Christ, I love that beautiful little lunatic.
"Right." I snort in the face of Adrian's protests that he wouldn't snitch on me the moment he was able to. There's no chance I can trust him.
Thankfully, I won't need to. I grin at Adrian, teeth bared like a hungry shark. He immediately looks nervous. Good.
"Adrian," I say, "how would you feel about a sleepover?"
Milo
"Areyoubatshitinsane?No fucking way. You can't do this!" Paige hisses, crossing her arms and glaring obstinately at Ryan.
Bo looks from Ryan to her and then back again. "It does sound a bit bonkers, mate," they offer more diplomatically.
Ryan doesn't back down from Paige's glare, just stares back at her with equal stubbornness. He answers both Paige and Bo in one. "It's a good plan. Simple. You two and Amira stay here to watch those four tossers for the night to make sure they don't tip off the Winters whilst me and Milo find this shipment of Epic and get rid of it."
Paige makes an exasperated sound. "Ok. I have about three billion problems with that 'simple' plan, but let's start with the most obvious. One, is simple code for moronic and reckless? Two, how exactly do you plan toget rid ofthe drugs? Three, unless Paul is a complete idiot, there's probably going to be a mini army of people protecting the shipment, who will almost certainly carry guns, so what part of the plan factors that in?"
Paige and the others showed up just as Ryan was done getting answers out of Adrian, which was lucky because the three dickheads I was fighting were refusing to stay down. With five of us, including my bat and Ryan's gun, which he was forced to whip out just to get Adrian and his backing dancers to shut the fuck up, we managed to get them to sit together in a group on the living room floor.
Amira has been left in charge, holding the gun on them whilst the rest of us discuss our next move out on the balcony. Amira seemed more than happy to hold a gun on the men, smiling meanly like she'd love for them to give her an excuse to pull the trigger.
Ryan takes on Paige's concerns with his usual pervasive bullishness. "They'll have no idea we're coming. We can use that surprise to our advantage, go in stealthy, cause a distraction to get them away from the container they're guarding. For the drugs, I'm thinking we burn that shit up."
"We can use the canisters of petrol we just bought for the van," I chip in. We have a van we use for transporting Skyline's instruments and other equipment.
Paige gives me a fiercely annoyed pair of eyebrows, likely for supporting Ryan in this madness. "What if you get caught by the guards?" she demands, standing her ground. "Are you gonna deflect bullets with Milo's baseball bat?" She throws my bat an incredulous look.
Ryan doesn't react defensively to Paige's provoking questions, but takes them on like she's really trying to workshop this problem with him. He looks pensive for a long moment before an idea seems to strike. Without explanation, he strides back into the living room.
I chase after him, Paige and Bo following behind me.
Ryan stops beside Amira, who still has the gun aimed squarely at Adrian's head, ready to blow it off if he makes any wrong moves.
"Where's your gun?" Ryan asks him.
Adrian's eyes flicker to Ryan and he mutters venomously, "Don't fucking have one."
He's the world's shittest liar, wow.
Ryan, seeming more bored by his response than anything else, sighs. "Amira?"
Without any further prompting, Amira lowers the gun away from Adrian's face, pointing it at his crotch instead. Her lips twist up in a sardonic smile, eyebrows quirking like she's daring the man to underestimate her willingness to shoot his cock off.
Adrian makes a loud wheezing sound of distress and rushes to cover his groin with his zip-tied hands, as if a bullet wouldn't cut right through them. He gives Ryan a look of betrayal, which is almost funny. "Jesus, Knight, call off your fucking trigger-happy minion, I'll tell you where my gun is."
Ryan pretends to consider it, then shakes his head. "Nah. Tell me where your gun is andmaybeI'll consider asking Amira to let you keep your balls."
Adrian rattles off the answer so fast the words barely have time to form on his tongue. He looks petrified Ryan might genuinely let Amira shoot him.
Ryan leaves the living room, going off in the direction of Adrian's bedroom, and comes back a minute later holding a gun. He brandishes it at Paige, grinning wanly.
"Now at least we'll be fighting bullets with bullets," he says.
Paige doesn't seem very impressed by this logic, but she knows as well as I do that trying to dissuade him at this point is a hopeless endeavour. She holds both her hands up, silently giving Ryan the win like it counts less if she doesn't concede out loud.
With that decided, we stick to Ryan's plan and wait around in Adrian's flat until a few hours before the new shipment is meant to be dropped off. Ryan and I go off together, leaving the others behind to keep Adrian and his friends in check. Ryan gives Paige Adrian's phone, the one he nabbed earlier, and tells her to let him know if anyone tries to contact Adrian about the shipment and to let Adrian answer it so he can pretend everything is fine under threat of cock annihilation.
After we’ve picked up the petrol canisters, we drive down to the docks and park far enough away no one will mark our van out as special. We go the rest of the way on foot, taking the petrol canisters with us.
