Chapter 2

It was a few minutes after 11 PM. Alicia would be secured and Dylan would be killed. For some reason, I felt something would go south. Kenny noticed my doubt and told me everything would work out work properly.

We got everything ready at the drug base; loaded the snipers and the silent pistols. And just like that, it was midnight, and we were all ready. I was dressed in a black shirt and black trousers where my gun could easily camouflage with the clothes.

I hopped into my car while Kenny told the snipers to hide in their designated locations. The people that would get Alicia when we conduct the exchange and snipe Dylan were also hidden somewhere in the dark starry night. One of my men loaded the trunk of the car with the fake drugs. I drove off to the alley and immediately spotted what Dylan told me to expect. It was written in red, 'The Spot' marked boldly on the concrete wall.

The alley smelt of stale cigarettes and long-dead rats. It was a disgusting odour and the garbage from the dustbins didn't help. I scrunched up my nose to prevent the smell. There was a loud screech sound from a stray cat in the alley. It was a disturbing sound.

Dylan was in a black hoodie so I couldn't see his face properly. I looked behind him and saw a tied-up Alicia, the ropes no doubt leaving marks on her delicate skin. My hands curled into a fist at the sight.

I unloaded the fake boxes of drugs and dropped them in front of my feet.

"Here it is Dylan. Untie Alicia and take what you asked for," I said, my voice grim.

"Let me check it. Kick the box over to me." He demanded in a hoarse voice.

"Put her in front of you first."

"Sure thing, Balcom," he agreed, kicking Alicia by her back as she let out a painful cry. I would have given him a punch that would have sent his head flying over to another dimension if not for the situation at hand. I kicked the boxes towards him. He brought out a weird-looking object.

"What the hell is that?" I questioned.

"It's nothing, just what I'm using to check whether you're giving me fake drugs." Shit. Well, that's bad. He bent over to open the box and that's when I received a message from my listening device saying, "Should we shoot him now that he's bending down? Nod if we should do it."

"Balcom," Dylan called, anger laced with his voice, "who the hell do you think you're fooling?!"

I nodded immediately his hands dug into his pockets, probably looking for his gun. And it was like everything turned into slow motion. The sniper fired from a distance and Dylan fell flat to the ground. It must have been terrifying for Alicia because immediately she saw the sight; she burst into tears and said, "I'm scared, brother. So damn scared." When I heard that, I untied her and held her gently in my arms. I am never going to let her go through this again.

I carried her to my car and wrapped her in a brown blanket lying around in the trunk of the car. It was a cold night and she was shivering from both fear and the coldness. I ordered one of my men to hide his body in one of the dustbins. They cleaned up the blood on the floor. I hopped into my car and I saw Alicia was already sleeping. I let out a small smile. I drove off to my house and woke Alicia so she could take a shower and go to bed. She looked peaceful under the covers and I swore to myself silently that she will never experience such a horrifying event again.

I walked over to my study, which was the same as my father's except the training room had been hidden so that it was a secret room and only I and a few others had access to the room. I sat down on the table, opened my computer and checked out the drug stocks. I skimmed the data roughly and was able to get a brief overview of it. The business was going well, but the influence of some of the sales was reduced. It looked like someone was stealing my buyers. Was it Dawson? No, it couldn't be. I had shut down that one since. But I couldn't shake off the feeling that Dawson was stealing my buyers. I was distracted by a call from Kenny.

"Nico," he called, his voice shaky, "there's a problem."

"What's the problem?" I asked, wondering what the problem could be.

"The thing is, Dylan wasn't in the garbage bin when we scanned the area for a second time."

"How?"

"I don't know, Nico."

"Let's go for another scan," I said. There's no way that's possible. I mean, I saw one of my men put the body in there with my own eyes. Maybe Kenny didn't scan the area properly. That had to be it.

"Whatever you say, Nico."

"Meet me there. Now."

"Okay, Nico," he hung up.

I immediately dropped my phone and walked over to my car. I sped off to the alley where I saw Kenny waiting for me there. We both walked over to the garbage bin where we had put Dylan's dead body but we found nothing. Dylan wasn't there. Somebody took the body. This was bad, real bad.

I looked at Kenny and saw he was still looking at something. "What's that?" I asked, confusion written all over my face. He looked at me and rose his arm up showing me a brown, crumpled paper, with the words, "Don't mess with us" written on it with red ink of maybe even blood.

"Damn," I said. We both looked at each other as a silent message went over the both of us. We're in deep shit.