Head of the Firm Read online

  Head of the Firm

  Caz Finlay

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

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  Copyright © Caz Finlay 2020

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  Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

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  Caz Finlay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008405090

  Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008405083

  Version: 2020-08-07

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading…

  You will also love…

  About the Author

  Also by Caz Finlay

  One more chapter...

  About the Publisher

  For Finlay

  Prologue

  Zak Miller sat patiently on the stolen motorbike with the engine running while he waited for his target to approach. His heart thumped in his chest and the blood pounding in his ears seemed to reverberate off the sides of his motorcycle helmet as its soft leather pushed against his ears. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and focused instead on the rhythmic sound of his breathing – calm and steady, just like he’d been taught. What he was about to do was incredibly risky. It would change the landscape of the Liverpool underworld for ever. The ramifications would be felt far and wide and for years to come. Not only was his target one of the most dangerous and powerful individuals to ever walk the streets of Liverpool, it was also broad daylight, which ensured there were plenty of potential witnesses around. It was a calculated risk, and one that Zak was willing to take. Given that his target was particularly difficult to get close to, and was rarely alone, he didn’t want to miss an opportunity to strike when he happened to know exactly where they would be.

  Zak prided himself on being the very best at what he did, and he was getting very good money for this particular job. Money that would set him up for life. It would have to. He planned to disappear pretty quickly once this was over.

  He could only hear the loud, rhythmic thumping of his heartbeat now as his target approached. Pulling down the visor of his helmet, he took the Beretta handgun out of his inside jacket pocket and edged the bike forward. A few more seconds and he would have a perfect shot. He watched as his intended victim smiled to themselves – they didn’t have a fucking clue what was coming. As their paths crossed he raised the gun. By the time his target had noticed him, it was too late. He fired one clean shot straight through his victim’s neck. Before they had even hit the floor, Zak hit the throttle and sped off out of sight.

  Chapter One

  Three Weeks Earlier

  Grace Carter looked up from her phone as her husband Michael walked over and sat on the sofa beside her.

  ‘He’s fast asleep now, just like his big sister,’ he said with a grin, referring to their four-month-old son, whom he had just placed in his Moses basket.

  She returned his smile as she put her phone on the coffee table in front of them. ‘You are a genius, Michael Carter. He never settles that easily for me. You must have the magic touch.’

  ‘Yeah. And that’s not the only magic I can do with these hands, you know?’ he said with a wink.

  ‘Really? What other magic can you do? I can’t recall.’

  ‘What? You don’t remember? It was only this morning, Grace.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Just over twelve hours ago in fact.’

  Grace pulled his face to hers and kissed him. ‘Oh yes, I remember now.’

  He put an arm around her shoulder and she nestled against him. ‘So how was work today?’

  ‘Oh, you know what it’s like. Everyone has a problem, but no one brings any solutions.’

  ‘Speaking of problems and solutions, I heard another club got raided last night. Did you manage to find out any more about if and when they’re likely to hit Jake’s club?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Not really. But it seems like the plod are insistent on raiding every club in town. You know they like to have a crackdown every so often. It keeps the mayor and the licensing board happy. So, it’s only a matter of time before they target The Blue Rooms as well.’

  ‘Well, you’d better tell the boys to keep their extracurricu
lar activities to a minimum for a few weeks then,’ she said with a sigh. ‘We don’t want any of our bouncers getting arrested. We’re supposed to be legitimate now, aren’t we?’

  ‘I’ll have a word with them tomorrow.’

  Grace and Michael owned Cartel Securities, a successful business with security contracts across the country. Michael had started the firm himself a couple of years earlier, and at first he’d focused on the thriving Liverpool nightlife scene as well as one-off event management. The business was now considered the premier security company for Liverpool and Merseyside. However, it wasn’t until they’d been married, sixteen months ago, that Grace had become a partner and had taken the business in a whole new direction. It had been both her and Michael’s idea to try and keep the business legitimate. It had worked for the most part, and they’d secured themselves lucrative contracts with shopping centres, building sites and hospitals across the North West and North East.

  If that wasn’t enough to keep them busy, they were also co-owners of two successful Italian restaurants with Michael’s brother Sean: one in the up-and-coming Baltic Market area, and one in the heart of Liverpool’s Albert Dock. The latter, Sophia’s Kitchen, was their flagship. Their pride and joy. It had cost them an arm and a leg to kit out with the finest furniture and state-of-the-art kitchens, but it had all been worth it. Now, Sophia’s Kitchen was the hottest place to eat in Liverpool. Their weekends were booked months in advance and the place was permanently packed to the rafters. Grace had been involved in every detail until Oscar was born. Then she’d promised herself at least six months off to spend with Oscar and her daughter Belle. Michael had been happy to take over the reins while she did so, telling her to take all the time she needed. But, although she was technically on maternity leave, Grace was still busy making plans to open a wine bar in the next twelve months.

  However, the legitimisation of the Carter empire appeared to have bypassed the younger generation, and together Grace’s son, Jake, and Michael’s twin boys, Paul and Connor, had taken over Grace and Michael’s previous mantle of being the principal suppliers of cocaine, ecstasy and weed, as well as whatever else anyone needed to get their hands on, to the Merseyside area. This also involved using Grace and Michael’s bouncers as dealers when the need arose, which was fine as a rule, except when the police and the licensing board were sniffing around looking for reasons to close places down.

