Fighting to be Free by Kirsty Moseley (33 page)

There wasn’t much trouble at all. A couple of drunken people that thought they could touch the girls - they were removed quickly. Someone couldn’t pay their tab so the cops were called. Nothing exciting happened really. I just sat at the bar, drinking a bottle of water because the smoke machine was killing my throat, talking to anyone that wanted to talk to me, showing my face like I was supposed to. The girls that were wandering around didn’t interest me in the slightest. When one of them, Candice she said her name was, offered me a free session out the back, I declined and told her I was in love with a foxy little redhead that was waiting at home for me. She called me adorable and walked off gushing to one of the other girls about how some guys were too good to be true.

Knowing that Ellie was at my place waiting for me, that I was going to get to hold her in my arms tonight, made the night go quicker and kept the smile on my face all night long. When eleven came I left, leaving Nick in charge, and sped home eager to see her.

As I stepped into my apartment, the first thing I notice was the title screen for Legally Blonde was playing over and over. I frowned, wondering why she hadn’t turned it off. I saw why as soon as I got to the lounge - she was asleep. She was curled up on the sofa, snuggled in my hoodie looking beautiful and innocent. I felt the moronic grin stretch across my face as I locked the doors, turned off the TV and then slipped my arms under her body, lifting her up carefully.

Her face snuggled into the side of my neck. “So which do you like better, Jamie, Tom or Jerry?” she asked.

I grinned knowing she was still sleeping. “Gotta be the mouse, he always outsmarts the cat in the end,” I answered.

Her arms looped around my neck. “Mice are cute, but I wouldn’t want one living in my place, they poop on stuff,” she replied.

I laughed and carried her into my room, settling her on the bed, smiling as she immediately snuggled into the sheets. Kicking off my shoes I climbed in the bed with her, wrapping her tightly in my arms, listening to her ramble some more about mouse poo and why it couldn’t possibly be confused with raisins. My girl was seriously crazy at times, but I loved her more than anything.

It had been a month since the dance. A whole perfect month of being with Ellie. The month hadn’t been perfect work wise though - things had been getting more….
involved
recently. I’d been doing more of the things that I hated doing when I was younger. I was back in my old position of ‘anything goes’ - collecting protection money, meeting with Brett’s suppliers about a new shipment of cocaine that was coming in on a boat in a couple of weeks. I was basically one of Brett’s hired thugs and had to hand out more than my fair share of beatings to people who were taking liberties or trying to muscle into Brett’s turf. The strip club stuff was getting easier though, I didn’t need to go there too much because there wasn’t that much trouble. I’d had to sort a few problems with people that used to run the security firm before Brett took it over, they weren’t too happy that they’d lost the contract, but they were over that now. Also there was a dealer issue that I sorted pretty quickly. One of the girls had trouble with an ex-boyfriend that wouldn’t leave her alone. All in all though it had gone pretty smoothly. People knew that I was there so lately there was no trouble at all.

Thankfully I’d managed to keep my job at the scrap yard too; how I’d managed it I have no idea because I was working for Brett a lot during the evenings. I was getting by on about five hours sleep a night because I’d be out doing boosts about three times a week and then other stuff on the nights off. I was seriously tired which I think made me more irritable and snappy at other people - but that worked out pretty well too because it just meant that people stayed out of my way more because they thought I had anger issues. I was happy to let people think I had anger issues, that way they were more scared of me and didn’t start trouble so it made my life easier.

The only good thing about working so much, as far as I could see, was that I earned a bucket load of cash. Word had spread quickly that I was back with Brett, deals were rolling in and orders piling up quickly. I was earning on average about $18,000 a week. Last week I had taken great pleasure in taking a wad of cash down and throwing it on Tony Grier’s desk in full payment of the debt. I also gave $5,000 in cash to my mom. I hadn’t wanted to go myself because I didn’t want anything to do with her again, so I’d asked Terry to do it for me. Terry and I had been getting on a lot better since our little indiscretion with the knife after Ellie’s dance. We basically were on friendly terms but didn’t socialise outside of work - he did work security on one of the strip clubs for me though so I saw him quite a bit.

