by Tillie Cole
“Firstly, calm your tits, psycho,” Eric said, crossing his arms across his chest. “And secondly, your old bird stumbles into the club, beaten and stabbed, and you ask ‘what?’”
I pulled out my cigs and sparked one up. I took a deep inhale, the nicotine hitting my veins and giving me a second of fucking reprieve.
“She burst into the club, ran right through the fucking bouncers and into the dance floor.” Charlie poured himself a brandy beside me. “Not bad for a bird who’d been stabbed.” He smirked at me. “Tenacious little thing, isn’t she?”
“She came for you,” Vinnie said, speaking directly as always. “She came looking for you, Artie.” He tapped the side of his eyes. “Her eyes. Her eyes changed when they saw you. Like Pearl’s do when she looks at me.” Vinnie slipped his hands into his pockets and started whistling “Ring a Ring o’ Roses”, his eyes now on the landscape painting of some country house on the wall.
“Isn’t she getting married soon or something? I’ve seen their mugs all over the society pages,” Freddie asked, sitting down in an armchair.
“You scan the fucking society pages?” Eric said to Freddie, hiding a smile with his hand.
“Most of the fuckers who owe us money are on those pages, dickhead. I keep track of them so they don’t try and dodge town. Those pages seem to know more about the richies than even their own families do.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were all here,” Betsy said, coming into the room. “I thought you were at the club tonight.” She frowned as she looked at us all, then straightened her shoulders. “What’s happened?”
Charlie tipped his head in my direction. “Cheska Harlow-Wright. What else could rock our fearless leader like this?” Betsy’s eyes widened, and I knew the fucker had been speaking about me to his sister. Between that and the smart-arsed comments, I was about five seconds away from knocking off his head.
“The Cheska?” Betsy asked.
“The very one.” Charlie smirked as I shot him a death stare. My cousin and friends were the only people on the fucking planet who didn’t piss themselves in my presence.
“The Cheska. What the fuck is that meant to mean?” I snapped, getting more fucked off at my family by the second.
“Nothing,” Betsy said, shrugging, and got herself a drink too. I lit another cig and leaned against the fireplace, watching the flames dance up the chimney. I pictured Cheska as a kid at her dad’s house. Then at eighteen in her bikini on the yacht. Her pressed against me, then spread out on the dining table on our yacht as I fucked her, as I ploughed into her, needing to chase her away. Instead, afterwards, she only wanted me more.
Then years. Fucking years of taking her in every way imaginable. She liked it rough like I needed. Clawed and fought me and made me fucking addicted.
The room was quiet, and I couldn’t stand it. I knew they were all watching me. “What?” I shouted, turning with my arms out. “What’s with all the fucking silence?”
It was Betsy who spoke, unaffected by my outburst. “Just haven’t seen you like this since …” She trailed off, and we all knew what she meant. The night after I got back from Oxford, after our dads were done and I had to take the helm. The night I siphoned off any feelings and emotions I had for Cheska and became what I had to in order for this family to survive.
We’d fucking gone to war that night. And we’d been fighting on the front line ever since. “She means something to you,” Betsy added, clearly choosing her words carefully. “If you’re being honest with yourself, she always has.”
“I fucked her! That’s all,” I spat, and flicked my cig into the fire, done with this conversation and this dissection of my fucking life. I marched out of the room and straight into my bedroom. When I entered, the doctor was just moving his stuff. A bag of blood was being transfused into Cheska’s arm. But she was cleaned up, my sheet and duvet pulled up to her shoulders.
“She’s lost blood, but not as much as I’d feared.” He gestured to her face. Her fucking beaten face. My hands fisted at my sides. No one as perfect as her should ever look like this.
“I cleaned up her face, but they were surface injuries. I gave her an antibiotic injection and left medicine for her to take when she wakes—both for pain and to prevent infection. She’s to take them until the course has finished.” He pointed at the tablets on the bedside table. He went to walk past me. “She should wake after she’s rested. She got off relatively unscathed, considering what I imagine she went through tonight to even get in this state.”
“And her memory?” I asked. I needed to know what had fucking happened to her. I needed to know who the fuck had done this to her so I could kill the cunts.
“Should be unaffected. That’s physically, of course. That’s not taking trauma into consideration. That could be a potential problem for her.” The doctor left when I stayed silent, not asking him anything else. He shut the door behind him, and I stared down at Cheska.
