Robert (Fallen Angel Series Book 1)

by Tracie Podger

  “My coke you prick. What do you think you should have brought here?” came an answer.

  I was able to judge the whereabouts of everyone in the room by where their voices were coming from.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” another asked, laughing. I thought I recognised the voice but just couldn’t place from where. The voice was slightly distorted by the cavernous room.

  “Come on out, Robert, hiding like the fucking rat you are,” he shouted, his voice echoing around the empty space.

  I stayed in the shadows against the wall, moving silently and feeling my way around the building until I was on the same side as them. I heard a rattle, it sounded like a chain of some sort and then a thud and I could just make out Travis on the floor. The chain had been swung, catching his legs and knocking him off balance. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light I watched as someone bent down, pulled Travis’s head up by his hair and punched him, splitting his lip. Travis laughed, spitting the blood on the floor at the feet of his captor. He would have been more than capable of taking on at least two of them, had they not jumped him first.

  “Call for your friend,” I heard being said. Travis would not utter a word.

  I was getting close, instead of three, there were four men. One was bent close to Travis, a second holding the end of the chain that was still wrapped around his legs. I could also see his hands bound behind his back and he was lying on his side, still with that stupid smile on his face. I watched as two other guys separated off and made their way around the room. As they moved through the areas lit by the moon, I could make out objects glinting in their hands, one had a gun, the other a knife. They knew I was there, Travis and I never travelled without each other but they had no idea exactly where I was. I had the advantage though, the ability to be quiet, to move silently. I had to take out these two guys without being shot at, stabbed and without being noticed.

  Travis and I never carried weapons as such, just the odd knife. Until then our fists and our reputations were all we needed to get whatever job done that was necessary. This was something else though. I slowed my breathing and concentrated on the task in front of me. As much as I loved Travis, he was my brother, I had to focus on what was needed, even after I heard him scream. I knew they were using Travis to draw me out, but if he was to live, if both of us were to live, I needed to take out the two guys moving around the warehouse first.

  I had no doubt the intention was to cause us serious harm, if not kill us and I also knew this had nothing to do with a lorry load of cigarettes or a kilo of coke. We had been set up and I had a strong suspicion who had organised it.

  My foot gently touched something on the floor, a piece of rope, now I had my weapon. I silently made my way up behind the guy with the knife, he was the closest and had made a huge mistake. He had moved too far into the shadows and behind a stack of wooden crates, out of sight of his friend and too far away to be saved. I took off my jacket and very quietly let it fall just behind him. As I wrapped the rope around his fat neck, his hand flew to his throat. He had no idea just how close behind him I had been.

  I tightened the rope, crossing it over at the back of his neck, pulling it. I had not said a word and fortunately the only sound the guy could make was a soft gurgling as I, eventually, crushed his windpipe, killing him. It took a little longer than I’d expected and before he stilled, he managed to swipe his arm back, his knife connecting with my side. I heard it slice through my skin and I felt the hot blood run down, but there had been no pain.

  Once he stilled I let him gently fall to the floor, the knife landing on my jacket, dulling any noise of it hitting the concrete. I picked up the knife and turned in the opposite direction, towards the second one. As hard as it was, I tuned out the sound of Travis. I had no idea what they were doing to him but he would keep making an angry scream. It was not one of fright, just pain and in between I could hear him laugh, swearing at the men holding him.

  “Is that all you got, you fat fucker? Bring it on,” he would shout. I knew what he was doing, he would shout allowing me to move faster, his voice covering any sounds I made.

  “Rob, show yourself and poor Travis here might just keep his bollocks,” I heard.

  No one called me Rob other than Joe or his team. I was now confident in knowing exactly who had set us up.

  A little way ahead of me was a tall guy, skinny and even from where I was, I could see the hand that held the gun already shaking with fear. I crept up behind him, caught him by the hair and turned him around. He made to shout but before he could, I shoved the knife in his chest to the hilt and his eyes grew wide with shock. The gun crashed to the floor, the noise it made echoing around the room.

