by Tillie Cole
“The basement,” Charlie said, moving beside me. “I can hear music.” I cocked my head to the side and heard it too, drifting up through the kitchen. I nudged my head in that direction. Feeling in my pocket for my knife, I opened the basement door and went down the steps. The music became clearer, and as we descended, so did the view. Table after long table of blow, Johnny’s men stuffing it into packets. Then, at the front, smoking a cig and sat like a fucking usurper king on a wingback chair, was Johnny.
His head snapped up. I kept my eyes on him. For a second, I saw real fucking fear flash over his face. Then he schooled his expression and got to his feet. I glanced at my brothers behind me and gave them a short nod—get the fuck ready to play.
“Artie, get the fuck over here and give your Uncle Johnny a hug. I didn’t know you were coming over to see an old geezer like me.” I made my way over to him, watching his men in my peripheral. They were reaching under the tables. No doubt for guns.
I stopped in front of Johnny. His face was red as fuck, and the thieving twat was sweating, drops dripping down his mottled skin and crashing onto the blow-covered floor beneath our feet. He flicked his cig to the ground, then opened his arms. I didn’t fucking move. Just stared at the wanker with dead eyes. Johnny swallowed, and his beady eyes moved to my men, who were just waiting for my signal to unleash hell on these cunts.
“Still a moody fucker, I see,” he tried to joke. He reached out and pulled me into his embrace. “Artie. No hug for your old uncle?” he said when my arms stayed at my sides.
Placing my mouth near his ear, I said quietly, “Why the fuck would I hug the man who is stealing from his fucking family?” He tensed. Then his arm moved, and I knew he was reaching for the gun I’d seen in his pocket. Pushing the fucker back a step, I twisted his arm around his back, moved behind him and grabbed the prick by his hair.
That movement was all the signal my boys needed. They turned on Johnny’s men, who had all reached for their guns. “Watch,” I said calmly into Johnny’s ear. I pulled on his hair tighter so he had the perfect view of his men that were about to be destroyed before his eyes. Johnny fought my hold, but his weak arse had nothing on me.
A bullet from one of his men flew by Charlie’s head. My cousin smiled, then, taking two knives from his pocket, grabbed the fucker by the shirt, sat him down on a nearby wooden chair, and stabbed both knives into his thighs. He removed the blades, ploughed both into his chest, pulled them out again, then plunged them into the fucker’s eyes.
Eric charged at a man and rammed him against the basement wall. The wanker dropped the gun, and Eric picked it up and put it in the fucker’s mouth. He angled the gun up, then pulled the trigger. His brain redecorated the walls.
Vinnie roared, then ran full force at a man holding a machete. Vinnie slammed him to the floor, then let his fists fly. Vinnie liked to kill with his bare hands. And he was fucking perfect at it, all the time singing “Humpty Dumpty” at the top of his voice: “… couldn’t put Humpty together again …”
Freddie silently slammed a knife into the remaining arsehole’s heart, twisting the knife and eyeballing the fucker until blood spilled from his mouth. Freddie spat in his face as he pulled out the knife. The arsehole hit the deck.
“Artie, stop this,” Johnny said in my hold as the last of his men dropped to the floor, bathing in their own blood. Vinnie reached into his pocket and pulled out his pliers. He opened the mangled mouth of the man he’d just pulverised and yanked out a tooth. He kept a tooth of everyone he killed in jars back home.
“A tooth for me and Pearl. Not yours anymore.” Vinnie held it in the air. “See, Pearl,” he said to the ghost of my sister. “They can’t hurt our family anymore.” He hummed, then stopped and stared at the empty space beside him, his cheeks reddening. “I love you too, treasure.” He placed the tooth in the travel tin he carried in his shirt pocket and got to his feet, his eyes snapping in our direction. Johnny stiffened in my arms.
“Artie, listen,” Johnny said, his tone hitching higher to maniacal levels. “You’re just a kid. You all are. What your old man has you doing here isn’t right.”
I tutted in his ear. “What’s not right is you skimming profits from the firm that’s served you well.”
