A moment later, another guard ran down the hall, shouting frantically and waving his arms. His cries met no response. The other men must have already been incapacitated.
Before Charlie could count to ten, Cyrus stomped into view. Blood streamed from his nose; dripped down his chin to his torn gray waistcoat. He lunged for the guard, grabbing him by the throat with one hand as he punched the man in the gut. The guard fell, his knees no longer able to hold him up. Cyrus dropped him to the ground, giving him a hard kick to the groin. The man let out a pitiful groan before slipping from consciousness.
Cyrus lumbered forward, entering the room. For a second, his large frame was all Charlie could see. The brass knuckles upon his hands gleamed with crimson. Clumps of blood and dirt matted in his dark hair, while an angry gash ran from the bridge above his eyebrow to the right side of his cheek. He looked as if the dogs of hell had chewed him up and spit him back up, but damned if his green eyes didn’t dance.
And when his gaze locked on Jane, he grinned, open-mouthed, displaying his bloodied teeth.
Jane’s wide eyes met his, her mouth agape. “You got my message. Thank you, Cy. Thank you so much.”
Cyrus brushed off the dust from his ruined shirt-sleeves. “Just call me the God-damned cavalry.”
“Cyrus, get out of the way.” From behind him came an insistent demand, so wonderfully, blessedly familiar that Charlie’s heart ached at the sound. A capped head poked out from underneath the massive brute’s arm, and the most splendid pair of blue eyes he’d ever seen fixed upon him.
Mina.
Before he could doubt his eyes, she pushed Cyrus out of the way, sprinting across the room to him. He opened his arms instinctively and she jumped into them, her tiny frame snug against him. Wrapping his arms around her, he lifted her up off the ground, bringing them eye-level with each other. He did not waste time with words—he acted.
Crushing his lips against hers, he kissed her, ravished her, inhaled her. She was as fervent as he, pressing her lips to his, her hands tangling his hair, bringing her that much closer to him. If he had lost track of time before, now he was certain that time had stopped—that everything ended and began with her.
She, who was real and true.
She, who had chosen him.
A loud cough drew him back to reality. Jane, looking at them both expectantly, tapping her foot. “As pleasing as this reunion is, might I suggest you get a move on?”
Reluctantly, Charlie set Mina down on the ground. He kept a hand on the small of her back, unwilling to let her go completely. She huddled next to him, waiting for Cyrus to give the signal. He did not ask where they were going; did not dare question this brave rescue. It was all too good, too lucky, for a man like him.
So he regarded Jane with silent surprise when she turned to Cyrus and gestured to his brass knuckles. “Hit me.”
The fighter’s eyes rounded, and he shook his head. “Never.”
Jane rolled her eyes. “It needn’t be with the knuckles. But if you don’t hit me, it’s going to be damnably obvious that I was in on this wild plan. I can’t risk Penn, Cy. So, please, for the sake of my brother’s life—my life—hit me.”
“And do it quickly, for we need to leave,” Mina piped up, holding up a pocket watch.
Cyrus pulled off his brass knuckles from his left hand, wincing as Jane turned her cheek up to him. “I’m sorry, Janey,” he murmured, as his fist pounded into her face. She dropped to the ground, a red welt forming on her cheek. Purple ringed her eye. The wound would swell, convincingly so.
Cyrus knelt in front of her, pressing a kiss to her brow before she shooed him away. Sliding the bloodied brass back onto his knuckles, Cyrus stood, motioning for them to follow him.
As they left the room, Jane’s voice echoed. “Remember your promise, Charlie.”
“Aye,” he called back, his hand tightening around Mina’s side.
They stepped over the guard near the door, making their way out into the hall. The guards hadn’t regained consciousness, and from the looks of it, one never would, for his neck was bent at a distinctly unnatural angle. He ought to feel some sort of sadness at that—for after all, he’d once considered all the men of Chapman his brothers-in-arms.
But he felt nothing except relief. He wasn’t going to die in this hellhole. The world had tried to pull him from Mina, but their bond was too great for any man to tear asunder.
