Surreptitious (London)

by Breeze, Danielle

  “Baby girl, no word of a lie, when I came back and found those bastards had fucked up my fucking brothers, worse than the shit they tried, and fucking failed, to do to me I swear I lost my god damned mind. Near beat the shit out of Dave the second I walked into that fucking hell-hole they called ‘home’. Honestly, fuck, those kids were skinny...and I mean seriously fucking skinny, looked like they hadn’t eaten in years. fourteen and fifteen year old boys, looking more like they’re just walking skeletons. Not like teenage lads who should be out kicking a ball and doing shit that actually shouldn’t be but always are...doing with their mates. Instead they’re being forced to make fucking drug runs for good for nothing assholes who didn’t think anything of giving them a god damn kick-in if they got screwed over by their ‘customers’. How they ever expected anything more from fucking teenage boys who barely had enough strength to hold their own fucking heads up I’ll never understand...but then these were seriously whacked-out fuckers so I don’t understand any of the shit they did. Only decent thing those bastards ever did was make sure I had brothers. Good brothers. Kids who knew, no matter what they were forced to do, they knew it was wrong, they knew they needed to get right and when I gave them the opportunity they fucking jumped at it.”

  He paused, looked down at me and wiped his thumb across the underside of one eye to stem the flow of tears, but it really was just a wasted effort being as I couldn’t stop thinking about poor Mase and Ruben. Who the fuck would do that to kids, and why the fuck didn’t anyone help them earlier?!

  “You might not like it, understand it, or even be able to live with it. But I had no choice babe…there are systems, people, stuck up fuckers working for other stuck up fuckers who are meant to protect those kids and they fucking didn’t. I wasn’t wasting time fighting through red-tape and deadlines and any other of that crap. They needed to be gone, it was my job to do it, and so I did it. I don’t regret it, best decision I ever made, Mase and Ruben were good kids because I was there to teach them, then I left but as soon as I came back I fucking taught them how to be good, strong, reliable men too and they would not have turned out that way if those scumbags were left ‘looking after them’ for a god damn single second longer than they were.”

  When he finished speaking I stared into his eyes trying to comprehend all the information he’d just given me in one go when trying to extract any details from him is normally like trying to draw blood from a freaking stone! I couldn’t remember at that moment when I last took a breath and my lungs were burning but I still just stared. I didn’t move, didn’t blink and still didn’t take a breath.

  Eventually he sighed heavily, rolled to one side and sat up, draping his legs over the side of the bed. I watched the muscles in his back ripple as he moved but it his actions didn’t penetrate. Nothing did. How could I live with a murderer?

  I got that his childhood was fucked up, I got that he had to save his brothers, I even got that he beat the shit out of his dad...Dave. Urgh. But he was still wrong. He should have gone to the police, he should have phoned social services, he should have done something...anything...to get those kids out of that house...legally!!

  Millions of thoughts were racing through my head but most of all; I kept thinking...could I really live without him now? He was the reason I came back to myself. He was the reason I was really...truly happy, and he was the reason that I was an even better person overall. Even compared to before my parents died, I preferred the ‘new me’.

  Shit. No...I decided. No I couldn’t live without him. He’s was my rock. But before I told him anything, I asked quietly...

  “How did you get away with it Jax?” I whispered and then I watched as his shoulders rose and fell with each deep breath he took. Then he rolled them backwards and answered...

  “I did it smart. It wasn’t a split second decision. I told Mase to take Ruben, and go and stay at a friend’s house. Some kid who lived down the street. His parents were scumbags too, but the lazy kind, not the fucked-up kind. Then I drove near to the house, parked a few streets away, just in case ya know? I ran through back gardens and alleyways, crouched behind bushes and when I made it to their house, I walked in through the back door and they were long since passed out. I lit Dave’s pipe, chucked it on the sofa and made sure that fucker was blazin’ before I turned and walked straight back out the door. I never looked back. Not. Once.”

