“Breath a word of this to anyone and I’ll do even worse to you,” he said.
With that, Trent left the flat. Adrianna heard the front door slam shut behind him and then there was silence.
For a long time, for what felt like an eternity to her mind, she lay there in the foetal position, unable to move or make any attempt to leave.
Slowly fear crept back over her. Trent could come back, or one of the boys might return, and she would be here, alone and vulnerable once again. She forced herself to her feet.
She was still wearing her heels, she realised, but her bra had snapped and lay discarded on the floor a few feet from her. Her knickers too had been thrown into a corner and she did not want to retrieve them or make any attempt to find them. She adjusted her dress to cover herself, feeling ridiculous wearing this cocktail dress now, the urine-soaked material sticking tight to her skin and making her want to vomit.
Trying to swallow down the pain, she left the room and the flat, not even noticing the dirt or the neglect of the place anymore. She wondered if somebody on the estate or in this block had heard her screams, her suffering. If they had, then nobody had made any effort to call the police or come to her rescue.
She saw nobody as she eased her way down the stairs, trying to move quickly for fear that she would be found again by the hooded strangers or Trent, but also slowed by the aches and pains of her own body.
Her sole focus was to get home, and she paid no attention to anything else. Nobody saw her or glanced at her, and if anyone saw her from a window, they did not call out to her to see if she needed assistance.
She could not think about anything right now except getting home. If she let her mind open, let what had happened sink into her subconscious, then she would collapse, and she might never be able to get back up.
When she arrived home, she went to the bathroom and stripped down, stepping into the shower and running the hot water. She let the water burn and scald her skin and her hair, her body shaking from the pain, but she made no attempt to turn the water off or to step out from under it.
She could still feel hands and teeth on her body, no matter how hot the water might be or how much soap she used.
The hot water ran on and still her skin crawled as hot vomit forced its way up from inside her and splattered on her feet and on the tiles beneath her.
* * *
Aurora knew that something was wrong. She had tried to call Clint and there was no answer. It did not even ring. She knew that he must have gone to see Troy and that something must have happened.
She swallowed down her fear, and her guilt that she should have stopped him going after Troy. She told her mother to watch Angel whilst she went out. It was still warm despite the time and she did not bring a jacket as she locked the door behind her.
Pulse racing, Aurora walked briskly to the Troy’s block and felt her throat constrict with fear when she found the blood in the stairwell. She knew at once that something terrible had happened to Clint, but at least he had made it out of the Banks brothers’ flat.
She retraced her steps back downstairs and stopped at the entrance to the block, wondering where Clint would have tried to go if he had been seriously injured.
She glanced at the alleyway that ran from the courtyard and took a tentative step towards the shadowy entrance. She saw him at once, lying on the ground, arms outstretched as if he had hoped to
Aurora let out a horrified cry at his bloodstained t-shirt and jeans, the blood congealed at his breathless lips, the pallor of his skin. She dropped to her knees, clutching him to her, repeating his name over and over. He was still, lifeless.
She screamed for help, for somebody to come, but she knew that nobody would.
Fumbling in her pocket for her phone, she dialled 9-9-9 and bit on her lip, willing herself to remain in control, not to let the fear or the tears take over.
The dispatcher answered, but Aurora could barely hear what he said, could barely string a sentence together.
“I need an ambulance on the Goldsworth Estate,” she managed. “Clint, he’s been stabbed,” she said, struggling to breathe through the panic. Tears slid down her face, her hand shaking as she held the phone to her ear, crouching down over Clint, trying to hold him close to her with her other arm.
“Is he responsive?” the dispatcher asked. “Can you tell if he’s breathing?”
Aurora let out a strangled sob.
“He’s not breathing,” she cried.
“Okay, don’t worry,” the dispatcher told her. “An ambulance is almost there, okay.”
Aurora put the phone down on the ground and held Clint’s face in her hands. No breath escaped his bloodied lips and his eyes were closed, dark rings around them.
