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Both. In equal measure, because after every joke, there’s a move that’s going to be grim. So I shift slightly to the right, just as he flies past me, taking the bloody tongue of the non-squealer with his fingers and pulling it out, inserting the letter opener over and over again.
“So we’re just going to kill you now,” I say calmly, turning my stare back to my man, tightening the belt until his eyes start bulging and his face turns red. I look straight into his eyes, making sure he can see me, my whole miserable history parading through my mind in slow motion, cruelly reminding me of every dismal detail. My father’s happy face the last time I saw it at the dinner table, his family surrounding him. My mother’s priceless pearl necklace that she constantly fingered while engaged in deep conversation. My sister’s crafty smile when Mum slapped the back of her hand for helping herself to the Eton Mess before Dad. She loved Eton Mess. My family. Wiped out.
I blink back the flashbacks, tightening the leather. Vessels start to burst in the whites of the Russian’s eyes, tiny red cracks visibly branching. I see it clearly, like a close-up, like the growth of roots being recorded and sped up. His lips turn blue. His body jerks a couple of times before going limp. I don’t realize I’m holding my own breath until I release the belt and exhale heavily, starting to heave on my chair. I thrust him back violently and stand, filling my hands with a glass and a bottle, pouring and necking.
“You okay?” Brad asks, killing the silence.
I gasp and slam down the vodka and tumbler, bracing my hands on the edge of the cabinet. “Never better.” Pulling myself together, I face Otto. “Get in that phone and send a message confirming delivery of the gun. Call Green and tell him to be in touch the moment he finds out why the fuck he’s been sent a gun.”
“Done.”
“Anyone else feel like we need a diagram of this web?”
Every man and woman in the room spring to life. “Yep,” Danny says, coming to me and rubbing at my shoulder, not saying a word, but just . . . acknowledging where I’m at.
“A diagram.” Brad coughs, grimacing as he passes the dead guys, reaching past me for the Scotch. “A diagram and a drink.”
“I’ll get some paper,” Ringo adds, starting to rummage through the drawers of Danny’s desk.
“Who’s playing artist?” Otto starts pulling chairs from everywhere in the room, positioning them around the desk.
“Me.” Goldie takes the paper from Otto and collects a pen. “Women are better hand writers than men.”
“You want to be a woman when it suits you,” Ringo mutters.
“Shut up or I’ll stab you in the eye.” Goldie sits down, and we all join her as she draws a circle at the top of the page and writes—very neatly, it must be noted—The Bear in the center. Then three lines from there. In one, The Snake (Deceased), in another, The Shark, and in the final one, The Ox.
Irish, Polish, and Russians.
Drugs, women, and guns.
“These three,” she says, pointing her pen to the animals, “answer to him.” She points to The Bear at the top.
“Could be a woman,” Ringo says casually. “I’m deeply offended by your assumption.”
I hold back my chuckle, feeling the stress leave me. Every other man in the room, however, does not.
I pluck the pen from Goldie’s hand before she follows through on her threat and sinks it into the eye socket of any one of her tormentors. I rest it on The Snake and draw a line down from there, adding a circle at the end and writing “The Alligator AKA Vince Roake. Incarcerated” in the middle, and another line from there. “The Dodo. Deceased,” I say quietly.
“So the drug supply must be down,” Brad muses.
I pull a line down from The Shark, adding The Fox Deceased and The Hound reaching for the paper and pointing at The Ox. “We know Volodya and Sandy are under him.”
“And this is just the tip of the fucking iceberg,” Brad says, exasperated. “What about all the minions sprouting off all these circles of animals? I mean, he took James’s family out in London ten years ago, for fuck’s sake.”
I rest back in my chair, thoughtful, running over so many of my hits. “He took them out. He didn’t need to be anywhere near London to order the kill. He likes bombs. He wants rid of me because I threaten him.” I look at Danny. “He wants rid of you because you threaten his empire. He had police inside. Might do again now. He didn’t buy Byron’s Reach. Why? He’s got the Russians, the Poles, and the Irish under his control. Fuck knows how many others outside the country.”
