by Tillie Cole
We never did this shit. Weren’t like that. But right now … I wanted to hold his fucking hand.
“You remember Freddie,” I said, joking, and nodded to where Freddie stood like a fucking statue on Dad’s other side.
“Alfie,” Freddie said. Dad followed the sound of his voice. He blinked slowly when he saw Freddie, and I knew that was him saying hello.
My arse hit the seat beside the bed, my fucking legs giving out. Dad turned back to me. Just staring at me. The muscles in my face felt tight, but I pulled a smirk onto my lips.
“I didn’t think I was going to see you again, old man,” I said. Dad breathed in deep. “Thought you’d finally cashed in your chips with the devil.”
Dad’s lips twitched and he slowly blinked again: no. That crack, that fucking crack in my chest was back, aching and throbbing, a motherfucking boulder in my throat. I looked over at Cheska, who was watching us with a watery smile on her face. “Got a bird,” I said to Dad, winking at Chelsea Girl, and his milky gaze moved to her.
“Hello, Mr Adley,” she said, stepping a little closer. “Nice to finally meet you.”
Dad looked back to me, like he was trying to say something. Just as he did, Freddie’s phone beeped with a message. “They’ve just got to the dock,” he said. “Chuck’s looking into what happened.” Frowning, I checked my phone, wondering why my cousin hadn’t called me. I’d told him to. And he always checked in.
I brought up his number and was about to give him a call, when suddenly Freddie grabbed hold of the nurse, who was changing a bag on one of my dad’s drips, pulled out his gun, and sent a bullet straight through her skull.
Everything fucking slowed to half speed as I saw the nurse drop to the floor, eyes still wide, and the door to my old man’s bedroom burst open. Men in all black with balaclavas on their faces flooded through.
“CHESKA!” I bellowed as one of the men grabbed her, smothering her mouth with his hand. I let go of my dad’s hand and shot to my feet. I reached into my jacket for my gun, but some fucker tasered me from behind. I fought the volts pulsing through me, electrocuting me from inside. When he shot me with it again, I fucking dropped to the ground. I fought it, arms and legs moving, fucking crawling to get to Cheska, who was screaming under the cunt’s hand and trying to fight free. But two fuckers wrenched me back, tied my hands and held me down on the floor.
“You’re dead,” I snarled at them, never taking my eyes off Cheska. “You’re both fucking dead.”
They dragged me to my feet, and I heard the sound of a gun’s safety unlocking. I tried to force my legs to gain strength, then my head whipped to Freddie, who was holding a revolver to my old man’s head.
Fucking time stopped.
“NO!” I yelled, just as my dad met my eyes, held my fucking gaze, blinking slowly one more time, like he was saying goodbye, and Freddie fired a single shot. Something inside of me shattered along with the loud racket from that bullet. Whatever frayed bit of worn tether had kept me down, grounded, held back from completely losing it and giving myself over to fucking evil, snapped.
There was no surviving this one. The bullet tore through my dad’s head, blood pooling on the pillow behind him. “NO!” I thundered again and used all of my strength to fight the fuckers holding me, throwing them to the ground.
The taser shots had taken most of my energy away. But they had Cheska. They had my fucking bird, and Freddie had just shot my dad. I had moved a few feet, legs dragging on the floor, to Cheska, when one of the cunts scrambled to his knees and tasered me again until my legs fucking buckled. I swerved my head to Freddie.
The fucking traitor that was Freddie. I had suspected someone, but not fucking Freddie.
“Why?” I growled, gritting my teeth as I fought to get back some fucking strength. Cheska screamed another muffled scream, and I set my eyes on the arsehole that had her. She met my gaze, and I tried to tell her with my eyes to hold on.
To just fucking hold on.
“Why?” Freddie said, coming around the bed. I looked at my old man and felt that crack in my chest fucking erupt with lava, the scalding heat that spiked my blood filling me with nothing but red-hot rage. Freddie stopped in front of me, and I imagined what it would be like to wrap my hands around the fucker’s throat.
To squeeze and watch the life drain out of him.
He was my brother. He was my motherfucking brother.
