“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
He shakes his head and reaches out to tussle my hair roughly. I snarl at him, and he chuckles.
“You think you’re a smart lad,” he mutters. “And maybe you are.” He leans closer. “But not fucking smart enough.”
“Oy, let him fucking—”
“Shut your fuckin’ gob,” Basher hisses at Asa without turning. He keeps smiling at me, his head slowly shaking back and forth.
“Where is it?”
“Where the fuck is wha—”
His gun cocks, and suddenly, it swings to point right at my brother’s chest.
“Where the fuck is my coke?”
Cue record scratch. Cue my stomach dropping like fucking stone through the floor. Oh fuck.
“I’m counting to three, and then I’m going to start letting sunlight into your brother’s chest. Understand, cunt?”
Crystal. Beyond crystal.
“It’s gone.”
“Oliver!” Asa growls, but I ignore him. I’m reckless, I’m taking life at a breakneck pace without even knowing where the bloody brakes are. But I’m not going to watch my brother die here in this fucking warehouse.
“It’s gone,” I say again, my voice edged. “Sold.”
Basher’s mouth tightens. “Sold.”
I nod.
“To bloody who.”
“A guy in Camden.”
“Zamir,” one of Basher’s guys grunts. “Gotta be. He’s the only cunt out there with the kind of quid to pick up two kilos.”
“Find him and enlighten him about who he just stole from. Now.”
“On it, boss,” the guy nods, turning and fucking off.
Basher’s eyes hold mine, and he slowly shakes his head.
“You did a dumb thing, lad.”
You don’t know the bloody half of it.
But suddenly, he goes still.
“Where’s my fucking horse?”
Aw, shit. Big, big shit. I turn and glance at Asa, and his jaw tightens.
“Oh you fucked up now, son,” Basher says quietly. “Oh did you fuck up something wicked.”
This is end of the road territory. This isn’t a fuck-up or a misstep, this is a last step. I look at Asa, and we both know that this just went from us getting a beat down to us probably not leaving this warehouse alive.
I look at Basher, I look back as Asa. And I think we both get it at the same time. We both understand that this is fight or die—do or do not pass go and collect two hundred quid, ever.
“Fuck it,” I grunt.
I lock eyes with my brother, and he grins.
“Oy, fuck it, ay?” he chuckles.
I turn back to Basher and hold his gaze.
“Last chance, you little cunt,” he growls deeply. “Where’s the horse, and where’s my fucking money?.”
I nod slowly. “Okay, okay, just don’t hurt us.”
Basher’s crew snickers and laughs around us, and Basher himself chuckles deeply, his ruddy jowls flapping.
“Oy, son, we’re a bit past that I’m afraid. But I might just leave one of your fuckin’ hands attached if you start talking.”
“Okay, okay!” I nod empathetically. “It’s here. The money’s here.”
“Where?”
“It’s in my pants.”
He scowls. “Say what?”
“The money, it’s in my pants. Tucked it into my underwear.”
Basher’s scowl deepens, and his lips curl.
“So get it.”
I shrug, raising my shoulders as if to remind him that my arms are tied behind my back.
“Oh, fuck it,” Basher grunts.
And sure as shit, he actually goes for it. The dumb cunt starts to stick his hand into my belt, and he gets about as far as touching my pubic hair before I lose it. I start to fucking howl with laughter, and the stupid prick yanks his hand back, his face bright red.
“What the fuck is so fucking funny?!” he barks.
“Oy!” I laugh, glancing around at his crew. “Did this pervert just stick his hand down my fucking pants?”
His crew glances at each other. Basher just turns bright crimson with rage. He snarls and starts to haul back to pistol whip me again, but I stop him with just a few words.
“Do you know how old I am?”
Basher freezes, and it’s the only window Asa and I need. My brother moves first, and while all of Basher’s guys are staring in shock at what just happened, Asa wrenches free of the two blokes holding him and stomps down hard on both of their feet. Even I can hear the cracking of bones from where I’m kneeling.
But I don’t dwell, I lunge up and slam my head into Basher’s fat gut. The big cunt groans and doubles over, and I slam my shoulder into his nose, shattering it. He screams and drops his gun as he reaches for his face, and I kick it away before sweeping his legs. Asa roars and yanks a gun out of the back of one of the guys’ pants, and all of a sudden, he’s blasting away.
We’re way outnumbered, and it’s not like either of us can actually shoot for shit. But Asa empties enough rounds into the crowd of them that they all duck for cover, giving us the perfect opportunity to turn and fucking run.
Bullets whiz past us, and I don’t even realize I’m laughing until we smash through one of the boarded-up windows of the factory and go stumbling off into the dreary London night. We stop just once so Asa can cut my hands free, but then, we’re gone.
And I do mean gone.
Us and that hundred and forty thousand pounds head right to St. Pancras Station and get on the first train to Brussels. From there, it’s a quick hop to Dublin, and that’s where we fade into the underworld.
The money goes fast, because of course it does. We’re young, we’re dumb, and we think we’re untouchable. And that shit is gone in the blink of an eye. But at least speaking personally, it buys me a very, very important lesson: you go fast enough, and you go bold enough, and you’re untouchable.
That lasts me the next ten years, pretty much up until the very second I lay eyes on Delphine Armory.
Chapter Eight
Oliver
It’s close to five in the morning when I pull into the compound. I grin, even though my eyes are bleary, and the sun is rising, and I’m dead fucking tired. But I’m just grinning, because all I’ve got in my head is her.
The “compound” is the headquarters for the relatively new Lost Devils. It’s not like I ever pictured myself being in a motorcycle club, but it also makes complete sense. After all, I grew up racing and fiddling with anything I could get my hands on, and that’s when I got my first taste for speed on two wheels. Back in Shoreditch, it was shitty old BSAs and cobbled-together Triumphs.
And as for my life of… well, shall we say, “living outside the lines?” I guess that set me up for where I am now nicely. Back in Dublin, some of my shit finally caught up with me, and I ended up splitting and crossing the pond to America while Asa stayed back, working for some of the Irish crime families over there.
It was in the States that I linked up with Shepherd. We both got hired by these small-time, rival wannabe gangsters out of Detroit to rip off this jewelry store. You know when you just meet people and you know it’s meant to be? That’s how Shep and I were. Alright, first it was pulling guns on each other for breaking into the same spot. But then we clicked and started joking about it. After that, we realized both the guys who’d hired us were bloody incompetent twats, and paying us peanuts, and there we were in a store full of money.