“If you think comparing our sister to one of your bit o’ muslins is acceptable—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Best you recall what happened the last time you had a bit of fun,” Joaquin said pointedly. “Not that I ever liked that trollop of a barmaid to begin with, but perhaps even she deserved better than your unfaithfulness.”
Cyrus launched himself up from the settee, crossing the room in three strides. He grabbed for Joaquin’s collar, but his elder brother had spent too much time as his sparring partner to not see the move coming. He deflected, and Cyrus swiped at the air. “I’m gonna—”
“Enough!” Mina shouted, ending the scuffle before Cyrus could finish whatever creative threat he’d been about to deliver. “What did you do, Quin?”
Cyrus took a step back, easing his big body into the chair beside Mina. Joaquin’s sharp gaze drifted toward the back of the room. “Isaac.”
There was a shuffling of feet, and a quick, pained intake of breath as Isaac emerged from behind Joaquin’s bookshelves in the shadowy back corner of the room, where the light from the windows and fire did not easily reach.
The sight of Isaac made Mina’s stomach slosh and her throat tighten. He’d been beaten badly—one eye was swollen shut, and dried blood from his broken nose coated the space between his nose and mouth. Rust-colored patches spread out across his shirt, with matching holes most likely from the blade of Joaquin’s dragon-hilted dagger.
“This wasn’t necessary,” she whispered, forcing herself to look Isaac in his one good eye. “I never asked for any of this.”
The warmth drained from her body. Whereas the night before she had felt protected by Charlie’s show of brawn, now fatigue welled up within inside her.
She’d been so thoughtless. Selfish. Thinking only of her own gain, and how badly she wanted to live a life outside of the Kings. Now Isaac had paid the price.
She should have known every action had a brutal consequence in the world of the gangs.
“I’m so sorry, Isaac,” she whispered, wanting to go comfort him but holding back. If she went to him, Joaquin would consider it a personal affront.
The last thing Isaac needed was more of her “kindness,” when her last advice to him had left him in this state.
“Isaac failed to protect you.” Joaquin’s brows furrowed, the slightest hint of confusion at her reaction. “That’s behavior I can’t tolerate. Do you understand what could have happened to you, Mina? Those men—those Chapman bastards—would have raped you, just because of your family’s name.”
“They’re not all like that.” She thought of the giant man they’d called Jones, and the other man with the younger Baines—the one with the kind eyes who had stood up and called an end to the fight. “And Charlie was there to keep me safe.”
“We shouldn’t have to depend on them.” Joaquin spat out the word as though it was coal on his tongue. “I hire protection for you for this very reason. And when my protection fails, it sends a message that we are defenseless, ripe for the picking. With Baines already chomping at the bit for our territory, and the alliance with the Tanners going south, we cannot afford to look weak.”
“I understand,” she said, lowering her gaze.
“I never should have let you go to that wretched place.” For the first time since they’d begun talking, genuine regret laced Joaquin’s tone. His gaze lost some of its coldness as he reached for her hand, taking it in his and squeezing as if he needed reassurance that his sister was indeed alive and well despite his lack of foresight. “I thought with the truce in place you’d be safe. I trusted my men to do their job.”
From the center of the room, Isaac let out a hacking cough, doubling over in pain. Joaquin released her hand, the momentary show of familial kindness gone. “Isaac, apologize to my sister.”
Mina shook her head. “I don’t need that. He didn’t do anything I have to forgive.”
“He abandoned you.” Joaquin turned his sharp glare on her, then Isaac.
Isaac hobbled forward, dropping down in a haphazard bow before her, from which he did not rise. “My deepest apologies, Miss Mason. It will never happen again.”
Before she could accept the apology, Joaquin let out a contemptuous snort. “I should hope not. Isaac, leave. If you hack up blood on my carpet, I shall use it to whip you and then take the cleaning cost from your wages.”
Isaac rose with difficulty from the floor and limped out, not daring to utter a word.
