Page 102 of Midnight Racers

Since they were distracted by me talking, my hand grasped a gun in my shoulder holster. I spun it toward the guy standing to the right of Martin behind his desk and blew his brains out.

“Do I look like I need the police to handle my problems?” I asked, smiling at his stunned reaction and the way he kept looking over at the dead body beside him oozing blood onto the expensive carpet.

Jordan shot another one of his guards and all eyes snapped to him, guns drawn and pointed at him.

“What?” he said with a shrug. “You killed one more than me. I can’t have that.”

It was a fair point, so I didn’t argue it. Jordan never liked anyone’s death count to be higher than his.

“Get out of my house!” Martin screamed, his face turning a strange shade of puce.

“No,” I replied, turning to his security guards, who were probably under orders to shoot on his command. “This is your last chance to survive. You only work for this little shit stain, so my issue isn’t with you.”

“Fifty thousand to every man who helps me take this sordid organisation down and stops the theft of designs,” Jordan said. “I’ll up your fee if you do more than just give me information.”

Money was power in this world, and my business partner had more than he knew what to do with, and the experience of how to use it effectively.

One by one, they put their guns away and stepped to the side of the room.

“My friend is currently freezing all your assets and transferring them to charities,” Jordan continued, wandering over and sitting on the edge of Martin’s desk. “My organisation is currently giving your computer the digital equivalent of a colonoscopy. I will happily eliminate the people you work with one at a time.”

“I can give you a cut of the business,” Martin said in the desperate hope of negotiation. “We bring new partners in all the time.”

Jordan turned to look at me, his eyebrow arching and a smile playing on his lips. He was handing the situation over to me.

“No thanks,” I replied. “I’m happy to win races the old-fashioned way. This isn’t about designs and money anymore. You touched what belongs to me and now it’s time for you to pay the price.”

He tried to hide under his status symbol desk, screaming like a baby as I dragged him out. The image of Charlotte in that car was burned into my head.

“Please!” he begged, trying to get back under the desk. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Name your price.”

“No, thanks, I have plenty of money. There’s only so much you can spend.”

I dragged the snake back out again, even as he tried to dig his nails into the plush carpet.

“Please, I’m begging you!” he squealed.

I leaned over him, grabbing his shirt to haul him up and slam him back on the floor. “Have some self-respect, Martin.” I slapped his forehead. “You’re about to die. At least be a man once in your life.”

“You’re a racer. Surely, you can see the importance of my organisation. The need for teams to be able to buy the technology they need.”

I slapped his forehead again. “They could just hire an engineer and figure it out themselves.”

“Fuck off!”

“Why do they always say that?” Jordan said to me.

“No idea. If I was about to die, I would try to think of something more imaginative.” I stared down at Martin. “Do you have something more intelligent to say?”

“Aaahhh!” he screamed, trying to throw himself at me in a fit of rage. “I’m going to kill you!” He’d grabbed a dagger from under his desk and tried to stab me.

I grabbed his wrist and twisted until the dagger clattered to the floor, tutting as I shook my head. “Not a great choice of last words.” I punched him in the face. “Let me show you what happens to men who touch what doesn’t belong to them.”

I became an assassin many years ago because I had rage issues that I controlled through killing people to satisfy the hatred inside me. In recent times, I had channelled that into racing. Now, I had a new focus and he was cowering on the floor.

I broke every one of his greedy, thieving fingers individually. “You will never steal from anyone every again,” I said. Then I booted him in the balls. “That’s because you fucked with the wrong person.”

Jordan sauntered off to speak to the men who had readily changed alliances. Our team would never trust them enough to employ them, but we needed to find how far this rot went in the racing world and cut it out.

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