  “Accidental death, that’s what the police said. Stupid motherfucker left his pipe burning before he went to sleep.” He shook his head and barked out a harsh laugh, then said...”dangerous shit that is. People should be more careful.”

  My body jerked in reaction to his sarcastic, ill-timed, comment but I still didn’t respond. How could I? The man I loved with everything I had, was still a fucking murderer. Nothing I could do would change that and I felt sick to the stomach. I broke out in a sheen of sweat and the more I thought about it, the more my body was reacting for me. I was trembling violently and I couldn’t control myself, at all.

  I said he was dangerous, I felt it, I lived it...but I never thought it would be that bad. As I was attempting to recover, he went further...

  “Ya know, when I left and all that shit happened to me, I didn’t complain, I fought like a dog to survive, and when I found Jonah, or well...Jonah found me, I knew, it was fuckin’ fate. Never believed in that shit before, but he was the best damn thing ever to happen to me...until you. He gave me a home, he gave me money, he gave me support, food, clean clothes... everything I’d never had. And when he died, he left everything to me, his farm, his savings, and that guy...fuck man, he slaved everyday that I knew him, worked the jobs of about twenty men on that farm. Morning ‘til night, every fucking day. Then he dies, natural causes, old age, nothing wrong with him, just his time. He didn’t have any family, no friends, nothing, so he left it all to me. The crazy bastard, Jesus, so fuckin’ crazy, owned a £730,000 farm which would have been enough to set me up good yeah? But no, I come to find out, he’s got nearly three million in savings, bonds, accounts. Fuck, money in every place you can imagine. Old guy, living by himself, solitary, world filled with land, animals and one old rusty tractor, when he could have bloody lived an easy life. More than an easy life, a life of luxury, a life in which he didn’t have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn and break his back until nightfall. He never said. Never told me he had money, or where he had it from.”

  I thought he was finished speaking but he spoke again in a more even voice.

  “Babe seriously. This guy, one of the best, if not the best guy ever. Other than my brothers, and now you, he was the only person I’ve ever loved. You know what he said to me when I came round from my fever? I snapped at him, thinking that everyone I’d ever known in my life had fucked me over somehow, always on the take. So I asked him what the fuck he wanted from me and he said...’you sit down boy, before you fall down. Don’t know what’s happened to you. Don’t want to know, can’t look back, always gotta look forward. You need a place to stay? You stay here. I’ll put you up, I’ll put food in your belly and you can earn it. You can work with me, I ain’t what I used to be, could use a spare pair of hands.’...threw it out there as if it was nothin’ to him when a random, beaten, bruised, skinny teenage boy turns up on his property.” I was listening intently, wanting to believe that there was hope.

  “Few years after, I’d learnt that he meant what he said ya know? Food like I ain’t never tasted, warm bed, clean sheets...and fuck yeah he made me work for it, he was a slave driver! But I would have done more, if he needed it. He was one of the good ones, believed in God, kept a picture of his wife right next to his bed, even though she’d been dead fifteen years, heart attack. So this one night, we’re sittin’ in front of the TV at like, midnight or somethin’...when he stands up, tells me he’s hitting the hay...but before he goes, he stands over me, put his hand on my shoulder, squeezed lightly and said ‘I figured you’d gone through your hell son, all those years ago, but I’ll tell ya, god sent me a gift the day
you turned up here. Proud of you kid, hard-worker, made to be that way, just like me. You’ve had your hell, but can’t look back, gotta look forward. You make the most out of what god’s handed you now, because it’s about time you got your piece of heaven. Got all the love in the world for you son. Wish God would’a thought of it earlier, sending you to me, but he has his reasons, n’ I got a feelin’ that’s to do with those brothers of yours. You gotta go back for them one day kid.’ Then he shuffled off to bed. Woke up the next morning, he ain’t at the table, he ain’t in the fields...died. That night, in his sleep…thinkin’ on it now, he knew before he slept that night, knew he weren’t gonna wake up that mornin’ and wanted to use his words for me.”

