Charlie returned his message with a slight uptick of his chin. In his book, Harper didn’t have a damned thing to apologize for—Charlie knew the code of conduct that came with being Chapman. From his earliest days of taking the thrashings dispensed by his father, he’d learned to accept violence as an everyday part of his life.
“Never thought it’d be you here, my boy.” Zacharias’s voice held no trace of cant, for he’d labored hard to remove any sign of the rookeries from his speech.
Charlie remembered him saying that in order to be respected, one had to either sound educated or be prepared to destroy one’s enemies through fighting. He’d chosen the latter.
Jason snorted. “That’s because you can’t see the truth where Thatcher is concerned. You never have.”
Zacharias leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his piercing stare fixed on Jason. “Speak to me again like that, and you’ll be the next one I deal with, my son or not.”
Jason’s lips twisted in a harsh scowl, yet he did not retort. Charlie thanked the good Lord for small miracles.
“Perhaps it would be best if we go,” Harper suggested, glancing over at Jones, who gave a swift nod of agreement. “You did say you wanted us to check that McNair’s location was secure.”
A ping of relief burst through the ache of fresh injury atop last night’s wounds. “You’ve hidden him away? Good.”
“Don’t pretend you care,” Jason snapped. “It’s an insult to us all.”
Charlie set his jaw, meeting Jason’s glare head-on. “I may think he’s a bounder, but I don’t want him dead.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that last night,” Jason replied. “I always knew your little chit was going to cause trouble, didn’t I, Jones?”
Jones declined to comment—though that meant little, for Jones spoke when he had something to say, and not before.
Zacharias looked from his son to the two other men, distaste marring his wrinkled face. “Leave.”
“But Father—” Jason cut his protest short when Zacharias started to rise from the chair. “Fine, fine, I’m going.”
Shrugging off Harper’s hand from his shoulder, Jason exited the room. Jones followed. Harper remained a second longer, exchanging glances with Zacharias. Then he too was gone, leaving Charlie alone with Zacharias in the space commonly referred to by gang members as “the room where the worst happens.”
Oh, he was so screwed.
“I know I’ve got a lotta explainin’ to do.” His words came out raspy, for he hadn’t fully regained his breath yet. He smoothed his palms down his dusty breeches.
Zacharias’s perceptive gaze tracked his movements. “That’s an understatement.”
Sweat prickled Charlie’s hands at the older man’s scrutiny. He was a child of seven again, begging for mercy after he’d tried to cut the strap on Zacharias’s purse. For the second night in a row, he’d been caught stealing.
He was always a wretched thief—better suited for barkeeping or brawling. But that night, Zacharias had seen something more than a shivering, emaciated child. He’d been the first to believe Charlie had potential.
No, that wasn’t right.
He hadn’t been the first.
That had been an aberrant two days. Charlie scratched at the stubble on his chin as the gang leader regarded him silently. He remembered the night before Zacharias had hauled his arse into the Three Boars and sat him down across from him, like they were positioned now.
He recalled a little raven-haired girl, offering him a loaf of bread and a warm blanket outside the King of Spades hell. The sweetness of her voice, how her words of comfort sounded like a beautiful hymn, better than the music he’d hear when he passed St. George in the East church on Sundays.
That image faded, replaced by Mina last night, facing him with her fiercest stare, tears dotting her eyes because he’d been a heartless bastard.
“He was gonna hurt her, you see? McNair, I mean.” God, how the words were heavy on his tongue, a leaden weight crushing him as the knowledge hit him all over again. “I couldn’t let that happen. Not to her.”
Zacharias’s eyes narrowed, his frown deepening. Charlie knew that look—the paternal scorn usually made him laugh, for it was always amusing to see Jason get his.
But now, aimed at him, that expression was a shot to his already aching chest. Zacharias was the closest thing he’d ever had to a father, devilishly more so than the blighter who’d sired him.
