The brawl was already in session when they arrived, and it looked to Alice like Riley's side was losing badly. A guy she recognised was balled up on the floor, being kicked by three guys at once while a couple of others engaged in one-on-one fistfights.
Her heart rate doubled as she ducked under the broken metal grate. She expected Riley and the others to steamroll in and start kicking butt, but instead of rescuing their mates, they moved slowly.
"You fucked up big this time," Riley said, announcing his presence.
The other group turned and made faces, acting tough.
"I heard you had a girl in your crew now," the leader said, taking a step toward Riley. He looked Alice up and down, licking his lips. He made the gesture Italians made when talking about food. "She's quite fit. I'll fuck her when I'm d—"
Like lightning, Felix stepped out and whipped out his blade.
"Please let me do your make-up," Zoe asked, pressing her palms together. "I just know my followers will love you."She'd been pestering him to feature on her vlog since they started spending time together again. She didn't have a full-time job, though she did spend a lot of time and effort on her beauty vlog, so she was usually free to hang out."Are you wearing make-up?" he questioned her, knowing full well she was."Of course," she cried, checking her face in the mirror. "Why?""Oh." Jamie inspected her face with a deliberate veil of disdain. "You haven't covered that huge pimple very well. I figured a beauty queen like you would have some secret trick for hiding blemishes."He knew she was self-conscious about her pimples. That worrying about flare-ups kept her awake at night, and she'd googled ways to defeat the bacteria in her face so many times her search history was
Audrey Cross slipped out of her heels and rubbed her feet after dropping her shopping bags by the door. She'd bought a new bag and a pair of shoes she'd been eyeing for weeks—pink heels with diamond straps. No, they weren't suitable for the weather, but she was going to wear them anyway.She pulled on the new shoes to show Felix, not that he was interested in fashion, she simply wanted to show off her slender legs."Nice," he muttered, eyes flitting away from his screen for only a second. As Audrey took a seat at his side, tucking her legs beneath her, he closed the laptop and turned to face her. "Am I a murderer?""Well." Audrey thought about it for a moment, trying to summon a valid argument for his abhorrent behaviour. "It depends if you view the unborn foetus as alive or not. I think you did them a favour if I'm honest. None of them would have had a decent life, child included."Felix nodde
"Pick a route that avoids the toll-roads," Mike asked. "I hate the toll-roads.""Right," Adam muttered as he fiddled with the satellite navigation on his phone.A blur of vehicles whizzed past as he struggled to get a 4G connection strong enough to modify the route. The roads were fairly busy for a Tuesday evening—almost rush hour levels of traffic."Driving around Birmingham is horrible enough as it is," Mike said with a heavy sigh. All he’d done since being lumbered with the job was moan about the ring-roads and round abouts, as if slagging them off was going to make them any less of a pain."I'll do my best," Adam said, biting the nail of his thumb with his healthy, non-painful teeth. His brother's nerves were becoming infectious.It wasn't just the terrible road system playing on his mind, but the ten thousand pounds worth of cocaine stored under the paint c
Audrey stared at the bags of white powder, mouth agape. It felt to her as though hours had passed, though it was probably more like seconds.She'd helped to carry the very same drugs from her Porsche to Riley’s car and later watched as Felix’s tall friend loaded them into the back of Mike's van. As ordered by Felix, she had taken photographs to share with the authorities and she'd been so discreet. There was zero chance either of those cretins had noticed her filming them.She had watched them drive away minutes later, van fully loaded with the incriminating evidence.So how was it now back inside her garage?It made no sense.Someone had taken the drugs from the back of the van and placed them back inside her home without the cameras or alarms going off. They would have to be invisible—a ghost.'That's silly,'she scolde
Alice searched through the kitchen cupboards after she opened the sugar pot and found it empty."Here." Mike pulled out the drawer beneath the knife and fork one. It was full of those little sugar packets they gave out in fast food places and coffee shops. "We haven't bought sugar since mum left."Alice frowned and chuckled to herself as she began to rip open the packages and refill the pot."I think they should be here soon," Jamie said, panic in his voice. "Why aren't they here yet?"Zoe was sat on the back of the sofa by the bay windows. Every time a car passed, she would turn and peek through the curtains."Oh, shit, who's that guy?" Zoe muttered to herself. When she turned back to face the others, her eyes were wide with fear. "There's some dude with a gun.""Huh?" Adam recoiled. He looked as though he was searching for something, but Alice knew he didn'
Adam picked up a piece of glass and winced as it got wedged in his flesh."Come here." Zoe tutted, grabbed his hand looked up at him with a thin smile. "You're always so clumsy with your big sausage fingers.""I don't have sausage fingers," Adam griped. He sat back and let Zoe clear away the glass and blood. She pulled a plaster from her bag—Zoe had everything you could ever want or need in her giant shoulder bag—and wrapped it over the cut.He looked at her. Her layers of contoured foundation, thickly caked lip gloss and butterfly-like fake eyelashes. She'd always been considered the hottest girl in school, and yes, she did have an amazing body, but he'd never thought she might be intelligent also."That was pretty quick thinking, logging onto your channel like that," Adam said."Well, that was why I hid," she said, an air defensively. "I didn't want them to see me f
After using her not-very-sharp memory to find her way to Riley's street, Alice found herself at a loss. She looked up and down at the pebble dashed houses and arid lawns, but they all looked the same.'Why didn't I take a mental note of the number?'she asked herself. It was either 776 or 667 or something similar.'It definitely had a 7 and a 6 or maybe a 9...''...well it definitely had numbers in it,'she mentally teased herself, rolling her eyes.After wandering about for ten minutes she walked past a woman who looked vaguely familiar. It took a few moments for the memory to click since the woman was neither shouting nor waving a rolling pin this time around."Oh, erm," Alice flagged the woman. "Do you know which number Riley lives at?""Yeah, it's 699," the woman told her. "Two doors down from Jimmy Carlson.""Rig
Alice stared into Riley's eyes, unsure what to do.Her body was telling her to rip off her clothes and throw herself at him, but was it what either of them truly wanted? Or were these merely the lust fuelled urges of two people who'd survived a trauma together?She felt his fingers pulled around the bottom of her T-shirt and lifted her arms to let him slip the clothes from her body. Once her shirt was a messy pile at her feet, he reached behind and pinged her bra. Her breasts shifted and bounced out of the cups as they fell forward. Instinctively she raised a hand to cover them as the bra dropped to the floor.Riley chuckled lightly as he pushed her grip away, replacing them with his larger hands. Her nipples became instantly hard as he pinched them between his thumbs and index fingers.She moaned gently as he squeezed and took a step forward, pressing her back up against the wall.&