Chapter 21:: The Warning

Marco sat there on the bed next morning, with nothing on except for a sheet covering him from his waist down. The space next to him in the bed was tousled and had a few items on it which weren’t his. He was looking out of the window at the sun, his brows were twitched, there were strains of concern on his face, and he was thinking deep into something.

‘There are going to be serious consequences’, Marco remembered a voice telling him, ‘You sure to want to take him on?’

‘Posi – fuckin –tive. I’m sure’, Marco remembered saying.

‘Tanning those chest muscles hard boy?’, a voice came from the door of the shower, ‘it’s way better if you roll a tongue over it first. Want that?’

Marco appeared least bothered and continued to stare outside.

‘What’s wrong honey, got a dip now have you?’

‘Would it help to shut your mouth if I said yes?’, snapped back Marco.

The woman speaking to him glared back at him with filth and shook with anger, but controlled her temper and went and sat on the other side of the bed. She took off the towel she was wearing to reveal nothing but a black g-string she had on her. She took the red top squashed under the quilt and put it on, her hair was still wet from the shower but she didn’t bother drying it. She then reached out to the edge of the bed for a deep brown leather skirt and slid her legs into it. Her black stockings were rolled up next to the pillow, and she stuck her toes in them and rolled them up her glossy legs. Once she was done, she turned around towards the man who had been ignoring her right since the time she had opened her eyes after the night. She felt flabbergasted and equally surprised at the sudden change in behaviour. She felt it wasn’t worth trying to find out what she had done to annoy him, even though nobody else had ever changed this way the morning after.

‘Funny business I’m in you know. I get some who just want to talk and of course that’s because then cannot do a thing and then there’s you, who won’t talk at all.’

‘The money’s on the table.’

‘It’s not always about money, this isn’t a one night thing and you know it never has been.’

Marco had a lit up a cigarette by now, he began walking towards the couch from the bed after losing the sheets and putting on a pair of boxers. He sat down on it and laid back in a comfortable posture. He didn’t say anything to the last comment and it incensed the woman even more.

‘Answer me fucker, I am asking you a question.’

‘You know what they say?’

‘What?’

‘That you can’t answer when you haven’t been asked a proper question. D’yeh know what else they say?’

‘WHAT?’

‘That you don’t pay a whore to fuck you, you pay her to shut up and leave the next morning….there’s the money….on the table.’

With these words Marco went back to staring outside as heard the hurried movements of a pair of feet getting into leather boots and walking towards the door.

‘You forgot this.’, Marco said holding up a black bra over his head, without even bothering to look at her.

Her rage was beyond the extent of walking back and collecting it from him.

‘Shag in it mother fucker!’, she screamed before slamming the door shut behind her.

Marco threw it behind him somewhere in the room and took a few deep breaths and let them out slowly. He had been thinking about something for a long time, remembering it exactly as it had happened, before he had been disturbed by the little less than polite exchange. The voice kept echoing in his ears now, in fact there were two voices, one of them was his own in conversation with the other one….


‘There are going to be serious consequences’, ‘You sure to want to take him on?’

‘Posi – fuckin –tive. I’m sure.’

‘There will be his men coming after you.’

‘I’m not worried about Blanc and his men.’

‘I know you aren’t. I know that you are not afraid of Blanc and I also know that your anger outweighs your senses but not enough to stop your head from working. You’re a clever kid and you must have thought about something like paying his men off to join your side since there are too many to kill off. I know you’ll take care of that, I’m not worried about that.’

‘Then what are you worried about? What’re you trying to tell me?’

‘See I wasn’t talking about Blanc. He isn’t the main man in his side of the business, he is just a bum, a sort of representative if you like to hear it in refined terms. There are bigger fish in the sea you’re going fishing for a prawn in.’

‘Who would the bigger fish be, do you know?’

‘Not in person, in fact no one knows for sure who leads that side of the show. Could be anyone of the men placed across the whole of the east of the continent. Any one of those you’ve already done business with or the ones you will in the future from parts in Russia may well be the head himself, hiding under the guise of a right hand man.’, ‘You see, your idea of Francesco though a brilliant one is not a new conjured trick by you. It has been used for ages by one and many and the fact that you used it only proves that you’re on your way to the top of the business. But the very fact that it is so brilliant and old speaks for itself because it catches you out every time. Whether you want to be caught out or not.’

‘Yeah, but right now I don’t care. It’s Blanc facing my gun and we’ll deal with whoever faces my gun – one at a time.’

‘Yes I know that, and I am quite in favour of it myself. He’s always been a pest if you ask me. But I needed to make sure you know the deep waters you are about to ripple.’

‘That’s all right. That’ why I put my money on you….always on you old man.’

‘I know, that’s why I was making sure you get your money’s worth.’


….Marco got up now and went to the bathroom, turning on the tap of the sink. Cupping his hands together, he splashed his face with water. Feeling fresh and calm, he looked up at the mirror above. He looked at the reflection staring back at him, he observed it for some time. The face staring back at him had gone through a lot in his life, what made him smile reminiscently was the fact that he told himself at that moment.

‘Lot more to come man. Train’s already moved out and you’re on it buddy’, ‘it’s time now to see what stops we come at.’

As he came out of the bathroom, there was a determined and resolute look on his face. He got dressed and as he walked out of the room, he thought to himself,

‘We’ll see who gets on it now. Oh yeah baby I promise you that. We’ll definitely see who gets on it and trust me there WILL be people coming on it now. Just got to deal with all them fags innit?’