“This girl. She’s a Mason.” Zacharias spat out the appellation as though it was poison upon his tongue. “You defended the Princess of the Kings, Charlie. How can you expect me to overlook that?”
“I don’t.” That much was the truth. He knew hell was coming; he just didn’t know when or how bad it’d be. “But she’s not one of the Kings to me. She’s Mina. My friend since childhood.”
“I should have stopped that long ago. It was foolish to allow that girl anywhere near our land.” Zacharias let out a long sigh, his brows knitting with regret. “Of all the men in my ranks, I never thought you’d be the one to turn on us. When the blue ruin took your father, who was there for you? Who took you in, fed and clothed you? Offered you work?”
Charlie swallowed down the guilt rising in his throat. “You did.”
“You were an irresponsible cub,” Zacharias mused, his eyes taking on the far-off look of recollection. “Expected, given your upbringing, but the rest of the world wouldn’t have been so understanding if you’d turned that fool anger on them.”
“You taught me discipline.” Lord knew he hadn’t learned it from his father—Ephraim Thatcher never said no to temptation. Perhaps it was fair his vices had been the end of him, when it was his vices that had created the son he’d never wanted in the first place. “You made me feel wanted.”
Zacharias leaned forward, perching his elbows on his knees, as though his attention was wholly focused on Charlie. “Because you are wanted.”
For a second, he believed Zacharias. That level voice, so firm, so confident, sucked him in as it always had. It was easier, so much easier, to let the gang dictate his life. To follow without questioning.
He shifted in the chair, his hand brushing against his pocket with the familiar indentation of that pebble.
Bollocks. Bloody, bleeding, rotting balls.
Every time he thought he’d made sense of the world around him, there was Mina, ripping apart his carefully constructed world with her candor and her loveliness.
He didn’t need to say anything. Zacharias had not risen to the top of Chapman without learning how to read those around him, and he knew Charlie better than most. Perhaps even better than Charlie knew himself, if the last day was any indication.
“You know I’ll have to retaliate.” Zacharias sighed, as though this pained him, when they both knew he loved the bloodshed as much as he loved control.
“Not to Mina.”
The force of his words made Zacharias’s brows shoot up. “You don’t learn, do you, boy? All these years of me teaching you, and this is what I get back.”
“Zacharias…” Charlie chose his words very, very carefully. “I’m loyal to you. Always. You cut me, I’m bleedin’ Chapman. But Mina—she’s different from the rest. And she shouldn’t pay for her brother’s mistakes.”
Or mine.
“Blood is blood,” Zacharias reminded him. “We are nothing more than the strength of our bonds. When you accepted our oath, you became one of us.”
“And I still am.” He allowed himself some small measure of pride, for his vow sounded far more convincing than he felt. Those doubts whispered in his ears, even as he stared straight into a round face he’d long ago memorized.
“Are you happy, Charlie?”
The question, uttered quietly without Zacharias’s usual forceful manner, took Charlie by surprise. The quick affirmation he would have offered up a week ago refused to leave his lips. He lowered his gaze. Stared at his hands and wished he was one of the traveling Romani, a
ble to divine all the answers from his palms. That sounded much easier than doing the hard work of contemplation.
Before, he’d thought he was content enough. Not truly happy, but as he’d always considered happiness beyond him, he figured he’d achieved all he could hope to. A man like him couldn’t rise in stature, and he claimed he didn’t want to, anyhow.
Or did he? Because a man of class was going to kiss Mina freely, take her to bed, and wake up next to her every morning for the rest of his bloody toff life.
“Of course I’m happy.” He finally got the words out, pure obstinacy motivating him.
It’d been one kiss. One kiss shouldn’t have undone him so completely.
He’d waited too long. He knew the second he looked up. Zacharias’s short, stocky frame had stiffened, and his dark eyes were cold. Colder than Charlie had ever seen, even when he’d filched from the man as a tot.
