CHAPTER TWO
Drew had met liars who sweated.
Liars who talked too much.
Liars who became offended before anyone accused them of anything.
Leah Trent did none of those things.
Pinned partly beneath her after the grenade blast, he watched her eyes sharpen instead of widen.
"Prison gym," she said.
Drew stared at her.
"Prison gym taught you to disarm a gunman?"
"There was a class on Tuesdays."
He nearly smiled again.
Then Owen shouted from the stairs.
"They're gone. Two bikes out the east gate. Van went north."
Leah climbed off him.
Drew caught her wrist.
She looked down at his hand.
"Later," he said.
"Looking forward to it."
She was not.
That much he could tell.
The room was wrecked. Callum was alive, barely. One attacker lay dead near the window. Another was curled around the hole in his thigh, sobbing and trying not to move. The grenade had blown a crater through the cheap laminate by the wall but somehow missed everyone who mattered.
Gareth Pike stood with blood on his cheek and murder in his expression.
"Get Callum downstairs."
Two men lifted the prospect.
"And him?" Owen nodded at the wounded attacker.
Gareth looked at Drew.
That was how it worked, even though Gareth wore the president patch. Gareth decided what he wanted. Drew worked out how to make it happen without turning every bad night into a twenty-year sentence.
"Alive," Drew said.
Owen frowned. "Why?"
"Because dead men are shit at answering questions."
Leah wiped blood from her lower lip with the back of her hand.
Drew noticed the tremor only because he was looking for one.
Not fear exactly.
Adrenaline.
She had been in danger before.
That did not mean police.
Soldier, maybe. Security. Violent ex. Family who trained her. A dozen explanations.
None of them were in the file they had bought on Leah Trent.
That bothered him more than the gunfire.
He crouched beside the wounded attacker and pulled the man's jacket open.
No club patch.
No colours.
A cheap burner phone. Car keys. Folding knife. Ten pounds in cash.
"Name," Drew said.
The man spat blood onto the carpet.
Owen kicked him in the ribs.
"He asked you a question."
"Enough."
Owen turned. "He just tried to blow us up."
"And now you're trying to rupture his spleen before he tells us who paid him. Brilliant work."
Gareth stepped closer. "Drew."
One word carried warning.
Family complicated everything. Gareth had been president for nine years. Owen had been Sergeant-at-Arms for three and had spent most of them proving that giving a violent man a title did not make him disciplined.
Drew knew what a death inside a club could do to the men left behind. His older brother Daniel had died on a North End run nine years earlier, and the empty place he left had never stayed empty. It had filled with debt, rank and unfinished arguments.
Drew looked back at the attacker.
"Who paid you?"
Silence.
"Redmile?"
The man's eyes moved.
Tiny movement.
Enough.
Drew stood.
"Not a member. Contractor."
"How do you know?" Leah asked.
Owen looked at her like she had interrupted church.
Drew answered anyway. "If he was Redmile, he'd rather choke than react to the name."
"Could be acting."
"Could be."
"So you don't know."
"No."
She nodded once.
Most people around the club hated uncertainty. Leah seemed to respect it.
That bothered him too.
The first sirens sounded somewhere beyond the industrial estate.
Gareth swore.
"We move."
They had less than five minutes.
The Yard operated as a private event venue on paper, which meant lawyers could explain blood, broken glass and even a handgun if they had enough time. Six kilos of cocaine were harder.
Drew pointed at the sports bag. "Owen, take it."
Owen reached for the cocaine.
"Not that one."
Drew indicated the cut brick.
"That comes with me."
Gareth frowned. "Why?"
"Because somebody swapped it."
"For what?"
"Don't know yet."
He looked at Leah.
She looked back.
"You drove the load."
"I know."
"You're coming with me."
"Wasn't planning a holiday."
Outside, blue light began to flash beyond the far wall.
Drew grabbed her by the upper arm and steered her toward the rear stairs.
She shook him off.
"I can walk."
"Good. Do it quickly."
They exited through the garage, crossed the yard and climbed into Drew's Range Rover. Gareth and Owen left in separate vehicles. Two prospects took Callum toward a private clinic the club used for injuries that attracted questions.
Drew drove without headlights until they cleared the service road.
