Page 159 of Knights Game

The Mercedes signals into a thin alley and I drive past it. No, not an alley, a ramp leading down into a car park. The shutters come down after the car enters.

I pull the motorcycle around the corner and turn off the engine, the purr and vibrations disappearing, and the quietness of the night consumes me. A distant car horn, a dog barking.

I throw my leg off the motorcycle, and peer up at the building. It looks normal, a standard row of London townhouses. The underground garage was something that was probably added after. The windows are dusty, the building unkempt and sad. Like many others in this area.

I pull the gun out of my pocket and take the safety off.

This is it; do or die.

56

Luca

I bunch my fistand knock three times. My muscles ripple with tension as I prepare for what comes next.

The door is opened by a man in his mid-thirties, skinhead, with a thick neck covered in tattoos. He’s built like a brickhouse; bending my head to look at him, my lips twitching.

Let the carnage commence.

“What?” he demands.

I stand with my arms behind my back, hiding the gun.

He steps forward and I move quickly, shooting a single shot hitting him square in his forehead. The silencer makes a small satisfying pop.

Blood and brain matter explode out from the bullet hole that has ripped through his brain and skull. He’s dead before he knows anything has happened to him, falling backwards to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

I push the door open as another man comes down the stairs and raises the alarm, but he doesn’t finish his sentence because I shoot again, two shots to the chest. He falls the rest of the distance, his body landing at my feet.

It’s a classic 1930s terrace. Rooms lead off the narrow hallway, a staircase leads to whatever dark debauchery exists upstairs.

I cross the threshold, the tiled floors covered in blood from my first victims. I walk to the first door on the left.

The kitchen.

Three men are in different stages of mobilisation after their comrades’ warning, cards scattered over the table, along with poker chips, cigars and whiskey glasses.

What a fucking cliché.

I shoot two of them before grabbing my knife and thrusting it up under the chin of the third, straight into his brain. His warm blood coats my hand splashing onto my face.

My stomach pulls, and I wince.

I grab a tumbler and knock back the drink, before picking up one of their fallen guns and tucking it into the back of my trousers.

A small whimper has me pausing. I turn slowly to see a woman strapped to a chair in the corner. Her back to the chaos I’ve caused. She’s grimy and shaking.

Fucking hell.

I walk over and push my knife through the ropes that bind her hands, her wrists covered in red welts where she has spent God knows how long fighting her restraints. I spin the chair round, the wood grating against the dirty tiled floor, her mouth gagged, her eyes wide and filled with unshed tears.

I put my hands up to show that I mean no harm, even if I do look like a maniac covered in the blood of my victims, gun in one hand a knife in the other.

I hold my finger to my lips, and she nods.

“How many?” I whisper.

She shakes her head, the first tears falling, tracking down her dirty cheek onto her cracked lips.

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