“Not that you should pay the blighter anything,” Cyrus muttered, more to himself than to his siblings. “It’ll only go down a blowen’s blouse.”
“Cyrus,” Joaquin snapped, with a pointed look toward Mina.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I am nineteen years old and I grew up in the East End, Quin. I am not a porcelain doll who will shatter at the first mention of something untoward. After all, this is Stepney Green, not Mayfair.”
“It’s speeches like that which make me even more certain you must marry Nigel Donaldson as soon as possible,” Joaquin declared, as he poured brandy from the decanter into his glass. “I’ve had the banns announced. You’ll marry in three weeks.”
Cyrus muttered something in reply, but Mina didn’t register his words. The room shrunk in size, closing in on her. Gone went the hope she had cherished earlier this morning that she could convince Charlie to love her as she did him.
She’d thought she’d have more time.
She’d thought her brother would care about her.
He’d sold her happiness for a goddamn chance at becoming more than rookery royalty.
“You can’t possibly be serious,” she croaked out finally, for both Cyrus and Joaquin had turned their expectant gazes on her. “You can’t hand me off to Donaldson as though I was a…prize sheep, or a steer. I’m your sister!”
Cyrus winced at the sharpness at her voice, having the good grace to look abashed. Joaquin, however, maintained the blank mien customary to negotiating his business deals.
That’s all she was to them—another business deal. Not a woman, with her own hopes and dreams. Not the sibling they’d watched grow up, the sister they’d basically raised since the death of their father when she was eight. Not Mina herself, but the lone female Mason, the only one who could be bought and sold with no more regard than one of Joaquin’s precious gaming hells. At least the gaming hells had some chance at success, at becoming something more than they’d been before, because Joaquin treated his employees and his establishments far better than he treated his own damned sister.
“It is because you are my sister that I do this.” Joaquin had been speaking for several minutes, but she hadn’t the faintest idea what he’d said until now. “I need to make sure you’re safe from what’s to come. There was a war on the horizon, Mina, and you’ve hastened things by firing that first shot.”
“I didn’t mean to.” She couldn’t believe this was happening. Her brain sputtered, operating in fits and starts of nonsense. “I wanted to see Charlie.”
“And that’s another thing,” Joaquin said, his voice taking on that steely edge she knew meant he wouldn’t budge on his next point. “That bounder is, and always has been, trouble. You shouldn’t have been in Chapman territory, around those blackguards. You are not to see him again, Mina.”
“Quin, please,” she pleaded, the strength leaving her voice. Without Charlie to make her laugh, to tell her that everything was going to be fine no matter what happened, to keep her sane, how would she ever survive the coming days? He was her lone chance at a respite from Donaldson. Except…
She turned her desperate gaze upon Cyrus. “Please, Cy. Please don’t let him do this. You know I don’t care about Donaldson. You know I can’t possibly marry him.”
“I’m sorry, Min.” He let out a deep, shoulder-shaking sigh. “But Quin’s right. You’ll thank us, later.”
Mina fell back against her seat, pressing her fingers to her temples in a
futile effort to quiet her raging mind. “When? After you’ve sold me off to a man I barely know, a man older than our father would be? After he demands a wedding night from me?”
Joaquin opened his mouth to contradict her, but Cyrus spoke first. “You don’t want to be around when this all goes to the devil. Besides, Donaldson isn’t half-bad. Bit more of a wet blanket than I’d like, but he’ll treat you like a queen and he’s got the blunt to buy you anything you want.”
“What I want is to marry whomever I bloody well choose,” she retorted.
“Mina, language,” Joaquin chided.
She dignified that remark with a scathing snort.
“Min, please,” Cyrus said, in that low, wheedling tone that always got her to agree with him. Not now. “Your boy Charlie can’t protect you if he’s dead. The more you align yourself with him, the more Chapman will think he’s disloyal.”
