In the middle of the night, my ringing mobile phone suddenly wakes me up.

I turn around once, annoyed, groan and look at the mobile.

Strange, unknown number. I glance at the clock. 2:46 a.m.

Who the fuck is calling me at this hour?

So I quickly push the call away and turn over again to go back to sleep. But a few minutes later, it rings again.

"Hello? Who is this? And why are you calling me at this hour?" I ask annoyed in a still sleepy voice.

"Why don't you answer your mobile? I told you to be ready."

I should have guessed it was him. Mehmet.

"I told you before that I don't want to be in your illegal business again," I say.

"And I told you I didn't care. You're back in, no arguments. I expect you downstairs in 10 minutes," he says in his deep menacing voice and just hangs up.

So I get up, put on some clothes and make my way downstairs.

Again and again I ask myself: why am I doing all this in the first place?
But then I remember how Mehmet can be and that I absolutely do not want to experience this, especially not on the enemy side.

"There you are at last. Listen, two boys are coming to give us some food. I want you to take the stuff back to your flat and leave it there until I tell you we need it again," he says and I just nod in agreement.

I'm lucky it's only weed. And nothing worse or anything.

A few minutes later, the two men Mehmet was talking about approach us.

They are dressed completely in black, just like us. Scarves pulled up under their eyes and hoods on, so that you can really only see their eyes.

But the two are still very young. Very, very young. You can see it in the way they walk. And they are not particularly tall yet either.

The whole situation finds place in a park near our estate. No one is here anymore to this time.

Mehmet looks at me for a moment with a grin. I know he is grinning, although he has pulled his scarf over his face, because his eyes are getting smaller and have that sparkle. That means absolutely nothing good.

"Do you have the stuff?" asks Mehmet.

The two nod simultaneously and take it out.

Mehmet reaches for his pocket, probably to get the money but instead he reaches for something else.

He takes out his knife, stabs first the smaller of the two boys and then at the other.

You only hear the two of them fall to the ground.

I stand there with my mouth open. What did I just see?

"What the fuck did you just do? They were just kids...", I say and get quieter and quieter towards the end.

He has done many things like that, but none of them as bad and heartless as that.

"Did you honestly think I would pay for that?", he says and laughs.

How can he laugh now? He has just snuffed out two people's lives.

"Fuck! What did you just do?", I say stunned and repeat myself, gripping my hair tightly.

"Come on, let's go before anyone hears us
and comes here," he suggests, wanting to pull me with him by the arm.

"Don't you dare touch me. You're a fucking murderer!", I almost shout.

"Shut the fuck up, or do you want to go to jail again?", he asks and holds his hand over my mouth.

My eyes start to tear up. Do not cry now.

"I just can't understand how you could do that so easily. They are so young. They had their whole life ahead of them. They might have made it out of all this shit!", I yell at him now and look deep into his eyes.

"Oh God, what a pussy you've become! It wasn't that bad now. Besides, they would never have made it out anyway. They would have been killed by someone sooner or later anyway."

"Let go of me," I say, trying to free myself from a grip. He lets go of me immediately and I run back to my flat. I close the door behind me and lean against it.

A few minutes later there is another knock on the door.

"You left the weed downstairs, open the door and take it in," Mehmet says again.

"Fuck you," I yell at him through the door.

"Open your fucking door or I'll kick it in," he says, knocking hard.

I open it and he comes in. He rummages through all my cupboards looking for a perfect hiding place. Finally he hides it in a cereal box. Not exactly the best hiding place.

"Tomorrow at ten we'll meet downstairs at my place and you'll get to know all the other members. Don't you dare to be late ," he says.

"I can't tomorrow. I have to work. And I'm not going to lose this job because of you."I try to make it clear. But he only looks at me with amusement.

"You quit your job and concentrate fully on this," are his last words before he simply disappears from my flat, saying nothing more.

I take a few deep breaths in and out and then finally go back to my bed. But I don't think I'll sleep a wink tonight.

Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and it was all just a bad dream.

...

But no. I woke up the next day and it wasn't a dream at all. Several weeks have passed now and I have become more and more accustomed to this life again. I'm still angry with him, but I'm also not as angry as I should be.

