Page 30 of Run

Three of the seven boys dropped their stash and ran for the trees behind them. The ones left behind paled as they visibly broke out in a nervous sweat. All except for their fearless leader. He stepped toward Ryan, knife in hand.

“Don’t do it,” Ryan warned, although it was obvious his advice was falling on deaf ears.

His hand shaking, the clearly terrified baby criminal kept coming at Ryan. Until, with a stream of curses, the boy lunged. And Ryan took him down. The entire altercation lasted mere seconds. Once he had the boy immobilized by holding his arm out behind him at an angle that made it impossible to move or his wrist would break, Ryan faced the rest of the gang.

“Money. Drugs. Weapons. All of it on the bench now, or my associate starts shooting kneecaps. I’ve run out of patience with you boys.”

They rushed to do as Ryan ordered while the boy in his hold whimpered.

“Now,” Ryan said, “tell the Albanians that we run this park. We see you here again, we won’t care how old you are. You get me?”

He shoved the boy toward his friends and watched as they ran off together, feeling disgusted with himself for what he’d had to do. The teen’s arm hung limply at his side; his shoulder dislocated. Injuring the boy in a way that was serious but easily fixed had been a deliberate move. It was either that or allow himself to get stabbed. Sometimes all the choices life threw at you sucked equally.

A hand clasped his shoulder. “He would have had no problem stabbing you,” Callum said.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better about hurting a kid?”

“No. That’s supposed to remind you that the kids around here grow up helluva fast, and maybe a dislocated shoulder will be the encouragement he needs to make better choices in the future.”

Ryan didn’t believe that any more than Callum did. Around that neighborhood, there weren’t many choices that one could make. “This plan is beyond shitty,” he said as they gathered up everything the boys had left behind. There was quite a collection of drugs, money, and knives. Along with one very expensive cell phone.

“This might be useful.” Ryan held it up for Callum to see.

“Aye.” He scanned the area to make sure no one was watching or waiting for them. “Like taking candy from a baby.”

“Drugs, not candy.”

“Come on.” Callum turned toward the road, where they’d parked their car. “One down, two to go.”

Ryan’s lip curled in disgust as he followed his boss out of the park.

12

GAMMA TEAM

TARGET: MC20 drug dealers

Islington

North London

Harvard and David were also masquerading as James Family members. Unlike the kids Callum and Ryan had targeted, their dealers were young men who’d already developed a taste for violence. Also unlike their teammates, only Harvard wore a suit. David was dressed in his usual black sweater and jeans. Not because he had anything against wearing a suit. Purely because Elle had been so proud of having her own “spy uniform” that he’d felt the need to keep his on.

And, yeah, he wasn’t about to look too closely at his reasoning.

“Three at the end of the alley,” David said as they walked toward them.

“Two behind them, farther up,” Harvard said. “And looks like they’ve got another two on the opposite side of the street.”

“That’s a lot of gang members for a low-level dealer.”

“I’m thinking our intel might have been a bit off on this one. I don’t see any of the members named in Julia’s dossier, but this clearly isn’t the two-guy setup they’ve got going elsewhere.” Harvard paused to scan the area. “My guess is the smaller teams report to hubs like this one. They probably keep a bigger stash here too.”

“And more weapons. Do we move on or take them out?” David carried on walking, aware that they now had the attention of every single MC20 member standing at the end of the dark street.

Harvard grunted. “We’re already here, so might as well get on with it.”

“Last time you said that to me, I took a bullet in the leg.”