by Tilly Delane
He leaves me, lost for words.
Rowan
You’ve got to hand it to Diego. He plays the part of the mobster prince with so much devotion he even wears his suit to the beach.
All around us, Brighton Beach is packed with men in nothing but shorts and women in sarongs, bikini tops and flip-flops, and next to me on the pebbles sits Diego in his full, sand-coloured, three-piece Savile Row suit. It would be even more impressive if he hadn’t taken his shoes and socks off and wasn’t wriggling his toes.
But I don’t think he’s aware he’s doing it.
He’s engrossed in watching Silas and Grace horse around by the water edge, while we’re waiting for them to join us, so we can have a confab about potential work for Silas and me. Legit stuff. Allegedly.
I know Diego is champing at the bit to get back to running his mini empire, but he’s as reluctant as I am to break up Silas and Grace’s little party. I never particularly liked Diego, but we have always been united in our love for the guy who’s currently giving the pretty redhead a piggyback and running into the sea with her.
“I want that,” he suddenly states.
“Me, too,” I concur. “But unlike me, you are still in with a chance.”
“Still no call from your nurse?” he asks.
Silas must have told him about Raven. I sure as fuck haven’t. So, I’m not gonna answer that.
“Still not found the balls to ask Kalina out?” I shoot back instead.
“She’s too young for me,” he says dismissively.
It’s a ridiculous excuse. Kalina is eighteen, Diego is the same age as Silas and me. It’s hardly cradle-snatching. What he actually means is that he doesn’t want to drag her into his world.
Noble.
And then there is the small fact that she’s really hard to read and nobody can tell if she fancies him back or not.
To make matters worse, she’ll eventually go back to Poland. There is a theme here with all three of us, I guess, women that live somewhere far, far away. Although Kalina announced two days ago that she’s prolonging her stay in the UK for another few months. It occurs to me that Diego doesn’t know that yet.
“Well, you better get used to blue balls then, ‘cause she’s staying in England till the end of the year now.”
His head whips around at that, to look at my grinning profile. I always did love dropping a bombshell.
“Who says I got blue balls?” is what comes out of his mouth, though I know full well his head didn’t swivel around at lightning speed with indignation at the alleged state of his crown jewels.
He is interested in the info.
But I play along. We all got faces to save.
“Rumour has it, none of the Brookes and Kellies and Juanitas at the club or in the bar have been able to get near your dick in a while. But I guess nobody knows what you keep for yourself, up at the mansion.”
Diego owns a building behind us on the seafront promenade with a nightclub in the basement called TripleX, which is HQ for the illegal bare-knuckle league of the south coast, a cocktail bar above it, called The Cockatoo, and some apartments up top, most of which are rented out to escorts. It also houses the offices of Santos-Benson security, and then there is an empty penthouse, which in theory is Diego’s, but it’s only really used for private parties. Because he still hasn’t quite managed to move out of his parents’ house, the Benson Mansion, yet. Nobody knows what keeps him there.
I kind of get it, though. The Benson Mansion is a nice suburban detached house out in Woodland Drive with a huge garden, an indoor swimming pool and a decent gym room. Many of the celebrities that live in this city have their residences around there, and it’s nice, quiet, almost normal. I think if I ran the kind of business Diego does, I’d like to come home to a fantasy of morality as well. Not sure how that gels with seeing his cunt of a father and his drunk of a mother for breakfast every morning, but the powers of self-delusion are endless. I can attest to that.
“Where did you hear that?” Diego asks levelly.
“What? That Kalina is staying around for a while longer, or that you’ve been taking a break from catching the clap?”
I can’t help poking him. It’s too much fun.
“You’re such an arsehole,” he states, but there is no venom in it.
I can sense him processing the Kalina news and leave him to it, while I watch Silas and Grace come back from the sea. Silas didn’t actually drop her into the waves. He took pity on her and let her slip gently off his back, so she only got wet to about mid-thigh, while he swam out then circled back to her.
You couldn’t keep Silas out of the water if you tried. He’s a fish.
The thought gives me a flashback to the pool at The Village, teaching Tristan to swim.
A still frame of Raven smiling at me across the kid’s back.