  “Lou, where are you?” someone shouted and I detected a little panic in his voice. It was the one who was crouched on the floor next to Travis. I made my way around the room again, keeping to the walls where it was darkest but not before picking up the gun.

  I needed to stay in the shadows. If they had had any sense they would have taken Travis to the middle of the room where it was bathed with moonlight, forcing me to show myself. But they were stupid, they clearly hadn’t thought this through. They had organised this ‘attack’ about as good as a group of school kids. By staying where they were, they allowed me to get close enough to be able to raise the gun with a direct easy shot.

  I had never fired a gun before, although I’d held plenty, they were always lying around the office. I instinctively knew I had a good aim and I would pull that trigger if I had to. I had already checked to see if there was a safety catch, finding none, I placed my finger on the trigger and stepped into view.

  Travis was on his back, his hands tied behind him, his legs bound together with a piece of chain and the front of his shirt covered in blood. There were cuts to the whole of his stomach and chest, not deep enough to kill him, just enough to make him scream out. His face was a mess. Boy, he was going to be pissed when he saw himself. One eye was already closed and his lip split and bleeding.

  “Rob, these pricks here want to have a friendly chat with you,” Travis laughed, spitting more blood on the floor.

  I glanced quickly at him and gave him a nod. My focus was then on the guy with the chain, with a knife in his hand, the one who had hurt my brother. I slowly walked towards him. I saw him tremble and the fear was evident in his eyes. He hadn’t banked on this, on me taking out two of his friends, then coming for him.

  The fat bloke stood, now I knew exactly who he was. The grease ball from the store, the one who hadn’t wanted to pay his last payment, and the one holding Travis, the same guy he had decked that day. I shook my head in amusement, a smile creeping across my lips. I watched them look from one to another.

  “Tut, tut. You have both made a very big mistake today,” I said.

  “Lou,” he shouted.

  “Lou isn’t coming, neither is the other one. If I let you live, you will find one dead over there and one dead that side,” I indicated with my head.

  “Now, you,” I pointed the gun at the one with the knife. “You are going to help my friend up from the floor, you’ve already ruined his clothes.”

  He looked to his friend for support.

  “Now,” I shouted and he startled.

  He unwrapped the chain from Travis’s legs.

  “Cut his hands free and if you so much as make the tiniest nick, this bullet will very quickly rip straight through your fucking brain,” I growled.

  I couldn’t remember a time I had ever felt so angry and every time I looked at my blood stained brother, the anger intensified. He did as he was told. Travis rubbed some circulation back in his hands then as quick as flash he grabbed the man’s wrist, snapped it back and snatching the knife from his hand, he plunged it in his throat. He made an awful noise, blood spurted from his neck and his legs crumbled beneath him. That left the fat grease ball, quivering, still on his knees with tears and snot running down his face. I crouched down in front of him.

  “I know who sen
t you, but I want to hear it from your fucking mouth,” I said

  He shook his head.

  “Right now, who are you more afraid of?” I asked. “Because it should be me.”

  He looked up at me, my eyes would have displayed my anger and he shrunk away. He scrabbled with his hands to get himself as far away as possible until he hit the wall, nowhere left to go. I placed the muzzle of the gun against one knee cap as a reminder that I wanted an answer.

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he whimpered.

  “What, you were only supposed to frighten us? Is that what you’re saying?” I said.

  “No,” he answered

  “So, you intended to what, kill us?” I asked, amazed at his stupidity.

  He nodded.

  “I will ask you one last time, who sent you?” I said, my face so close to his.

  “Joey,” he whispered.

  “Joey sent you, a group of fucking clowns to kill us, and you seriously thought you could do that?” I was amazed.

