His painstaking plans jumbled and blurred. Benito shook his head to clear it, but in place of clarity came the plea he’d gone to sleep with a few short hours ago.Leave it alone.More than a warning, it was a clarion call from his soul, and the voice in his heart wasloud.
But not loud enough.
I have to do this.
* * *
Benito was a patient man. It was what made him dangerous on the street, and sitting in another fake-named cash-bought car in a dark, disused farm entrance. So far, three ridiculous decoy vehicles had passed him, blacked-out windows, lowered suspensions, and spoilers like supermarket trolleys. They were trying to draw him out. Trouble was, they’d chosen cars Benito was familiar with as bait. Cars he’d noted and remembered five fucking years ago when Asa’s thick-as-shit cousin had bought them and spent his days burning around the tower blocks scouting for weed and pussy.
People are fucking stupid.
Or maybe they didn’t have memories as long as Benito’s. After six hours in the unheated Corsa, he couldn’t decide who was winning.
I’m fucking hungry.
Same shit, different day.
Another vehicle passed the dead-end lane. Benito sat up and peered over the steering wheel. It was a beat-up van playing rave music. Not even Asa’s current muling crew would’ve been dumb-fuck enough to move product in that. Unless it was an audacious double bluff, in which case, he was inclined to let them have it, just for the fucking balls of it.
The van’s tail lights faded. Benito finished his second Red Bull and crushed the can in the palm of his hand.
He tucked it into his jacket pocket and tugged the zip closed. A lorry rumbled past and then a couple more boy racers in Subarus. A heartbeat later, a nondescript people carrier slid by, quiet and five below the speed limit.
Instinct nipped at Benito’s gut. He started the Corsa’s engine and waited for the silver Zafira to disappear around the bend. Then he flicked the lights on half beam and eased out of his hiding place.
The Zafira hadn’t got far, as if it had been waiting for him to follow. Tense, Benito pulled his black woollen hat lower and hung back, keeping a sharp eye out for other vehicles as he tracked the people carrier down the narrow country road, twisting and turning along a nonsensical route that made the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end.
Leave it alone.The instinct held more gravity now than ever, but Benito drove on, following the Zafira cross country for twenty miles in the wrong direction. Despite the strain in the air, the drive was uneventful enough for his mind to drift. Hiscrowdedmind. Even when he’d spent his days controlling the micro-kingdom he was now stalking through the back roads of nowheresville, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d had more to think about. Rosetta. Gianna. Debts that weren’t his own and yet still weighed so heavily on him he could barely breathe.
Mickey.
Benito’s heart skipped a beat. They’d spoken on the phone three times since their brittle parting at the motorway caff, and each time, Mickey had been all business while Benito had gripped his phone so tight he was surprised the screen was still intact. They’d talked about Rosetta’s payment plan, her mental health, and processing the Universal Credit application. Well, Mickey talked. Benito mainly listened while his heart thumped and his palms sweated. Seriously, the dude had a voice that set Benito on fire and eroded his brain to mush. It had taken him until the very end of the third call to tell Mickey he’d made the first payment on Rosetta’s arrears.
“Let me guess, cash, right?”
Benito flinched at the edge in Mickey’s deep voice. “No. I used my debit card like a good boy. Like you fucking told me to.”
“You don’t have to do what I say.”
True, but Benito had known long before he’d met Mickey that paying Rosetta’s bills with street money was a fool’s game. If he hadn’t, her and Gianna would have lived like queens.Until you fucked everything up. And then what? She’d have been high and dry anyway.
It wasn’t a new realisation, but it sat grimly in Benito’s heart all the same. The only way he could’ve prevented this from happening would’ve been to have lived a different life altogether. One where he’d stayed away from the street and worked harder to be a better man.
A better brother.
A better son.
A better anonymous face to come across in a sultry club.
But then, perhaps if Benito had lived a different life, he’d never have set foot in Freefall, and he wouldn’t be spending his days now living for the moments Mickey’s name lit up his phone screen.
Up ahead, the people carrier eased off the gas for a T-junction that branched onto a busier road. Benito slowed too, holding back until it was impossible to do so without giving himself away. He drew within three car lengths of the Zafira and held his breath, waiting for the doors to open and the four occupants to bear down on him. Or for them to simply drive on, taking him for an innocent driver who just happened to be heading the same way in the dead of night.
The Zafira stopped at the junction. Brake lights shut off and the passenger door opened.
Long legs breached the doorway. Benito reached for the metal cosh hidden beneath his seat. It was taped to stop it rolling under the pedals. He fumbled to free it, adrenaline burning his veins, his lungs, and roaring in his ears. This was it. He was going into battle for five-grand worth of coke on a fucking main road.
Or he was going to die. There were no other options.