“Y-yes.”
“My sister?”
“Please…”
I nod coolly, accepting the guilt behind his petition, and then I go to work.
After ten minutes, I’m chucking a couple of severed digits down on the counter in front of Viper. He moved behind the bar when I started carving out Ronan’s second eye, and now he’s swigging from the single malt. I can tell he’s impressed. His men are, too. No one said a word the whole time I was playing surgeon on a screaming, conscious patient.
“What the hell am I meant to do with them?” he says, flicking them back at me, one at a time, before holding out a crisp, folded ten-pound note.
“Make yourself a fucking necklace.” I take it and reach for my suit jacket. Shrugging it over my shoulders, I fix the front button to hide the worst of the bloodstains on my white shirt.
“And here was I thinking the Riviera was all sun, sea, and making dirty money.” He chucks me a bar cloth to wipe my bloody hands on. “Turns out, a lot more goes on behind those gold doors than I realised.”
“You should see what I have planned for Semenov and O’Sullivan. Pass me a couple of cokes from the fridge under the bar, would you?”
“To sweeten the kill?” He flips the lids off with his teeth and places the bottles on the counter.
“Something like that.” I down the first, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “From now on this casino is called The Red Encore. We clean it up, add a couple of fancy new signs, and reopen for business in five days. That gives us enough time before Santiago arrives to get this place operational again.”
Sweeping Ronan’s severed fingers onto the carpet, Viper leans forward and rests his elbows on the bar. “What about the Gambling Commission? They’re going to want to come down here and check us out.”
“Leave them to me. I’m used to making corporates dance. I handled all the casinos in Monaco for Aiden, so I know who to bribe and who to ignore. Speaking of which, Silas Hunter has photos of the Deputy Assistant Commissioner at the Met snorting coke off a naked woman who wasn’t his wife. I’ll turn the screws and keep the heat off this place. Same with those married politicians at the same party who should have known better.” I shoot him a rare smile. “Turns out, it was one hell of a night for us all.”
“And this horse race on Thursday?”
“We’ll put on a couple of new suits and check it out discreetly.” I catch him rolling his eyes. “And yes, that includes wearing a shirt.”
“What if O’Sullivan finds out about this?” He jerks his head behind him.
“My guess is he’ll be too distracted by Mario’s arrival and whatever the hell this meeting is about for the next two days to worry about Guido Rossi’s old crew. Every official name attached to this place is fake.”
“I called a couple of my old man’s East End contacts. O’Sullivan’s been squeezing them dry for years, playing Lord and Master with his protection fees, then flooding the market with bad blow. Any hint of dissent, and their legitimate businesses get torched.”
“Good. This is what Santiago wants: a city on the brink of revolution, but not breaking. You good to clean up? I need to sort something out before we leave.”
He nods, checking his phone. “Crew’s already on the way.”
Collecting the remaining coke, I cross the gaming floor to where Bambi’s sitting. Sliding into the dealer’s chair opposite her, I hold up the bottle. “Truce?”
Her gaze slowly lifts from the laptop screen, her witchy green eyes zeroing in on the coke first and then to my face.
Damn, those Razors have some strong genes.
Slowly, she removes one AirPod and then the other, but she doesn’t take the drink.
“I don’t like Coca Cola.”
“It’s a peace offering.”
“Didn’t think we were at war.”
“First rule of any conflict is to psyche your enemy out.”
“Nope, it’s to steal their car keys.”
Touché.
Taking the hint, I place the bottle down next to her laptop. This kid’s going to make me work for it. My bad first impression isn’t about to be erased on the strength of a free soda.
“You like computers?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
She aims those mean greenies at me again. “When they start talking at you it’s really easy to press ‘mute’.”
“Fair enough.” I can feel the corners of my mouth twitching. “How long have you lived with Danny?”
“Don’t know a ‘Danny’.” She sniffs, her gaze dropping to her laptop screen again.
Dismissed. Fuck you.
“Viper, then,” I correct, gritting my teeth.
“Long enough to know I don’t want to go to some shitty children’s home anytime soon.”
“Language,” I murmur.
“Lack of morality,” she quips back, looking pointedly at the bloodstains on my hands. “Are you done killing that man?”
“For now. Does it bother you?”
“Nope.” She pops the ‘p’ like it’s another piece of bubble gum. “He deserved it.”
Her dyed pink hair is almost fluorescent in this light, making her look older. She can’t hide the sweet freckles on the bridge of her nose though, or the fresh-faced-no-make-up thing she has going on. I hope that never changes, but I doubt it. Her innocence is a suit of armour that’s slowly being eroded by this fucked-up world of ours. I don’t care what Viper says. We need to get her out of London before all hell breaks loose.
“What did they do to you?”
“Bad things,” I say, looking away.
“To you, Viper, and the dance school lady?”
I go to ask her how she knows who Ada is, then remember she was the one who hacked the video feeds in suburbia.
“And to your stepdad’s family. And to mine.”
“He’s not my stepdad.”
“Okay, then, your guardian,” I say, craving another cigarette. This kid is giving me a toothache.
She suddenly grins at me—a pure, unfiltered reaction that’s dangerously infectious. “You know the word ‘guardian’ makes him sound like an angel, right?”
Glancing over her shoulder, I see Viper instructing his men to dump the bodies on the way back to my townhouse in Bethnal Green.
Angel of Death maybe.
“Perhaps it’s best if we leave the angel stuff to you.” Pulling out my cigarettes from my inside pocket, I toss them onto the gaming table between us. “Viper and I will be heading somewhere else for our extended epilogue.”
“You mean Africa?” Her squeak of excitement makes me pause. “I hear that’s where loads of criminals go when they’re hiding out from the law.”
No, sweetheart, not Africa. It’s someplace even hotter than that.
“You like Africa?” I ask, spying a middle ground on the horizon and running for it. Why? I have no idea. There are a million other things I need to be doing right now to wipe the letters and numerals off the Red Compass. Instead, I’m sitting here talking to Bambi because her company is mildly entertaining, and it’s a welcome reprieve from all the sinning.