‘The bastard was trying to flog drugs in the club. I got ’em off him but the little shit smacked me one, then got away.’

‘We’d best report it to the police and hand the drugs over to them,’ said Adele.

Glynn flashed a smarmy smile. ‘That’s just what I was gonna do,’ he said.

Little did Adele and Peter know that Glynn’s intention was to be seen taking a hard stance against drug pushers. That way he could gain police trust.

Chapter 51

It was a week since the incident with the drug dealer. Peter was sitting in his office going through some paperwork when Glynn walked in. He looked up at Glynn’s handsome face, noticing that the bruising on his left cheek was beginning to fade and had turned yellow.

‘We need to talk,’ Glynn announced, his tone severe.

Peter knew what he was there for even before he spoke. Glynn would be pressing him to retaliate against Alan’s mob. And Glynn wasn’t the only one. Several members of his gang had asked what they were going to do. Peter knew that he had to be seen to be taking action otherwise he’d lose their respect. And if you were in charge, you had to have respect from your men.

For the past week or so Peter had been in turmoil. He knew the situation couldn’t go on. It was bad enough that Alan’s crew were muscling in on their businesses but when they had beaten up Sandra they had taken things to a whole new level. It was costing him a fortune, too; since Sandra had been beaten up he had to have people watching over all his sunbed salons and the bookies.

Then there was the threat to his sister. There was no way he could allow that to happen again. Nobody messed with his family and got away with it. So, although the thought of taking action against his old friends didn’t sit well with him, he knew it was something he had to do.

The question was, what sort of action would he take? It had to be something forceful enough to send a clear message to Alan that they weren’t to be messed with.

The incident with the drug dealer had bought Peter some time. While the police had been sniffing around, Glynn’s mind had been on other things, giving Peter a chance to decide what he was going to do. And now it was time to push forward.

‘It’s about your old mate, Alan,’ Glynn continued. ‘It turns out his firm aren’t just collecting from Angels, Bramleys and a lot of our pubs. They’ve taken over the doors of the two clubs as well.’

‘I fuckin’ know. I heard about it,’ said Peter.