  Since I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved, I felt tears well in my eyes at his loss, but couldn’t speak before he carried on.

  “I didn’t cry, he’d have been pissed at me if I cried. I spent a year, sold the farm, paid the taxes, left all Jonah’s savings where they were, but now in my name...and I bought ‘Ignite’. Didn’t even buy myself a place to live at first! I ate, slept, fuckin’ everything...did it in that club. I lived there six months before I even got myself somewhere else to stay, and even that was after I’d bought ‘Flame’. Got myself a tiny flat in Birmingham, less than a five minute walk from the club. I was scared, the clubs we’re paying their own way pretty much right off the bat. But I couldn’t help thinking it was either all a dream, or something fucked up was gonna come along and take it all away from me. That’s why I didn’t spend hardly any of the money, I bought and re-designed two clubs, but I still didn’t touch the savings. Fuckin’...with ‘Ignite’ I did nearly all that shit myself! Knocked down, moved and re-built walls, installed the dance-floor, decorated the entire place, built the bar, everything. Plumbers and electricians, that’s all I spent money on for labour. Jonah taught me that. I might have taken a different route, but I used all he taught me. I wanted to be that guy. A good guy. A hard-working guy.” He took a deep breath and laid the rest out for me.

  “I waited another six months, and then I knew it was time to go back. And well...you know what I found. I changed then. I wasn’t trying to be Jonah anymore. He wouldn’t have wanted that. But I took his advice like a vow. Can’t look back, gotta look forward. And I do that ya know? Instilled that in Mase and Ruben too. I inhale life, I thrive off it, there’s shit all around us, but you fuckin plough through it and you live.”

  He fell silent after that. Thinking…I hated his story, but I also loved it. It was wrong, it was brutal, it was savage, it was carnal, it was fucked-up beyond all measures...but it was Jackson, it was beautiful because of Jonah…it was fucking real.

  I sat up and watched as his shoulders tensed further, bracing for my reaction, but I shifted over to him, put my legs on either side of his, and wrapped my arms around him from behind and rested my head against his back. His frame slumped with relief and he clutched my hands to his chest. We sat for ages...maybe minutes...maybe hours...who knows? But we just held on.

  “I love you babe. Do I think you did the right thing? Not at all. But it was for the right reasons, and I love you even more for that than I did before. But it’s over babe. Mase and Ruben ain’t fucked up kids anymore, you did your job with them and look at what you’ve made for yourself and them!? Three businesses!! At twenty-eight?! Babe that’s amazin’! You don’t need the darkness anymore. Let it go.”

  He pulled in another shaky breath before he whispered, “I thought you’d leave. The shadows, they weren’t there before you. I don’t feel bad for what I did, not at all. They were there because I felt…I thought I knew…that when you found out, and I knew you would…I knew I’d have to tell you, I thought I’d lose you forever.”

  “Never.” I declared fiercely. And for once, there was no doubt. None of it mattered, we were there, we were breathing, we were living. He didn’t say anything else, neither did I. I just squeezed him tighter and clung on.

  Clinging to our hope, our future...our real.

  Epilogue

  Taylor

  “Babe, I’m back!!” I shouted as I walked through the front door.

  “Be out in a sec!!” I heard shouted back.

  I’d been travelling back and forth to Manchester recently, usually with Jax, but I’d just got back from my first trip up there on my own. As soon as I finished university, he asked me if instead of going to get a different job first, I’d re-design and coordinate the interior of ‘Ignite’ for him. Seeing as he offered to pay me a shit load of money for doing it (even though he refused to let me pay for anything to do with the house so I didn’t need it!), I jumped at the chance to complete my first real project.

  Things were not easy, not for a long while...they are now...but they weren’t then. For weeks, I awoke in the middle night, panting and reaching for Jax. Dreaming about him being in the middle of a fire, I kept trying to reach for him, but couldn’t without getting burnt. Maybe it was a sign?! Maybe it was my subconscious telling me that’s I felt?! I didn’t know. But it drove Jax crazy, he wasn’t mad at me of course, he felt guilty. I tried saying and doing whatever it took to convince him that I was okay, but he wouldn’t believe me

  Was I happy that the man I loved had killed people? No.