“I haven’t, I swear—”
I pushed him to the ground and looked around us. There was some rope in the corner. I towered over the fat piece of shit on the ground as the blood of his men crept closer to his sweaty skin. “Get the rope,” I said to Freddie. He did. I looked at Eric and Charlie. “Lift him up.” I pointed to the metal spindles on the bannister. “Tie his arms to the bottom of the spindles.”
Charlie and Eric carried Johnny to the staircase, and Freddie tied his wrists to a couple of the metal spindles. The wall was high, and when they moved back, the fucker just hung there like something out of the Tower of London. As my boys stepped back, wetness appeared on Johnny’s trousers.
“Aw, he’s pissing himself,” Charlie said, wiping his knives off on a white embossed handkerchief he took from his pocket. “Shame he wasn’t this scared when he thought it would be a good idea to rob us blind.”
“Undo his shirt,” I said to Eric.
Vinnie moved behind me, sitting down on the chair Johnny had been sat in earlier. His arms wrapped around the hallucination of my sister, and he was content to hold her and watch the show he knew was coming. I turned back to Johnny; his shirt had been ripped open, his torso bared. Taking my favourite knife from my pocket, the one my old man gave me for my thirteenth birthday, the one I’d used on my first kill, and every kill afterwards, I walked closer to Johnny.
“I’ll give it all back.” The whites of his eyes shone bright as fear bit at his flesh and bone. I licked along the metal of my blade. I savoured the metallic tinge it left on my tongue. “Artie, listen to me, boy.” He smiled at me—it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve known you since you were born. I’m your Uncle Johnny. I used to pick you up from school.” I stopped a foot before him and stared dead into his eyes. Silence filled the basement. “Let me speak to your old man. Get him on the phone. I can work this out with him.” He laughed, and it instantly boiled my piss. “You lot are still just kids. You shouldn’t be doing this yet. You should be out in the world sowing your oats, not doing your fathers’ dirty work.”
I fought a smirk. This fucker was there at my first kill. Gave me a slap on the back, a cig and a dram of whisky in congratulations. He didn’t care about me being a kid then.
“You stole from the firm.” I watched that fucking offensive smile slip from his face. I looked at Eric. “Hold his knees up.” Eric moved to Johnny and pushed his knees up like he was sitting on an invisible chair. I moved closer to Johnny, and I nodded to Freddie. He knew what I wanted. He brought over one of chairs from across the room and placed it under Johnny’s legs. Eric let go of his legs, and Johnny’s feet rested on the seat, knees still bent.
“What are you doing?” he asked, voice shaking. I looked down at his bare stomach. The arsehole had had one too many Sunday roasts. This would be like gutting a pig.
“You said you wanted my old man.” I met my “uncle’s” wide gaze. “You should do. Dad is a ‘kill them quick and get out of Dodge’ kind of man.” I pointed the knife at his face. “You know this. You stood by his side most of his life.” I nodded toward my boys. “Just like my brothers have done with me.”
“I fucked up, Artie. I’ve royally fucked up. Let me make it up to you.”
“Charlie?” I said, never taking my eyes off the piece of shit before me. “Would you betray me?”
“Never, cuz,” he said plainly.
“Eric?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Freddie?”
“Wouldn’t ever happen, Art.”
“Vinnie?”
“Never, never, never. Not for all the money in the world,” he sang. “It would hurt Pearl. I would never hurt my Pearlie.”
I cocked my head, looking at the
lines on Johnny’s face. The pock marks and the burst capillaries. Our firm had done him well. Protected him. Gave him anything he wanted.
“Loyalty.” I pressed the tip of my knife into his fat cheek. “All we ask for in return is loyalty.” I pressed so hard that blood sprouted and ran down his face like a tear of crimson. “In the Adley firm, our word is our bond. You swore loyalty to my old man.” I pulled the knife away. “And you’ve broken your bond.” I put the handle of my knife between my teeth and rolled up my shirt sleeves to my elbows. I took hold of the knife again.
“You were right to want my old man to be your bondsman. He may be ruthless, but he’s quick and merciful.” A slow grin pulled on my lips. “I am anything but.”
