Renegade Hearts (Rebels of Sandland Book 1)

by Nikki J Summers

  “I might do, yeah. I haven’t seen what Finn’s done and I probably won’t see it if I’m stuck watching the fucking doors. Zak’s there now, setting up his gear. I could give him a hand. The community centre had a new projector fitted, so he’ll need to link into that and do a sound check.”

  Bingo. Strike three and you’re out.

  My dad kept his diary of events on lockdown. No one saw that shit other than his secretary and maybe my mum. I never knew where he was from one day to the next. But I did know the local community centre had recently undergone a refurbishment. The main hall to be exact. So, that’s where I needed to be tonight, and wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.

  “Well, good luck, Kian. Maybe I’ll see you there later.” I stood up and left him grinning to himself. He had absolutely no idea what he’d just done.

  I had my hair up in a messy bun and chose a pair of black ripped skinny jeans and a grey hoodie, in the hope that I’d blend in with the crowd. Then a few streets away from the community centre I went into panic mode. What was I thinking? This was a political event orchestrated by my father. I’d probably stick out like a sore thumb in amongst the power suits and over-priced designer dresses. Nevertheless my feet kept moving, despite my brain screaming at me to turn and run the other way. When I got to the corner though, I let out a nervous sigh. Groups of people my age were wandering into the venue and jeans and hoodies looked like the uniform of choice. At first, I thought it strange that they would choose to spend their Friday night at the local community centre, but then I realised, they weren’t here to see my dad, not like that, anyway. This was the work of the Renaissance men. They’d probably sent invites out to this thing.

  I crossed the road and tagged onto a group of girls who were chattering away and queuing to get in. Kian was on the door as planned and he looked pleased as punch to be there. I was glad. My pep-talk had done him some good and he was loving his job right now. He started talking to a red-head who was just in front of me, putting the moves on her. A plus for both of us, because I managed to get through the door without him paying me any attention and he managed to get her phone number for later.

  Once inside, I broke away from the cackling group of girls who were fast giving me a headache and pushed my way through into the main hall. I tended to shy away from events like this, that my dad attended, but I knew they usually kept numbers to a minimum and put chairs and refreshments out for the attending press and dignitaries. Here, there was nothing. We were packed in like sardines, standing shoulder to shoulder. I saw a few men walking around the outside of the hall with security emblazoned across their shirts, but I laughed to myself. They might’ve appeared tough, but they didn’t look like they were here to stop the fighting. They looked like they were here to oversee it.

  I glanced behind me and saw a ton of computer equipment set up, but no Zak. Not yet. At the front of the hall there were chairs set out on the stage and the red curtains were closed. All very dramatic. The perfect setting for the tragedy that was about to unfold. I spotted my mum and dad, and the general noise and hubbub around me settled down as they climbed the steps to take their seats to the left of the stage. I looked around feeling totally confused at what the hell was going on. Apart from Kian on the door and the fake security, it didn’t look like anything was going down. The boys were nowhere to be seen.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket for the hundredth time that evening and when I pulled it out I saw a message from Effy.

  Where are you?

  I fired a response back, relieved it wasn’t another call or text from Ryan. I was actively avoiding him for the next few hours. I didn’t want to lie to him, but he wanted to know where I was. So, I figured I’d delay my response until I could tell him the truth.

  I’m at an event for my dad. Same old boring shit. Why?

  Those three dots started dancing around to tell me Effy was replying.

  Because Ryan’s got a hold of my number and he’s asking if you’re here with me. He said you’re avoiding his calls. What’s going on, chick?

  Fuck. That was all I needed, for Effy to tell Ryan I was here.

  Don’t tell him anything yet. I’ll call him. Text you later, hun. Don’t worry. Nothing is going on. I’ll explain when I see you.