  Still, it was confirmation of what I already knew. For the fee of a kilo of cocaine, Joey had hired this bunch of fuck wits to kill us. I laughed then, what planet was he on? These people, Joey, no one scared me. I would have to have emotion to be scared, that feature of being human had been long buried. The only thing I ever felt was anger. As Joe had once told me, to feel no emotion would help me one day, that day it had.

  “I’m going to let you live, you prick, but everyone is going to know you fucked with us,” I said as I stood and took a step back.

  I took the knife that was still embedded in the throat of his friend and holding the grease balls head I made a cut, deep and through his eyebrow.

  “Every time you look in the mirror, you’ll see that scar and you’ll remember this day, you will remember me. I will watch you for the rest of your life and one day, when you least expect it, when you think I’ve forgotten you, I will be back,” I said.

  Before we left, I stamped my foot as hard as I could, breaking one ankle then the other. Travis came over, he did the same to his hands, crushing as many bones as he could and the exertion from our punishment caused our wounds to bleed more. I punched his face, breaking his nose. Travis kicked him repeatedly, breaking his ribs and with the fat pig curled up in a ball trying to protect himself, I spat on him, like he had tried to do to me. The ultimate insult in my eyes. Using my shirt I cleaned the gun of any prints and wrapped the hand of the fat fucker around it, insurance for another time.

  I helped Travis to the car, the front of his shirt was dripping with blood, he needed help. He moaned and not because of the pain.

  “Don’t smack my car, Rob,” he said, wincing.

  Now the adrenalin was wearing off, I could see the pain in his face and I gunned the car as fast as I could. We headed straight to the gym. Ted had a little flat above it and I banged on his door with one hand, the other around Travis’s waist holding him up. A light came on and Ted, in shorts and a vest, opened his door. I knew then we looked worse than we felt by the utter shock on Ted’s face. He rushed us straight in and I lay Travis down on the sofa.

  Ted got towels and I pulled Travis’s shirt free from his body. Slashes, some deep, some not so, crisscrossed over his chest, his stomach and there were many of them. He would be left with the scars from that night forever. Had I known just how much he had been hurt I would not have let that fat fucker live. Ted got on the phone straight away. I poured a whiskey and held up Travis’s head so he could sip some. He hated whiskey, but it was the best pain killer Ted had in the flat.

  “Rob, I’m going downstairs, there’s a first aid kit somewhere in the gym,” he said as he scuttled off. “I’ve rung Joe,” he called out.

  It took a few minutes for Ted to return with his first aid box and he unwrapped some gauze. He tried to stem the flow of blood from some of the deeper cuts but every time Travis winced and moved, another would open up again. Joe arrived, I heard him run up the stairs, behind him Mack and Paul who had bought Rosa, his wife. She pushed me to one side removing the gauze and inspected the cuts, she had brought a medical box with her.

  “He needs to be in the hospital,” she said in her soft Irish accent.

  “No way lady,” Travis said, wincing with the effort of speaking.

  “Can you sort him out, Rosa?” I asked. She had been a nurse once, she would know what to do.

  “Rob, what the fuck happened?” Joe asked.

  “Not now, let me make sure Travis is okay first,” I said.

  Rosa got to work. She cleaned him up as best she could and stitched together the wounds, the whiskey softening the pain for him. She bandaged him and just before he passed out, he looked at me.

  “You saved my life bro,” he said.

  “Rob, he will need antibiotics, he could get an infection, he really needs to be in hospital,” she said. “Now, let me have a look at you.” She winced at what she saw. “You both need to be in the hospital.”

  I had pulled my shirt over my head and looked at my side. A jagged cut ran down it, not the full length but long enough. Once cleaned it didn’t look so bad, but every time I moved my arm, it opened again. It would need stitching too. Ted handed me a large glass of whiskey which I refused. Whiskey was the only thing I remembered from my childhood and something I avoided.

  “Get on with it, Rosa,” I said and I kept my gaze focused on my friend while she got to work.

