Page 1 of Knights Game

1

Luca Knight

I don’t suffer fools.I can’t tolerate incapable twats, I despise insubordination, and I loathe fucking liars. Yet here Steven stands before me in my office, twittering on about how yet another shipment has been seized by the port authorities entering the UK via Liverpool.

He had one job: get it in, get it unloaded, and get it on the road to London so we could get it on the streets. Okay, that’s three jobs, but still. It was his job, and the imbecile failed…again.

I lean forward and grab the tumbler on my desk. Lord, give me strength. I want to put a bullet through this moron’s head. Taking a sip of whiskey, the liquid douses my burning rage.

Steven continues to rattle off excuse after excuse.

I am bored of it.

BORED OF IT.

This is the sixth time it’s happened in the last four months, and the Covenant is watching. Always fucking watching.

As are the Albanians.

How will I ever be able to move to phase two of my business plan if we continue to have these fuckups?

My family's inactions reflect on me, on my plans.

There’s something more to this, they’re obviously coordinated attacks. But that doesn’t negate the fact that this guy is an idiot and a liar.

The golden liquid burns my throat, and I swill the rest around the glass.

If I kill the grovelling twat, I’ll have to answer to my uncle and cousin. That would be a ball ache, especially when neither of them has the vision of what the future could look like without the Albanians.

I can’t risk letting Steven continue to run the operations out of Liverpool. Not when the scales are so precariously balanced. One wrong move, and everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve will be fucked. EverythingI’veworked so hard for.

I can feel Roman, my second-in-command’s eyes on me, waiting for my signal. He’s been witness to the fool’s every jittery move, to every snivelling word.

“One more chance, just one more,” Steven pleads.

But this won’t be just one more chance, will it? This would be his seventh. Six more chances than I was willing to give him, but I was overruled.

I’m growing tired of the family politics. The Albanians are taking over our territory for three reasons: they’re ruthless, they’re cunning, and they’re businessmen. They took the rule book, burned it, then threw the sizzling remnants out the fucking window.

And now? Now our family is fighting for the scraps of London, warring with idiotic gangs and our so-calledpartnerswhile the Albanians are one step closer to taking control of the six-billion-pound cocaine industry in the UK.

Yet my family, my dear cousin, and uncle, continue to show leniency to fools like Steven here. Our enemies didn’t get to where they are with rainbows and pink fluffy unicorns.

No, they got there with bullets, money and brains.

I slam the tumbler down on the desk. “Enough.” I growl and the fool at least has the courtesy to shut his mouth. “I don’t think you understand the precarious position you put me in, Steven.”

“Please, Mr Knight.” The fool takes a step towards my desk and Roman shifts, the small movement enough to halt the dockworker in his tracks.

“I’m an understanding man,” I say, reaching into the top drawer to pull out a packet of cigarettes and take one out. Tapping it on the desk before popping it into my mouth. Each movement methodical, each movement slow, each movement prolonging Steven’s fate. I flip open the silver zippo lighter, a gift from my mother, etched with the inscriptionburn it all down. The flame warms my face, a hiss of the tobacco as it catches, and I take a slow drag.

“I get that mistakes happen, we’re human after all.” I puff out the smoke, and take another drag, letting the poison fill my lungs and ease the tension. “But this isn’t the first fuck-up. So, I will ask once,” I hold up my finger before taking another slow inhale. “Who are you working for?”

“You, Mr Knight. The Covenant, only the Covenant.”

I tilt my head and stub out the cigarette. My world is filled with enough death to ever let myself finish a full one. I want to go down in a blaze of bullets, not from cancer.

I rest my chin into my steepled hands, assessing him. “Then that’s not working for me, is it? You’re either loyal to me and my family, or you’re loyal to the Covenant.”

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