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from you for another couple of days pal. How's life over there in soap dodger city?'
     
    Jason hesitated for a second. Like he was holding something back. Brad noticed it immediately. He was good with people like that. But he was never one for calling anyone out on their problems. He much preferred to wait patiently, listen and observe. Wait for them to open up to him without pressuring them to do so. This way, he realised, many, many moons ago, you could gain a man's trust. And once you had his trust, you had him by the balls. It was one of the main reasons to how he'd gotten himself into the privileged position he now found himself in today.
     
    'Are you... with my father there Brad?' said Jason finally.
     
    Brad slowly glanced up to around the tenth floor of the apartment block he was watching. Some of those higher apartments had some fantastic views of both the Firth of Forth in the North and the gorgeous Edinburgh City in the south.
     
    'Umm...No Jase. No right now. Sorry pal...'
     
    Jason hesitated again for a short while. Brad could've easily of asked him what was wrong? But he knew that if he just held off for a few more seconds, Jason would soon confide in him.
     
    'Can I ask you a small wee favour instead then Brad?'
     
    'Anything for you Jase. You know that. Anything at all.'
     
    'Well, we're actually back in Edinburgh earlier than we expected with… you know… the package.'
     
    'Really?' replied Brad genuinely surprised. He squirmed a little in his seat too. '...Already! That's great Jason.' He continued with a false smile. 'Your father's gonna be chuffed to bits.'
     
    'Well that's the favour Brad, you see. I'm absolutely knackered. I just wanna go home and spend a few hours with the missus, you know how it is. And you know what Dad's like if he finds out we're back in Edinburgh already. He'll want me to bring the gear round right away. He'll want a detailed description of everything that went down. Then the booze will flow. We'll be up drinking and singing until the wee small hours. Then he'll be organising plane tickets to get me and Gary the fuck out of the country for a week or two while things cool down.'
     
    'Okay. So what's the favour?'
     
    'Can I drop this package off at your place on the way home? Then you can pass it onto my dad first thing in the morning.'
     
    'Of course you can Jase, sure thing. That sounds like a good plan.'
     
    'So I'll just swing on by your place right now then, aye?'
     
    'Umm. Hold on one minute Jase.'
     
    For a brief second Brad placed his phone down. He seemed to be having a good long hard think to himself about something. In fact it was a rare, rare opportunity that had suddenly surfaced and quite sooner than expected. The more he thought about it, the more he realised that he might not get a better opportunity to put an old and long time plan of his into action. It might even be another few years before he'd get another chance as good as this.
     
    Brad was the son of Tommy Broughton's best friend growing up, Ned McDermot. And when Ned had gone to prison for Tommy, taking the blame for a murder which Tommy himself committed in the seventies. Tommy swore that he'd look after Ned's family until the day he was released. So Tommy had taken Brad under his wing, raising him like he was his own son. They even formed a very strong bond with each other, long before Jason was even a twinkle in his father's eye.
     
    It was always Tommy's wish to have his own son, Jason take over his throne as the head man in Edinburgh's underworld. But when Jason rebelled, ran away from home, joined the army and travelled the world, Tommy had turned to Brad as his new heir and right hand man to his sleazy, corrupt, violent empire. And of course, Brad had become eternally grateful for that opportunity ever since.
     
    But since Jason's return from the wilderness, Brad had felt secretly threatened that Jason was winning back his father's affections. And instead of seeing Jason as a friend,