“He is not her boy,” Joaquin inserted through gritted teeth, fixing his lethal glare on Cyrus. “I should have had that merry-begotten blighter sent off to the workhouse when he first darkened our doorstep.”
That was the last straw for Mina. She’d felt powerless before, but when it came to defending Charlie, she knew exactly what to say. “That ‘blighter’ is a better man than you will ever be, Joaquin. In fact, he’s the best damned man I know, and both of you could learn from him! But you’d have to pull your heads out of your arses before that could ever happen.”
She rose from the chair, ignoring Joaquin’s motion for her to sit back down. For a moment, she considered crossing over to the fire to pick up the teapot she’d left, but decided it was in her best interests to make as quick of an exit as possible.
“Mina, get back here,” Joaquin demanded, as she moved swiftly to the door. “Catch her, Cyrus.”
Cyrus remained seated. “You want her, you get her. I’m not one of your men to order about.”
Any other day, Mina would have thanked him for that. When they were younger, Cyrus had been the one to dote on her, to defend her when Joaquin claimed she was too rebellious. With ten years between her and Cyrus, and fifteen between her and Joaquin, they’d both been more like father figures than brothers.
Now, Mina didn’t know what they were. The only thing she was certain of was that she had to get out of that room, before all their plans and their demands stifled her. Seizing the opportunity provided by Cyrus’s distraction, she took off at a run down the hallway. She didn’t stop until she’d reached her own suite, shutting the door behind her and locking it.
She slumped to her knees, her back wedged against the door, her head in her hands. How had everything gone to the devil so quickly? She felt as though she were an old rag-doll passed from brother to brother, tugged until her seams burst apart. Like that doll, she had no agency—no rights to her own life. Her own body.
And she didn’t have the vaguest idea how to fix the terrible, terrible mess they’d made.
Because Cyrus was right, at least about Charlie and Chapman. Zacharias Baines’s reputation for vengeance rivaled Joaquin’s. If she went to him right now, while the fight in the bar was fresh in everyone’s minds, she might risk not only his position in the gang, but his safety.
So she’d wait.
She’d waited thirteen years for him. She could wait a few more days, couldn’t she? She touched her finger to her lips, trying to find solace in the memory of his kiss. The way he’d held her in his arms, as though she was precious and worthy of such adoration. As though she was special, just for being herself. Not for her family name, not for their wealth, but because she was the woman who’d stood by him no matter what.
And it would take a hell of a lot more than the combined efforts of Cyrus, Joaquin, the Kings, and all of bloody Chapman to keep her away from him. Charlie was hers—always had been, always would be.
So Mina leaned her head back against the door and took a deep breath. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she pretended it was Charlie’s strong body embracing her, whispering in her ears that she was loved and everything would be fine.
He might not be around to save her this time, but that didn’t make her powerless. Somehow—some way—she’d find an escape from this madness. She had to, because she couldn’t accept goodbye from him.
Chapter 6
Charlie had never slept well. He did not know if it was his early years on the streets, when he’d stay out until the sun rose to avoid the worst of his father’s drunken fits of temper, or if it was yet another reminder that he was not made for a toff world of working from sunrise to sunset. He was a nocturnal soul, coming to life as the last rays of light disappeared from the sky to be replaced by blanketing black.
So being a barkeeper had been a godsend, in more ways than one. It allowed him to work a relatively honest job, if serving drinks and plates of almost-but-not-quite-hot food to thieves and confidence men counted as honest. Peelers liked to cry guilty by association, and the men of Chapman had dubious pasts. For the most part, they were the castoffs of a broken system, forced to survive by any means necessary. He’d never associated with the few that derived pleasure from degrading those even further below them on the social ladder, like Al McNair.
Not until recently.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glaring at the tall bookshelf overflowing with sketchbooks and various tomes in Harper’s pawnshop. He didn’t know why Harper bothered—only a small percentage of Ratcliffe could read, and even fewer could write. Charlie knew a few letters, enough to string together some common words, but that was because Mina had taught him when they were children. There were ragged schools, yes, but there weren’t enough of them to make a real difference, and most families couldn’t afford to spare their children from either working or thieving. Every member of the family had to contribute, or they’d all starve.
