CHAPTER 49 - RED
CHAPTER
Red
CAL SITS IN MY OFFICE at the Scorpio Lounge watching as I pace relentlessly. It seems an age since I was last here, yet at the same time, it’s like I’ve never been away. Pulling up my cuff, I glance at my watch yet again.
“They’ll be here. Matteo cries wolf a lot, as you know.” Cal’s stoic reassurance is comforting even though nothing is relevant until it’s final.
And yes, Matteo Galvatore has a habit of dishing out non-existent threats to wind me up - like the bomb threat - the hoax that got Arianna taken in the first place and I’m loath to react and fall for his games again.
But that prick is twisted, and that could be his game: cry wolf on loads of threats and then deliver on one.
This one...
My teeth scrape as my jaw clenches. Oscar cannot be picked off. None of my brothers can. No more of any of mine can die.
“It’s a shit that you were right about them vacating their safe house that we’d only just got confirmation of their presence.”
I shrug. “Yeah, but we expected it once it became known that Maria had gone. They’ll be at Carnforth House now. There’s nowhere else.”
Cal chews the end of his pen. “What if they’ve moved elsewhere into another safe house and expecting us to go to Carnforth is just another ruse? A trap?”
I laugh hollowly. “Matteo Galvatore is too arrogant to consider such a move. He wants the pomp of a grand estate and has gone to Carnforth, regardless. And that’s where we’re going.”
It’s tempting to reach for the whiskey bottle which glows like an oasis on the side, but I can’t dull my senses. “That fucker is finished,” I snarl. “We’re taking him out tomorrow.”
That’s if Oscar and Liam return...
“The team you wanted for this is ready and waiting for your nod.”
“And they’ll get it shortly.” Swiping the surface of my desk with the back of my arm, I kick the pens and paperwork scattering to the floor out of the way and unroll an oversized piece of plain paper over the cleared space.
Placing my phone down on the edge to keep the paper flat, my elbow holds the other side in position as I set about marking out routes and flank positions for the strike. “How many men are primed for this?”
Cal peers at the positions I’ve marked out so far. “Including you, me and your brothers, there’s ten, plus five in addition as backup.”
My adrenalin pumps. “Backups aren’t required. No one else is going down because of those cunts.” Ripping the lid of a red pen off with my teeth, I’m scrawling out three routes when I hear footsteps. I don’t look up in case I tempt fate - a silly superstition that I have.
“What a load of bullshit!” Oscar enters my office. “No one about. Unless it was the imaginary sniper.”
“Matteo is a fucking dilbert, but at least one of his old man’s men is in the same fucking state as one of ours now,” Liam scowls, but then his eyes light up at my rudimentary map. “Ah! When?”
“Tomorrow.” I turn back to my routes, relief at my brothers’ safe return flowing silently through me.
“Route one is me, Cal and two others.” I trace my pen along the line drawn from here to the Carnforth estate in East Moseley.
“Route two is Oscar and two others, and route three is Liam, plus two. We approach from these angles here and meet here...” My pen marks more crosses on the page.
“Only us four enter the building; the rest flank all angles and surroundings.”
“That works,” Liam muses. “And the weapons?”
“Ready to go.” Cal nods to the cabinet in the corner. “Half are bagged up in there; the rest are in your office, Oscar.”
“Semi-automatics for this job.” I bark. I insist on nothing less. “The brief: anyone who gets in the way fucking dies.”