Freddie got in my face. Fucking taunting me. “For my dad.”
My head fucking swam as I tried to think, the taser making me sluggish, pushing a thick fog inside my mind. I thought of Freddie’s dad, of Frank. I didn’t understand. I didn’t fucking understand!
“My old man died because of him,” Freddie said, pointing his gun again at my dad. He must have seen my confusion, because he said, “My old man wasn’t a motherfucking Adley. He was from Deptford. He was a fucking South London boy through and through. And he infiltrated your fucking scumbag family for years. Fed information back to the real fucking lords of this town. His real family.” Freddie smiled at me. “My real family.”
“And who is your fucking real family?” I smiled. It was cold and promised a slow and painful death.
Freddie stood. “You’ll get to meet them. Pretty bloody soon, in fact.”
“Let them go.” I followed the sound of a quiet voice coming from the door to the bedroom, and my face fucking blanched as I saw Gene stood at the door with a gun in his hand. His hand was shaking. The kid’s hazel eyes were wide and wild.
“Gene!” Cheska managed to say before they pushed tape over her mouth. Tears fell down her cheeks as her eyes darted to mine, and I saw the fucking terror there. Not for her. Or me. But for Gene. She’d grown to love him.
“Gene!” I called, just as he was rushed at by one of the fuckers at his side. The kid fired off a shot, but the twat attacking him hit his arm away, directing it to the ceiling. Then he knocked the kid out cold with a punch to the face.
Gene buckled and went down. A heap of black on the ground.
“Leave him,” I said to Freddie. “Leave him here, and when I finally get to kill you, I’ll make it a little less painful.”
Freddie smiled, then said to the twat beside Gene, “We’re taking him too. Can’t have my old family knowing I was involved in any of this shit.” He shrugged. “Plus, it’ll piss off Eric and Vera.” Freddie smiled wider. “And Charlie, of course. I’d pay anything to see that tosser brought down a peg or two. Or better still, six feet in the fucking ground.”
“I’M GOING TO FUCKING END YOU!” I roared at Freddie.
Freddie stepped right before me. My brother. For all intents and purposes, this was my fucking brother. All those bloody years he’d lived with us. Here. In this fucking house. I could barely breathe as he looked dead into my eyes. Cheska had gone still in her captors’ hands. She met my eyes, and I saw understanding in her green-browns. I was getting her out of this. Some fucking how. I was getting her out.
Freddie snapped his fingers in my face, and a red mist fell over my eyes. He leaned in close and, putting his gun back into his suit jacket, said, “You’ve lost, Artie.”
I boiled inside. Raged. Screamed a fucking silent battle cry in his face. But I became the grey man once again. I let the fuckers behind me think they had me. Let the emotion drop from my face like my dad had always taught me. Freddie laughed, and some of the men in the room laughed back, reading my silence for weakness. Inside, I was a volcano, fire and brimstone and fucking excruciating death.
Freddie faced me again. “You’re the great chess master, Artie.” He leaned forward until he was only an inch from my face. His smile fell, but laughter still danced in his fucking eyes. “Checkmate.”
Externally, I didn’t move a muscle. But inside … inside I had stabbed the traitor with a knife in his eye and was gouging out his still-beating heart from his chest while he still had breath left in his body and could feel every strike.
“Take them,” Freddie said when I gave him
fuck all back, and the men dragged us from the room. Cheska looked back at me, and I gave her a slow nod. It’s going to be okay. I won’t let them hurt you. I’ll get us out of this. I’m never fucking letting you go.
I love you, her eyes said, like she was done, like this was our motherfucking goodbye. Like she was never coming back to me. I fought to fucking breathe, to not explode. I had to think.
I had to fucking think.
Some fucker behind me carried Gene out after my girl. The fuckers behind me pushed me to move next.
As we stepped out of the door, two small vans and a car waited for us. I scanned around us, to the churchyard and drive. My men were on the ground, throats slit. Silently, they’d been killed, no fucking warning, no fucking honour. Freddie had been waiting for my family to leave the house—
The text message, I thought. The message he’d got as he sat beside my dad. It wasn’t from Charlie. It was to say whoever the fuck these men were, they had killed the soldiers watching my house and were ready to take us. My mind raced. I wondered if there had even been an attack on the west dock, where my family had rushed to. Or had that been a set-up too? Were they fucking ambushed when they got there?
