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“Why are you holding out on me?” she asks, her eyes narrowed playfully.
I sigh. “I’m not. Ma worked hard to raise us alone. She did good. Arthur saw an opportunity to get us some money because Ma struggled with four hungry boys, and the rest is history.”
“I only ever knew club life,” she offers. “I don’t remember a time when it was ever just me and Mum. There was always some guy or a club. She’d work her way through it, and then we’d move again. When she found The Perished Riders, it was the first time we’d settled properly. We had our own rooms and there were kids my age. It was nice . . . for a while.”
“What changed?” I ask.
She shrugs, inhaling sharply. “Life, I guess. I’m stuffed. Thanks for dinner, it was amazing.” She pushes her half-eaten dinner away. “I should go.”
“Where?” I ask.
“Home.”
“Stay.” It slips out before I can stop it.
She half laughs. “Why? We’ve had dinner, we did the sex.” She stands, and I resist the urge to yell, because for once, it’d be nice not to have to convince her to do what I know deep down she wants to do.
My mobile rings, and she glances at the screen seeing as it’s nearest her on the kitchen worktop. She arches a brow. “Lauren,” she says.
I shrug. “I’ll call her back.”
She picks up my phone and hands it to me. “Take it,” she says firmly.
I cancel the call. “I’ll call her when I’m working.”
“Bert, you’re a gangster, you’re always working. Call her back.”
“I’m not doing this with you, Rosey,” I snap, frustration evident in my voice. “She probably wants to cancel the hit anyway.”
“How did you meet her?” she asks.
“I thought you wanted to go home?”
She taps her fingers on the tabletop. “Have you known her long?”
“I told you earlier, she hired us, I don’t know her at all.”
Rosey narrows her eyes again. “Who told her about you? I thought you had people to do the meets for that sort of thing. Why are you taking a risk to meet her face to face?”
I sigh heavily. “I’m not doing it, Rosey. Go home.”
She shrugs. “Fine, I’ll find out myself.” She heads for the door, and I groan aloud.
As she reaches it, her mobile rings, but she closes the door before I find out if she bothered to answer.
ROSEY
“Archer?”
“Rosey,” he whispers, “I need your help.” His voice is shaky, uncertain even, and my heart rate immediately picks up.
“Send me your location, I’ll be there,” I say.
“I don’t know where I am, that’s the problem, and I don’t have my smart phone, just the burner.”
The door to Albert’s house opens and he grips my arm, pulling me back inside and slamming it closed. “Bert, not now, I gotta go,” I tell him. He takes the mobile from me and disconnects the call. “What the fuck?”
“You can’t go to him,” he says firmly. “It’s too late.”