  Years later Mack would tell me that they had never seen anything like it. My eyes grew even darker and at no time did I flinch or wince as the needle weaved in and out, closing my wound.

  “Mack, who the fuck did this? Who set my boys up? I want to know.” Joe asked. I detected a very slight shake to his voice.

  I knew who had done it but decided to keep quiet about that part for the moment. I told them where it had happened, someone would have to go and clean up. Whilst Joe headed back to the car I caught the attention of Mack.

  “I know who it was and I want to deal with it myself,” I growled. He nodded, I guess he had his suspicions himself.

  Something changed in me then, I had killed two men. What little spark of hope I had for myself burnt out that day. I had been neglected, abused, left to live on a street to fight for a place to sleep, for food to eat and now I had killed again, and Joey had made that happen.

  Chapter Three

  Travis and I kept out of the way for a couple of weeks, we wanted to heal completely but we also wanted Joey to think we had run. Joe had put us up in one of his apartments in Columbia Heights. There was something that had been on my mind for years and I was in the mood for revenge. This was the perfect time, while we were out of town, to do something about avenging the first friend I ever had.

  I had never told anyone about Cara or the fact that I blamed myself for her death. If I hadn’t had freaked out that day, if I hadn’t had fought the Father and brought the whole school out in the playground to stand and see Cara sobbing, her father might not have known. He might not have been called to the school to find out Cara had told me. It would have stayed our secret and she might have lived.

  “Trav, there’s something I need to do and I don’t want to involve you in this,” I told him one morning.

  “Bro, everything you do involves me,” he replied.

  I told him everything, every sordid little detail of mine and Cara’s life. Of how I had plans to run away, to save her from the misery she was going through. In one way it felt good to share something that had scarred me but in another I felt I was betraying Cara. I had promised to never tell and I hoped I would never have had to break that promise.

  Without any hesitation Travis said, “Let’s get going, Rob. Let’s pay these men a visit.”

  We drove the few hours it took back to Pittsburgh and as I passed the wooden sign announcing we had arrived in the wonderful and friendly town of Sterling, my stomach turned with loathing. Nothing had changed. We pulled alongside a piece of barren land, the land where the house I had spent
my childhood in had once stood. We parked the car and got out. Travis was silent as we walked to the edge of the trees. I knew every inch of those woods and he followed as I made my way through. It was still there, although not completely upright anymore, my camp, my hideaway, my sanctuary. I ran my fingers over Cara’s and my initials, carved into the bark of a tree.

  “I used to beg her to run away with me,” I said quietly.

  “Maybe she was just too scared,” he said.

  “Yeah, and I guess we wouldn’t have got very far, not then.”

  First port of call was the church. I wanted to see if Father Peters was still around. The town was eerily quiet but as we passed the school, attached to the church, I could hear hymns being sung. A shiver went through me as I recalled being made to sit on the cold floor day after day and sing words of praise to a God I hated. I pushed through the unlocked doors of the church and walked to the front, to the pew I was made to sit every weekend. I paused looking at it, remembering the times I would get a slap to the back of my head because I wasn’t praying hard enough. I remembered the times I would glance over to Cara, sitting opposite and we would share a smile. The church was empty yet, in my head, I heard the voices of my aunt, of the Father preaching his fire and brimstone sermons.

  We made our way around the back of the church to the small cottage attached which, I hoped, Father Peters still lived in. There was no sign of anyone at the house and we walked around the side until we came to the small garden at the rear. A figure was hunched over using two canes to shuffle up the garden path. He halted before slowly turning around to face me. I looked at the broken body that was once the Father, the blue eye that was once brown.

  “I’ve been expecting you, Robert,” he whispered. “For years, I’ve been expecting you.”

  I stood, silently, and watched him. He had paid for his sins, by whose hand I wasn’t sure although I had my suspicions. He reached out to me with his gnarled hand, I turned and walked away.

  “I’m sorry. God forgive me, I’m sorry,” he whispered to my retreating back.