Were they all fucking dead … ?
“Split them up,” Freddie said, ripping me back to the here and now. I swung my head to him, already tasting the scent of his imminent death on my tongue. “Those two in that one,” he said, pointing to a van, then to Cheska and Gene. The fuckers put Gene in the van first.
Cheska turned to face me, and I held my chin up, telling her to wait for me. That I’d be coming for her. That no matter what happened, to fucking hold out for me. A weak smile pulled on her face, and she was pushed into the van. The doors shut behind her.
I wanted to charge. To fucking nut the men holding me and send bullets through all their fucking skulls. But I had to think. I had to fucking think. I was outnumbered and wouldn’t put Cheska and Gene at risk of being killed.
Freddie smirked at me victoriously as he watched me be shoved into the back of the van. The two fuckers that were holding me got in with me too. As the van doors closed, I saw Freddie slip into the back seat of the car.
My phone rang. One of the twats beside me heard it, reached into my pocket and smashed it under his foot. But not before I saw the name: Ronnie.
She’d found me something. Ronnie and Vera had fucking found me something.
The engine started and the van pulled away from the church. My hands were tied behind my back with gaffer tape. Stupid fuckers should have used titanium cuffs or some shit. Because I was getting out. I was getting out, and when I did, I was bringing the wrath of the fucking devil down on their heads.
Reaching up, I went to the waistband of my trousers and to the hidden pocket. Not making a single bit of noise, I pushed the knife I kept hidden on me out of the pocket, flipped it in my hands and started cutting through the tape. The pricks beside me were watching out of the blacked-out windows, no doubt checking for any of my men following us. The driver was sealed off by a blackout partition.
The tape gave way under my blade, and my hands got free. My breathing deepened as I tried to work off the last of the effects of the taser. I flexed the muscles in my legs, testing their strength. It was enough. It was enough to fucking kill these bastards and get the fuck out of this van.
I gripped the knife harder, then, in a fucking flash, slashed the sharp blade across both the fuckers’ throats, one at a time, from behind—they never saw me coming. Their eyes widened as they started to thrash. I pulled them to their backs, weighing them both down with my knees on their chests so they were pinned to the van’s floor and the driver wouldn’t hear anything. Their blood drenched me. I ripped their balaclavas off as they fought for breath. I stared right into their newly bared faces as death came calling. I didn’t recognise them. Nothing about them gave me any idea about who the fuck these pricks were.
They were both clutching their throats, pathetically trying to close up the slash. Then I saw their wrists … I fucking saw it: the brand. That circular brand with the V-type shape in the centre. The brand that had become my fucking trigger. The mark that made me want to eviscerate them, all the fuckers in the fucked-up group.
And Freddie was one of them. He was bloody one of the ones who’d killed my mum and sister, and now he’d killed my dad, once and for all, Alfie Adley nothing but a corpse on the bed he’d been stuck in for too many months. I pushed the thoughts from my head. I didn’t have fucking time to think about all that yet and keep my head straight. I had to get out of this fucking van. I had to get back to my family, to my men.
Then the hunt would begin.
The men stopped moving beneath me, and I silently climbed over them and unlatched the van’s back doors. Thank fuck it was an older van that didn’t have sensors that would alert the driver. I turned the lock, then threw the doors open. I knew the road the minute I saw it—we were still in the East End. Still in my fucking kingdom.
Seeing no cars behind us, I jumped from the van and onto the tarmac. I slammed onto the hard ground, my skin ripping at the contact. I didn’t feel it. Not a fucking thing. My heart and any ability to feel anything was driving away with my fucking bird up ahead, heading to Christ knew where. Only the need to kill and seek revenge kept me going. Kept my mind fixed on what I had to do.
And then I was fucking running. When I got behind a nearby building, I looked back at the road and saw the van Cheska and Gene were in and Freddie’s car up ahead. They turned left, then disappeared out of sight.