Money was piling up from my ‘jobs’ and I’d even managed to set myself up a bank account - which I’d never had before. There was less than two months left now and then I’d be able to say goodbye to this life forever. Nothing was dragging me back into this situation again; if my mother got in trouble again then she was on her own this time.

The end was fast approaching, and tomorrow was Ellie’s eighteenth birthday. I had made it clear to everyone that I was unavailable tomorrow; I was planning on making her birthday special for her even if it killed me.

Right now however I was sitting in Brett’s chair, swivelling it back and forth, desperately trying to keep my eyes open as I focussed on his ceiling. Tonight was a big deal, a huge boost and it was going to be a long one that’s for sure. There were ten guys out tonight with me and we were stealing a total of twenty-five cars. On paper it sounded impossible, but in reality, ten of those cars were all in one place - a warehouse just outside of town. We were killing two birds with one stone tonight, the owner of the Jaguar garage whose warehouse it was, wanted to pull an insurance job so we were stealing his cars - then Brett had lined up a buyer for all of them, so we were getting double payment. The other fifteen cars however were scattered around all over the place, so I knew I’d be here until the early hours of the morning.

My ‘crew’ were already assembled downstairs but I just needed a couple of minutes to collect my thoughts. I had a bad feeling about tonight. Something wasn’t sitting right in my stomach, I think it was the fact that five of the guys that were helping with tonight’s boost, weren’t even used to stealing cars. They had no experience whatsoever and were used to working another part of Brett’s business for him. Inexperience and a high profile huge boost just didn’t mix well, but I guess with the amount of cars that we were talking about here, I couldn’t exactly refuse the help - there just wasn’t enough hours of darkness for the usual crew to complete this task on our own.

“Your father used to get that look on his face when he was concentrating hard on something.”

I jumped and looked up to see Brett walking into his office, a smile on his face. I frowned as I took in what he said. “You knew my dad?” I asked curiously. He’d never said anything about him before; I didn’t know they even knew each other.

Brett nodded, shrugging out of his suit jacket and throwing it over the empty chair opposite me.

“Yep. A long time ago now though, but you just reminded me of him for a second there,” he mused.

“How did you know him?” I asked, sitting forward quickly, interested now. I’d never really spoken to anyone about my dad before, the only one that ever talked about him was my mother, and that was usually to rant about what an inconsiderate asshole he was.

Brett smiled and motioned with his hand for me to move. “Out of my chair, you don’t run this place yet you know,” he said, raising one eyebrow teasingly.

I laughed and pushed myself out of his leather chair so that he could sit down. “Sorry,” I muttered sheepishly.

He grinned and rolled his eyes. “I worked with your dad a long time ago, years before you were born, when he was just a kid like you are.” I stood watching him intently; waiting for him to continue and tell me something I didn’t know about the man that’d made me. All I knew about him was that he was twenty-three when he died, and that he had brown hair and brown eyes, like mine. I was only two at the time of his death so I had no memories of him at all, my memories were just what my drunk, drugged up, and saddened mother had told me.

“He was good with cars too,” Brett continued.

I smiled at that. “Really?”

He nodded, looking wistful. “Yep, I worked with him for about a year and I saw him steal cars without leaving a trace of him behind, he was like you in that respect, a ghost. You have his talent.

Quick, nimble fingers and an eye for detail.” He smiled and pulled out a cigar from the little box on his desk, nodding down to them, silently asking if I wanted one. I waved it off politely. “He was a good guy. It was a shame he was killed, I liked him.”

I chewed on my lip thoughtfully. “How did he die exactly?” I asked curiously.

Brett sucked on his cigar as the flame from his silver lighter licked at the tip of it. “Shot. He’d moved on and was working for a guy named Tommy Harris, he’s long dead now though too, but Jackson, your dad, he was on an arms deal with a new supplier apparently, something went wrong, a double cross or something, and he got shot. Damn shame, such talent,” he said, frowning sadly.

