chapter 1

Taming The Drug Lord

‘Run’ my mind screamed at me while I crouched down in the back corner of a hallway of the big house I lived in with my husband the drug lord, Ryder. I crept further forward into the back room at the furthest away point in the house. Setting my screen brightness to the lowest, I used my phones gentle light to guide me round the desk to the big oak wood frame holding a stolen painting that was hinged to the wall. Pulling it away from the wall revealed the safe. 4-5-6-8-2-5 I pressed into the keypad. I then took the sticky tape with Ryder’s fingerprint on and stuck it over the scanner. The lights flashed green and i pulled open the heavy safe door. My jaw dropped. I had never seen so much money in my life. Inside the safe there were stacks and stacks almost filling the safe, almost forgetting myself I grabbed a few and slipped them into my bag. I silently closed the safe and put the painting back.

Cracking the door open just enough to be able to see a tiny sliver of the world outside this room I peered through, praying to god Ryder hadn’t woken up and noticed I wasn’t in bed. God only knows what he would do to me if he found out what my plan was. I opened the door further, just enough to slip out and crouch back to the floor closing the door behind me. Carefully, crawling most of the way I made it passed 2 of the in-house security men to the garage. Almost there I said to myself with a breath I hadn’t dared to let out before. I chose his least expensive car in the garage, though my personal favourite, the BMW X5. He never drove anywhere. He had a driver to do that for him, so i never saw the point in buying such expensive cars to never enjoy them fully. I locked the car doors and wound the window down. This is where it was going to get dicey. I knew there would be armed security guards outside the garage door and at the gate. Very quickly i pressed the garage door key button and the one for the electric gate at the bottom of the drive. I tossed both keys out of the window and wound the window back up, I started the car and put it in drive. As soon as the garage door was open enough to clear the roof of the car I gunned it, bullets instantly hitting the side of the car as i sped down the driveway. Tyres screaming as i turned on a pin as i turned left at the bottom of the driveway.


Almost instantly there were 3 cars tailing me. I darted down back streets down different roads i had never seen before. I didn’t know where i was going i was lost, reminding me of how little planning i had put into my escape, reminding me of something my grandad used to say to me when i was a little girl “proper planning prevents poor performance”. I had been lost for weeks, i knew what i was getting myself into mostly with Ryder. I knew he was a criminal, i knew what he did. Or rather i thought i did. But while i was sat there in blissful ignorance i did not realise how dangerous he really was until i walked into my living room to find 3 of our security guards pinning a man i had never seen before up against the wall, with Ryder holding a gun to his head spitting words fiercely into his face while the guy pleaded for his life.

Ryder pulled the trigger and I watched as the immediately lifeless body slumped to the floor.

Since then I knew i needed to get out. I could not be near him, and after the and after the third sleepless night I decided I would do it now.

I veered off down a dirt track, I had found my way back to somewhere I knew and I knew if I could get down here I would be in the clear the sport saloons would not make it down this road definitely. It had been raining a lot. Sure enough I had lost them. I carried on down the dirt track for as far as I could go before reaching the end. Turning right on a blind corner I saw one of them. But it was too late. He ploughed straight into the side of me. The last thing I heard before blacking out was Ryder sobbing telling me everything was going to be okay. Big tough man on the outside, softie on the inside.