He scratched at his right breast, where the tattoo of Chapman’s “C” insignia itched fiercely, as though it too had developed a conscience. He bit back a curse, thinking he was already halfway to Bedlam if he believed such stuff and nonsense. He’d always been a practical man. A man who would do whatever it took to survive in this blighted world.
A man who had taken solace in the fact that no one but his brothers in arms depended on him.
Mina had shot that right to hell, hadn’t she? With her sweet words and those bloody kissable lips, which he now knew fit perfectly against his, like she’d been made for him. No matter how much he knew better, there she was in his mind again, leaning up against him, rubbing hard against his cock with the inquisitive determination that characterized her approach to every new challenge.
But even Mina, with all her stubbornness and her sheer force of will, couldn’t make this better.
She couldn’t quiet the doubts in his mind, the shattering of his previously rock-solid belief that Chapman was on the right side of things, no matter what the law claimed. Men who would side with Al McNair as he raped an innocent woman were not men he wanted to claim as his kin in bond.
He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his tattered coat. Stared at the oak door with its gnarled, knotty wood, leading to the back rooms where Zacharias held most of his meetings. Meetings Charlie rarely had cause to sit in. Despite Zacharias’s insistence that he had a quick mind and quicker fists, Charlie had never wanted to be a leader. Let Harper and Jason fight over who would succeed Zacharias—he’d been content with the simplicity of his life. To report the things he overheard at the bar at regular intervals.
His hand closed over the smooth black pebble in his pocket, that same damn good luck charm he’d carried since he was a boy. Mina had found it on the grounds surrounding the Mason manse. She’d presented it to him eagerly, claiming it would keep him safe in a life full of unknowns.
Maybe he’d always been on his way to Bedlam, if he’d believed all these years that a rock could stall the turnings of fate against him. Sinners like him—men who had bled on these very streets, done things better left unsaid in the name of l
oyalty and false perceptions of honor—always paid.
As if on cue, the door to the back office opened. Matthew Harper poked his head out, waving him in. For a split second, Charlie considered running. But where would he go? He’d never been outside of London—hell, he’d never left the East End—and the little blunt he had wouldn’t get him far.
No, he’d stay. Face the consequences of his actions like a man.
For once, he’d fight for something—someone—he believed in.
So with the slow steps of a man on his way to his funeral, he followed Harper. He barely glanced about the room before Harper grabbed one of his arms, and then Hawk Jones snatched up his other. With him thus secured, Jason barreled forward, sucker-punching Charlie in the gut.
He couldn’t breathe.
This fact registered in Charlie’s mind, even before the pain hit him. He doubled over, his knees buckling underneath him, only remaining on his feet because Jones and Harper held him steady. The world twirled before him in incomplete details as his stomach tumbled. The curtains over the back windows, patched but fastidiously clean. Zacharias, reclining in the armchair like it was a damned throne, shaking his head at Jason to signal no more.
This was it—he’d never breathe again, and life would pass from him in this bloody room, without him ever getting a chance to fight back. Abstractedly, he wondered if Mina would remember him after she married that rich hog-grubber.
Then, as the darkness ebbed at the corners of his mind and threatened to overtake him, he breathed. An uneven pant; a struggle for normalcy. The haze surrounding him began to dissipate. Charlie drew in the largest breath he could take, half to convince himself he was alive, half to celebrate the fact that he could.
Before he had time to congratulate himself on being the scrappiest fucker that ever graced Ratcliffe’s hells, Zacharias motioned for him to step forward. Jones gave him a tiny push, surprisingly gentle for a man of his bulk. Harper helped him into the chair in front of Zacharias’s desk, mouthing an apology when their leader turned to say something to Jason.
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