The Jade Garden (The Barrington Patch Book 2) by Emmy Ellis (reading diary txt) 📗

The Donny—or at least get a phone call from Li Jun mid-sausage and mash. When she’d said on the phone she was on her way to the Chinese, he’d panicked, wondering if the masked man would still be there. Thankfully, he’d already fucked off, but it had been a close call.

He thumped the steering wheel, the side of his fist throbbing from the impact. “Why is it, every time I get close enough to her, shit happens so I have to take a step back?”

He was sick of things going wrong. Brenda Nolan, a woman who worked for Cassie by scamming old men on their death beds, had told him to stay in the background, not do owt to draw attention to himself if he wanted to take over the patch, and while that advice was good, he didn’t want to wait. Hence framing Nathan Abbott and sending that bloke into the Jade. He needed Cassie to rely on him while her hold on the patch slipped. He’d be her right hand and her confidant, knowing her moves every step of the way so he could scupper them.

“I’m going to send her proper mental,” he said to his reflection in the rearview. “Get her doubting herself until she’s so confused she leans on me, hands the estate over. I’ll run it then, kick the queen off her perch, and wear the king’s crown.”

He laughed. What a prick he was, talking to himself, but there was no one else he could talk to, no one he trusted enough with his plan.

He turned onto the road that led to the factory and rounded the building, thinking to park beside the industrial-sized wheelie bins at the rear, then changed his mind. He reversed to the door. Ted and Felix sat in their runabout close by, their heads only shapes in the darkness, no features discernible. Jason switched the engine off and got out, approaching the other vehicle, naffed his posh shoes might get dirty.

The cousins joined him outside, Ted going to unlock the door. He switched on the light, and it spilt out, casting a creamy rectangle on the ground, the top exposing the toes of Jason’s shoes.

Yeah, they were dirty.

Fucking Nora.

“What the devil have you got for us tonight then?” Felix laced his hands at the base of his skull and stretched, his bones clicking in sync with the beep of Ted pressing the alarm keypad. “We were watching a right good film, then Cassie got hold of us, said there was a body. She didn’t go into details, like.”

Maybe because it’s none of your fucking business?

While his thought was true, Jason couldn’t resist acting the one in the know and was chuffed he could tell him what had gone on. “Jiang from the Jade.” He opened his boot. The interior light splashed on, revealing the lumpy body bag.

“What did he do, piss Cassie off?” Ted came to stand beside Jason and peered into the boot.

“Nope. Someone sliced his neck with a machete.” Jason unzipped the bag then reached across to his toolbox, ferreting about in there for the hacksaw.

“A robbery, was it?” Felix frowned. “’Ere, what are you doing?”

Jason gripped Jiang’s hair and tugged the head up. “It’s hanging on by a thread, see?” He used the saw and attacked the skin and flesh, taking his anger out on it, the head breaking free, a chunk of fat plopping onto the bag’s zip. He held his prize up and looked Jiang in the eyes, wishing he could see into his mind, his last moments, feel the fear he must have experienced. He glanced at Felix. “This might have fallen off when you two took him out. I’ve saved you some mess to clean up. Like, if it’s dropped on the floor, you’d be needing the mop and bucket, and I’m sure you’d rather save some time so you can get back to your film.”

Felix snatched the head and stuffed it back in the bag, the glob of fat pinging off somewhere inside the boot. “That’s for us to deal with. What’s wrong with you, lad, chopping it off like that?” He glanced at Ted. “Go and get the trolley, will you.”

Ted tutted and ambled off, mumbling something or other. Jason tossed the saw into the toolbox. He’d clean the blade later when he had a bit of time—when Mam had gone to bed so she didn’t come nosing—plus find that lump of fat.

“Watch you don’t get yourself caught up in unnecessary things,” Felix warned. “Just do what’s asked of you, nowt more. Cassie and her weapon… You don’t want to mess with her. She’s worse than Lenny, vicious now, and that’s saying something.”

That got Jason’s hackles rising, and the pitch-black tar of anger soured his guts, boiling there, waiting to erupt. He kept it from spewing out of his mouth in a spiteful torrent and instead spoke quietly, his voice low. “Don’t tell me what to do, old man.”

Felix snorted, Jason’s threat seeming to go right over his head. “So it’s like that, is it? The job of right hand has gone to your nut? You’ve taken it upon yourself to shun the advice of someone who knows a thing or two? Years I’ve been doing this, and I know when to do something off my own bat and when to stick to the rules. You? That hacksaw blade’s got his DNA on it now, and it’ll have fallen off onto your other tools, and you’ll take it home most likely, clean it, spreading the evidence.”

He’s right, and my God do I hate it.

Rather than verbally agree with that, Jason chose a different tack. “It isn’t your place to give me advice. That privilege belongs to Cassie. She’s my boss, no one else.” Much as I hate to admit it. “Mind your own. I cut the skin because it