Davie didn’t move an inch. “I love you, Frankie, but if you carry on hurting these people, I ain’t your bro no more.”
Frankie was silent for a while as he seemed to consider his next words. “You sure you want things to go down like this?”
Davie nodded and stood firm, not breaking eye contact for a second.
Andrew sat and watched from the armchair, hardly able to breathe as he waited for an outcome of this familial confrontation – it seemed his life might hang in the balance. At least, if anything, he’d judged Davie correctly – the boy was nothing like his older brother.
“I let them go; I go down,” said Frankie. “You want that?”
Davie sighed. “Course not. You’re my blood.”
“So what then? What would you have me do, Davie? You seem to be the one with all the answers so enlighten me.”
He shrugged. “Just leave. They won’t say anything.”
Frankie laughed his head off. “You’re shitting me? Course they will.”
“Not if you threaten to send someone round to finish the job. Just like the kid in the bathtub – nothing gets said to the police and everything stays cool.”
Everything will not be cool, thought Andrew as he looked across at his catatonic wife, bleeding from her butchered face beneath a bald head. This isn’t going to end with you just walking away scot free. No way in hell.
Frankie took some time to think about things. Andrew did some thinking of his own. If Frankie did leave, then the first thing he would do was call the police. But if Frankie stayed, then he would certainly commit murder. If it was the latter outcome then Andrew wasn’t going to go down without a fight. The agony of his tooth extraction had reawakened his senses to the point that they were on high alert. If he was going to save his family it would be now.
“I’m sorry,” Frankie told his brother earnestly. “I can’t leave things now. My business isn’t done. Got to take this thing to the end.”
I’ll end it for you right now, you son of a bitch.
Andrew leapt from the armchair and barrelled into the back of Frankie as hard as he could. The body tackle sent Frankie forward with enough force that he flipped clear over the room’s coffee table and landed awkwardly on his shoulder, crying out. Like angry bees, the twins were on Andrew in an instant.
Andrew lunged aside as Dom attempted to tackle him. The teen missed and went tumbling into the TV stand headfirst. Without thinking, Andrew swung his leg viciously and connected with the boy’s ribs, enjoying the crunching sound it made. Michelle attacked next. The wicked little harlot screeched at him like a medieval war maiden and came at him with a pair of scissors. Andrew had no time to consider the ethics of hitting a girl so threw the hardest punch he could produce. Lips and teeth mushed beneath his colliding fist and Michelle flew backwards, already unconscious on her way down to the floor.
Next up was Jordan, and his attack was far more effective. He came at Andrew with his arms wide, embracing him in a crushing bear hug and ramming him into the nearest wall. Andrew lost his breath as his cracked ribs impacted against the hard plasterboard. Unable to free his arms, he did the only thing he could think of. He bit Jordan in the face as hard as he could, teeth slicing through the succulent flesh and causing a high-pitched, agonising scream. Jordan’s struggling just made Andrew bite down harder, and he didn’t release his grip until a fatty chunk of flesh fell away in his mouth. He spat the morsel onto the ruined carpet and pushed the shuddering teen away from him.
Andrew felt as though he was outside of his body now, controlling his rage-infected limbs from far away as they coursed with murderous intent. After being captured and subdued like an animal, he was finally free – and all he wanted now was to see the blood of his captors flow as freely as his own.
But before he had a chance to sow his vengeance and free his family, he found himself, once again, powerless. Frankie stood in front of the sofa, a knife to Bex’s throat. She was still bound and gagged but Andrew could tell by his daughter’s eyes that she was terrified.
“Just let her go, Frankie, and I’ll let you walk out of here alive.”
Frankie cackled. “You’ll let me walk out of here alive. It’s you that’s a dead man.”
Andrew shook his head. “Shoes on the other foot now. I’m going to rip you apart first opportunity I get. Best chance you’ve got is to run.”
Frankie stared at Andrew as if he were insane. “You for real? I’d kill you before you even got close to me. I’m Frankie-fuckin-Walker.”
