Annie pulled her feet up from the floor and under her, repositioning herself on the sofa in Terry’s lounge. Having decided to go back to his house with him, she realised she’d been sat on his sofa for over four hours and she’d barely asked a single question about his line of work. They’d had sex as soon as they got back and then lay on the sofa for a few hours. They’d spoken about everything other than his work.
They’d ordered pizza and ice-cream, and Terry carried the boxes into the lounge and placed them on the coffee table in front of them.
‘So,’ Annie said as she reached for a slice of pepperoni. ‘The Collins deal.’
‘What about it?’ Terry replied before taking a bite of his own slice.
‘Is it drugs?’
‘Yes.’
‘What kind?’
‘Class A mostly,’ Terry said, pausing mid bite.
Annie knew of various types of drugs but she didn’t know what class each belonged to. But of course, Class A would be the harder stuff. She wasn’t stupid.
‘You ever taken drugs before, Annie?’
‘That would be telling.’
Terry nodded, a grin creeping across his face. ‘You’ve never smoked a bit of weed, done a bit of coke?’
‘I said that would be telling. All you have to know is I don’t do anything like that now as you know me.’ Annie smiled. She liked the idea of drip feeding him information about herself. It would keep him interested. ‘So, the deal, it’s for heroin, coke? That kind of thing?’ Annie pushed. As much as she wanted to keep things close to her chest, she also wanted to know what she was getting involved with.
‘Aye, and the rest.’
Terry didn’t seem too fazed by her questions, or the fact that the drugs he was putting out on the streets could kill people. If Annie was honest with herself, she wasn’t either. In fact, Annie wasn’t fazed by most things these days. Not after what she’d been through, not after what she’d done.
‘And what will those men do with the stock?’
‘They’ll put them on the streets. They’ll have their own distribution team that will supply various parts of the city and the outskirts.’
Annie laughed and Terry stopped mid chew. ‘What you laughing at?’
‘Distribution team?’ She raised a brow.
‘Well, what would you want me to call it? It’s a team of lads who sell the gear in certain areas.’
Terry nudged Annie and laughed with her. She couldn’t believe that she was talking about distributing drugs around the city as though it were something as innocent as newspapers.
‘And the Collins deal, there are more like that?’
Terry nodded as he popped the last piece of crust into his mouth. ‘Aye, we’ve got a varied amount of business partners. Some on the east side of the country but mostly Glasgow and surrounding areas.’
She could tell that he wasn’t going to give up information unless she asked and she was happy to bombard Terry with questions.
‘And what about guns? You supply those too?’
‘Richie takes care of that side of things mostly.’
‘And you said alcohol too?’
‘You know the term, off the back of a lorry?’ Terry asked. Annie nodded and decided she didn’t care much about the alcohol. The drugs and the guns were what piqued her interest the most.
She wanted to know everything, see everything. Annie wanted to be part of this, something that she could really sink her teeth into.
‘Have you ever killed anyone before?’ she asked.
Terry gave her a sideward glance before picking up another slice of pizza from the box in front of him. ‘Annie, I’m what people would describe as a gangster. A drug lord, a criminal. It would be like asking a tattoo artist if he had any tattoos. It comes with the territory.’
‘Who?’ Annie asked, a stir in her belly caused her to shift in her seat.
‘It doesn’t matter who, or how many. All that matters is that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get to the top in this game. Anyone with ambition would. All you have to do is look at the politicians and the powerful people who run the world. Most of them are sociopaths. They’ll put themselves in any position if it leads to success. I’ve definitely done that. Have you?’
Annie thought about her life before Terry and how quickly things had changed.
She was sat with one of Glasgow’s top criminals, faced with the opportunity to be part of something much bigger than her and the life she’d wanted to lead.
‘Not in the way you mean.’ Annie shook her head and Terry smiled.
‘Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?’
Terry lifted the pizza box and offered it to Annie. She took a slice and bit into it.
Yes, there was a first time for everything. Up until yesterday, she was a vegetarian who’d never have imagined how much her life would change.
Now, she was eating a pepperoni pizza with a man who’d probably killed a lot of people to get what he wanted. If the last day had shown her anything, then doing things for the first time was certainly enjoyable.
‘Right, when are you going to teach me how that gun works?’