  Was I going to pretend the fact didn’t really exist? Of course!

  But eventually, life moved on, the nightmares stopped and we just...lived. What difference did it really make? If I’d have decided that I couldn’t live with what he’d done...I’d have been lonely, so would he...I’d have been miserable, so would he...only he’d feel even worse because I knew he’d blame himself for the fact that we weren’t together.

  Truthfully, I figured even if I’d attempted to leave then he wouldn’t have let me anyway. Everyone has a past, some worse than others, but right now, it’s our future that counts.

  I dumped my suitcase, bags and my keys by the sofa and threw myself down on the cushions. About a month after Jax had confessed what he’d done, he asked me to move in with him...no scratch that...he told me I was moving in with him. I fought him on it, I didn’t want to live with three men, in a glorified bachelor pad! He told me I was being stubborn, pathetic and that ‘it wouldn’t be a fucking bachelor pad if I was living with him’. He stormed out, came back a few hours later, apologised for snapping at me...and I moved in!

  I punished him though. He might win the battles, but the war was mine. I decorated the bedroom with Harp and Mase when he was working at the club the first weekend after I’d moved in.

  I painted three walls pastel pink, I then added wallpaper on the fourth wall, that was black and had darker shade of pink swirls running vertically along the length. I bought new sheets and duvet covers, all in satin, some black, some pink and some silver, which matched the bed frame.

  I bought new voiles for the window, they matched the walls perfectly and tied at the corners with black satin bows. I added throw pillows on the bed a furry black rug for the floor. And finally, I bought some of those little decorated boxes that are too small to actually fit anything in, and organised them in different displays around the room.

  Harp kept giggling at me and warning me that Jax was gonna hit the roof, but seeing as he told me I was moving in, I said he was just gonna have to suck it up! It was my perfect room and I loved it.

  He hated it!! I pretended to be asleep when he got back from work, waiting for his reaction, but I was disappointed when he didn’t even turn on the light, he just threw his clothes on the floor and slid into bed beside me, wrapped his arm around me and whispered in my ear...

  “New sheets babe? Feel good. Wanna make love to you on them...right...fuckin’...now”

  Safe to say, he didn’t notice that night, and I instantly forgot all about it when my insides warmed and he reared over me.

  However, I was blissfully dreaming about family, foreign holidays and I think, some sort of flying car? When a voice broke through my sleepy haze and I heard...

  “What
the fuck?! Taylor Corsi, you better wake your ass up quick time!!” I blinked a few times to clear my vision, tensed and croaked, “I’m awake.”

  “Good, then would you mind explaining what the fuck you were thinking, turning my room into something that looks like it a fucking teenage girl lives in it?! Jesus babe, seriously, what the fuck were thinking?!”

  “You said you’d do anything to make me happy.” I pointed out and he replied slowly...

  “Err, yeah...”

  “Well then seeing as this is now my room too, I like it, it makes me happy, and therefore you shouldn’t mind.” I knew he’d mind, that was my plan...but he didn’t need to know that!!

  “Babe, you do not paint a man’s room pink!!” He told me, something I was already aware of. But I still defended my actions.

  “No, but like I said, this is my room too now. So suck it up macho-man! It’s done.”

  He sighed and then slapped my ass, moved out of bed, pulled on a pair of fleecy pyjama bottoms, but no top of course and declared...

  “You’re a pain in my ass baby girl. Mase and Ruben are gonna give me hell for this.” I wasn’t sure whether I should tell him what I did, but I did anyway...

  “Um...Mase helped!”

  He growled under his breath and I heard him mutter sarcastically as he walked out the door...

  “Of course he did. Fucking brat.” I chuckled and rolled over to admire my work!