With speed, they fled toward the exit, meeting with no obstacles. A hack was waiting for them outside. The driver jumped down, opening the door for them. Cyrus handed Mina in first, and then waited for Charlie to climb in next to her. Once they were both inside, Cyrus swung up onto the bench next to the driver. The door shut, and they were off.
Charlie laid his hand against his breast, but his tattoo did not sting. He bore the mark of Chapman, but he was no longer one of them.
Chapter 13
The hack pulled up to an unfamiliar three-story lodging house on Mount Street in the western boundary of Bethnal Green. They were deep in the heart of the Old Nichol, home largely to Protestant Huguenot weavers, Jewish immigrants, and the Romani. Teeming tenements built with shoddy billy-sweet mortar, crumbling workshops, and ramshackle public houses made up a dense network of approximately thirty streets and courts. On the surface, it was ostensibly similar to Ratcliffe, being another East End rookery drowning in poverty.
To Charlie, it was far enough away from his home and everything he had known that they might as well have been in America.
As the driver hopped down from the carriage, Charlie’s fingers curled tighter around Mina’s hand, his heart beating in time to his quicker breaths. He couldn’t quiet the ever-present warning bell in his mind—even during the truce, he had not dared trespass this far into the Kings territory. For so long, he’d viewed Whitechapel and Bethnal Green as enemy land, dangerous to his kind. He’d never gone further than the Mason Manse in Stepney Green.
Being around Mina had always made him feel safe. When he’d been a child visiting her at night in her family’s courtyard, he hadn’t been Ephraim Thatcher’s unlucky son. He hadn’t been Chapman. He’d been a boy, waiting on a girl to come outside and play with him.
Now he was a grown man who owed his life to that same girl.
As the driver pulled the door to the hackney open, Charlie lifted Mina’s hand up and brushed a kiss upon her knuckles. Her lips curved in a smile: the slow, secret smile that had driven him wild over the years. She’d been his touchstone, the reason he’d become the man he was today, as much—more—than his time spent with the men of Chapman.
She was everything that was right in his life.
And he’d almost lost her because he’d been too cowardly to forsake his ties to the gang.
Never again. He followed her out of the carriage onto the street below. Cyrus paid the driver his fare and gestured for them to proceed inside. Unlike many of the Old Nichol’s buildings, this lodging house with the five square windows on each floor did not look as though it might tumble down at the slightest shake of wind. To the right of the arched doorway was a sign that read “Everett and Co,” but provided no further information as to what to expect from the tenants.
The door was unlocked, so Cyrus entered without knocking. With his arm around Mina’s waist, Charlie cast one last suspicious look behind him before heading inside. Though there were many people out and about in the surrounding streets, none of them seemed to mark their entrance to the tenement as anything of import.
He breathed easier at that, reminding himself that in these areas, Cyrus Mason was viewed as an authority figure, and Mina was well-respected because of her family name. No one would challenge them, not here.
Silently, Cyrus led the way down the long hall, keeping up such a brisk pace Charlie wondered if the earlier fight had even winded him. As they trailed after him, Charlie exchanged a glance with Mina, who shrugged.
“If Cyrus thinks this is a good place for us to stay, it’s a good place,” she
whispered.
He was inclined to agree with anything Mina said, given that every person he’d trusted had determined he was better off dead. He pushed aside his distrust of the Old Nichol, and the Kings, and focused on the sheer relief of his death no longer being imminent.
Cyrus took them up the back stairs, stopping at the second floor landing to wait for them. He unlocked the fourth door on the right, then passed the key to Mina. When Charlie went to step inside the room, Cyrus grabbed his arm in the doorway, his grip iron-clad.
“Listen here,” Cyrus said, his voice low enough that only Charlie could hear him. “I may have helped break out your sorry arse, but never, ever think it was for you. My sister and Janey think you’re worth saving. If you hurt them—if they get a tiny scratch on their pretty faces— when I’m through with you, you’re gonna wish Baines gave you a quick death.”
“Understood.” Charlie nodded swiftly, having expected as much.
“What did you say, Cy?” Mina’s eyes narrowed as she tucked the key into the pocket of her breeches. “You better not be threatening Charlie.”
