Princess: A Private Novel(57)

Surprise: Morgan had taken the sleeping man unaware, and he had a few seconds to act before the man regained full function of mind and body.

Speed: Morgan raced across the threshold and into the living room like a charging bull, pulling the pistol free of his jacket.

Violence of action: before the man could even raise himself off the sofa, Morgan had gripped him by the throat and pressed the cold steel of the pistol’s muzzle into the man’s ear.

“Alarm,” Morgan hissed. “Turn it off. Now.”

Gripping the man by his trachea, he lifted him to his feet. The man saw that his situation was hopeless, and he used his wide white eyes to guide Morgan to the alarm box, jabbing his finger awkwardly at the digits. Within ten seconds of the door opening, all had returned to silence but for the man’s gasped breaths. Morgan shoved him to the floor and trained the pistol onto the back of his head. Only then did he notice the man’s left arm and shoulder were bandaged.

“You got shot in the forest,” he guessed.

The man said nothing, but when Morgan delivered a blow onto the recent gunshot wound, he groaned like an animal.

“I’ll open up another one in the back of your head if you don’t start talking,” Morgan promised. “You know who I am, and you know I’m working outside the law, so talk. Are you Rider?”

“I’m not,” the man spat through clenched teeth.

“Then who the hell are you?” Morgan demanded, pressing the gun into the back of the man’s skull.

“Herbert. Chris Herbert.”

“You work for Flex?”

“I work for myself.”

A finger into the recently sutured gunshot wound convinced the man to change his answer. “Yes! Flex! Yes!”

“You’re a mercenary? Well, I have a proposition for you. You help me get Flex, and I pay you back by not blowing your brains out over the carpet.”

“Ram it, you Yank tart.”

Morgan pressed his thumb into torn flesh and broken bone. Then he let Herbert tell him everything.





Chapter 95


THE THOUGHT OF his children, and the implications of a life without them, weighed heavily on Peter Knight as he watched the row of offices in Tottenham. He rubbed at his eyes, certain that the long hours and excitement had got to him, but he was not wrong in what he was seeing.

Flex.

There was no mistaking the size and shape of the muscle-bound man as he slinked quickly inside of his building. Fingers almost fumbling, Knight tried Morgan’s phone. It went straight to voicemail.

“Dammit, Jack,” he cursed. He then tried Hooligan’s number, and it connected. “Jez? Flex has shown up at his office. Keep trying Jack from your end. I’m going to call Elaine and see if she can move some units closer, without us having to spill all the beans on why.”

“All right. But stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid, Peter.”

“I’ll watch from the car,” Knight promised, hanging up. A moment after he did so, he heard a metallic object tapping on the glass of his driver’s window.

In that split second Peter Knight knew the game was over.

And he was the loser.





Chapter 96


HERBERT HAD SPILLED some good information as to who Flex was working with. There was always the chance he was lying, but Herbert swore blind that the former Foreign Legion man Nathan Rider was the only other man Flex trusted to stand by him during outright murder. Rider had been waiting in London during the shootings in Wales, should opportunity arise there. Once Herbert had gone down to Lewis’s gunshots—treated by Flex, a deft medic from long experience—Rider and Flex had ridden together, and Herbert’s part in the actions had been reduced to watching the news channels, and reporting to Flex anything of interest.

“He thinks it was you that caused the Knightsbridge shooting,” Herbert told him. “Thinks you went in there looking to get yourself a piece.”

“And what do you think?” Morgan asked, pressing the steel of the stolen pistol against the man’s head.

“You know you shot someone? You’re in as much shit as me.”

The only shots Morgan had fired were to take down the lighting fixtures. It must have been the girl’s wild shots that had found flesh, and left the dark blood trail on the dance floor.

“Who was it?”

“Some bellend TV presenter. It clipped off a few fingers, apparently.”

Morgan didn’t feel too bad about that. He was relieved that it wasn’t Natalie or the security men who’d been hit.

“Look, mate,” Herbert tried, “I’ve been in enough bad situations to recognize a really bad one, and the only way I see of getting out of this is by working with you.”

No honor amongst thieves, Morgan thought to himself. Same goes for scumbags.

“Talk.”

“I’ll testify. I’ll tell them everything they need to know about Flex. I just need looking after, because he’ll kill me if we end up in the same prison.”

But Morgan shook his head. “I don’t need testimony. I need him brought out in the open. I need him in front of me, so I can deal with him myself.”

“But—”

“Look, you’ve seen this guy’s capacity for revenge. You think being in a different prison is what’s gonna save you from him? No. If you’re going to live past tonight, you need to help me. And if you’re going to live after that, then you need Flex in the dirt.”