“Drop your gun,” I demanded to the other man who couldn’t decide on where to point the barrel, waving it back and forth. He knew it was over, but it seemed as if something else was holding him back. “Drop it!”
“I can’t let you walk out of here with everything. They’ll kill us. Either way, we’re dead. I’d rather take a bullet from you than find out what they’d do to us.” The young BOG was scared. He’d rather die a quick and painless death than suffer the consequences of their failure from their boss.
The gun in my hand was pointing at the young Blood curled up on the floor. James and Adrian had theirs aimed at the only one left standing, shaking with a pistol in his hand. The BOG wouldn’t pull the trigger or draw attention to the house. The last thing the gang needed was the police to know one of their locations. “James, tie him up.” I nudged my head to get him to start moving. Time wasn’t in our favor.
James walked toward him and pressed the tip of the barrel against his temple as Adrian pushed his gun into his waistband before snatching a nearby wooden chair. I used my free hand to retrieve my mobile from my front pocket to send a quick text to Reggi, advising him to pull the car into the garage.
After my men cleared the house and James confiscated all weapons, drugs, and money, I approached the two BOGs tied to the chairs. “Get out of this life,” I advised, throwing my fist into one’s jaw to show he took one for the team. The one with the broken arm growled as Adrian secured his ties. “You both are still young. You have a whole life ahead of you.”
I left him with a swollen eye and a mouthful of blood.
Before we made it back to Dex and his crew, I’d driven us down an abandoned alleyway. Neither of them questioned my motives for taking them here. At this point, all three of them already looked up to me, putting their lives in my hands, which was a hefty burden to carry.
The car stopped behind the factory.
We’d lived a few blocks from here, and on nights my mum brought a punter home, and Oscar was gone, I’d collect pebbles, climbed the scaffold, and threw them into the barrels below. On other nights, when my emotions got the best of me, I’d climb to the top until I’d made it to the roof with a book folded into the waistband of my pants. I’d spent many nights in the sky reading until reading turned in to writing. “One day you’ll look back and realize it wasn’t all for nothing,” had been my first entry. At the age of twelve, I still had hope.
“What are we doing here?” Adrian asked beside me.
“Stay in the car.” I exited the driver’s side and walked around to the back and popped open the trunk. One by one, I threw the bags of drugs into a rusty barrel.
Despite my instruction, Reggi, Adrian, and James retreated from the car and stood off to the side, watching in an uneasy silence.
“Dex isn’t going to like this,” James pointed out.
The order was to bring everything back to him tonight, but I had other plans. These drugs were mixed incorrectly—deadly. Kids were overdosing on a single candy. I had to make sure to dispose of them.
Wordlessly, I searched for my pack of cigarettes in my pocket and pulled one to my mouth, lighting it before throwing the match into the barrel. I didn’t have gasoline to speed up the process. The burn was slow, consuming, and together we waited until the fire died, and drugs turned to ash before we got back inside the car.
“You burned all of it? The fucking money too?” Dex pounded his clenched fist over the counter before running his hands through his hair. It was no longer slicked back and stiff, but now falling off to the sides. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
Dex wasn’t alone when we arrived. The two men I’d seen the first night at Jack’s were here with him but had walked off into another room under Dex’s orders. He didn’t want them to witness this conversation until he understood how to handle it.
“Yes, I saved your arse. Tell your boss you ordered me to destroy it. The drugs were bad, literally killing business. It was the Bloods mistake in the first place. The Links have something better. A reason to come back for more,” still drugs, but change didn’t happen in one night, “As for the money, it was more of a bitch slap. The Links made a statement. We don’t need their fucking money.”
“How do I know you didn’t keep it for yourself?”
“I have three witnesses. Go check the fucking car. It’s gone. I’ll escort you to the barrel where we watched it burn to nothing.” I did the right thing.
“I have to make a call,” Dex gritted out before disappearing behind the back door out to the garden.
James, Adrian, and Reggi took to the couch, already celebrating with a cheap bottle of vodka. Too bothered to sit, I waited in the kitchen, my elbows digging into the island, separating me from the three I grew a liking to. The night had started with Reggi and James arguing over a girl, and ended with smiles stretched across their faces as Reggi slapped his hand over his knee, laughing over, I’m sure to be, a terrible joke.
Minutes passed, and Dex returned from his phone call in a lighter mood as well. A hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. “Bossman likes your crazy arse,” he said through a chuckle with a cigarette between his lips. “And since you are making decisions of your own around here, needs you to approve this,” he held up a white pill between us, “the future.”
Our eyes locked. “Hard pass.”
Dex’s two other mates walked in from a room in the back and joined us in the kitchen.
“Did you hear that, mate?” Dex laughed. “Baby Oscar believes he’s in control.” The men cackled. The pressure rose. And my eyes bounced between the three of them. Laughter rolled in from my boys in the living room behind us. “Take the fucking candy, so we can get this party started. You raided the BOGs, mate. Time to celebrate,” Dex pressed. His entourage popped the pill into their mouths and chased it with a beer. “See? Nothing dodgy here.”
I took the pill from his fingers and said a silent prayer before putting it over my tongue. One of the men slid a beer across the counter. It stopped in front of me. I pulled it to my lips and swallowed the pill. “I’ll make a few calls,” Dex slapped his palm against my back, “Let’s have some music going.”
More bodies crammed into the small space of the house. Someone had moved the plastic outside chairs indoors. I was sitting in one of them, my limbs heavy and hanging over the arms of the chair with a cup in my hand. Music thumped in my ears, an eccentric yet hypnotic beat, as girls danced in tight skirts in the middle of the floor. Although it took vast effort, I turned my head to face the boys who counted on me. Adrian’s gaze slammed into mine, and he leaned over and flicked ash from his cigarette into the tray sitting on the coffee table. Reggi sat beside him with his eyes glued to a girl’s arse as James enjoyed a lap dance from a pretty little brunette. Dex had already taken one of them into another room, I’m sure for a smash, and his two men were in the kitchen drinking.
I’d managed to climb to my feet, but the living room swayed, and the crowd tripled. I needed to get out of here. I needed to make it to my car and pass out there. I needed to breathe.
My mobile was no longer in my pocket, but my keys were.