The minute that van fucking disappeared, Cheska in the back, my bird moving too many miles from me, no longer by my bloody side, a deathly calm spread over me. The dark lord had just lost sight of his dark lady, and that turned the world on its axis. The demons inside screamed at me to get her back. Pacing and roaring at me to get our fucking queen back. To raze any fucker who got in our way to the ground.
My feet were already moving, autopilot kicking in. I saw the King’s Head pub up ahead and ran. I fucking chewed up pavement until I burst through the door. Every punter in the place turned to look at me. “M-Mr Adley?” the barman stuttered, and I recognised him as someone my old man knew. My dad had used this pub once for meetings years ago.
“Phone,” I barked as I reached the bar. The punters moved the fuck out of my way. I didn’t give a shit that I was leaving a trail of blood on the floor; I’d send someone to clean it up later. Right now I had tunnel vision. Every bit of energy I could muster was set onto one task—to get Cheska back, and kill the ones who took her from me. They took my fucking bird from me. They had no idea what they had done. What fucking monster they had just woken up.
The barman frantically placed a phone in front of me. I dialled Charlie’s number, knowing that if he didn’t answer, they were all dead. But my cousin picked up on the first ring. “Charlie,” I said when he didn’t speak at first.
“Arthur? Fuck, Arthur! Is that you? What the fuck is happening?”
“They’ve got her,” I said through my teeth. I fought to keep that fire in my chest burning, fuelling my anger so I didn’t fucking drown in rage and drive after them, killing them all before I even had answers. I didn’t just want the foot soldiers dead in whatever this syndicate was—I was going for the king. The fucking mad king who thought it a good idea to fuck with what was mine.
“They’ve got Cheska and Gene,” I said. Charlie grew silent. Fucking deadly silent. “Send a car. The King’s Head,” I ordered and put the phone down. I walked outside to wait in the fucking shadows beside the pub, just breathing, thinking, letting the evil in my veins rest, gain strength for when I needed it most.
A car came five minutes later. I got in the back. “Get me the fuck home.”
I pictured Cheska’s face, her fucking green-brown eyes as she’d got into the van. The look of goodbye she gave me, eyes saying I love you. Goodbye. She was saying goodbye.
My thoughts blurred to show me my dad. My fists balled on m
y knees as I thought of my fucking dad. My dad, who had looked at me and blinked slowly—saying goodbye to me too.
Goodbye … goodbye … I was fucking sick and tired of the fucking goodbyes!
The car turned in to the church. My family’s and soldier’s cars and vans were everywhere. I jumped from the car before it had even stopped, burst through the front door and rushed to the living room. My family were already there, fucking bloodied and scraped, eyes wide and ready to bring death to those who had fucked with the wrong firm.
Betsy flew at me and wrapped her arms around me. “Shit, Arthur. Are you okay?” She stepped back, checking over my bloodstained clothes. Suddenly, Charlie was in front of me too. He waited for me to speak. He had cuts and bruises on his face, suit ruined and torn.
“Freddie,” I said, fighting back the fucking rage that name off my tongue conjured. But it spilled over. In front of my family, it spilled the fuck over everyone. “IT WAS MOTHERFUCKING FREDDIE!” I swiped at the bar, and all the bottles crashed to the floor. I breathed, closing my eyes to rein the rage back in.
“What?” Betsy whispered, paling.
I paced, exorcising the hyped-up demons inside me, skimming off the too-strong energy they were emitting within me. I needed to take the fucking edge off their wrath until I was ready to unleash hell on the people we wanted to die.
“They’ve got Cheska and Gene.” I looked at Eric, who was ready to fucking murder anyone who got in his path. His little brother had been taken, his brother who had already almost died too many fucking times in his tortured life.
“They ambushed us at the dock,” Charlie said. “But Mikey had got there first. He knew something was wrong when one of his men hadn’t checked in on time. He’d called for back-up, and they had already killed most of the fuckers waiting to take us out.”
“Did they keep anyone alive for questioning?” I asked.