My teeth ached from gritting them so hard. I thought back to the last day I went to her in Oxford. When I was fucked off my face on whisky and just needed her. Out of everyone, I fucking chose to turn to her. And not just to fuck, but to just be somewhere else that wasn’t this church or with my family, or with my old man lying in a bed that he would be in for months and months to come. And because I’d liked the feel of her in my fucking arms. In that moment, that fucked-up dark moment, she was the only one I’d wanted.
I shook my head when flashes of memory showed me crying on her like a pussy. Showed me that fucking ring on her finger, that bright diamond catching my drunken eye. She’d got engaged a couple of days before that night. One look at that motherfucking ring and I’d snapped. I’d needed her, needed to fucking own her, and here was another prick’s ring on her finger. A finger that had just been wrapped in my hair, holding my fucking face and wrapped around my dick.
I walked closer to the bed and saw her hand still wore that fucking ring.
She was getting married soon. Freddie’d told me that a while back, like I didn’t fucking know. I knew every detail. Married at St Paul’s Cathedral, then on to the Ritz afterwards. I fucking knew. I knew everything about this bird. She bloody clawed at my head daily, had done since the first time I met her.
Like fucking witchcraft.
I couldn’t go down that fucked-up road again. Cheska was pure kryptonite. She was the fucking gatekeeper of shit I needed to keep firmly locked away.
I needed to leave. I needed to send Betsy in here to keep watch over her and take care of her when she woke up. I had work to do, family business shit to deal with, and this bird had no place in my life anymore.
But then my feet fucking led me forward, and I dragged the armchair from the corner of my room to beside the bed, like I was being pulled by some invisible rope to her side.
I lit up a cig and stared at her face. Even bruised and battered, she was a fucking ten. But she didn’t belong in this world I lived in. Never fucking had. Didn’t stop me from taking her though. I’d fucking stolen her from the light and made her mine in the darkness.
I thought it would be just one time, an inevitable fuck we both knew we had to get out of our systems. But one taste of Cheska Harlow-Wright wasn’t enough. Even at eighteen, after my soul had only been fractured, not shattered apart—irreparable and written off. After fucking her in Marbella, I only craved her more. I was meant to get her pussy once and walk away. She wasn’t meant to ensnare me. I wasn’t meant to get addicted.
I came back to London with her bloody mobile number still stained on my palm. A week later I was knee-deep in her cunt again, and I stayed there for five fucking years.
Until that night.
Until the night everything changed and I had to throw her out of the way of the fucking demons that had taken hold of my ankles and were pulling me down to hell.
But she found me anyway. Thirteen months later, she found me, far from where she should be. An angel seeking out the devil for help. Exactly what kind of help? I didn
’t fucking know.
So I’d wait in this fucking chair until I found out.
I woke up to the sound of coughing. I opened my eyes and saw Cheska wince in pain. Her eyes slowly blinked open. I turned off the main light and put on a lamp so the room wouldn’t be too bright. And I waited. When Cheska’s eyes opened, I watched as confusion wrapped around her. She glanced in my direction, and recognition flashed across her face. Even though she was pale, her cheeks flushed red.
“Arthur,” she whispered, her voice weak.
“Princess,” I said. Her eyes softened at that name.
“What—?” she went to say, then froze, seeming to remember whatever the fuck had happened to her. Her hands started shaking on the bed, then her eyes filled with tears. Her trembling hand covered her mouth, and she flinched, her fingers feeling along her swollen lips.
“They killed them,” she said, voice wracked with pain, and my body tensed. Cheska looked at me, her gaze fucking tortured. “Someone killed my friends in front of me, Arthur. Freya and Arabella. They slit Frey’s throat and stabbed Arabella right through the heart.” A sob ripped from her throat. I couldn’t fucking stand it. Couldn’t stand that horrified sound or the tears in her sad eyes.
I moved off the chair and sat on the mattress beside her. She looked up at my face, hands shaking as she clutched at the duvet. “Hugo, Dad … they’re gone too.”
“Dead?”
She nodded. “Shot.” She started crying, fucking broke, and I got her a glass of water from the bedside table. When her hands were shaking too bloody much for her to hold it, I brought it to her mouth. I held the back of her head and made sure she took a sip.