Andrew shook his head. “You’re just a sad little boy who probably got raped in prison. We should all feel sorry for you – but you made a huge mistake when you took it out on my family. You’re a dead man.”
Davie entered the conversation, standing between them both. Jordan was still screaming in pain and rushed into the kitchen to tend to the ripped-open wound on his face. His brother Dom lay on the floor, rubbing his shoulder gingerly. Michelle was still unconscious. Davie put a hand up to Andrew and Frankie, like a referee at an out-of-hand boxing match. “Let’s just keep things calm, okay? If you stay where you are, Andrew, we’ll all get out of your house right now.”
“Like fuck we will,” said Frankie, still holding Rebecca at knifepoint.
Davie turned to his brother. “This has gone tits-up, bro. We need to bounce.”
Frankie stared at his younger brother and eventually let out a sigh. “You’re right. This is an epic fuckin’ fail, man.”
Davie nodded. “Let’s not make it any worse.”
“Okay. Dom, get up off the floor and fetch your brother from the kitchen. Get Michelle up and carry her useless ass out of here.” Frankie looked at Andrew, narrowed his eyes. “You come after me, gangster, and I’ll put you down for good. Then someone will come and sort your family out for good measure. Same thing will happen if you go to the police. You get me?”
Andrew said nothing. He didn’t need to involve himself in worthless banter with a degenerate like Frankie – he could see through it all now. The police would get a call the moment he left, and if anyone came after Andrew’s family afterwards, they would be made to regret it. There was a beast inside of him that had been created and let out.
“Let my daughter go and leave.”
It wasn’t Andrew who spoke. It was Pen. She’d stood up from the sofa and was clutching the scissors in her hand. No one had seen her grab them, but in the ruckus that had erupted she would have had every chance to take them.
“Let her go,” Pen repeated, pointing the scissors at Frankie’s face. “Now.”
Frankie sniggered. “Or else what, you bald bitch?”
“I’ll kill you.”
Andrew called out to his wife and tried to calm her down. The situation was nearly over and she didn’t need to do this. “Honey, come over to me. Everything is going to be okay in just a minute.”
But Pen wasn’t listening. She had a haunted look like she was somewhere else entirely; somewhere where only she and Frankie existed, with Bex in the middle.
“Listen to your husband, sweetheart. You ain’t going to be doing nuffin’. Come near me and I stick your whore daughter.”
Pen let out a roar and rushed at Frankie with the scissors, her face contorted in a witch-like grimace of utter hatred and malevolence. Frankie spun to meet her head on, holding Bex in front of him as a shield. Their bodies collided and the scissors disappeared in the tussle.
Andrew’s heart froze, along with every other muscle of his body. As he stood there in terror. The next several seconds passed like an eternity, until Frankie pushed Bex against her mother and stepped away, snarling. Andrew saw the blood immediately. Then he saw the scissors jutting out from his daughter’s stomach as she fell to the floor in shock. Pen looked down at Bex and let out an inhuman wail, then she lunged at Frankie, aiming her sharp fingernails at his remorseless eyes.
Frankie struck out with the knife and Pen stumbled right into it. There was no sound as the blade entered the soft tiss
ue of her throat and, for a moment, Andrew wasn’t sure if the injury was as real as it looked. When blood spurted high enough to coat the ceiling, the reality of the situation became undeniably real.
“Stupid bitch,” said Frankie, looking down at her. “Dom, Jordan, go get Michelle, right now. We’re leaving.”
Andrew dropped to his knees, oblivious to the escaping youths that had made his life a living hell before destroying it completely. The only thing that existed in his life right now was Penelope and Rebecca, and both of them were dying on the living room floor.
Chapter Nineteen
“Shit man. This is bad. Why the hell did you do that, Frankie?” Davie struggled to keep up with the others as they ran deeper into the estate, passing by rows of houses that became progressively smaller and unkempt as they left the better areas. Usually he would have been faster than the lot of them, but his throbbing concussion meant he could manage no more than a lolloping walk.
