by Tillie Cole
“Careful, Cheska,” Ollie said. “You don’t want to join your family on the floor out here.” He held the door, his hands turning white, betraying his ire. “Arthur Adley has no idea where we are. You forget, Freddie knows him. Has been with his family his entire life. He can read Arthur like a book. Adley’s hot-headed. He’s predictable. And if he does find us …” Ollie shrugged. “Then he’ll join his father. It’s about time that entire scumbag family ate dirt. They’re a blight on our city and need to be destroyed.” He pointed at Gene. “And I’m thinking I’ll start with you.”
Ollie slammed the door, and the room plunged into a heavy silence. I heard Ollie barking orders at his men. My head buzzed with everything that had just happened. I held myself high and vowed not to break.
If we got out of this, that could come later. I could succumb to the pain then. Right now, I had to be steel. I had to be strong. Shifting my body, I angled myself so I could feel Gene’s hands. I wrapped my fingers around his and held on tightly.
Freddie might have known Arthur. He might have thought he knew everything about him. But he only knew the Arthur of old.
He didn’t know that Arthur had given me a tracker, didn’t know that he had sent Ronnie and Vera on a mission to find out who this fucked-up “empire” actually belonged to. And more than that, he didn’t know the new Arthur—the Arthur who had me. The man he had become since he had let me into his walled heart.
And Freddie didn’t know the love we shared, the bond that existed between us—infallible, unmoving, vengeful toward those who tried to keep us apart.
Ollie Lawson had no idea what was coming. Because if they thought Arthur was evil before this, that he had untapped darkness in his veins … They had no idea of the monster he would become to get me back.
I stared at the bracelet on my wrist, practically feeling Arthur’s reassuring voice whisper in my ear … Hold on, princess. I’m coming to get you. You’re never leaving me. I’ll never let you go …
So, I leaned against Gene, took a strengthening breath, and waited for my dark king to storm the enemy castle.
Chapter Seventeen
ARTHUR
Charlie joined me outside the dock’s main office. He had been working the past few hours on organising the other gangs Lawson’s syndicate had fucked with. The minute I had called them all and told them who’d been attacking them, sending them the proof Ronnie had found, they were all in. Ready and fucking willing to bring these fuckers down—tonight.
Tonight would be another motherfucking blitzkrieg raining down on London. Ronnie, Vera and the hackers had managed to find us every cell, the addresses and headquarters of every one of those cocksuckers throughout London. From Ollie Lawson down to the piece of shit that loaded the slaves on boats and delivered the “products” to people’s homes.
They were all dying tonight.
Every seasoned gangster in London was prepped and primed to be done with the empire Lawson thought he ran.
“No one goes in until we do. No leaks. Lawson’ll run if he thinks we’re on to him. I’m not risking that,” I said.
“They’ve got their orders,” Charlie said. “They know if anything goes wrong on their end, we won’t get them all.” Charlie exhaled. “Every fucker we know is ready for these bastards to die.”
I flicked my finished cig onto the ground as Eric whistled and all our soldiers gathered around us. Betsy, Ronnie and Vera came out of the office behind me. Dressed in black, guns and knives at the ready. Vinnie stood beside Eric. He was as still as night. He was about to face off with the organisation who had killed Pearl. Who had taken my sister from his arms, his life. He was ready to watch them die. Ready to send them all to fucking hell. We all were.
I turned to Vera. “You get the bobbies sorted?” We had more than enough moles in the police to build a fucking mountain. Vera had put the word out that something big was going down tonight. And if they heard anything untoward, they were to turn their little piggy noses away. They’d been told that our taking the arseholes out would cut trafficking in the city by at least thirty percent, and if that sounded appealing to them, then they’d turn a blind eye tonight when the London underworld went up in fucking flames.
That, and there would be a distraction planted in central London, smack bang in the middle of tourist central. The Irish had told me they’d sort that. Which meant the night was ready for our version of lightning war.
Tonight, the Lawson gang would burn, just like they’d burned my mum and sister. Like they would soon burn in hell.
