Gary Windass kills the loan shark Rick Neelan , takes over his empire and develops a relationship with Maria Connor while making new enemies .
This is further impacted when the character later killed loan shark Rick Neelan ( Greg Wood ) and took over his criminal empire , which sparked the events of Gary developing a relationship with David 's colleague Maria Connor ( Samia Longchambon ) , clashing with Rana 's brother Imran ( Charlie de Melo ) over the circumstances of his sister 's death , becoming enemies with both Sarah 's boyfriend Adam Barlow ( Sam Robertson ) and Maria 's ex-lover Ali Neeson ( James Burrows ) respectively , beating up Ali 's brother Ryan ( Ryan Prescott ) for accidentally stealing his money and blackmailing his client Derek Milligan ( Craige Els ) into parking with his scheme to rebuild the factory roof .