Frankie slowed down and allowed Davie to catch up. “Bitch had it coming,” he said. “She came at me like a nutcase, you saw it.”
“I saw you drive a knife into her neck when you could have just as easily punched her.”
Frankie shrugged. “It’s done now. No point stressing about it.”
Davie reached out and grabbed his brother’s jacket, dragging them both to a stop. “You’re tripping, bro. The police will be after us all within the next two minutes. There’re two woman bleeding to death because of you!”
Frankie huffed. “Because of us.”
Davie shook his head, dismayed by the suggestion that he was to blame for any part of this. “What the hell did I do?”
“You distracted me enough that Andrew could take a shot at me. Everything went tits-up after that. If you’d just kept your gob shut then everything would have been okay. I was just about to let them go, little bro. Figured I’d scared them enough to get the message.”
“Bullshit,” said Davie, hoping there was zero truth to his brother’s words. “You told everyone you were going to kill Andrew.”
“Course I did,” said Frankie. “I wanted him to shit himself. I weren’t gunna do it, though. You think I’m a complete muppet or what?”
Davie shook his head. He was feeling dizzy again and couldn’t wait to find his way to bed. Were his actions really the cause of what had happened? Davie wasn’t sure he could live with himself if they were. He stared at Frankie and concentrated on his brother’s reactions. “You were really just going to let them go?”
Frankie put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “I swear, man. They were at the point where they would never have said shit to no one. The pigs wouldn’t have ever known. Now though…”
“What are we going to do?”
Frankie patted Davie on the back and got them both moving again. Up ahead, the twins and a groggy Michelle were waiting for them. “We’re going to go see a mate of mine and lay low for a while at his gaff. We’ll get our stories straight and decide what we’re going to do then.”
Davie nodded. “Okay. Who’s this mate? Can we trust him?”
“Yeah,” said Frankie. “It’s him I’ve been dealing product for. Well, his old man, really, but he’s in the nick for a stretch.”
“Maybe, we should just go home instead. Get mum to tell the police we’ve been home all night.”
“You really want to rely on that drunk bitch to keep a story straight?”
“I suppose not.”
They caught up with the others at the end of the street just as they passed by a group of shops and a grotty old pub called The Trumpet.
“My mate lives a few blocks up,” Frankie told them all. “It’s pretty late so he should be in. Mind your manners though because this guy would kill you as soon as look at you. In fact he’s the only geezer in the world that actually scares me. ”
Everyone nodded their understanding. Then they got going again, heading through the paved jungle of the housing estate and disappearing into the night.
***
Frankie knocked the door and shushed everyone. The house they were standing at was bigger than most of the others on the street, with a long driveway and an overhanging porch that had a light that lit their approach.
“He going to be mad?” Davie asked, trying to fight away the feeling that things were somehow getting worse not better.
“Maybe,” said Frankie, “but once I tell him the deal, he’ll understand. Last thing he needs is his best dealer going away for a long stretch.”
A light came on in the hallway. It shined through the frosted glass of the PVC door, and after a few seconds of clinking sounds, of deadbolts and chains being unlocked, the door opened up. Blinking out at them through sleep-fuzzed eyes was a shaven-headed youth about the same age as Frankie. The lad was well-muscled and wearing nothing but a pair of designer boxer-shorts.
“Fuck, Frankie, is that you?”
“Yeah, Damien, it’s me. I need to lay low for a couple days. Some shit went down that’s pretty heavy.”
Damien glanced at a glinting watch on his wrist and narrowed his eyes beneath the glaring porch light. “Two-o-clock in the morning, man. You pick your goddamn times, you know that? I ought to whoop your ass for waking me.”
“I know, man. If I wasn’t desperate, I wouldn’t be here.”
Damien opened the door wider and let them all in. “You’ll make this up to me, Frankie. We’ll discuss it later.”