“You leave me no choice.” That note of finality—like he’d already decided what punishment to dole out and there wasn’t anything Charlie could do about it—sent a shiver up Charlie’s spine. “We are on the cusp of a war now, thanks to your needless chivalry.”
If Zacharias expected him to quake, he wouldn’t give that satisfaction. “Do what you must, but Mina will be left alone.”
Zacharias raised a brow at his commanding tone. “I don’t think you are in any place to be giving me orders, boy.”
He chafed at that term. He hadn’t been a boy for a long time—children of the streets grew up fast. They had no other choice.
“But I am a generous soul.” Zacharias waited for him to contradict the obvious lie. When he didn’t speak, the other man continued. “I will leave your dimber chit alone, upon one condition.”
“And that is?” He kept the hope from his voice, just barely.
“That you never see her again.” Zacharias stated this as though it should have been a foregone conclusion, and really, if Charlie were to be honest with himself, it should have been.
The second he threw that punch at McNair, he’d obliterated any chance of keeping Mina in his life and remaining Chapman. He’d known it last night, when he’d said goodbye to her. When he’d let himself kiss her back, taking that chaste kiss into something far more illicit. When he’d cupped her pert little arse in his hands, ran his hands through her hair, and tugged her up against him so that she fit right against his rigid shaft.
And he’d known then that she would never be his. That this was the only time they’d ever touch like this.
Now it was a new day.
“Every time you are around that girl, you put this gang in grave danger,” Zacharias reminded him, playing on his loyalty to his brothers.
Yet it was not fear for his fellow members that twisted his gut. Charlie didn’t care about them, not like he cared about Mina. The men of Chapman could fend for themselves. Mina…Mina was defenseless. He’d put her in harm’s way by telling her he’d protect her at the Three Boars, and he’d only be putting her in more danger if he continued to see her. She was safer without him. Safer marrying that damn toff.
So it was with Mina in mind that he nodded along with Zacharias’s proposal. “My loyalties are to Chapman,” he said. “I won’t be associatin’ with the Masons again.”
“Good.” Zacharias’s chin lifted, a satisfied smile toying with his lips. “Then you are welcome back in the gang. You will be watched, of course.”
“I’d expect nothin’ less.” He certainly wouldn’t expect more. Not mercy, not understanding, from the man who had basically raised him.
Zacharias made a dismissing motion. Charlie pushed himself up from the chair, ignoring his aching joints. Slowly, painfully, he dropped the customary bow to his leader. If Zacharias noticed that his treatment was less deferential than usual, he did not comment.
And as he exited the room, it was all those things Zacharias didn’t say that crushed him like a three-stone anvil, drawing his breath in pants and squeezing his stomach impossibly.
Charlie had no idea what was coming next, or how to fight it.
Chapter 7
One week later
Mina was in hell. If not in the fiery pits of despair themselves, she was at least in some sort of devil’s antechamber, waiting to be judged. Except she already knew her sentence—a lifetime of pretending to listen to Nigel Donaldson as he blathered on.
A lifetime without ever seeing the man who had been her best friend since childhood.
The only man who had ever understood her.
The man she loved.
She frowned into her tea, which had long ago grown cold. She’d refill it, but she suspected that the brew in the silver teapot on the table wasn’t much better. Getting up to pull the servant’s bell was out of the question too, for it meant crossing in front of Donaldson’s chair, and she didn’t trust that she could deceive him up close. Charlie had always said she was a wretched liar. Given the lethal stares Joaquin kept directing at her, she supposed he was right.
Not that Donaldson noticed either of their reactions—his position on the chair across from the settee where she sat with Joaquin was a boon. Donaldson’s nearsighted eyes and blatant refusal to wear his spectacles in her presence, claiming that they added ten years to his appearance, made it impossible for him to see more than a foot in front of his face.
So every time he began another long tangent, Mina rolled her eyes shamelessly, taking advantage of an opportunity to express her true feelings without fear of reprimand. It was all that kept her awake—that, and counting how many times he’d said “the ’change” or “bank.” So far, she was up to fifty instances. By the time they were married, the number would be in the thousands.
