Sinclair looked beyond Vasquez to Sykes, noting the apprehension in the man. It caused his stomach to knot slightly. He needed Sykes to hold his nerve. Otherwise the entire deal would collapse, and the sacrifice of his career would have been for nothing. Greed had blurred his vision, but he needed Sykes to see straight.

‘Because he was trying to rape, Alex,’ Sinclair barked back defiantly. ‘That was never part of the deal.’

Vasquez took a menacing step towards Sinclair and then turned to the prone body of Emilio and he spat on it.

‘Fucking cockroach.’ Vasquez smiled at Sinclair. ‘You did me a favour.’

‘What took you guys so long?’ Sinclair asked.

‘He’s still alive,’ Sykes yelled in fury. ‘They didn’t fucking kill him.’

‘Who? The Brit?’ Sykes turned to Vasquez. ‘What the hell happened?’

‘He is no longer a concern.’ Vasquez chuckled. ‘Edinson is taking care of him. That is the last we’ve seen of Sam Pope.’

Sinclair turned to Sykes, confusion on his face.

‘Pope?’

‘Yeah, apparently Vasquez got his real name out of him. Ran some checks. Everything he told us was bullshit.’

‘Why do I recognise that name?’ Sinclair said to himself more than anyone else.

‘It is not important.’ Vasquez snapped his fingers. ‘He is a dead man now. Soon, his body will be rotting in the heat and no one will miss him. Now, I believe you have something that belongs to me?’

Sinclair looked the drug baron up and down before nodding. A tingle of excitement raced through his body as the moment had arrived. He’d stashed the money before he’d made his entrance, and now he would hand Vasquez a million dollars in cash. As the instigator and at times, mediator of this deal, he’d asked for half. A request Vasquez had been happy to grant.

Vasquez’s empire, combined with the reach and sway of the Riders, was worth hundreds of millions.

Sinclair would retire with a cool half a million in the bank, as well as the life insurance and state pension he’d set up to be paid to a fake family member.

He would retire a rich man.

Although there was blood on his hands from today’s events, it would be easy to wash off from his life of luxury.

Vasquez motioned for Raul to go with him, and as his right-hand man followed Sinclair to the money, Vasquez turned his attention to Wyatt. Lying prone on the floor a few feet from them, a cruel smile cracked across Vasquez’s lips as he approached. Wyatt was bleeding from the eyebrow, the blood having trickled down and stained his gag red.