“You’re insane,” Johnny spat, knowing he had no more cards left to play. “You always were a sadistic little fucker.” His eyes scanned over my boys. “You all were. All fucking insane.” He spat on the ground at my feet. “It’s beneath the Adley name, acting like this.” His nose screwed up like we were the worst-smelling fuckers in the world. “There’s dignity in being London gangsters. I was beside your old man when he created the firm. We lived by a code. We were gentlemen gangsters, not the fucking nutjob murderers you lot have become.”
“Nutjob murderers,” Charlie said, nodding. “That has a nice ring to it.”
“Is this the future of the Adley firm?” he sneered. “You lot?” He shook his head. “I’m better off being dead.”
“Glad we finally agree on something,” I said and, before he could even believe it, slashed my knife across his stomach, deep and in three directions. Johnny screamed. Blood oozed from the open cuts.
Inside, I grinned at the way he yelled. At the red on his face from the pain. I moved beside him, and his pain-filled gaze followed me. “Ever heard of disembowelment?” Johnny paled. I took that as a yes. I placed my foot on the side of the chair that was supporting his bent legs. “I’ve just cut your stomach in a way that the minute you drop your legs, your innards will spill from your body and crash onto the floor. You’ll die slowly. And it will be painful.”
Johnny’s breath was coming faster and faster. His body jerked as my foot rocked the chair beneath him.
“No, please,” he begged. I never moved my eyes from his stare. He must have realised he was going to die, as he said, “You’ll burn in hell one day, Artie.”
“You’re right,” I said. “But that day isn’t here yet, and until then …” I booted the chair from underneath him. The chair skidded across the room, and Johnny screamed as he held both legs in the air using only his strength.
“Bet you wish you’d hit the gym more instead of the pubs, hey, Johnny?” Charlie said, and my boys all stood beside me as we watched his legs lower, his core strength fading, and his slashes rip open.
On a final scream, his effort failed, and his legs fell until his toes scraped against the concrete of the basement floor. In seconds, the slashes I’d made tore open, and out spilled his bowels into a heap on the floor. Johnny’s eyes sought me out, and without another word, I walked for the stairs. I heard Freddie taking the pictures my old man would want to distribute to any other of our men who thought about fucking us over. Eric called for clean-up and the retrieval of the blow.
I pushed out into the warm night and slid into the van’s back seat. My boys all piled in, and we made our way back to the yacht. I stared out of the window, at Marbella and the drunks falling out of the bars. Johnny was right. I was a sadistic murderer. Because I felt fuck all about killing him. About gutting him like a pig despite knowing him my entire life.
All my emotions had burned in a blazing inferno alongside my sister and mum the night the cottage caught fire and it stripped them of their bones and flesh. I had nothing left. And whatever still lingered liked to kill and cause pain to others. It screamed at me to punish, to seek revenge for my family that died.
“I’m going to get badges made for us.” Eric started laughing. As did Freddie. “Club Nutjob Murderers.”
“Are we going back clubbing?” Freddie asked. “I’ve still got at least four hours of drinking and fucking left in me.”
I could feel Charlie looking at me. I didn’t give a fuck what we did. Clearly my cousin got that message. “Tom,” Charlie said to our driver. “Take us to the most debauched club in Marbella. We need to get all kinds of fucked up tonight.”
“You’ve got it,” Tom said. I pulled my mobile from my pocket.
GOOD JOB, SON, my old man had texted. Charlie nudged my arm and handed me the picture Freddie had taken of the basement. I was immediately met with blood and carnage and Johnny hanging as if on a stake with his innards hanging out … and fuck, it made me feel good.
Chapter Two
CHESKA
“If you stare at that bloody yacht any more, you’ll burn a hole in its side.” I looked from Arthur’s yacht to Arabella. She was lying on her lounger on the sun deck, head tilted back, her SPF-drenched dark skin shimmering under the blistering Marbella sun.
I took a sip of my mojito, letting the mint and lime cool me down. I saw a few of Arthur’s friends on the deck. But he wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen him since the night in the club. Not long after Ollie Lawson and his friends came, Arthur and his boys had disappeared. I had no idea where to. But they hadn’t come back.
My cheeks blazed when I thought back to him looking at me right in the eyes as he fingered the girl on his lap. As her eyes rolled back and she moaned out loud as her orgasm barrelled through her.