“Don’t you agree, Miss Mason?” Donaldson peered in her general direction, waiting keenly for a response.
Except she didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about. Frantically, she tried to recall the last thing he’d said, coming up empty. He’d been blabbering for so long, the last time she’d paid attention was probably a half hour ago, when he’d informed her she “didn’t have to worry her pretty head” about managing his household, since his spinster sister already took care of that.
She darted a glance over at Joaquin, but as his expression was characteristically blank, he was no help. Very well, then. She’d have to guess. Men like Donaldson expected their wives to agree with them on all points, so that made her work easier. “Uh, yes?”
Donaldson smiled indulgently, the many, many wrinkles in his forehead smoothing. “Precisely, my dear, darling girl. I knew you’d see the brilliance of my idea. You have your father’s quick mind—not that you’ll need that when you’re my wife.”
No, all she’d need as his wife was a winning smile and the ability to keep her brains from dribbling out her ears when he spoke.
He seemed to be waiting for a response, so she nodded and said mildly, “Of course.”
Joaquin’s mouth twitched in the tiniest of smiles, but Mina knew better than to take that as a sign of liberation. She glanced at the clock, suppressing a sigh. Charlie would be just starting his shift—not that she could meet him at the Three Boars anymore.
Following her gaze, Joaquin’s smile turned into a scowl as he shook his head. “How much have you collected, Donaldson?”
Donaldson’s self-satisfied grin became a wide simper. “Ten thousand pounds in four months. Your father would be proud.”
“Pardon?” Mina’s eyes widened. Ten thousand pounds was enough to feed hundreds of starving families, if not thousands, in the East End. Joaquin had said Donaldson now worked in investments—what in the world was he investing in that garnered that much profit in such a short time?
“That’s quite the accomplishment,” Joaquin said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You’ll forgive me if I have questions. What’s the capital you’re advertising?”
“One million pounds of capital, of which we only have ten-percent in reality.” Donaldson’s smirk became even more smug, making
him appear like the cat who ate the canary.
Mina blinked, not sure she understood what Donaldson was implying. She wasn’t acquainted with the stock exchange. Cyrus had said Nigel Donaldson was a decent man, if not a tad bit dull, and Joaquin wouldn’t have sold her to a cheat. Yes, he had dubious associates—he ran gaming hells and he was the leader of the Kings, after all—but she was his sister. He’d always kept her far, far away from the unsavory parts of his business.
Joaquin nodded. “Who are you saying is your bank?”
“The Bank of England,” Donaldson answered with a laugh. “We’ve listed Drummond and Perkins as our directors and those maggot-brained simpletons actually believe we’re talking about the famous banker and the brewer!”
Mina’s eyes widened. No, no, this could not be happening. Joaquin had claimed Donaldson would keep her safe from harm—this wasn’t safe. This was making her an accomplice.
She remembered Isaac, how Joaquin had pummeled him so thoroughly. She’d hoped—she’d convinced herself—that it had been out of some misguided attempt to make her feel protected.
Now, she fought the sickening feeling that hurting Isaac had only been about showing Joaquin’s power to the rest of his gang. And if that was true, why did this hit her with such shock? Why did it shake her to the deepest depths of her soul?
Because she’d wanted so, so badly to believe in her eldest brother—to believe that he did love her, as a person, not an object he could barter.
“And the ten thousand pounds was relatively easy to gather—we’ve been insuring lives on small premiums and granting annuities for smaller sums,” Donaldson continued gleefully, directing his ingratiating smile at her now. “Of course, none of those policies actually exist. It’s a con for the ages, one which you will receive ample benefits from once Miss Mason here is my wife.”
Mina had heard enough.
“But that’s fraud,” she protested, ignoring Joaquin’s pointed cough. “You’re taking people’s money and lying to them!”
When a Rogue Falls Page 17
