Page 41 of The Bait

Ivan nodded quickly. “Understood. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Now, are you sure you don’t remember anything else those pesky rumours said about my dear friend who was supposed to be dead years ago, but obviously wasn’t, and the Chinese boy computer whiz who found him?”

Ivan stammered a bit and shook his head. “No, that was all. Just that they found him. That’s all I know.”

“And who told you this?” Asher asked, his tone sweet, his smile cute.

“I know some guys who find out information,” he said. “Drugs, guns, that kind of stuff, whatever. I asked one of them if he’d heard anything on Asher Garin—” He paused, stricken. “Because you asked me to, no other reason. And he said he’d heard because he... maybe he does deals with the ZBK. He gets them guns and drugs, I don’t know. I don’t deal with them crazy fucks. I haven’t ever. You gotta be crazy to get into business with them.”

“I need a name,” Asher asked, not so sweetly now. “A name of your informant friend who does business with them.”

He baulked, so Harry took a step toward him.

Ivan put his hands up. “Daris Guli. His name is Daris.”

EIGHT

Harry wasquiet as he drove the Jeep, letting Asher get his thoughts together and his anger in check. The Daris that Ivan had referred to was none other than Asher’s friend, the guy he’d been at the orphanage with, at the training school with.

The guy who, just one day ago, had told Asher he lived a clean life now.

The guy who Asher had trusted. The guy who had hugged Asher, looked him right in the eye, and lied to him.

If Asher didn’t kill him, Harry would have no problem doing it.

They’d left Ivan at his storage warehouse, alive, and with no misunderstanding about his expected silence. Harry doubted he’d be any trouble; he acted like some smooth-talking big-time dealer and nightclub owner, but he was so close to crapping himself the whole time, Harry had to wonder how he’d managed to do any business dealings at all.

Asher looked up from his phone and nodded ahead. “Turn right at the next block.”

This was a residential part of the city. A nice part too. Pretty houses, leafy streets. And as the sun was breaking over the horizon, daylight was beckoning. Harry would have called it serene.

A far cry from what it was about to be for Daris.

“Number eighty-five,” Asher said. “On the left.”

“Are you okay?” Harry asked.

“I’ll be a whole lot better after this,” Asher replied quietly.

Harry pulled up right out front, noting the kid’s bicycle by the garage. “Seems he didn’t lie about having a kid,” Harry said.

It was his way of reminding Asher that there was a kid inside, though he wasn’t entirely sure Asher cared. Not this time. He kinda shrugged. “Good. Leverage.” Then he took the Scorpion pistol, loaded the clip, and slid it into the waistband of the back of his jeans, easily concealed by his coat.

“There’s an alarm system,” Harry said, nodding to the sensor on the eave outside. “And a power box. I’ll pull the circuit.”

Asher nodded, and they slipped out of the Jeep. Harry went to the side of the garage, lifted the lid to the power box, and switched the power and light breakers off.

He went back to the front door where Asher stood, leaning against the entry way, casual as ever, waiting...

And sure enough, a few moments later, a still half-asleep Daris pulled the front door open, grumbling to himself about the power. Asher grabbed the door, swung it out, and Harry stepped in and grabbed Daris by his pyjama shirt and forced him back inside.

“Shoulda locked your power box,” Harry said, walking a flailing Daris backwards down a short hall to a kitchen. He kicked a chair at the table and sat Daris’s ass on it.

Daris was pale. Harry towered over him, and Asher leaned down, smiling as if he’d been invited for breakfast. “Good morning, Daris,” Asher said cheerfully.

Daris shook his head. “Please, not here. My daughter... my wife... I’ll go with you. Just leave them alone. They don’t need to see this.”

“Oh, Daris,” Asher said mournfully, his hand to his heart. “I appreciate the resignation to your fate. But I don’t give one fuck about them.”

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