I faced my soldiers, all dressed in black, each decked out with a fuck-ton of guns, ammo and knives. Lawson had teams of men guarding the abandoned buildings. I wasn’t taking any chances. We were to fucking drive into the yard and rain bullets on all the cunts. No theatrics. No fannying about. Just a straight-up fucking shoot-out.
Then I’d find Lawson and Freddie. Find Cheska and Gene.
“You know your orders,” I said to my men. “Leave Lawson and Freddie to us,” I said, nudging my head toward to my family. “Once all their men are down, secure the perimeter and don’t let anyone in their organisation live. You shoot to fucking kill. None of them breathe a single breath when we’re done with them.” My soldiers nodded, hard as fuck for the lives they were about to take.
Charlie’s phone beeped over and over, and he nodded at me. “Everyone is ready. Royal, Seamus, Vano, the Italians … all of them. Locked and loaded and ready to fucking roll.”
“Fall out,” I ordered my men, and everyone loaded into the back of the vans. Mikey and Jim, my generals, took up the lead of their units. I climbed into the last van, my family all climbing in beside me. I sat on the bench seat and sparked up another cig. I checked my guns were loaded and all my knives were accounted for. Then I leaned my head back on the wall of the van and felt it pull off the drive.
My family were silent as we made our way to Deptford. The nicotine calmed me, and I fought back the anger that was pushing and pushing to break free.
Not yet. Not fucking yet.
But soon. Soon I would unleash the fucking demons inside me. I’d lay them all at Freddie and Lawson’s feet.
“I’ll be okay, baby. I promise,” Vinnie was saying to his imaginary Pearl. His pupils were blown and he was strapped with guns. He kissed her on the cheek, then put his arm around her. “I won’t let anyone hurt us.” Vinnie glanced over at me, then back at Pearl. “I’ll look after him, I swear.”
I took a deep breath, knowing he was talking about me. Eric met my eyes and nodded. He was ready. More than fucking ready to get his brother back. A pair of green-brown eyes entered my head, and I kept them there, suspended in the air. Right in my line of sight. I kept them there as a talisman. As a fucking guide toward my bird locked inside that fucking abandoned garage.
I glanced down at my phone—one of my replacements for the one those Lawson fuckers had smashed. I pulled up the app and saw that Cheska hadn’t moved for thirty minutes. From the blueprints we’d managed to get of the garage, she was being kept in some back office.
I didn’t even entertain the idea that she had been harmed. I needed to keep the lid on my rage until we were there. Thinking of her in any state but fucking perfect made the rage bleed out and seep into my bones, my flesh, ripping through my enforced calm.
“Eyes fucking forward,” I said to my family, who were all looking up at me. “Just like we did with the Russians. We go in there and offer no fucking mercy.” They all either nodded their heads, gripped their guns or flicked their knives. “Once the Lawson soldiers have been put the fuck down, we hunt for Ollie and Freddie.” My leather-gloved hand tightened around the butt of my gun. “Then take my lead. We’ll see what those cunts do first.” I pointed at my gun. “We’ll take it from there.”
The rest of the ride was made in silence. We stopped, and the driver banged his fist on the partition between us and him. Charlie waited for my signal. I checked the tracker again; Chelsea Girl still hadn’t moved.<
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“Light them the fuck up,” I said to Charlie, and he sent the cue for the other syndicates scattered around the city to move in and destroy these pricks once and for all.
I threw a new cig into my mouth, balancing it between my lips, then nodded to Eric to kick open the van doors. He did, my soldiers lining up into one long fucking wall of death. Lawson’s cunts, surprised by our arrival, came crawling from the abandoned buildings, shots firing.
I cocked my gun, then brought the fucking rain.
Taking my first round of shots as their cue, Adley soldiers opened fire on the mass of Lawson men trying to take us down. I walked forward, my family and soldiers never breaking our line.
We pushed on, one fucking lethal unit. Lawson men started dropping, their scattered defence crumbling under the surprise attack. I sucked on my cig as I ploughed bullet after bullet into the fuckers that had come for my family, Cheska’s family, my fucking blood.