Leah sat beside him, wet hair stuck to her cheek from the rain outside.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"Somewhere private."
"That normally sounds better when a man isn't bleeding."
"You flirting?"
"You concussed?"
"Probably."
She looked out the window.
Hull slid past in orange streetlight and wet black roads.
Drew watched her reflection.
"You could have run," he said.
"When?"
"After the blast."
"And leave six kilos of cocaine, three injured men and half a police response behind me? Very subtle."
"You thought about it."
Her reflection smiled faintly. "Everyone thinks about running from your lot."
"Still here."
"Still getting paid."
He turned onto a narrower road leading away from the city.
The clubhouse sat twenty minutes west, hidden behind a haulage yard that Gareth's father had bought in the nineties, beyond the A63 traffic and the flat dark fields running toward the Humber. Legal trucks at the front. Illegal business behind two steel gates.
When they arrived, Drew did not take Leah into the main building.
He took her to the old workshop at the back.
She stopped in the doorway.
A single chair stood under a hanging work lamp.
"Subtle," she said.
"You keep using that word."
"You keep doing things that deserve it."
Drew shut the door behind them.
The lock clicked.
For the first time all night, Leah looked genuinely uneasy.
Good.
Fear told the truth faster than conversation.
Drew placed the cut brick on the metal workbench.
Then he set the pistol she had used beside it.
"Sit down."
"No."
"Leah."
"If this is an interrogation, I'm standing."
"Why?"
"Because I'm five foot six and you're built like a wardrobe. I like the illusion of equality."
Drew folded his arms.
"Who are you?"
"Leah Trent."
"Again."
"Leah Trent."
"Where did you learn to shoot?"
"Ex-boyfriend."
"Name."
"Tom."
"Surname."
"Bastard."
Drew exhaled through his nose.
She should have been terrified.
Instead she was making him work for every inch.
He stepped closer.
"Someone knew the route tonight. Someone knew the room. Someone knew where Gareth would stand."
"And because I drove the van, I'm your first suspect."
"You're my newest person."
"Owen changed the pickup time."
That stopped him.
"What?"
"At three forty. He messaged me and pushed it forward by an hour. Said Gareth wanted it."
"Show me."
She pulled out her phone and handed it over.
The message was there.
Drew read it twice.
"He tell you why?"
"No."
"Why didn't you mention it upstairs?"
"Because his brother had just been shot at and I enjoy breathing."
Fair.
He hated when she was right.
Drew handed the phone back.
"You're still not clear."
"Neither is Owen."
"Be careful."
"That's not a denial."
He stepped close enough to see the tiny cut beneath her lip.
She did not retreat.
The air changed.
Not softer. Worse.
He had noticed her from the first week. Everyone had. Leah was not club-pretty in the way some women around North End worked hard to be. She wore old jeans, boots, dark hair usually tied up badly and the expression of someone who found most men mildly disappointing.
Drew had spent four months pretending not to enjoy it.
Now she smelled of smoke, rain and spilled whisky.
His thumb moved before he decided to move it.
He wiped the blood from her lip.
Leah went very still.
"You interrogate everyone like this?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. HR would be furious."
"We don't have HR."
"That explains Owen."
Drew laughed.
Actually laughed.
Then someone hammered on the workshop door.
Three hard blows.
Drew stepped away.
"What?"
Gareth's voice came through the metal.
"We have a problem."
Drew unlocked it.
Gareth stood outside with a burner phone in one hand.
His face had lost all colour.
"They've taken Amy."
Drew stared at him.
Amy Pike.
Gareth's twenty-two-year-old daughter.
University student. No club involvement. No reason to be part of any war.
Gareth held out the phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
Amy was tied to a chair in what looked like a shipping container. Blood on her forehead. Tape across her mouth.
A message sat beneath it.
MIDNIGHT TOMORROW.
brING THE SIX KILOS.
brING THE WOMAN WHO DROVE IT.
NO POLICE.
Drew read the last line again.
Then he looked at Leah.
She was staring at the phone.
Not at Amy.
At the words beneath the photograph.
Bring the woman who drove it.
Drew felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
"Looks like," he said quietly, "someone knows exactly who you are."