Sofia, his sister, has helped me a lot during this time and we have become pretty good friends by now.

We were also lucky with the two boys. They couldn't recognise anything and no one saw us. And in this environment things like this happen quite often, which is why the police didn't really take good care of it. I'm sure if this had happened in a rich, posh neighbourhood, we'd be behind bars by now.

At the begging I just sat on the floor for days and cried about the hole thing. Every night still I have nightmares about it. I should have gone to the police. But I'm too afraid...

Reiss has also thought about me during this whole time. I think he called me 500 times and wrote me 37,000 messages. I ignored him at first until he threatened to drive here. I wrote him that I was fine, that he didn't need to worry. And he was satisfied with that.

I haven't heard anything from Jadon in all that time. I think I'm starting to miss him a bit, I mean as a friend, to talk to. But I don't think that would be good. The last time I saw him I told him how happy I am at the moment for my job and everything and how glad I am to be out of the illegal business...
I don't want to imagine his reaction when he finds out what I'm doing here again. And certainly not Reiss's.

"Are you coming? We're already late," Sofia says. She has persuaded me to go to the club with her and a few other colleagues to celebrate today. We're not in London, though, but much further north. Somewhere near Manchester. We had a bit of work to do here and now we can enjoy ourselves a bit.

"Yes, I'll be right there, I just have to finish dressing," I say and look in the mirror. I'm wearing a short black dress with a rather large neckline. I kinda like it.

I put on some high black shoes and walk out of the bathroom, from our hotel room.

I must say, it's a pretty good hotel. In the time I've been working for Mehmet again, I feel like I've earned more in one day than in a week at this restaurant.

"Wow, you look absolutely hot," Sofia says when I come out of the bathroom.

I used to have "friends" like that who always told me I looked like fat or something . I have to say that I am not the slimmest or thinnest woman. But that's absolutely okay.

I used to be bullied for it, and that's how I fell into all these eating disorders.

At some point I was so thin that it was no longer healthy, but I managed to get out of it.

Since then I've put on a lot of weight and now I might have a bit too much on my ribs, but that doesn't matter as long as I'm healthy. I am much more confident now and I love my body. Everything about it.

"I'm ready, we can go," I say, putting on a jacket, taking my bag and then we leave.

The others are already waiting for us downstairs. And when we get out of the lift, we have a moment like in the movies, where all eyes are on us, but I have to say I like it.

Mehmet looks at us, just like all the other boys in the room. Sofia has told me several times that Mehmet wants something from me, but I could never be with him.

"We're ready to go," I say and walk out of the lobby first.

Luckily, the club is not far from the hotel and we can walk there. When we got there, the club was almost full and we just managed to get in.

We ordered a few drinks and drank them until we finally went to the dance floor.

With every new sip, I became less aware of what was happening around me. At some point, we all stood at the bar and laughed about something.

Suddenly, the DJ turns on my song.

"Oh my God, this is my song, I have to dance to it," I scream and throw my arms in the air.

I dance to the music and close my eyes.

After no idea how long, I feel two big hands on my hips. It takes me a few minutes to realise this, though, which is why I Just kept going. At some point I turn around and see Mehmet looking deep into my eyes.

I immediately tense up under his grip and freeze.

"Come on, keep dancing," he says and urges me to continue.

"No, I don't want to," I say and he just laughs.

"Come on, let's have a few more shots and then we can dance some more," he suggests again and I think about it.

"No, I think I want to stay here. The music is so cool right now," I say again and raise my name in the air again.

"Oh, I think you might very well want to go for a drink with me," he says again and his smile slowly disappears.

"No, I don't want to," I say again.

He grabs my wrist now and pulls me a little with him.

"Mehmet, I said no," I say over the loud music and try to tear myself away.

"Either you drink a few more shots with me or you dance with me. The decision is yours," he says again and looks at me demandingly.

"But I said I don't want to!", I almost shout at him now.

"I don't care what you want or don't want," he says again. He doesn't let up. No matter how long I say no.

"Are you deaf? She has said several times that she doesn't want to. Leave her alone," suddenly says a male voice from next to us and we both turn to this voice at the same time.