“’Course not.” Cyrus flashed her a grin that was far more wolf-eats-sheep than comforting. He stood back so that they could enter, coming in after them and closing the door. “Home sweet home, at least for tonight.”
The flat was larger than Charlie’s. One room, with real furniture: a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. No crates for chairs, nor overturned casks for tables. Several candles had been lit, giving it a homey glow. Though there were no street lamps this far back in the Old Nichol, a little light streamed in the window from the toff parts of busy London. The room was nice—nicer than Charlie had expected from these parts. He supposed that was what happened when one had money to pretty things up. Joaquin Mason had made the rookeries his kingdom, but he didn’t have to live like a pauper.
“Joaquin owns the building?” Mina asked.
Cyrus shook his head. “Just this room. Thought it’d be better to take you here—less chance of you being seen. Min, you need a plan.”
Charlie was surprised at the tender way in which Cyrus spoke, as if imparting a truth he didn’t want to have to tell her but knew she needed to hear. It did not surprise him, however, that Cyrus had pointedly left him out of that statement.
He’d always be Chapman in Cyrus’s mind, no matter how hard he worked to prove his love to Mina.
“I know.” Mina walked over to the window, pulling back the curtains and peering out at the street below. “Charlie and I will discuss it.”
Even being across the room from her felt like too much distance, after almost losing her for good. Charlie shifted his weight from one foot to the other, watching her, wanting to go to her but also wanting to give her space to sort things out with brother.
Before, when she’d come to him and asked him to ruin her, he hadn’t given her the chance to choose her own destiny.
He’d go to the devil sooner than make that same mistake again.
Turning from the window, she held her hand out to him, and he released the breath he’d been holding. His place was by her side—as he always should have been.
“How long do you think it will take Quin to find us?” Mina asked.
Cyrus rubbed his bloodied, scraped hand across his chin in thought. “Joaquin will probably check a few other properties before this one. You’ve got maybe a day. Maybe two. You need to be ready.”
“You mean we need to be gone,” Mina said with a sigh. “Because even if Quin doesn’t view this as a betrayal, there’s still Donaldson to deal with.”
“You leave that to me. I shouldn’t have gone along with Joaquin’s idea in the first place. I thought you’d be happy with him.” Cyrus had the grace to grimace ruefully. “Seeing Jane back there, got me to thinking.”
“I know. Thank you, Cy.” Mina dropped Charlie’s hand to envelop her brother in a big hug. “For getting Charlie out, and believing in me. For everything.”
Cyrus stiffened, but he didn’t squirm out of her hold. Awkwardly, he patted her back.
Catching his eye, Charlie nodded briefly, echoing Mina’s sentiments. “Thank you.”
“Don’t go making this a big deal, Thatcher.” The fighter’s eyes narrowed as he met Charlie’s gaze. He maneuvered himself out of Mina’s embrace, taking a step back. “Keep my sister safe, and that’s enough thanks for me.”
“I’d die before I’d let her get hurt,” Charlie said solemnly.
He knew this now—Mina needed to come first, above all else.
“Good heavens, I hope it never comes to that again.” She was quick to come back to Charlie, chucking his arm. “I’ve had enough danger for ten lifetimes.”
He threw his arm over her shoulders, drawing her close to him. He’d happily never step on the wrong side of the law again—the thrill of being a thief no longer swayed him. He had everything he’d ever wanted, right here in his arms.
“Gretna Green,” Mina said suddenly, her quick mind already working through the details of their future, while he was still woolgathering. “That’s where we’ll go. We can get married over the anvil. It’s the quickest way to circumvent Donaldson, and Joaquin.”
Their marriage wouldn’t stop Chapman, but the distance between Gretna Green and London would. He was a traitor in their eyes, but even Zacharias Baines didn’t care enough to chase him down in Scotland.
“The farther we get from London, the better,” Charlie agreed. “But it takes blunt to travel, and all mine’s back in my flat.”
He cringed. Not that they would have made it more than a few yards outside of London with the money he had saved. Still, it would have been something. How the hell was he going to support Mina? It always came back to this: him having nothing to offer her.