  I stuffed my phone back into the pocket of my jeans and watched as the Mayor took to the stage to start his spiel about the community centre being the heart of Sandland, and how proud he was that my dad had agreed to do the official reopening. The usual brown-nosing crap. I zoned out. His words were just a soundbite. They meant nothing. When he turned to my dad to welcome him up to the mic, there was a loud bang and the lights in the hall went out, leaving us all standing there in darkness and confusion, wondering what the hell was going on.

  Suddenly, strobe lights cut across the crowd and the booming bass from The Prodigy’s, “Omen” started playing through speakers all around us. I stood there, wide-eyed and frozen in place, mesmerised by the music. A few people around me began to dance like they were at one of the boys’ parties. Up on the stage, the Mayor was fumbling around, not quite sure if what was happening was part of the show. My dad looked totally confused, but he stayed seated and grabbed my mum’s hand.

  Two figures dressed all in black, wearing hoodies that were pulled down low on their heads and bandanas to hide their faces, took to the stage and stood next to my parents. Judging from their expressions, I could tell the black figures had said something. My dad went to stand up, but the figure closest to him put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in place. Dad was rattled. Well and truly pissed off.

  Then a spotlight shone onto the stage and everyone turned to focus on that, ready to see what would happen next. The curtains drew back, opening to reveal massive graffiti artwork with the words The Writings on the Wall written in stark red and black paint. Huge words that were as tall as the wall they were written on, like a slap in the face to anyone who saw it. A reminder that something bad was about to go down and they had been warned. The crowd started hollering and cheering as the song reiterated the words painted up there; reminding us that it won’t go away, we need to stop and listen.

  The boys wanted to make a statement and they were doing a kick-ass job of it. The whole room was buzzing, waiting on the show they’d started.

  On the stage, a screen slowly came down from the ceiling, momentarily covering Finn’s artwork. Then it flickered to life and there in front of us was someone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. The mask that had come to symbolise defiance towards a corrupt system and social injustice. When the person on the video spoke it was with a voice changer. I had no idea if that was Ryan, Brandon, or the queen speaking on that video, but from what they were saying, I knew it was all the work of the Renaissance men.

  “By now you will know that this is no ordinary event. What I am about to tell you tonight is the work of many years of struggle to have our voice heard. They have tried to shut us down. They don’t want us to be heard. We will be silent no more. This is our time. We will have a voice.”

  The crowd whooped and cheered as the screen flickered again for effect and a line of ‘security’ men stood shoulder to shoulder protecting the stage. From who I wasn’t sure. I think they were there to keep my parents and the mayor on the stage, and not the rest of us off.

  “As I am speaking to you now, copies of every document, video and tape recording you are about to see is on its way to the chief of police, the prime minister and every tabloid newspaper editor in this country. We will not be silenced.”

  I watched my dad try to move out of his chair again and he was pushed back down by the hoodie. My mum spoke to him, but it didn’t help. He looked ashen-faced, like he was at the gallows about to meet his maker.

  “There will be three truths you hear tonight. Listen and listen carefully. Those in power want us gone. They want us weak. They use us. We won’t be used anymore. We will make a stand.”

  People dressed in black hoodies like the ones on stage started to ming
le in amongst the crowd, handing out papers to anyone who’d take them. I took one and when I looked down I saw the Morgan Rotherham account my dad had flipped out over, with every transaction listed, some highlighted too.

  “The papers you’re looking at are account documents. Evidence of the dirty money that one man has cleaned using our town and the people in it. That man is Mr Alec Winters.”

  My dad started to protest, trying to flee this character assassination that he was being forced to witness, but he wasn’t going anywhere. His hooded guardian made sure of that.

  “He’s taken companies run by hard-working, honest people, and made them trust in his good name. Convinced them that he’d do what was right for them, for the town we’ve all grown up in. But that never happened. Our upstanding Member of Parliament, Mr Alec Winters, has used each and every one of those businesses to wash his money. To bleed this town dry. You were nothing but a means to an end. A legitimate way he could launder millions.

