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

scene changes, and one lady walked across her bedroom and closed the blind. Cars flashed by, others slowing for the driver to find a parking space, maybe to visit The Shoppe Pudding, The Donny, or the laundrette along the way.

Someone over the road, as dark as the shadows between the lampposts, hung about beside a tall hedge at the bottom of a front garden. Li Jun paid them no mind. Oftentimes, people waited for busses there, shielded from the wind by that hedge, only stepping out to the kerb, hand raised and flapping, once their transport came to a wheezing, smoker-like stop.

Bored, Li Jun turned to chat to his family through the cutout.

“Quiet night,” he said in Mandarin.

“It’ll be too busy once everyone leaves The Donny.” Dequan scooped up the onion petals and dropped them in a metal bowl. “Always is.”

“Strange, when we offer more than food.” Li Jun frowned. By now, loads of ‘scallies’, as Tai referred to them, would have been in for a portion of chips with a side of weed. Odd that the takeaway wasn’t bustling.

The bell over the front door jangled, and Li Jun pasted on a smile, spinning to greet the customer. Someone stood there all in black, a balaclava covering their face, their body slim and delicate. Was it a woman? He’d been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he’d gone in with Lenny, and he supposed they were trying their luck now Cassie ran the Barrington. His stomach muscles spasmed, and he slowly reached out beneath the counter for his gun, one Lenny had given him so long ago.

It wasn’t there.

God, he’d forgotten to get it out of the safe.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice steady even though he was afraid.

Why hadn’t his family seen this person through the cutout? Were they so busy they hadn’t looked this way?

The visitor brought a machete out from behind their back. “What I’d like is a beef curry and a portion of egg fried rice, but there’s something else I want more.”

A man. Young, going by the tone.

Li Jun racked his brains. Had he heard that voice before, or was he imagining it, hoping he had so he could identify him? Whatever, he couldn’t place it at the minute—and couldn’t afford to think about it. The man snicked the lock down and approached the counter.

“Where’s the fridge?” he asked.

Ah. So he was here for the drugs if he knew about that.

How, though? Who would have told him? Li Jun didn’t know how many of Cassie’s lot were aware. It could be any of them—it certainly wouldn’t be his family.

In a split second, he weighed up his options: let the man take the goods or fight him? The machete was a problem, a big one, but if he called out to his sons, they’d pick up a meat cleaver and do some damage themselves. But he didn’t want to put them in any danger. On the other hand, if he allowed the man to have access to the fridge, he might find himself dead by Cassie’s hand for letting the goods be stolen.

“I said, where’s the fucking fridge?” The man waggled the machete about, his eyes wide in the balaclava holes, his lips trembling.

He was afraid?

Was anyone in the houses opposite watching this, calling the police?

“Come with me.” Li Jun opened the hatch.

The man held the machete out, pointing the tip at Li Jun, and came through to stand behind the counter. “What about that lot in there?” He cocked his head in the direction of the cutout, indicating the family.

Li Jun didn’t dare take his attention from this horrible person. “They will not do anything, not when you have a weapon.”

“Good. I don’t want no bother, just the drugs. I’m doing as I’m told, right? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“How will you carry it?”

The would-be thief paused, looked at the ceiling as if thinking about whether he’d even brought a bag with him. The larder fridge was packed—he’d need an extra-large holdall and a lot of strength to cart that much away.

Unless someone was waiting out there in the dark. Maybe the shadow-shape by the hedge? Or had that been this man?

“Shit,” the lad whispered.

Li Jun took that moment to punch him in the stomach, and as the would-be thief bent over in pain, he kneed him in the face.

He pushed through into the kitchen, shouting in Mandarin, “Get out! Get out the back!”

Everyone stared at him for a fragment of time then obeyed. His family tumbled into the yard, the door flying inwards so hard it hit one of the steel storage units, and plastic food containers teetered, threatening to fall off. A heavy pot clanged onto the floor in front of Li Jun, rolling to wedge the door open. He ran outside, heart clattering, skin clammy. By the light coming from the kitchen, he spotted Tai struggling to undo the padlock on the rear gate, the key always left in there.

“Climb over the fence,” Li Jun shouted. “Get away.”

He planned to see his people to safety then deal with the man, face death by machete if he had to. His wife, Nuwa, was upstairs in the flat, and he couldn’t let the bastard get to her. He turned at the swoosh of the door behind the counter opening. The man staggered towards him, eyes narrowed with spite, a bruise blooming beneath one of them.

“The fucking fridge,” he growled out.

He stepped outside, going for Li Jun, waving the machete around.

Jiang darted between Li Jun and the intruder. “Get away from my uncle.”

The blade, arced from left to right, sliced into Jiang’s neck. He stared in shock for a suspended, drawn-out second, then collapsed to