I chewed on the inside of my mouth as I imagined how that went down. Things went sour so quickly at deals like that, things often went wrong when a group of highly charged alpha males got together and tried to make a deal. I tried not to imagine how different my life would have been if he’d not gone to the deal that day - would I still be where I am today, or would he have not wanted his boy into the business like him? I sighed and nodded, not knowing what to say.

“You should go get started, the guys are starting to get antsy down there,” Brett suggested, nodding at the door in encouragement.

“Yeah. See you in the morning,” I muttered, turning on my heel and headed out of his office. My mind was now also full of thoughts of my father that I barely knew. I smiled at the thought of him being good with cars, maybe that’s where I got it from. Trudging down the stairs, I stopped when I saw the unorganised rabble standing around waiting to go. Another of those uneasy feelings washed over me because I hardly recognised any of the people here.

I cleared my throat loudly, staying on the bottom step so I was a little higher. The murmur slowly died down as people turned to look at me with interest. “Right then, we’re ready to go. You’ve all been given your packs so you know which cars you’re going for. For the five that have never done this before, you guys have been paired with an experienced booster. We’ll all go together for the first one, the warehouse job, then after that we’ll split up and go get the rest of them. Don’t take risks, don’t get cocky or speed or jump lights. Someone will boost the car and all you do is drive it back here to the warehouse, Ray will tell you where to put it. There’ll be transporters outside ready for you so just keep focussed and do your job,” I said sternly.

There was a nod of approval from the group, signalling they understood so I nodded towards the blacked out minibus that was waiting to drive us all to the warehouse so we could get the Jags.

Immediately they all started marching there as one, some of them looked really excited - that was the usual crew, but the new guys looked a little apprehensive and out of their depth.

One guy caught my eye so I smiled and headed over to him where he was leaning against the desk, a cocky smile on his face. Dodger - the new me. I’d suggested that Brett hire him for the night to help with the boost, we definitely needed the help and this guy was supposed to be good.

Apparently he was at a bit of a loose end because he’d lost a lot of his trade when I came back to work for Brett. I’m surprised the guy didn’t hate me.

“Alright? I’m Jamie by the way,” I said politely, holding out my hand. We’d spoken on the phone a lot this week, but this was the first actual meeting.

“The Kid, yeah, its nice to meet you in person,” he replied, putting his hand in mine. “Dodger,” he finished.

I winced, I really didn’t want to call the guy that, it had to be the worst nickname ever, a total rip off of Oliver Twist. “Yeah, err, what’s your real name, I’m not calling you that,” I said, laughing and shaking my head.

His eyes tightened slightly. “It’s Vincent, but I prefer Dodger when I’m working.”

“Vincent it is then,” I stated, dropping his hand. There was no way I was calling this guy by a stupid ass name, if I had to refer to him so someone else knew him then I’d call him Dodger but other than that he was Vincent.

He frowned. “You don’t want me here, that much is obvious. Am I encroaching on your territory?” he mocked, a sarcastic smile on his face as he raised himself to his full height. I would imagine that he was trying to be intimidating, and he would totally have pulled it off too with his muscles that could be clearly seen through his dark grey t-shirt. The dark brown skin of his arms was marred with tattoos of quotes about cars and his nickname inked up the inside of his forearm. On the other bicep was a big cross with a quote from the bible underneath. He would have been intimidating to others, I have no doubt in my mind about that, but he didn’t scare me in the least.

I laughed and shrugged. “Dude, you can have my territory, I don’t want it. I’m only here for another two months then I’m going straight.” I ran a hand through my hair, and yawned. “And I’m glad you’re here actually, I wouldn’t be able to keep these guys organised on my own. Once we’ve done with the warehouse job, I’ll assign two of the newbies to you, you’ll boost the cars and they’ll drive them back for you that’s how we usually roll.”

He nodded, pulling out some gum from his pocket, offering me one as he threw one in his mouth, chewing loudly. I smiled and waved it off. “I’m excited to work with you actually, they say you’re the best,” Dodger stated as he slipped on his black jacket and picked up his black leather holdall bag from the table.

I laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “They say a lot of things; you should know not to believe half of the shit that floats around.” I grabbed my bag too and we both headed towards the minibus.