  “And whose money was he cleaning? The scum of the earth. Drug lords. Criminals who run this town and the cities of our country with their filth and corruption. It was easy to point the finger at the delinquent youths of society. To use them as a soundbite for his fucked-up political campaigns. Create a smokescreen that covered the real fire that he’s started. A fire that threatened to destroy this town. Alec Winters is a thief, a liar, a criminal with no remorse. He will try to talk his way out of this, but Mr Winters, the writings on the wall. The accounts with every name in your little black book are out there. We will not be silenced.”

  The tension running around the room was palpable. No more whooping and hollering. No more dancing like it was party hour. Everyone was stood staring at the screen like we were all trapped in a horror movie and no one knew what the next move was.

  “Shortly, there will be police here to take Mr Winters to his rightful home. A jail cell. Forty-eight square feet with his name written all over it. But we aren’t finished yet. We will be heard. And there are two more truths that you must hear.

  “On December sixteenth last year, Danny Winters was tragically killed in a car accident.”

  I went cold. Hearing that date and my brother’s name being spoken made my whole body tremble in fear. I felt sick. But I couldn’t leave. I had to know what they were going to say.

  “His father told us all it was a case of drunk driving. Even hinted that Danny may have had worse in his system. But this was not the case. Tonight we stand for justice for Danny. Tonight the lies end. If you look at your handouts, you will see that a large sum of money was transferred to a Troy Barker just twenty-four hours after Danny died. We will now play you an audio tape of why that transaction needed to be made. This is our truth.”

  The screen went black and then a hissing sound of a phone conversation started to play. The screen in front of us provided the script so we were in no uncertainty about what was being said. I listened and read the transcript with my stomach in knots.

  Troy Barker: “Talk.”

  Alec Winters: “Oh God. Oh God. I don’t know what to do. Shit. It’s fucking… Oh God, please. Troy. I don’t know what to do.”

  Troy Barker: “Calm the fuck down and tell me. What’s happened?”

  Alec Winters: “It's bad, Troy. It’s fucking bad.”

  Troy Barker: “Just spit it out, Winters. I haven’t got all night. Tell me where you need me, and I’ll be there.”

  Alec Winters: “Curborough Lane, just past the bend. You need to come quickly, Troy. I think he’s dead.”

  Troy Barker: “Who’s dead? Give me details. I need to know what I’m walking into here.”

  Alec Winters: “My son. Danny. I think he’s dead.”

  Troy Barker: “I need more than that. Is it a hit?”

  Alec Winters: “No. I… Shit. I picked him up… I’d been drinking. Fuck, Troy. I’ve been drinking. This is gonna ruin me. I can’t lose my position.”

  My heart ripped open and my legs almost gave way underneath me. I watched as my mum pulled her hand away from my dad’s, wrapping her arms around herself and rocking back and forth. She was crying, and I felt the urge to go to her. But I couldn’t. I had to hear this out. I needed to know it all.

  Troy Barker: “So let me get this straight. You picked up your son.”

  Alec Winters: “Yes.”

  Troy Barker: “In a car.”

  Alec Winters: “I used Danny’s car. It was the last one on the drive and I just took it. All the others were boxed in.”

  Troy Barker: “And you drove when you were drunk.”

  Alec Winters: “I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t mean for any of this.”

  Troy Barker: “You think your son is dead?”

  Alec Winters: “He took his seatbelt off to get something from the back seat. I saw something on the road and I swerved. There’s blood everywhere, Troy. I need you here now.”

  Troy Barker: “I’m on my way. Do not call anyone else. Do not move or touch anything until I get there. If anyone else stops, keep them there, stall them, but do not call the police or an ambulance. I will deal with this.”

  The phone call cut off and the masked man appeared on the screen again.

  “What you heard was a transcript of a phone call recorded on the night of Danny’s death between Mr Alec Winters, Danny’s father, and Mr Troy Barker, the fixer. Lucky for us, Mr Barker kept records of every phone call and interaction he had with Mr Winters. Even his fixer didn’t trust him. You will find no police records on Danny’s case, because they were all destroyed. You will find no toxicology reports, because they were all destroyed. The tests done on the car, the blood spatters… All faked, and all on the say so of our elected Member of Parliament, Mr Alec Winters.