“Please, Clint, you can’t die,” she begged him, her tears splashing onto his face. “Please, I need you. Angel needs you. Please, please, please.”
* * *
Trent rang the doorbell and waited. His fists were clenched at his side and his body pulsed with electric energy, the adrenaline still racing through him from earlier. He had shown Adrianna what happened when he was double-crossed, and now he would show Sanjay.
The front door opened, and Amal narrowed his eyes at him.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Trent gritted his teeth, glancing over his shoulder. He could see Sanjay sat on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table, lounging around without a care in the world. He barged through the door, pushing Amal out of the way, swatting him aside like a fly. Amal called out a warning to his brother, but Trent was fast.
Before Sanjay had time to get to his feet, Trent threw himself at him and felt his fist connect with his face twice before Sanjay threw him off him. Sanjay was strong, more so than Trent had realised. Sanjay got a punch in, and Trent staggered backwards, pain ringing through his skull.
“What the hell are you playing at?” Sanjay shouted at him. “When Tyrese finds out about this, you’re be in real deep shit man.”
“What about when he finds out you fucked my girlfriend?” Trent hissed, breathing hard. He had lost his breath from the exertion and now he knew that perhaps Tyrese was right, he was no longer as fit as he had been. Perhaps he had let himself go after all. He could not help but compare his own state to Sanjay, and wonder whether their fitness, their looks, had played a part in Adrianna’s actions.
He gritted his teeth, anger flaring again.
“You didn’t think I’d find out?” Trent shouted. He spat at Sanjay, who recoiled in disgust.
“It was just a bit of fun,” Sanjay shook his head. “And Tyrese doesn’t care who I fuck, so I’m not going to worry about that.”
“Let’s find out then, eh?” Trent hissed, though he was suddenly not so sure whose side Tyrese would take. It seemed Sanjay sensed the doubt and pressed his advantage.
“You think he’d believe you over me anyway?” Sanjay said, snorting. “In case you hadn’t already noticed, you’ve been lashed. You don’t make any decisions now, you’re not involved in anything.”
“Want to bet on that?”
“Yeah, I like my odds,” Sanjay replied. “I mean, did you know about the deal he struck with Jayden Healy?”
Trent was shocked. His arms dropped to his sides, shoulders slumping, though his hands remained clenched into fists. Sanjay sniggered.
“Yeah, I thought not,” he said. He shook his head. “Now get the fuck out.”
Trent knew he could not hope to win in a fight. He turned and stormed out, passing Amal, who bared his teeth at him, scowling, body quivering in readiness for a fight. The door slammed shut when Trent was out on the street. He kicked the green bin over outside, letting out a guttural shout of frustration.
His earlier excitement was gone. Tyrese had gone behind his back and talked to Jayden without even consulting him or letting him know at all.
Anger pulsed through him, now directed towards his older brother, as he walked briskly down the street towards the estate. In the stair
well of his block, blood splattered the walls and ground, still wet, but Trent paid it no attention.
The balcony walls had trails of blood and Trent felt his body tense. Drops of blood had splattered the ground outside his front door. He opened the door and stepped into the kitchen, letting out a shocked groan.
Blood was smeared across the kitchen floor, dripped down the cupboards from the countertop. Troy cleared his throat, on his knees on the floor, a cloth in his hand, once white but now dripping red with blood.
“What the fuck is -” Trent started, when footsteps sounded behind him.
He turned in alarm, but Tyrese appeared in the doorway, his eyes widening as he too stepped into the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” Tyrese demanded.
Trent stepped aside to make room for his brother, who slammed the door shut behind him. They both looked at Troy, who looked defiant, but his eyes betrayed his fear.
“I didn’t mean to do it, I swear,” Troy said quickly, wringing the cloth in his hands, blood dripping from it. “I tried to tidy up, so nobody would notice.”
“What the fuck have you done?” Tyrese hissed.
