“Aw, fuck, traffic in this city is a bitch,” he groans.

“You know what else is a bitch? Trying to wank when you have no fucking hands. You wanna give it a go? It’d take me two—no, one minute to remove your hands from your wrists.”

Santo chuckles from beside me while Logan Ghost (who the fuck names themselves Logan Ghost, by the way?) pales as he stares in our direction. “W-we had a deal,” he says.

“We did and we still do. You got my money?” I ask him.

Logan nods his head. “In the back of the car. The guns?”

“In a container. I’ll give you the number and the code once I have my money. How you get the shit out of here is your problem. Not mine,” I tell him.

“No worries, mate. I’ve got friends to help me.” As he says the words, I hear the rumble in the distance. Fucking bikers.

I look to Santo. “Grab the cash,” I tell him. Once he’s headed to the rear of the car, I turn back to Logan. “You should find better friends.”

“Why?”

I lift a shoulder as I watch my brother load the bags of money into the back of our SUV. “You’ll find out. Bikers are filthy fuckers. You should never trust them in business,” is all I say before I pivot towards the passenger side. Santo jumps in the driver’s seat. “Oh, and don’t call me again, unless you want your mother receiving your heart and dick in a box.”

As we’re pulling away, I spot a face I recognise. Fucking Tommy. The bastard looks directly at me. If he thinks he’s intimidating, he needs a reality check.

“You need to set up this meeting. We should get it over with. Like ripping off a bandage,” Santo tells me.

“Yeah.” I know what I have to do. I’m not about to let my brothers do this shit without me. “What do you hope to gain out of meeting her?”

“Me? Nothing,” he says. “Don’t need a mother, never have.” His fingers tap the steering wheel. “I am curious, though… about what the old man did to make her leave and stay gone.”

“You really think he knew she wasn’t dead?” It’s out of character for our old man to let anyone live, especially someone he thought he owned. Someone who betrayed him.

“Who the fuck knows?”

“I remember the night before she died, or disappeared, whatever the fuck happened to her… She woke us all up. We were in the foyer and the old man was there. Mum sent us back upstairs. I think she was trying to leave with us,” I tell Santo. I’ve never told him that before. I always thought I’d made it up. Like I wanted it to be true so fucking badly that I imagined things that never actually happened.