Benito trusted them too, or perhaps he didn’t care. For the split second their lips pressed together, he kissed Mickey back as though starved of oxygen and Mickey was his only source of air.
Then he was gone.
16
Mickey’s goodbye kiss was seared on Benito’s soul. Lips tingling, he melted into the night and returned to his own car. He’d left it outside the fried chicken shop, not giving a single fuck about the baby road boys and slingers gathered near it, but as he got closer, fresh paranoia licked at his veins. Cloaked in darkness, kissing Mickey by the garages had felt safe. Right, even. Fuck, nothing about kissing Mickey had ever felt wrong. But now they were apart again, the danger of it hit Benito square in the gut. You’re a fucking idiot. If Asa’s got eyes on you, he’s got eyes on Mickey too.
Nauseous, Benito slid behind the wheel of his car. The lie he’d told Mickey crushed his chest, and the ache to put it right burned. So put it right. Tell him the truth and walk away. Keep him safe.
But if Asa already knew about Mickey, it would make no difference. The connection was out in the wild to stay. Benito had taught Asa that. And Dante, when he’d convinced the older Pope brother to go after the only man his little brother Luis had ever loved. Karma’s a bitch. You deserve this shit.
Maybe.
But Mickey didn’t.
Benito started the car and drove away from Barnfield in a daze, heading to the city centre for the first pick up of a long night on the road. He hit the dual carriageway and opened the windows, blasting the scent of cigarette smoke with fresh air so he wouldn’t break his five-star streak on the Uber app.
He hit the city and collected his first fare, a couple who hopefully wouldn’t screw on his backseat like another had last week, while Benito had driven on, silent and fuming in the front. He was a stoic taxi driver—discreet and non-verbal—but every man had his limits, and unsolicited p-in-the-v action in his car was one of Benito’s, apparently.
The fare took him to Newport Pagnell and past Mickey’s gym. Despite seeing him less than an hour ago, Benito’s chest tightened with longing, a deep, deep yearning that merged with fear and anxiety until he choked on it.
Unsettled, he drove on, back to Milton Keynes and out east towards Bedford. It was a journey he made four times before the burner phone rang in the early hours of the morning.
Startled, though he couldn’t say why, Benito pulled over and answered it. “What?”
“End game,” his contact whispered. “Asa’s made me, so I have to get away. I’m leaving tonight with every fucking penny I can find. Where’s my cut from the last few months?”
Benito tensed, every nerve strained to breaking point. “Somewhere safe. Let me know when you land and I’ll get it to you.”
“I need it now.”
“That can’t happen. If you’ve been made, they’ll be watching you. We can’t meet until the heat dies down.”
“We don’t have to meet. Just leave it somewhere for me.”
“No.”
Silence.
Then a snatched intake of breath. “You’re not understanding me. If I can’t get my money, I can’t get away, which means I’ll have to open my fucking mouth to protect myself.”
“You think Asa won’t whack you if you give me up?” Benito laughed without humour. “Damn, you’re a fucking idiot.”
“At least I’ll know you’re not sitting pretty with all my cash.”
“You won’t know anything. You’ll be pig feed on his uncle’s farm.”
“He doesn’t do that.”
“Doesn’t he?”
More silence. It was the worst game of chicken Benito had ever played. Whichever way it fell, he lost.
He stifled a sigh. “Look, I can’t help you tonight, but if you tell me how I can finish this shit for good, I’ll give you everything you’re owed and more as soon as it’s done.”
“You can’t finish it. Don’t you get it? It’s too big. He’ll snuff you out like you’re nothing.”
“I am nothing,” Benito snapped. “I just need—” Fuck. He pressed his fist to his mouth, swallowing a shout of frustration. “Okay,” he tried again. “I’m hearing you. I’ll get you what you need tonight, but you’ve gotta give me something in return. Anything.”
“I don’t know anything. That’s how I know they’ve made me. They shut me out.”
“Who’s they?”
“Asa and his boys—Nino and Tariq.”
“Nino Moretti?”
“Yup.”
Benito whistled softly. “I thought he was just a weed slinger.”
“He was, then him and Asa got tight. Pretty sure he’s the one fronting the next product run. Asa don’t trust no one else.”
Benito turned it over in his mind. He barely remembered Nino Moretti. Somehow, over the past few months, faces that had once been razor sharp had blurred to become almost meaningless. Only Mickey’s face came to him with ease—his slate grey eyes, sandy hair, and his rough, sexy grin. Benito saw it in his dreams, awake, asleep, always.
“You still there?”
Benito nodded slowly. Finish this. “Tell me everything you can about Moretti, then we’ll arrange the drop.”
Cherry Bank Way. Three miles outside London, the sprawling industrial estate was a place Benito had spent more time than he cared to admit. He knew it like the back of his hand.
He also knew it was three miles too close to the city he was forbidden to enter without a parley with Asa Gerrard. “Stay out of London . . .” Benito shivered, and not from the cold, though the battered Ford Fiesta he was currently holed up in was the worst car he’d commandeered so far—damp and draughty. Even the gear stick was mouldy. But it ran, and it was nondescript enough that no one noticed it had been parked in the same space on the industrial estate for nine hours.
Nine long hours that felt like years.
Benito blew warm air onto his frozen fingers and flexed them, trying not to wish he was in the SUV he’d abandoned earlier that day. Heated seats. Windows that closed all the way to the top. A steering wheel that didn’t seem perilously close to falling off.
Was it all for nothing?
Hours ago, Benito might’ve feared it was, but in the last ten minutes, things had changed. Across the darkened car park, a thrum of activity had sprung up around the loading bay of a faceless unit. A BMW backed up to the loading bay, boot open, wheels off, while men moved with a silent efficiency and rhythm Benito knew all too well.
They’re loading up.
Better still, after twenty-four hours of stalking the locations his contact had named, Benito’s target, Nino Moretti, was front and centre, getting his hands dirty like a man who knew he’d bear the consequences if shit went south. If he’d needed confirmation this was Asa’s run, this was it. Benito wished he couldn’t see Moretti’s face, though. His strained shoulders. The tightness around his eyes. Damn. How many times had Benito been in his position? Worse, how many times had he dumped it on other people with no care to what happened to them beyond how it affected his own agenda?