Troy seemed to deflate under the glares of his brothers.
“Come on, tell us,” Trent coaxed him.
Troy blinked hard and looked at Tyrese, then at Trent, and swallowed hard.
“I killed Clint.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Troy looked at his brothers, waiting for their reaction. Trent ran a hand over his head, clearly lost for words, his eyes drifting from Troy’s face to the blood that stained the floor and counter. Tyrese looked composed, though his jaw twitched, and Troy wondered if he was trying to control his temper, if he wanted to scream at him or hit him.
“What happened?” Tyrese asked, tight-lipped, his voice detached. “Where’s Clint now?”
“He came here, asking me questions,” Troy told him, looking down at the floor, unable to meet his brothers’ eyes. “He tried to record me saying that I killed Shaniqua Curtis.”
“And you killed him?”
“We had a fight,” Troy replied. “I lost my temper, and I just grabbed the knife and stabbed him.”
“How many times?”
“Twice,” Troy remembered. “In the side, then in the stomach.”
“Where did he go?” Tyrese asked.
“He left,” Troy said. “He walked out.”
“So…you don’t know that he’s definitely dead?” Tyrese asked, hopeful.
“He was bleeding a lot,” Troy said.
“Yeah, we can see that mate,” Trent remarked, waving an arm around the kitchen.
“What do we do?” Troy asked.
“We?” Tyrese grimaced. There was no mistaking the anger in his voice. “You go have a shower and leave those clothes out for us to get rid of.”
Troy met his eyes and knew that Tyrese was furious.
“What about all this?” Troy asked, gesturing at the mess in the kitchen.
“We’ll take care of it,” Tyrese said. “You just clean yourself. Properly. No evidence.”
Troy nodded.
“Now,” Tyrese shouted.
Troy dropped the bloody cloth to the floor and jumped to his feet. He glanced at his brothers, then left the kitchen and went straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind him. He was relieved to have left the bloody scene behind, grateful that his brothers were taking control of the situation.
He stripped down and dumped his clothes in a pile for his brothers to dispose of. The shower ran cold for a few minutes and he shivered despite the warmth of the air as the water heated up. He waited until it was steaming hot before he stepped under the water. Though it burnt his skin, made him wince and want to jump out of it, he gritted his teeth and pulled the soap towards him. He had to make sure there was no evidence, none of Clint’s blood anywhere on his body.
This time, with his brothers helping him, he would get away with it again. He could not go back to prison, he thought, as he scrubbed furiously at his skin, now raw from the hot water, trying not to think about Clint, once his best mate, lying dead somewhere.
* * *
The pipes hummed as the shower creaked into life and Trent heard his brother mutter soundlessly as he mopped the floor. Trent scrubbed the counters, the smell of bleach overpowering in the small kitchen.
He thought about Sanjay’s words and glanced over his shoulder at Tyrese, face scowling and his knuckles almost white he was gripping the handle of the mop so tightly. He should have known that his brother would do something like this, that he would try to resolve things with Jayden, but he had at least expected to be informed or involved in some way. For Sanjay to know when he did not, that rankled more than anything.
“What are we going to do about this mess?” Trent asked.
“We need to get this place cleaned up before mum gets home,” Tyrese sighed, continuing to mop the floor, the blood turning to a watered-down, soapy mess.
It was only a small mercy that their mother had not yet returned home, but it would not be long, and the last thing they needed was for her to find her kitchen drenched in blood.
“And then?” Trent asked.
He finished wiping down the counters and cracked open one of the windows to let out the smell of bleach, his nose stinging from the stench.
“We take the knife, and his clothes, and we burn them,” Tyrese replied. “Then we wait and see.”
“Wait and see?” Trent repeated, before realisation dawned. “If Clint’s dead or not, right?”
“Right,” Tyrese nodded, his back to him. “If he’s alive, the police will come looking for Troy. And if he’s dead, well, Troy’s got to be top suspect anyway. Either way, the police will be on their way and we need to make sure they don’t find anything.”