  “So what happened when the fixer got there? Mr Barker and Mr Winters moved Danny from the passenger seat where he’d died, to the driver’s seat. They destroyed evidence that would’ve cleared Danny’s name. And when they were confident that every single trace of Mr Winters having been there, having driven that car, had been erased, they left. They got into Mr Barker’s car and they left Danny’s dead body behind to be found by a factory worker driving past at five o’clock the next morning. They left the scene to save Mr Winters’ career. Then they used his son’s death to make a saint out of Mr Winters. A symbol of all that’s good, fighting against the poisoned youth. He used us like he used his own son, to further his political career. To make money from the death of the innocent.”

  I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. My mum was sobbing into her hands. My dad was curling himself forward, trying to look sorry for what he’d done. And I felt numb. Numb because I no longer had a father. I would never forgive him for what he’d done.

  The room was silent and eerily dark, save for the lights from the screen in front of us. I swallowed, struggling to breathe, feeling like I was drowning. And then the voice changer started to speak again.

  “Three truths we are delivering tonight. And three truths you will hear. One, Alec Winters is a corrupt thief, laundering money through Sandland like it’s his own private fucked-up bank. Two, Alec Winters has blood on his hands. He was responsible for his son’s death. He was driving. He left his son’s dead body to rot in a mangled car while he fled the scene like the rat he is. But Alec Winters’ deceit doesn’t stop there. He lost a son that night, but he still had two daughters.”

  I hadn’t heard that right. I mustn’t have heard that right. Two daughters?

  “We did a little digging into the Morgan Rotherham account that Winters used for his dirty money. Why that name? We asked ourselves. What or who is Morgan Rotherham? Morgan Rotherham is the child Alec Winters had with his long-term mistress, born three months after the birth of his other daughter, Emily.”

  I couldn’t stop a sob coming from the depths of my soul. Everything I’d ever believed in was being ripped apart in front of all these people. Everything I knew was a lie. My whole world was shattering at my feet and it was all being used for e
ntertainment here tonight.

  I felt broken.

  Another spotlight shone from the stage onto the crowd and I turned in a daze to see what they were about to unveil next.

  “Ladies and gentleman, let me introduce you to Miss Katherine Rotherham and her daughter, Morgan.”

  Standing a few feet away from me was a girl, her face as pale as mine, and looking like she was about to pass out or bolt, just like I was. The older woman next to her, her mother I guessed, went to take her hand, but she pulled away sharply and mouthed something that looked like ‘what the fuck’. This girl looked more like Danny than me, but she had the same dark hair as I did, only hers was poker-straight. I had a sister. A sister who was the same age as me. Why did I have to find out about this with the rest of the town? This was beyond fucked-up.

  “I don’t want any part of this,” she suddenly shouted into the hall. “Whatever this fucked-up show is, I don’t want to know.” She looked over to where my father sat on the stage, with his head in his hands. “And you are not my father. You never will be. I hate you.” She pushed past her mother and ran out of the hall. I took one look at my parents sat on that stage and I realised then how alone I was. I couldn’t trust anyone, not even Ryan. He’d known all about this and he hadn’t told me. He’d put this show on, letting the whole town into my family’s disgusting secrets before he’d told me. I was devastated.

  So, I turned and ran too, pushing my way through the crowds that didn’t part for me as easily as they had for Morgan. When I reached the doors I saw Kian and Finn standing there and Finn’s eyes shot out of his head when he saw me.

  “Oh, fucking hell. Emily, you weren’t supposed to see that. Ryan’s gonna go ape shit-” I cut him off, barrelling my way through the doors, hoping the fresh night air might ease the tightness around my chest.

  “I had a right to be here tonight,” I said with more strength than I felt. “And now, I’m done.”