Page 17 of How to Kill Your Rival

Slipping out of his apartment and closing the door, I lean against the wall for a moment and sigh. I’d had visions of walking into the Council and being the breath of air it needed. Making new contacts and bringing in some fresh faces. But no. Heaven forbid someone stray from the father-to-son pipeline.

I don’t make the call until I’m a couple of miles from the house. Our phones are burners with nothing but the app on them. Calls route through some insane system to avoid being traced, but I still rarely trust using it near a kill site. The tech team are like ghosts, and you can’t trust someone you can’t see.

‘The contract has been fulfilled,’ I say, considering whether to claim it as one of mine to save face.

‘It’s already marked as complete,’ the bored-sounding woman on the line says.

‘Marked by who?’

‘Doesn’t say.’

‘I thought you track everything on the app with unique IDs.’ I put my foot on the accelerator and overtake a car that might as well be a metallic snail.

‘This one doesn’t seem attributed to any particular person. That’s kinda weird.’

‘How about you look into that and get back to me?’ My jaw is tight as I speak.

‘So you can claim the kill?’

‘No.’

‘Then what for?’

‘So I can kill the fucker stealing my contracts.’ I pull onto the motorway and head towards London.

‘I don’t thin—’ the tinny voice says.

I end the call mid-sentence.

Someone knows my contracts, and even worse, my timings. I haven’t seen anyone following me, but then again, they aren’t behind me; they’re in front of me. Fuck, I should have checked the body. Was he still warm? How recent was the kill? Richard hasn’t started to putrefy, but to avoid adding any unnecessary evidence, I haven’t checked for body heat or rigor mortis.

To add to my seething, there is a sea of red lights up ahead. Unmoving ones.

A mother-fudging traffic jam.

It’s like the world is goading me to kill someone.

And if I find out it’s some stupid trick of James’, well, no matter how good it might feel pressed against me, I’ll chop that dick of his off and make him eat it like a hot dog.

* * *

My sister Maggie’s flat is postage-stamp-sized and overflowing with stuff. Plants sprouting green on just about every surface and a billion cushions and blankets on the furniture. It was cramped enough when she was single, but now the place has to contend with Maggie, her fiancé Roman, and the ugliest little dog in the world, Gaston. It’s teeming with chaos. Post-it notes on the fridge that look far too old to still be relevant. Dog toys of every shape and size. Cleanly washed clothes are folded and placed in towering piles on the chair. Roman moved in a few months ago, after Maggie kidnapped him and somehow turned it into a love story, and they’ve been working on getting a cottage somewhere rural together. Maggie could just ask Dad for the money, at least a deposit, but she’s too bloody stubborn for a handout.

Not to mention that the only knives she owns are for cooking with.

And maybe tightening a loose screw.

Certainly never for running through a sanctimonious twatbag. She’d tried, bless her, but the family business didn’t run in her blood.

Which is why I ended up dispatching her ex, Eddie, one of the Stewart sons, and a fellow Death Council member. It was 100 per cent his fault. It was Maggie and Roman, or Eddie. And I need my big sister. Eddie thought he could lay claim to Maggie to marry into the Hamilton line, and tried to kill Roman to keep her as his, and no one threatens my family and lives to tell the tale.

Roman brings me a cup of tea as I plonk my arse on the sofa, sinking into the squishy cushions and likely picking up a yeti’s worth of dog hair on my clothes.

‘Hard day?’ Roman asks, fetching a pack of Hobnobs. Chocolate-covered ones. Damn, I must really look a mess if he’s bringing out the biscuity big guns.

‘There was an accident on the M5. Sat in it for over an hour before we got moving.’ I take a bobbly biscuit and dunk it in my tea. I want to get back to my flat, but traffic is a killer tonight, and Maggie’s place is closer. So I’ve ducked in to wait until things calm down on the roads. ‘Thank you for the tea, but I’m going to dip my Hobnobs in it and then beg for some wine.’

‘Already opened,’ he says and nods towards the counter. ‘I saw you kick the dumpster after parking and hedged my bets.’