They all entered and Damien closed and locked the door behind them. He ushered them through into the lounge where Davie peered around in awe. A plasma screen TV as big as any he’d seen hung from the far wall, while opposite was a huge wraparound sofa deep enough to bury ten bodies in. Everything was expensive, and the fact that it belonged to someone only a few years older than Davie made it even more unbelievable. He could see why Frankie had allowed himself to get dragged down the same path of dealing drugs if these were the rewards.
“Take a seat,” Damien told everyone. “I’ll get some beers and put the heating on. They say it’s going to snow this year and it’s already getting too cold for my liking. Frankie you come with me and we’ll talk business.”
Davie watched his brother leave and sat himself down on the extravagant sofa. The twins and Michelle did the same.
“What a fucking trip,” said Dom. “Never seen nothing like what happened tonight.”
“We’re all screwed,” Davie said glumly.
“Stop stressing, D,” said Michelle. “Frankie will sort everything out.”
Davie didn’t want to talk to any of them. They understood what they’d all been party to, and they didn’t care - monsters. Davie, on the other hand, couldn’t help but recall the images of Rebecca hitting the floor with the scissors poking out of her guts. She hadn’t hurt anyone and neither had her mother. Now they were both probably dead.
What was it about Andrew that had consumed all of Frankie’s focus? The torture of that poor family had been like an obsession once he’d gotten into their house. Davie thought about Andrew now and considered the pain the man must be feeling after watching his family get destroyed like that. Maybe it was the worst pain imaginable. It certainly seemed like it at the time as Davie had watched the man bellow.
“You think Frankie will let us score some more?” Jordan asked the group.
“I hope so,” his twin added. “I’m starting to come down big-style. My face is killing me. Can you believe that crazy fucker bit a chunk out of my cheek? It’s still bleeding now and I feel well-sick.”
“I just wanna sleep,” said Michelle. “I’m knackered and my face is mashed-up. Think I lost a tooth.”
“You ain’t getting no sleep tonight, sweetheart,” said Damien, re-entering the lounge. “You and me are going upstairs.”
Michelle frowned at him. “The fuck you talking about? I’m Frankie’s girl.”
“Exactly,” said Damien, “and Frankie owes me. Consider yourself rent for the bunch of you staying he
re tonight. You may be a bit of a bruised-up mess, but you’ll do, I suppose.”
“No fucking way. Frankie wouldn’t let anyone else have me.”
Frankie entered the room and Damien winked at him. “Is that right Frankie? Seems your girl is playing hard to get.”
“Just get your ass upstairs,” Frankie told Michelle, clicking his fingers at her. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Michelle glanced around the room, looking rescue, but the twins just shrugged and Davie wasn’t about to offer her any assistance either. Far as he was concerned, Michelle deserved everything she got. Maybe it was time for her to learn a lesson.
Michelle stood up, looking confused but unable to find an argument, so she turned to Damien. “You serious? You want me to go upstairs and fuck you?”
Damien laughed. “I’m going to be the one fucking you.” He offered out his hand and Michelle took it reluctantly. Damien turned to Frankie and winked on his way out of the room. “I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and that other favour you needed from me…you’ll find it in a box beneath the sofa. Have fun, kids.”
“You too,” said Frankie, although he didn’t seem to mean it. His face twitched several times as he watched Michelle be led away.
Frankie collapsed down onto the sofa and kicked off his trainers, letting out a loud sigh. Davie waited for him to say something, but it appeared he was quite content to close his eyes and go right to sleep. Apparently murder and mayhem wasn’t enough to keep Frankie awake.
Davie asked him a question, before he had chance to drop off. “You okay with Damien banging Michelle?”
Frankie didn’t move or even open his eyelids as he spoke. “I was the one that suggested it, bro. Easy way to settle a debt, innit?”
“She’s your bird, though.”
“Fuck Shell. She’s happy as long as she’s got coke in her nose and a cock up her ass. Who gives a damn?”
“Didn’t look like she wanted to go,” said Dom. “Look on her face was classic.”
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