It cuts me up as if I’d eaten a handful of shards.
When the fuck will this pain ever end?
Raven
Simon’s room is actually pretty neat, if you ignore the messed-up bed.
Nobody would know that the police had been in here. You’d just think somebody got interrupted as they were taking the sheets off the bed. It’s no surprise, really, because the two cops that came were very methodical. I know, because I came to offer them tea or coffee while they were in here, and then I stood outside the door to watch them for a while.
They started in one corner and moved around the room. They looked through his clothes in the wardrobe, into the safe and at the back of shelves and drawers. Then they searched the bed, turning the mattress over. I left when one of them got on the floor to crawl around with a flashlight ─ after they’d already long declined my offer of a hot drink and I realized I was being a politely ignored nuisance. A little while later, I heard them flush the toilet in Simon’s en suite, so I guessed they’d moved their search into the bathroom area. All in all, they took around an hour, and then they were done.
Looking around me now, a wave of sadness washes over me. The last time I was in here I was kneeling on the floor, fighting for a man’s life.
I lost.
With a heavy heart, I walk to the bed and start taking the sheets off to go in the wash. Once I’ve got the linen in a heap on the floor and have straightened out the bare pillow and comforter, I proceed to the bathroom. Simon’s wash bag sits open on the shelf, his razor lies on the edge of the sink, his toothbrush and toothpaste stand innocuous in a holder. I look at them for a moment and put myself in his wife’s shoes.
I think this is where I would break down if I were her.
If I had someone who I would break down for.
I wouldn’t falter when folding the clothes, I’d falter at the point I had to pack away these intimate personal care items.
I know they were in the middle of a divorce, but he was the father of her children. A man she’d lived with for as long as I’ve been alive. He told me once they’d met at school and married before they hit twenty. I can’t even imagine knowing someone for as long as that. Let alone being woven into their existence.
I decide I will do this small thing for her.
I will pack up his wash bag.
So she can just grab it and run.
So she can have her tears when she unpacks it in the comfort of her own home, with her girls by her side.
It’s the kind thing to do.
I grab the little leather case off the shelf and pick up the razor to put it inside.
“Ah, here you are, Raven,” a voice says behind me, and I startle.
I drop the bag into the sink, its contents spilling out everywhere.
I turn around.
“Frank!” I yell at the intruder indignantly. “For heaven’s sake, what are you doing here?”
Even while I shout out my frustration at him, I become acutely aware that I am alone in the house with somebody who makes my skin crawl, trapped in a very small bathroom.
Rothman holds up his hands.
“Whoa,
sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. You must have been lost in thought. I thought you’d heard me, I’ve been hollering your name as I was coming up the stairs,” he says, unruffled by my outburst.
I narrow my eyes at him.
I didn’t hear him call me and I’m always alert.
He’s shitting me.
The alarm bells in my head go up ten bars on the volume button.
“Right,” I say, trying not to make my disbelief shine through. “And what are you doing here?”
He smiles. Insincerely.
“I thought you might want some help.”
While I keep a lid on showing my fear, I don’t try to hide my annoyance any longer.
“You thought wrong. I already told Ed I got this.”
His eyebrows shoot up.
“Ed spoke to you?”
“Yes. And I said to him, thanks but no thanks. My house, my responsibility. And, to be honest, it’s my house, my sanctuary, too. So, please, in the future obey the basic rules of courtesy. Knock. If there is no answer, don’t just let yourself in the house. It’s disrespectful, and rude.”
If in doubt, call the British rude, and they’ll crumble like a dry cookie.
Well, that’s the theory.
Rothman doesn’t. Instead, he looks at me with something that I’m sure is supposed to be a sheepish expression but that actually just screams ‘cocky asshole’.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been worried about you,” he says gently, and I feel bile rising up my throat.
Oblivious to just how unwelcome he is, he juts out his chin to indicate the sink behind me, craning his neck at the mess I made.
“At least let me pick up that stuff for you,” he offers. “So you can get on with something else. Helping out would make me feel a little better about giving you a fright.”
He comes another step towards me and raises his hand to stroke his knuckles down my cheek.
It’s then that I snap.
I bat his arm away and step right up to him, going toe to toe.