Vinnie laughed manically as he pounded holes in heads and hearts. Ronnie screamed bloody revenge, tears streaming down her face as her bullets hit their targets. We pushed and pushed forward, until Eric shouted, “Now!” and gave Mikey and Jim the signal to split off with their men into the other buildings.
Seeing the garage right before us, my family and I brought down the last few stragglers at the front of the old building and stormed inside. I threw my gun over my shoulder and strode toward the door that led to where Cheska and Gene were being held. I stopped at the door and took an inhale of my cig.
Then I closed my eyes and let the rage I’d been holding back for hours fill my muscles and bones, fucking infuse my blood with lava, ready to unleash hell on the cunts behind the door.
I kicked the door open, and right in front of me, sitting on a fucking old armchair, was Ollie Lawson. And around him were heads. Motherfucking heads on spikes. Heads that had been severed from their bodies. I scanned my eyes over them and knew them immediately.
Cheska’s old man.
Hugo, and—
My fucking heart stopped dead as my eyes fell on the third head. Brown hair, olive skin, open green-brown eyes, full fucking lips. I was about to explode. About to lose my fucking head and tear this fuckwit apart with my bare hands, when I looked closer.
It wasn’t Cheska.
My fucking heart jumped back to life. It wasn’t fucking Cheska.
“Be honest,” Ollie said, his legs crossed and his hands clasped on his lap. “I almost had you.”
The door slammed shut behind us, footsteps charging toward me. I knew who it was without looking. But before Freddie could get to me, Eric smashed the butt of his gun into Freddie’s face and grabbed him, pulling his arms behind his back.
“Same fucking move you always do, tosser,” Eric snarled. “Should have known you’d be too fucking thick to try something new.”
I heard Freddie fighting against Eric. But that fucker wasn’t getting out of Eric’s hold anytime soon. I flicked my cig at Ollie’s feet, unconcerned about my traitorous brother for now. Ollie watched the butt nearly hit his shoes and smiled at me.
I was going to wipe that smirk off his ugly fucking face.
“So?” Ollie sat back in his seat like we were having a casual conversation. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“Where is she?” I growled, playing the fucking game. Freddie could stew a little in Eric’s arms until I was ready to end him. I had to deal with this piece of shit first.
“Oh, you mean Cheska?” Ollie got to his feet. He gestured to the heads of her old man and Hugo. “She was feeling a little unwell after seeing these two. After believing they were dead.” He paused. “They weren’t, in case you didn’t know.” I did know; it was what I’d told my family back at my church. Ronnie’s file had told me they had sold her to Lawson. They had been on their way to the Caribbean to start their lives over. But when Cheska had escaped Lawson’s attack at the spa, he’d held them captive until she was found. Clearly, he’d never planned on letting them get abroad.
I let Lawson have his little fucking speech. Let him believe he was running this show. “You see, they sold her to me, Adley. Technically, she’s mine. Payment for their debt.” He shrugged. “You know the drill. You dabble in loaning money yourself.”
“She’s fucking mine,” I said, my voice guttural and deadly.
“Now that’s where you’re wrong.” I waited for him to continue. “You can’t have her if you’re dead.”
The door to the room I knew Cheska and Gene were in slammed open, and two men opened fire. But we had been prepared. We’d read them fucking perfectly. Ollie wasn’t the leader his old man had been. He was a sniffling, spoiled little fucker who had no idea what it took to run a successful fucking crime empire.
Vinnie and Vera were already there, firing bullets into their skulls. Brains spilled onto the floor.
Ollie went to draw his gun, but I was there in a second, sending my fist into his ugly mug and slicing through his hamstrings with my knife. He screamed and fell to the floor. I kicked away his gun, circling him where he lay clutching his legs.
Then Cheska and Gene were dragged into the room by the last two of Lawson’s men. Ronnie and Betsy checked the other offices, searching for anyone else. But my eyes were fixed on Cheska. On her beautiful fucking face. Her perfect face that had been beaten, blood running down it. The entire room filled with red as a murderous mist descended over my eyes.
