Benito’s heart that he couldn’t give up.
Asa said more words, but Benito couldn’t hear them over his stampeding pulse.
Rough hands lifted him from the ground and dragged him outside. They threw him in the back of a van and drove through the night. It was dawn when Benito woke up.
Fresh muscle ripped the van doors open. New faces Benito didn’t know.
He sat up, wrapping an arm around his injured torso. There were two of them, an easy win on a good day—but this wasn’t a good day. It was the worst day of his life.
The biggest goon seized Benito’s arms and yanked him forward. “I got a message for you,” he gritted out, “in case you don’t remember what the boss said.”
Boss. Benito almost laughed. Asa, man. How long have you wanted this?
Long enough to find Benito’s weakest link.
Benito leaned heavily against the van door. “Get it over with. I got places to be.”
“Right, Martell. Like you’re going anywhere but a surgeon’s table to sew your guts back in.” The man pointed over his shoulder. Milton Keynes General loomed in the distance, and any hope Benito had that Asa had been bluffing died a thousand times.
They brought me home.
“Oi. Wake up.” The man slapped Benito’s face. “And listen. Stay out of London and off the road. Asa says you can live round here so he knows where to find you if he needs you. But stay out of business or you’re a dead man.”
Benito did laugh this time. “Why not kill me now then? Asa doesn’t need me. Isn’t that what this bullshit is all about?”
Another slap hit his face, harder this time. “This ain’t no bullshit, Martell. You’re on retainer. If you want out for good, you gotta pay. A hundred Gs. That’s the price, in cash, product, or fucking blood, else you rot here and spend the rest of your miserable life looking over your shoulder.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Don’t what?”
“Look over my shoulder. What if I come for your boss in his bed at night and slit his fucking throat?”
The new muscle grinned, showing his missing teeth. “Then your pretty little sister dies. Remember that when you’re dreaming of me.”
2
Tower blocks never changed. Cityscapes could paint a picture of culture and fortune and the ambitions of a hotshot architect, but the bleak concrete towers on working-class housing estates were always the same. London. Birmingham. Milton Keynes. Every place Benito Martell had ever lived. Nothing. Ever. Changed.
The forbidding block in front of him was no exception. Grimy inside and out until people opened their doors and invited you in, it was pretty much the last place on earth Benito wanted to be.
Fucking Bletchley. How did I end up back here?
He knew the answer to that better than he wanted to. He’d fucked up. Shown weakness. And now he was holed up in his car outside Barndale Court flats, watching over two of the only souls he’d ever cared about, guilt eating his heart that the life he’d led on a shitty housing estate elsewhere had put them at risk. You’re a road man. What did you expect? That Asa would treat you better than you treated anyone else?