Did the butcher not teach me anything? Did Alexander and his friends not teach me anything?
This can’t go on forever. This perpetual state of purgatory. There’s only so long I can toy with them before they figure it out.
More than anything, I just want them gone. But something is holding me back. I know once I cross that line, there’s no return.
And I also know that I can’t do it alone.
That’s where my plan gets a little sketchy. There’s a key player I need on my team, and it means I will need to drag him to hell with me.
Rory Brodrick. AKA the Saint.
He’s a fighter. A hustler. And a mobster.
He kidnapped me. And then tried to comfort me in a moment of weakness. He saw my panic when he held me against the wall. And somehow, he got it into his head that he was going to save me.
I hated him for his sweet lies.
But I hated him even more for fucking up Teddy’s confession.
He doesn’t know that I’ve been keeping score of his transgressions. That he lights the fuse to my rage every time I see his face.
Acting like he wants to date me. Acting like he gives a fuck about me. He’s worse than all the rest of them lumped together, because he’s almost convincing.
He has no idea who he’s messing with.
He thinks he still has a say in how we play this game.
But Rory’s going to find out, I’m the one who invented the rules.
Four
Rory
“What a cunt of a day.”
I wipe the blood from my piece and stuff it back into the holster.
“Aye,” Ronan agrees from beside me. “It is.”
There’s a whole load of dead bodies in front of us. Another low-level gang tried to hit one of our warehouses.
They never learn.
And it never gets any easier, wiping the blood from my hands.
I don’t think it does for any of us.
Except for Ronan, probably. The lad is fucked in the head, but he’s as decent a bloke as they come.
Conor walks up and chucks a stray shoe onto the heap before turning to wait for his instructions.
The lad’s come a long way.
He doesn’t even throw a sickie anymore at the smell of blood. He even did a few of these blokes in tonight, all on his own.
I’m proud of him, but I’ll never tell him so.
He went from having nothing to live for to becoming one of my closest brothers.
