“We never want to see you again. Do you hear me?”
The stark order had worried at me for a straight week afterward. My eyes had scanned the footpaths restlessly every time I’d ventured outdoors. I’d expected every day to end with a knock at the door; each morning to start with a hand gripping my arm out of nowhere as I walked along the street.
When no one came and nothing happened, I let myself forget.Hadto forget because to keep it front and centre of my mind meant that I couldn’t function.
But now it’s back. The idea pulses in my head like the flashing zigzag aura of a migraine. Impossible to ignore. Hard to see past. And my brain is off on the merry-go-round of possibilities once again.
It takes Mr Simmons clearing his throat to make me realise class is over. Not only over, but the entire room emptied without me noticing.
I hunch over, the only trick of invisibility I possess, and hurry out of the room and along the corridor. Dee and Em are nowhere in sight, thank goodness, and I keep my head down as I cross the quad and join the flow of foot traffic along the pavement outside the school.
Flashes of Robbie’s death enter and leave my head as I try to worry my way out of an impossible problem. He worked for the syndicate, an organised crime unit that has a stranglehold over the city.
There isn’t a drug sold, a bribe made, or a cut taken off the top of an otherwise legitimate business deal that they don’t know about. They run private clubs for gambling, for girls, for drinking, for any form of licentiousness or depravity you could ask for.
They’d flocked here from their home bases in Russia, Serbia, London, Sydney, Auckland, or anywhere else you care to name, when earthquakes levelled Christchurch and billions of dollars of damage turned into a billion opportunities. A few greased palms turned even minor repairs into major corruptions, infecting the populace until they no longer knew what a healthy community looked like.
In the ten years since, they’d expanded operations, poking into every dark hole until they made it a new nest. A dark web that spread across the city until it threatened to swallow it whole.
Zach, Trent, and Caylon were just starting out, but with their family connections they were the next generation of a problem that had festered too long to be easily excised. Golden boys with pretty faces and hearts of sheetrock.
I can’t stay in school if they go here. The pronouncement had been stark enough.
But I can’t leave without giving up on my last opportunity. If I fuck up my attendance, I’ll lose my flat, my chance at uni, and visitation with my sister.
The sum total of good things in my life. Gone to accommodate a group of rich boys who shouldn’t be slumming it in McKenzie High School to begin with.
I straighten my shoulders as I near the dairy, owned and operated by a lovely old Latvian couple, the Kuzmanics. I have a four-hour shift to work before I get to relax at home.
Or stay tense at home, more like.
But before I drop my bag in the side room and slide behind the counter, I decide that if the boys want me gone, they’ll have to ask.
And there’s no way I’m giving up everything without a fight.
CHAPTERTHREE
ZACH
LilacfuckingTanner.
I leave school the moment I see her, trying to outrun the glut of memories that vomit from the base of my brain. It doesn’t work. In the end, I pull over to the curb, helpless to do anything but let them play out behind my eyes.
The feel of her trembling body pressed against me. The strength in her, ebbing at the point she needed it most. Taking the gun, pointing it at Robbie, ending his life when the plan had been to chase him away.
Nobody stopped me. Why did nobody ever stop me?
I shudder and put the car into gear, pulling into the flow of traffic. Soon, I lose myself in the mindlessness of the rules and signals.
When Stefan texts me, I don’t bother to hide a smile. The gig is the perfect task to work off my excess aggression and dim down the disturbing movie playing in my head.
Work is always changeable and challenging. Sometimes it requires an expensive suit and a patter of small talk, others—like today—it requires brute force and a strong stomach.
Luckily, I come equipped with both those things.
This morning, I also come equipped with a baseball bat and a list of failed excuses that the client has already tried in the past. As I get closer to the address, blood pumps around my body faster and faster. Like the best hit of caffeine in the world.
When I pull up outside, my pulse has settled, a quicker rhythm than normal but still rhythmic, nonetheless. The suburb is an enclave for the wealthy. Not on the scale of my dad’s fortune, but still enough to present a few challenges to gaining entry.