  The Blue Rooms was Jake’s club, left to him by his father, Grace’s ex-husband, Nathan Conlon. When Nathan had owned the place, it had been a seedy lap-dancing club – which had suited Nathan’s character down to the ground. To Jake’s credit, when he had first taken over, he’d turned the place into one of the most successful clubs in Liverpool. And with Jake’s wife, Siobhan, at the helm, it had become one of the leading Liverpool nightspots. But since Siobhan had left work to have their daughter, Isla, a year earlier, the place had lost some of its class. It was still successful, but more often than not it was dogged by rumours of drugs and brawling, and more than once Grace or Michael had had to call in favours from the various officials they had on their payroll to stop the place from being closed down.

  ‘Any chance that our kids will actually listen though?’ Grace said with a sigh.

  ‘Who knows?’ Michael replied with a shrug. ‘You do realise they’re invincible, don’t you?’

  Grace laughed. ‘Oh yes, of course. I forgot about that.’

  ‘I remember when I used to think I was invincible. Seems like a lifetime ago now,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Now you’re all old and wise,’ Grace said as she nudged him in the ribs. ‘So they definitely won’t listen to you.’

  ‘Well, if they don’t listen to me, I’ll call in the big guns – you.’

  They usually did listen to her, but all the same, Grace gave a sigh. ‘I do worry about them though, Michael. What if one day they really do stop listening to us?’

  Michael turned his head to look at her. ‘They know what they’re doing, Grace. They’re not stupid. Young, and quite possibly a bit arrogant, but not stupid. They’re not out there doing anything that we didn’t do ourselves at one time or another.’

  She nodded at him, but wasn’t entirely convinced.

  ‘And besides,’ Michael added, ‘they will always listen to you.’

  Before she could respond, he silenced her with a kiss.

  Chapter Two

  Connor Carter closed his eyes and leaned back against the leather headrest in the back seat of his Range Rover, while his girlfriend, Jazz, rode him like her life depended on it. Despite being nine years older than him, she had the most incredible body he had ever seen. And she could do things with it that made his toes curl. Since he’d met her five months earlier on a night out in Manchester, he’d been completely besotted with her. The only potential blot on the landscape was that she was a married woman. And not just any married woman. But when he was with Jazz, Connor didn’t care. He’d convinced himself they were too clever to get caught. They were always discreet. They used his car, or cheap hotels in the arse end of nowhere. Connor hadn’t told anyone about Jazz except for Paul, and he would trust Paul with his life.

  ‘Fuck, Jazz,’ he breathed when they were finished. ‘You’re something else, girl. Do you know that?’

  ‘I do my best,’ she purred at him as she licked her lips.

  The vibration of Connor’s mobile phone in his pocket put an end to his post-sex haze. Jazz lifted her thighs off his as he reached into his pocket to retrieve it.

  ‘What?’ he snapped as he answered the phone to Gary Mac, one of his best soldiers.

  ‘Sorry, Boss, but there’s been a problem at the collection point. Someone must have known we were going to be there. They were waiting inside the container for us.’

  ‘What? Is everyone okay? Is the gear okay?’

  ‘We’ve got the gear. But Vinnie Black’s been shot in the stomach.’

  ‘Shit!’ Connor snapped as he jumped up, sending Jazz sprawling onto the seat beside him. ‘Sorry,’ he mouthed to her.

  ‘Where is Vinnie now?’

  ‘The lads took the gear to the warehouse, and I dropped Vinnie at A and E. I left the stolen plates on the van, and I was in and out, Boss, so no one will know who dropped him off. But we couldn’t just leave him like that.’

  ‘No, of course you couldn’t. Any idea who was behind it?’

  ‘Yep. I’m back with the lads now and we’ve got two of the little fuckers.’

  ‘Nice one, Gary. I’ll call Paul and Jake and we’ll be there as soon as.’

  ‘Sound. We’re at the warehouse.’

  ‘Sound,’ Connor replied and ended the call. He turned to Jazz. ‘I’m so sorry, babe, but something’s come up.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Jazz said with a sigh. ‘I’d better be getting back soon anyway before he notices I’m missing. Can you drop me back at my car?’

  ‘Of course, babe,’ he said before giving her one last kiss. Then, while Jazz got herself dressed, he dialled his brother’s phone number.

  Jake Conlon looked at the quivering man on the floor in front of him. Ian Thomas was a scumbag known locally as The Thrush, because he was so fucking irritating. He was a part-owner of a knocking shop, the aptly named Number 69 on the Dock Road, and with Jake and the Carter twins’ permission he dealt drugs from there too – drugs that they sold him for a good price. He sold to the girls mostly and Jake supposed they needed something to get through the day when the likes of Ian Thomas and his mates were their clientele. The day before, Paul had received a phone call from one of the girls, Sasha. He and Connor had gone to school with her and she’d been a reliable source of information for them since she’d started working at Number 69 three years earlier. It was surprising the level of information that was divulged to the girls by some of the punters. So, seeing the potential business opportunity, the Carter twins had ensured that every girl in Number 69 had become their eyes and ears, and, by association, Jake’s too. Sasha had told
him that Ian had been taking the good-quality merchandise that they prided themselves on, and had been cutting it with all kinds of nasty shit. Two of the girls had become so ill they’d been hospitalised, and one had almost died. Paul had promised her that they would sort it as soon as they could – and so here they were.

  ‘Please, Mr Conlon,’ Ian snivelled. ‘I didn’t do anything with your drugs.’