“And what do we do about Troy?” Trent asked.
Tyrese paused, leaning heavily on the mop, silent for a moment before he shook his head.
“I don’t know man,” he admitted. “Maybe we send him somewhere out of London, where the police won’t find him and where he won’t get into any more trouble.”
Trent raised an eyebrow.
“Send him somewhere?” Trent shook his head. “He just got out, we’ve got to look out for him, be there for him. He’s our brother, Ty. He needs us, now more than ever.”
Tyrese had finished mopping the floor and he looked around to satisfy himself that there was no more blood before he returned his gaze to Trent.
“He just got out and he’s already killed someone else,” he said, his voice almost a whisper, though his anger was clear. “We can’t protect him forever, not when he keeps pulling shit like this. He’s a liability, and it’s better for all of us if he’s not around here to -”
“This is Troy we’re talking about,” Trent hissed. “You can’t go saying shit like that.”
“It wasn’t that long ago you got arrested for something he did,” Tyrese reminded him, squaring his shoulders, the muscles in his arms and chest flexing. “What if it happens again? What if he kills someone else? Or the police come looking and we all get banged up?”
Trent thought about it for a moment, the memory of being arrested for two murders was one he would never forget, but Troy had not intended for him to get into trouble for it. He had just been a stupid kid, he still was even now. Trent shook his head.
“We’re not sending him anywhere,” he said firmly. “He’s one of us, and we protect our own, Tyrese.”
Tyrese’s lips thinned, eyes flashing with anger.
“I won’t let him fuck everything up,” Tyrese said. “First thing tomorrow, I’m finding somewhere for him to go, far from the Goldsworth, far from London, where he can keep his head down and stay out of trouble.”
“Why are you being like this?” Trent demanded. “You’re so determined not to help him. We’re supposed to be the Banks brothers, and he’s one of us. You ever heard of a thing called loyalty?”
Tyrese looked murderous, but he did
not say anything.
“Actually, maybe you don’t know anything about loyalty,” Trent continued, unable to help himself any longer. “I know about you’re truce with Jayden, no thanks to you.”
Tyrese was surprised, though he tried to hide it, the twitch of his lips the only indication to Trent that he had not expected this.
“Who told you?” Tyrese asked.
“Your best mate Sanjay,” Trent said. There was no mistaking the surprise on Tyrese’s face this time. “Right after I punched him in the face for having his way with my girlfriend.”
“He did what?” Tyrese asked, shaking his head. “Look, I don’t care who he’s fucked, it -”
“You don’t care?” Trent repeated, his voice rising. “You really don’t have a clue about family loyalty, do you? You don’t care that he fucked my girl, you don’t care that he sold you out. You didn’t care enough to bother mentioning you were striking a deal with Jayden -”
“Enough,” Tyrese shouted, raising a hand to silence him. Trent was seething, but Tyrese did not give him time to continue. “Sanjay’s my right-hand man and I trust him.”
“Right hand man?” Trent asked, shaking his head. “What about me?”
“You think I didn’t want you involved?” Tyrese asked. “You were always right there with me, equals, partners, until you started letting things slide, got your ego inflated and became more of a liability than a help.”
Trent had suspected it all along but to have it spelt out in so many words was a hard knock, not only to his ego and his pride but to his feelings.
“Well I guess it’s the end of the Banks brothers then,” Trent shook his head, the anger leaving him. “Well, I don’t you need Tyrese, just like you clearly don’t need me.”
“Trent, that’s not -”
“Or maybe you think you’re better than us, that me and Troy are just holding you back,” Trent went on. “Maybe we’ll do our own thing and leave you and Sanjay to do what you want.”
“You know that Troy isn’t sticking around,” Tyrese said. “I’m not giving him a choice. He’s leaving. That’s what I want, that’s what Jayden wants, that’s -”
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