A hand waved in front of my face, pulling me back from the other night. From Arthur … his dark hair, blue eyes and black-rimmed glasses that just did something to me. I couldn’t read him. He was as impenetrable as Fort Knox. Even when his gaze had been locked on mine, I couldn’t get a bloody read on him. He gave nothing away. It was as if he was soulless. As if he lacked any basic emotion.
Cool.
Calculated.
Deadly.
The hand before my face moved faster. When I shook my head, withdrawing myself from thoughts of Arthur and those eyes that were as unbreakable as a bank safe, it was to see Freya. She smiled, but I could see a tinge of worry in her dark eyes.
She studied me, then put her palm on my forehead as if checking my temperature. I moved her hand away. “Frey,” I said, sighing. “I’m fine.”
“Just checking you haven’t got a fever or anything. Or heat exhaustion.” She took a sip of her Chardonnay. Her purple bikini somehow made her Irish features look more pronounced, and made her curves look like something out of a Renaissance painting.
“I’m completely well.”
Arabella sat up and moved her Gucci sunglasses from her espresso eyes. Her curls framed her beautiful face. “You do know that yacht belongs to Alfie Adley, don’t you?” Her lips were pursed with worry. “That guy you keep staring at is Arthur Adley. The Arthur Adley, heir to the Adley firm and their empire of death and destruction.”
“I know who he is. I have done since we met at thirteen, remember?”
“Yeah, we remember,” Freya said. “But do you? Alfie Adley was there to cash in on a debt your father owed. He wasn’t there for a night of drinks and billiards.”
“I know that,” I snapped. Freya and Arabella glanced at each other as though I’d lost my bloody mind. Maybe I had. All I knew was that, over the years, Arthur had become an obsession of mine. And now he was here. In the flesh. Docked next to us. Looking my way with that steely gaze that seemed to make my knees weak and my mind lose all of its senses.
“Daddy made a mistake. He explained it all to me. He made a bad investment.” I shrugged. “He sorted it and hasn’t had dealings with the Adleys again since.”
“Yet, here you are, wanting to fuck Arthur every which way to Sunday.” Arabella raised an eyebrow at me, waiting for my response.
The sound of raucous laughter came from the Adley yacht, and I glanced over. Just then, Arthur walked out onto the deck, a large gin glass in his hand. He seemed more often than
not to be drinking gin, I’d noticed. It must have been his drink of choice—straight, with ice, no mixer. He was shirtless, wearing navy-blue shorts, his black-rimmed glasses firmly in place.
Christ, he was perfection. His skin was slightly kissed by the sun, and his dark hair looked like onyx under the midday sun’s rays.
As if feeling my stare, he looked over, his eyes landing straight on mine. His cousin, Charlie, followed his gaze, his eyes narrowing on me as if I were a problem he wanted to solve. My breathing came faster as Arthur didn’t look away from me. Not even when Freddie Williams stood beside him and started talking in his ear.
“Seriously, Cheska,” Freya said, and I reluctantly looked at my best friend. “Go fuck your boyfriend or something. Get any thought of Arthur Adley from your head.”
Arabella laughed. “Can you imagine taking him home to your daddy? He’d have a damn heart attack.”
“Maybe Arthur isn’t as bad as you think,” I said.
“They’re East End gangsters,” Freya said. “They’re murderers! We’ve all heard the rumours.”
“Freya!” I checked none of the Adley boys had heard her. They were sitting around a table, talking, playing cards and drinking. At least most of them were. Arthur was leaning against the glass doors that led inside the yacht. He was silent, as usual. And his eyes were still on me. My thighs clenched together as he lit a cigarette and inhaled a long drag.
Why was that so damn hot?
“What? It’s true. Everyone knows about them. They’re notorious, Cheska. If Arthur didn’t look like that”—her finger moved up and down him—“then you’d be as petrified of him as we are.”
“How do you think they got that yacht?” Arabella said. “It wasn’t through legitimate businesses like our families. It was through drugs and guns and racketeering.” She huffed a disgusted laugh. “It probably doesn’t even run on petrol. It’ll be fuelled by the blood of the people they’ve killed.”
