Elmore used to point to his white mother as a sign of Wiseman’s weakness. Wiseman knew he was weak, but it wasn’t because of his mother’s ethnicity.
He just wasn’t a criminal.
He was good with data and money and was able to build a system for his childhood friend who wanted to live like Tony Montana.
Everything about the lifestyle had sickened him then. Now, it terrified him.
The guns. The drugs. The killings.
Looking around at the drenched estate, he saw the desperation of the area. The usual hot spots were vacant, but once the rain relented, they would soon be filled by young gang members, all treading the same path as Elmore.
All willing to kill to get there.
All likely to die trying.
Wiseman held his injured hand in his other, gently massaging the palm of it. He needed to change the bandages, which were now red with blood. His back ached from the bullet which had sent him sprawling as it lodged itself in the lining of the bulletproof vest Pope had given him.
A thick, purple bruise was already reaching up his spine like an errant vine.
They had carted him to an ambulance and taken him to hospital. They had treated him for shock, but once the nurses had finished, a couple of police officers read him the riot act in a desperate attempt at intimidation. They leaned heavily on his links to Riggs and told him that he would be needed for more questioning.
They hadn’t even offered him a lift home.
Home.
He looked up at the building that included his modest, but expensively decked out flat and made a decision to move away. To find something better to do with his life.
Sean Wiseman was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a criminal.
Not anymore.
Thanking his lucky stars that there were no gang members polluting the stair well, he made his way up the heavily graffitied steps, ignoring the stale smell of piss. As he approached the fifth floor, he began to think of how much money he had saved, how much more he could get, and how quickly he could move out of the gang infested mile that had tried its best to drag him under.
As he stepped out onto the walkway that wrapped around the building to his flat, he was accosted by two figures who stepped in front of him.
Rain hit his panic-stricken face.
Standing in front of him was the terrified man from the High Rise, his coat zipped up to the top and a nervous look on his face.
The man next to him made Wiseman wish he had just walked into two rival gang members. He felt his entire body stiffen with fear. The pain in his hand echoed through his body.
The other man was Sam Pope.
Chapter Twelve
The gold-plated handle of the boning knife was weighty as Andrei Kovalenko gently tossed it, allowing the heavy grip to slap against his palm. Sure, it was extravagant, but a man who ran the London side of a multi-million-pound operation was allowed certain privileges.
It was certainly more aesthetically pleasing than the rusty knife he had used to murder his father back in Donetsk over twenty years ago. Igor Kovalenko had been a brute of a man, working as a bouncer for their uncle, Sergei, at his nightclub, The Red Room. When he was home, he flittered between drunk and high, assaulting their mother to the point that she left.
Andrei had heard she’d gone on the game somewhere in Kiev.
He couldn’t have cared less.
Not when that anger was directed at him and his siblings. Their father would mercilessly beat them due to his own inadequacies, and as the oldest, Andrei took the brunt of it. He had been acquainted with his father’s leather belt on an almost daily basis, especially when he stood up for his brother, Oleg. Despite his hulking size, Oleg suffered with mental disabilities, something their father would not accept.
It was when his sister, Dana, began to flourish into a beautiful young woman, and he noticed his father’s leering glances, that he decided to take action. That fateful night, as the derelict street they lived on twinkled under the stars, a thin layer of snow frosting the entire street, he murdered their father.
Igor Kovalenko had entered his daughter’s room with the sole intent to rape her. Andrei had entered behind him with the largest knife he could find and slit the man’s throat without a moment’s hesitation.
He had then called his uncle, who swiftly arrived to his three kin sat in the snow, their bloodstained clothes contrasting with the snowfall.
He told them it would be okay.
Uncle Sergei would look after them.
The man had been good on his word, and soon, his nightclubs evolved to something beyond the law, where any drug or woman was available for the right price. The police took their cut and looked the other way. Andrei manned the doors for a while, just like his father, but Andrei soon saw the business opportunity every time he saw a group of beautiful English girls, all of them strapped up with backpacks and innocent hopes of a magical journey of self-discovery through Europe.
When Andrei turned twenty-five, Sergei sent him and his siblings to England, to set up a similar club and experiment with a new clientele and a new type of merchandise.
Seventeen years later, as he held the gold-plated knife, Andrei knew that he had exceeded even his own expectations. They had given up the night club game a long time ago. Now they were the ones in charge of what came in and out of the city, previously supplying Frank Jackson with the materials he needed to run his High Rise.
The business was lucrative.
It paid for the fancy knife and the Versace suit he was about to ruin.
It paid for the phenomenal penthouse suite in Kensington, with its five bedrooms and exquisite views of the city.
It had turned him and his siblings into
