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I finish my tea and think about what she meant when she said Maddox and Zak had no choice. Then I think about what it means to have no choice. Is there always a choice? At what point do your choices become diminished by external factors or become no choice at all?
I had a choice when my mum became incapable of looking after me and Star. I had a choice when she died, when Star disappeared, but they aren’t a choice when the only other option is to starve, to become another statistic in the care system, to forget, to give up on the only person left in your family that means anything to you.
They’re not choices at all. They are the difference between life and death, good and bad. They are the decisions that determine who you are as a person.
So, the question is, what were Maddox and Zak’s choices when they cut me off, when they decided that a life of crime and murder was more appealing than the possibility of having me in their life and possibly making something better for us all?
I shake the thoughts from my mind because there is no good sitting here asking about what ifs and wondering about answers to questions only Maddox and Zak themselves can give me.
I rinse my cup and place it in the dishwasher, and when there’s still no sign of Zak returning, I dash upstairs to grab my phone and car keys.
I know Maddox told me I wasn’t to leave the house, but I think it’s already been established that I’m not good at following orders from anyone, particularly that man.
I need to go to the station anyway, and I now need to talk to Noah about how to keep Axel and Eva safe.
I slip out of the house, but when I reach the gate, I realise I don’t have a fob to open it.
“Shit!” I search the car, hoping that Zak dropped his but no luck. I’m just about to give up when the gates begin opening. Looking up as the creaking metal grinds against one another, I don’t see anyone there and no explanation for why the gates are opening. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I drive out.
The station is quiet when I arrive, something I’m thankful for. I can take a lot and have thick skin but knowing how some of my fellow officers will feel about me now is something I’m really not in the mood for.
I head straight for the DCI’s office, passing a couple of constables who watch me with hawk eye precision.
There’s a gruff command of ‘come in’ when I knock on the door. I push inside and halt when I see who is already there.
ChapterTwenty
Maddox
Iskid to a halt, kicking up gravel, outside the warehouse, which on the outside appears like any other. However, when I step inside, it’s a different matter altogether.
“Madd—”
I hold up my hand to Bowser, stopping him from spouting whatever shit was about to spill from his mouth. My eyes scan the warehouse, now empty bar one crate that sits innocuously in the middle of the room. The lid is sitting askew, and the once light wood is now stained a bright red. I step closer, making sure to avoid the growing puddle of blood seeping through the bottom of the crate.
“What’s in there?”
“No idea, Maddox. You told me not to touch anything.”
I step forward, and using the edge of my t-shirt, I flip the lid off. It lands with a loud clatter on the concrete.
Blank, dead eyes stare up at me from a familiar face inside the crate.
“Fucking hell!” As I look closer, I see an arm and fingers poking out at an impossible angle for a limb still attached to a body. Raw, bloody skin and muscle are visible where his head has been severed from his body. I feel Bowser leaning forward beside me as he looks at the head of Sammy nestled in the crate. A crate full of body parts left here as a message, a warning.
Sammy Evans and his brother, Tommy, have been runners for the past two years. I brought them in after Axel vouched for them. Looks like that was a huge fucking mistake on my part.
Zak suspects that Tommy tipped Rogers off about a meet we’d set up with a new supplier. It’s the reason we ended up using Kavanagh, which was something we’d never intended. Getting in bed with the Irish is never a good thing, but between Rogers and Bonner, we’d been left with no other choice. Zak and I suspect that pushing us in that direction is part of Rogers’ plan. Following the murder of Theo, Rogers’ father, it didn’t take long before the whispers of us ordering the hit on Theo began. The fact that the underworld knew of our fallout with Theo prior to his death meant that it wasn’t hard for Rogers to fuel the rumours and convince others we were to blame.
Bowser leans forward to look inside. “That’s gotta have been painful,” he jests.
“No fucking kidding, B. Now, get a clean-up crew here. And I want the name of the person you leased this building from by the time I get home.” I step back and inhale deeply, expelling the putrid, rotten flesh smell already beginning to pollute the air. “Where’s Rocky? You seen or heard from him since last night?”
“Yeah, called and checked in with him this morning. He’s fine based on the soft slurping sounds I could hear in the background,” Bowser says with a chuckle and adding, “Lucky bastard.”
We walk towards the exit as Bowser puts in a call for a clean-up team.
“You reckon Tommy knows his brother’s been chopped up into tiny little pieces?”
