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Chapter 5
Natasha
The flat had food in a cupboard. I had no idea what it was but I ate it anyway. Ryon didn’t come back all day. I guessed he had his own tasks to complete. His own mission. I’d been bored alone so I wandered around the area, getting a sense about what was where. Block upon block of the same rusting metal flats, with decaying waste dumped all around them. It was the sort of area even the bin lorries didn’t dare go.
I’d grown up somewhere like this in Glasgow.
They’d knocked it all down, now. Replaced it with cutesy buildings with landscaped communal gardens. They called them “apartments” instead of flats to make them sound American and exciting. Modern. And these weren’t given to people with nowhere to live. They were sold. For top money. Normal people had to wait years to be housed because the council houses were being knocked down and replaced with something more profitable.
I’d hated that fucking flat. And the losers my mum used to bring home. A new one every couple of weeks, sometimes, although she didn’t get rid of a couple of the tossers for several years. Some wanted a skivvy. Some wanted a fuck. Others wanted someone to beat up and terrorize. None of them wanted a kid around. Was it any wonder I’d taken off?
I saw a child sitting on some steps outside the entrance to one of the rusty blocks of flats. Dirty clothes. Scratching his head. Were the dark patches on his skin mud stains or bruises? It was impossible to tell.
“Got any whizz?” he called out to me.
I shook my head. Didn’t even know what whizz was. I carried on walking.
That evening, I met Jerel as the sky darkened and the heat of the day faded. The red streetlights were just coming on and once again, they bathed everything in a Hellish glow.
“We’re going to a big house in sector two,” he told me. “Whatever you do, don’t fuck it up. And if you get caught, don’t snitch.”
I nodded. Those were fairly obvious rules. The same everywhere.
“If you do, I’ll find you.” Fert had joined us. The muscles in the back of my neck tensed. “I’m like a ghost. Wherever you run, I’ll get you.”
Great. Another Marcus.
“You’re coming, too?” Jerel sounded surprised. I guessed it wasn’t usual for the boss’s personal bodyguard to go out on heists.
“Boss sent me. He wants to know the girl will pull her weight.”
Ghil was checking up on me. He’d know how the job went when he got his money, or whatever we were getting for him, but he seemed to need to knowhowI did it, too.
I hid my annoyance. I didn’t want Fert to report back that I had a bad attitude.
We got into a car. I didn’t recognize the driver. He took care and didn’t speed. I guessed he didn’t want to be noticed before the job had even been done.
The journey through the city was quicker than I’d expected. Sector one was pretty close to sector seven. It seemed so weird to me, after living all my life on the edges of Glasgow, miles out from the nicer houses, that rich and poor would rub shoulders like this. Surely the wealthy people would be getting robbed all the time if people like me could just walk to their houses?
The driver stopped, and Jerel motioned for me to get out. I did. We were surrounded by tall hedges and high metal railings.
“Get the gate open. Whistle when it’s done.” Jerel stayed where he was but pointed at the gate he wanted opening, which was about fifty feet away. Fert said nothing. For some reason that was a relief. Marcus would have been adding his own opinions about now, telling me how to do my job even though he’d never done it himself. I needed to remember they were different people. The only thing they had in common was their attitude to violence.
I walked to the gate with trepidation. I didn’t like working out in the open like this. Still, it was better than being killed. I got started, examining the lock from the outside.
Sliding one of the new tools into it, I felt around to get an idea of what I was dealing with. Once I’d worked that out, I added a second tool and found the pins. Pressed them. Turned the first tool.Click. The lock released. The gate moved. Withdrawing my picks carefully, I pocketed them then turned around. Whistled to Jerel. Leaned against the gatepost looking to any passing cars like I was supposed to be there.
Jerel and Fert joined me and we entered the garden.
“There’s a side door which isn’t overlooked by anything,” he told me as we got closer to the house. It was a proper fancy place. The metal walls had been painted shiny red and the windows were tinted black. The garden was fancy, too. The sort of place that would keep a gardener busy. Lots of plants.
When we got to the side door, I saw it had three locks. One was digital.
“Got the code for that one?” I looked over my shoulder. Jerel shook his head. Fert pointed his weapon at me.
“That’s your job, to get the locks open. Thought you said you could open anything.”
I lowered my gaze. “I can open anything that has a mechanism. That thing’s digital. You get that wrong, the law will be here before you can get out of the gate.” I didn’t really know that, but it sounded about right for the consequences of fucking with rich people.
