“Give us the car keys and we won’t have any beef.” The tallest of the lot, still a few inches shorter than me, stepped forward as he reached inside of his puffy black coat, pulling a machete out as though it was an entirely normal thing for him to carry on a dreary weekday morning.
I felt my team tense up. Both with the urge to laugh, a sprinkle of surprise, and the undeniable urge to protect me that was so potent they even applied it to the tiny menaces of a random North London council estate.
I stepped toward the boy, who spoke, grinning ear to ear.
“I like beef.” I pulled the edge of my jacket back, dragging my gun out as the others did the same, and we moved to form a circle around the trio. “So I suggest you take your mask off and answer a handful of questions, and I will think about not killingyou.”
It wasn’t like I would shoot a kid, but I mean,hehad pulled a machete on me so…
“Ah shit.” He raised his hand, machete going with it, as he whipped off his mask and gave me a toothy grin. “I guess you can keep the rides, then. We can go about our day and that and pretend nothing happened.”
His short black hair was slicked back, and oddly perfect compared to the dirt stains on his sneakers, and the laid back vibe he emanated, and I was curious about him and how someone who barely looked like a teenager could do what hewas doing. Where did he buy a machete? Why was he not in school? And where were his parents? Surely they ought to have been keeping better control over their son, and teaching him that blades and thievery were not acceptable hobbies. Or at least showing him how to do such things without being caught and threatened himself.
“What the fuck is a child doing, stealing cars with a machete?” Kody asked before I could as he kept his gun trained on the boy’s chest, the same way I did.
Kody would murder a child for me and though I shouldn’t have liked it, I did.
It was weirdly loving in a messed up way.
The boy shrugged. “You’re in North London, pretty boy. You carry or you get patterned up by someone who does.”
“I don’t even know what that means, but okay?” I tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and the fact he had called Kody pretty. “Seeing as we have guns, I think it seems fair that you listen to us for a moment.”
The boy continued to stand there, as relaxed as ever. Hardly an ounce of him showing he even cared for the fact we had weapons. If anything, he looked bored.
“Well, you said you had questions, so how about you get on with it so we can continue our day?” He faked a yawn.
“Your day of stealing cars from strangers instead of being in school.” It was hard to not laugh as I spoke. The entire interaction was ridiculous.
“Range Rovers are stolen in their hundreds daily. If you didn’t want your car nicked, you shouldn’t have bought one easy to steal.” He smirked at me, but I could spot the signs of fear in his posture, and the tense way he kept glancing at his two friends.
He was calm, but something bothered him and I wasn’t sure if it was our guns or something more.
My eyes rolled, but I chose to pretend I wasn’t curious and concentrate on why we were there. “Do you live around here?”
“Last time I checked, yeah.” He sassed.
“So you know the area.” As nice as it would have been to scare him a little for his attitude, I really didn’t have the time or patience. I just wanted to get my task over with, then head off somewhere to get drunk and pretend I wasn’t scared or desperately tired.
“I do.” He said.
“Good. I think you can help us then.” The address Misha had found wasn’t written the same way as American addresses were so though I could figure out the house number we had, finding the right street or apartment block seemed like it would take a minute, and I was all for things to be speedier so I could return home.
We hadn’t come straight from the airport. We’d checked into a fancy hotel – penthouse suite, of course – and had taken a few hours to shower, eat and nap away the jet lag until it was a good time for us to go hunting for our target. But other than that little break, I really was eager to be finished and have another thing crossed off my to do list.
I didn’t have the energy inside of my soul to keep pretending I was okay.
I needed my stalker dealt with now – before I truly gave up, just like I almost did in the dungeon with my daddy.
“What sort of help?” The kid asked.
“Nothing illegal.” I promised as I slid my gun away, feeling like it wasn’t needed for now when he seemed so pliable.
He snorted. “I don’t care about that. I just want to know if we’re talking robbery, murder or something lame, like a drug deal. Because at the minute, I’m cautious of the guns. But it’s gonna need a lot more than the threat of a gun to make me go and murder someone for you.”
Oddly enough, I felt like he would kill someone I asked him to kill, but only if I offered something he found worthwhile. And though it was childish, a huge part of my brain wanted to offer him money to find out what sort of price a child would charge me to kill.
My men were not buyable, but I had the feeling this child was more than willing to play games for the highest bidder.