If he joined up with another gang and worked the bigger thieving jobs, then he’d be able to keep her in finery. But the mere thought of joining another gang left a sour taste in his mouth. Before, he would have taken any risk so he could claim he deserved her; that he had enough riches to make himself worthy of her love.
Slowly, Mina was teaching him that it was not wealth that made a man, but honor.
She deserved a decent man. Thieving, while lucrative, carried too much of a risk. He thought of Jane’s brother in Newgate, captured by the Met because he’d broken into a house. It had ripped Jane apart, seeing her brother incarcerated in such inhumane conditions. Newgate was truly hell on Earth. He couldn’t put Mina through that.
So he’d find an honest job. There had to be somewhere that needed a barkeeper, right? He might not be worth much financially now, but he’d toil and scrimp and save until they had a good life. He had no idea how long that would take, but he had to make it work.
Mina laid her head against his shoulder, and he breathed in, letting the vanilla scent of her soap wash over him.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said, hugging her to him. “We always do.”
Cyrus watched them silently, clasping his hands together, cracking his knuckles. The sound of his bones popping made Charlie’s stomach tighten, too close to the fate that had awaited him from his own gang members.
He was free. And at least for the time being, he was safe.
Every problem had a solution, as long as Mina was in his life.
From his coat, Cyrus pulled out a dilapidated brown package loosely tied with string. Dirt and blood streaked one side of the wrapping, which he attempted to wipe off fruitlessly. “Sorry about the muck.” He shrugged. “Chapman bounder got me in the side with his knife before I took him out.”
Neither Mina nor Charlie inquired further about his health—they both knew Cyrus took great pride in his ability to withstand injury. He passed the package to Mina, and she undid the ties.
She opened it, then almost dropped it in abject shock. Charlie reached for it with outstretched palms, catching the package before it hit the ground. As soon as he saw what was inside, his jaw plummeted. Collected in the decrepit envelope was more pound notes than he
’d ever seen in one place at one time, even when he’d filched on big jobs for the gang.
He’d known the Masons were wealthy, but this—this had to be blood money. No one made this kind of blunt in the rookeries without crime of the worst sort. Holding that much money in his hands made him feel guilty, as if the Peelers were watching them now. When Mina held out her hand for the packet, he gladly placed it back onto her palm.
She rounded on Cyrus, waving the package in his face. “What is this, Cy?”
“Blunt,” Cyrus said.
Before Charlie could respond, Mina’s other hand was on her hips, challenging her brother. “I can see that. Why do you have this much money, and where did you get it?”
“It’s your dowry.” Cyrus held up his hand to stall Mina’s reply. “No, you don’t want to know where it came from.”
Mina tried to give the package to Cyrus. “We can’t possibly accept this.”
“Keep the blunt, Min.” He shook his head, refusing to take it. “You’re gonna need it. You realize you can’t come back to London, don’t you?”
“I know that,” Mina said, the quiver in her voice belying her words.
The money made their plight seem more real. Suddenly, they were making actual plans to flee the only town they’d ever lived in. Charlie couldn’t blame her for being scared, for wanting to cling to her principles.
But he knew all too well what it was like to scrape by with barely enough. The clawing hunger that woke him up in the middle of the night because he’d consisted entirely on one penny pie for the entire day, and he hadn’t the blunt to buy more. The bone-shattering weariness of a day spent out in the cold, diving the streets and only scoring a few silk wipes for the fence.
“Mina, think about this for a minute,” he said quietly, laying his hand over top of hers on the packet. “That money could set us up for life. Does it really matter where it came from, if we use it for good?”
She fell silent, staring at their joined hands atop the package.
He was torn. If they took the money, they could lease a home of their own, instead of having to live in a poverty-stricken tenement. She wouldn’t have to sacrifice the lifestyle she’d grown up with because she’d chosen him instead of a bloody toff. He’d be able to give her all the finer things in life: ribbons for her hats, pearl earrings, those fancy gowns she liked so much.
When a Rogue Falls Page 24