They’d touched my girl. This cunt had touched my fucking girl!
“Let them go,” I said venomously to the men who held them. Ollie laughed, actually fucking laughed as he lay on the floor.
The men were distracted by their gaffer’s laughter. Charlie used that distraction to aim his gun at their heads and send bullets right into their skulls. Cheska choked on a sob as the man behind her fell away and Vera and Ronnie reached her. They cut the tape from Gene’s and her hands.
“Arthur,” Cheska whispered in relief, then she saw the spikes around Ollie, the heads impaled on the top. As she walked closer to me, she couldn’t take her eyes off her dad and Hugo and whoever the fuck the Cheska lookalike was on the end.
Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. But she didn’t sob. She didn’t fucking break. Instead I saw darkness fill her eyes. The same darkness that lived in me—what was mine was now hers too.
I took Cheska’s hand and pulled her to my side. I smashed my lips to hers, devouring the fucking mouth I loved so much. I didn’t want to let her go. I needed to keep her beside me, but I had to deal with the twat on the floor.
I released Cheska, then gestured with my chin for her to step back. Ollie was glaring at me from the ground. The fucker hadn’t liked me kissing my bird.
I laughed coldly, then spread out my arms. “This is it?” I shouted around the empty room. “This is the great Lawson Empire?” Ollie was watching me, but now there was amusement in his unhinged eyes. It just pissed me the fuck off. I moved near him and booted him in the shin. I heard a crack and knew I’d snapped his bone. I lit a cig, not taking my eyes off the fucker moaning and gripping his ruined leg.
Cheska stood close by, still as a fucking statue, eyes fixed on Lawson. Targeted on Lawson. She wore a look of death in her eyes, and it was making me fucking hard.
“She screamed, you know,” Ollie said, pulling my focus from my bird, seemingly not giving a shit that he was about to die by my hand. I circled him, stamping down on his arm as I passed. Another snap came, and Ollie screamed out into the room. But that scream turned into a high-pitched laugh. A fucking psychotic scream.
“As the fire ate up the cottage, she screamed,” he said, panting through his pain.
My blood boiled the minute he mentioned the cottage, fucking propelling me forward. I stamped down on the same arm again. The limb dropped lifelessly at his side. I spat on his face. “Keep talking about my mum and I’ll fucking make this last all night, cunt. I’ll break you piece by piece, tear your flesh off in strips and then add your severed fu
cking head to one of these spikes.”
Lawson smiled, and shifted until he was kneeling on one knee, struggling to find balance. The cunt met me square in the eyes and said, “Who said I was talking about your mum?”
“I’ll kill you!” Vinnie roared, but Charlie held him back before he could rip Ollie’s tongue from his throat. “You don’t talk about my Pearl. You don’t ever fucking talk about my Pearl.” Vinnie was breathing hard, his face bright red.
I glared at Lawson. He was going to die. Slowly.
I stepped forward, my knife in hand.
But just as I did, my phone beeped with a message, and Ollie’s face lit up. “Seems not all my men are dead yet.” A wide smile pulled on his lips. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. “Well?” he asked. “Aren’t you going to look? If it ever came to this, I wanted to be sure that I was here while you saw it.”
“I’d rather kill you than watch some fucking video you get hard about sending,” I said.
More beeps went off around me, then silence.
A few seconds later, Charlie walked toward me, holding out his phone. His face looked like it’d seen a fucking ghost.
My cousin pressed play on the video. Betsy and Vera kept their eyes trained on Ollie as I watched. But Lawson only had eyes for me. I could feel the weight of his stare as the video started playing.
I watched as some fucker in the usual black clothes and balaclava carried my sister out of the back door of the cottage. The place was burning, my mum inside, but someone had gone in for Pearl. My heart fucking pounded like a canon at seeing my sister alive, but being taken away.
The video cut off. My hands were fucking shaking with rage, when another scene started to play. Of a woman in a suit. A blond woman with Pearl’s eyes. A woman in her early twenties …
My lungs seized up, and I knew what I was seeing. My mind tried to fucking catch up.