She stopped counting the money again and looked up at me. The hesitation and fear reflected in her eyes.

“Why?” she asked. “We have another day. We might be able to find more –”

“No way are we going to make it to fifteen,” I cut in calmly. “The best thing would be to show up a day early and tell him what we have. That way if he takes it, we’re out of the clear until the next payment.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Exhaling with finality, I said, “Then that gives us a day to get the fuck out of here.”

She swallowed, fighting back the tears behind those clear blue eyes. “Okay.”

I opened my arms out to her and she crawled into them. She nestled herself against me, carefully splaying an arm over my waist. I stroked her hair and thought long and hard about today’s events.

Fuck, let it end well.

*

You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’ve idled your car in front of a bank, watching the people move in and out, and wondering how possible it might be to walk in there and rob the place.

Fuckin’ Dick and Jane type shit right here.

It took me a long time to talk myself out of doing something stupid. I won in the end, pulling out and driving as far away as possible. I followed the directions on my map book to the address I’d been given. By the time I finally made it there, I was on the outskirts of Hedley, nearing the rural farming divisions of which were mostly neglected or abandoned.

The place I turned into was a shell. Windows all boarded up. An unbalanced black stained house that looked like a gust of wind could knock its walls down. Yet despite the less than stellar real estate, a yellow Ferrari was parked out front.

Because that’s not suspect, right?

I drove past it and parked the car half a kilometre down the road. I stepped out with the envelope of money in hand and made my walk under the clouded sun. I breathed calmly, focusing solely on keeping myself put together.

Every step forward was agony.

My chest burned.

My ribs ached.

My limbs were stiff and sore.

I was fucked, and the skies reflected my predicament, covering the earth with its gloomy presence. I could smell the precipitation in the air. An explosion of rain was coming, and I could only hope an explosion of a different kind wasn’t.

I eyed the car on my way to the front of the still house. I even paused by the porch and tried to listen in on anything. It was one thing to give money away to a dangerous thug, and it was an entirely other thing to do it by showing up unannounced. But I needed the advantage of time in case he turned me away and gave me until tomorrow to get the rest of it in.

Thoughts get fuddled when you’re under pressure. A good idea might turn out to be the complete opposite, and it’s only when you’re clear headed and thinking straight do you realize this. Even then, standing out front of a druggie’s den, I was partly aware of my stupidity. But it was too late to turn back now.

I pounded on the door and took a step back. My heart stampeded in my chest, and an unsettling feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.

Pull yourself together.

Pull yourself together.

The door suddenly creaked open, inch by inch, until I came face to face with the barrel of a gun.

“Ah, you fucking serious right now?” came Ricardo’s pissed voice.

I swallowed air, trying to remove the shock of seeing a deadly weapon pointed in my face, and looked up at him. Half his face was covered with a navy blue bandana. He was dressed in black, long sleeved clothing, and his hands were gloved.

Shit. The only reason you cover yourself up like this is if you were trying to hide your identity. Something bad was going down soon... or it already happened.

“The hell you doin’ here, Lawson?” he demanded, keeping the tip of the gun levelled to my face. I didn’t fucking appreciate it.

“The money,” I managed out.

I saw those eyebrows shoot up. “Serious? I gave you tomorrow to come by. You ain’t supposed to be comin’ and goin’ as you fucking please around my turf. That shit isn’t acceptable.”

“I didn’t think the address would take me to a fucked up looking house in the middle of nowhere, man. Or that I’d see a gun pointed to my goddamn face either.”

“Yeah, well, you should’ve expected it! I don’t have time for this shit. Give me the fifteen and get the fuck out of here now. I’ll deal with you later.”

I sighed and looked down at the envelope. I slowly handed it over to him, and he roughly snatched it out of my hand.

“You’ve lived to see another day,” he exclaimed mockingly. “Congratulations.”

I didn’t budge an inch. This was his send off, but there was no way I was going to turn around while he went inside and counted what was in there.

“That’s not the full fifteen,” I told him hesitantly. “It’s just over nine.”

For a few seconds there was just silence. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I could only see those dark eyes looking straight at me. It was ominous as hell. Kind of like he was the Grim Reaper deciding my fate.

“Is this a joke to you?” he said, sounding bewildered.

“You don’t know what I went through to get that,” I retorted, motioning to the envelope. “So no, it’s not a fucking joke –”

“You realize you’re a dead man, right?”

“At least I gave you something –”

“Man, fuck this money.” He threw the envelope down in front of me. “It was never about the fucking money, Lawson! It was about you doing as you were told! I don’t have a choice but to take you out –”

“I’ll get you more –”

“You don’t have more!” he cut in, taking a step down the porch, that FUCKING GUN still pointed in my face. “Didn’t you take the fucking hint? Your brother made a huge error. He pissed a lot of people off! You were never going to walk out of this! Why do you think you were given a fucking task that was impossible to complete? Fifty thousand dollars – ain’t nobody in your position gonna ever have that.”

“Then why didn’t you just kill me to begin with?”

“Because my boss is a sick fuck who likes to watch you swim before you drown.”

“And who’s your boss? Take me to him!”

Ricardo scoffed and shook his head. “Too late for that, man. You fucking failed.”