I grab him by the shirt collar and pull his face down, so he doesn’t miss a single measure of the venom I’m about to spit at him.
He’s appropriately shocked to have me in his space, and at my unveiled aggression.
And here, we peel away the cocky asshole and unveil the wimpy, entitled Brit.
And here, we peel away the professional nurse and unveil the fury of a little girl who survived hell.
“Read my lips,” I start.
In the periphery of my vision, I can see his trousers twitch. He’s sicker than I thought. He’s getting off on my anger. So I cool it. I still hold him, but my voice turns to ice.
“Fuck off, Frank. Drop the kind, considerate act. I ain’t buying it. Leave me the fuck alone. I don’t like you. I never liked you. You’re a creep. Consider this your only warning. Next time you sneak up on me or touch me in any way, I will have your balls. I know a thing or two about scalpels and keeping stuff in jars.”
I release him and give him a shove.
“Leave!”
He looks at me, stunned, and then he turns and hurries away, muttering something about a psycho bitch.
I hold my breath until I hear him pull the front door shut.
I stand for a few more minutes, concentrating on willing the bile back down, slowing my heart rate and regulating my breathing before I return my attention to the items in the sink.
A small hairbrush, a shaving brush, a small tub of shaving cream, a roll-on deodorant, dental floss, an asthma inhaler, a pair of nail clippers.
I put them all back in the wash bag and add the items from around the sink. I zip up the bag and take it with me to leave it on the nightstand, where Simon’s wife will find it tomorrow.
Then I collect the dirty linen from the floor and make my way to the washing machine downstairs.
Rowan
“You want to do what?” Silas leans across the white tablecloth at the posh fish place that Diego has taken us to for lunch and looks at him as if he’s lost his marbles. Which, frankly, he has.
It turned out that I was wrong thinking Diego was champing at the bit because he needed to get back to what he calls work. Turns out the reason he was full to bursting point with energy when we were sitting on the beach was because he couldn’t wait to talk to us about the grand plan he’s come up with that’ll turn him into a fully legitimate business mogul.
So he took us for baked oysters and lobster in The Lanes and told us about his harebrained scheme.
Apparently, the government are putting the contracts for the two brand-new young offenders institutions they have been building on the outskirts of town, up for tender soon. And Diego wants to bid on running them.
Silas shakes his head as he sits back in his seat and scrutinises Diego.
“You want to buy a prison,” he states soberly.
“No, Silas, I want to run a borstal,” Diego replies with a broad grin. “Two, actually. A young offenders institution and a secure training centre. Right next to one another.”
“You’re insane, Diego,” Silas huffs.
He’s addressing Diego by his town name because, well, we’re in town, but in private he often calls him George. He and Sheena, and by default Grace and Kalina, are the only people I know who can do that without Diego getting arsey.
“You haven’t the first clue how to run a prison,” Silas adds with a deep frown.
Diego makes a weighing up gesture.
“I don’t know about that,” he says seriously and fixes Silas in an icy stare. “I’ve been running a stable of give or take thirty fighters since I turned twenty. I built the biggest fight club league on the south coast. The only remaining fight club league on the south coast, to be precise. I run an apartment building full of whores and a cocktail bar that actually turns a profit. Any idea how cut-throat the hospitality business is? Plus, I already have a security company with a great team that’s separate from the rest, at least on paper. A security team that, I’d like to remind you, you are still part of, because I haven’t seen a resignation letter from you yet, even though you appear to have been taking the longest holiday since holidays were invented. All in all, I’d say I’m supremely qualified to keep a lid on eighty unruly kids. Especially if each of these kids comes at thirty-five grand a year keeper’s fee. I mean, how hard can it be?”
Silas crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks away, eyebrows raised.
“He’s got a point,” Grace pipes up.
She’s got balls, Silas’ girl, I give her that. Women at Diego’s table are supposed to shut up and pretend they have a vacuum between their ears. Not that they are normally present when talk is about business. It shows how much respect she’s earned in a very short time that Diego will speak so freely in front of her.
Silas turns to look at her profile, incredulity showing all over his face.
“Don’t fucking encourage him,” he says quietly.