Cheska pulled the glass away but took hold of my wrist before I could move away. Her fingers were weak as piss around me, but fuck did it make something pull in my bastard gut. “They sent a video to my phone,” she said. She swallowed like she had a lump wedged in her throat. “Of them killing Dad and Hugo.” She sucked in a jagged breath.
Her eyes zoned the fuck out, her thoughts no doubt taking her back to earlier tonight. “Then they came to the spa we were at and captured us. They killed Freya and Arabella in the bedroom but said they were taking me somewhere else. They had other plans for me.” She refocused on me and held my wrist tighter. “Something slow and painful.” Rage consumed me.
Slow and painful …
When I got my hands on the pricks that had done this to her, I’d make sure their deaths were fucking drawn out and agonised.
I could feel my blood start to boil too fucking high, to the point where someone, somewhere, needed to die by my hands for me to calm down. I placed the half-full glass down with my free hand.
“Arthur, they tried to drag me to a van in an alley, but … but I managed to get away.” She sobbed and moved her hold from my wrist to my hand. Her fingers wrapped around mine, and I felt a fucking shock of electricity shoot through me like I’d just been stabbed with a cattle prod.
I went to pull back my hand, needing to keep my fucking distance from her. But she held on tighter. Fucking witchcraft. This bird was the only one in the bloody world that fucked my head up this well. I didn’t hold hands. Only with her. When her fucking witch’s spell had wrapped around me.
“They said Dad and Hugo owed a debt to dangerous people but never paid up. So, they took payment with their lives. With my best friends’ lives.”
Cheska eventually stopped crying, shock clearly settling in. Her grip on my hand tightened. “They’ll be coming for me. They want me as payment. Arthur … they’ll come back for me. They’re not done.”
Her words, mixed with the sheer fucking terror in her hoarse voice, made me want to snap some arsehole’s neck. As she’d spoken every bloody word, I’d felt the fire inside of me scald my fucking flesh until the only remedy would be someone’s blood coating my hands.
She was shaking, and her pupils were blown in fear. “Arthur,” she whispered, and then pressed her cheek against the back of my hand, almost bringing me to my fucking knees. “Everyone has gone. All my family, my friends … they’ve all gone. I’m completely alone …” Her broken lip dragged along my skin, opening the cut and staining my skin with her blood. “I’m so scared.”
Ignoring the fact that she was hurt, I yanked her closer until her face hovered in front of mine. I gripped her jaw and made sure her eyes were fucking right on me. “They’re not getting anywhere near you,” I growled; Cheska exhaled in relief.
And I saw what else was in her stare. I knew that fucking look. I knew exactly how Cheska felt toward me. For such a smart bird, she was fucking thick when it came to me. Reckless. She was like a kid putting her hand into a roaring bonfire when she’d been told one too many times to back off or she’d be burned. But here she was, hand in the inferno once again.
“No one will dare fuck with you now you’re under my protection,” I promised.
“Arthur,” she whispered, that posh accent washing over me the same way it always fucking did. Like opium or some shit. Calming me right the hell down. I had no fucking clue how she managed to do it, but she was the only thing in my life that had ever had that effect on me.
She was fucking dangerous.
I pushed her hair back from her face. She smelled of antiseptic, but underneath was all her, that familiar smell that used to stick to my skin for weeks after I’d paid a midnight visit to Oxford and fucked her. The scent that almost me drove me insane for days afterwards until I was back between her legs again. That rose perfume she always wore.
“You have no idea who these fucks were?” I asked, about two seconds from climbing onto the bed and fucking her again. She was alive, and the devil had sent her here, all for me to possess. A gift for doing his work to perfection.
It had been too fucking long. I needed to feel her under me, clawing at my back and raking at my hair. Telling me to fuck her harder—then I’d know she was still fucking alive. I didn’t care if she was bruised and beaten; the dark part inside me just needed to be inside her to know she was good. That these balaclava-wearing twats hadn’t ruined her. Hurt her, killed her.
The daft cunts had no idea they’d just put a fucking Adley bounty on their heads.
“None,” she said, ripping me from my head, bringing me back down to earth. She stared off at nothing. “I didn’t even know the business was in trouble, that my dad was dealing with dangerous people again.” I knew the “again” came from the fact Cheska’s old man had dealt with mine in the past. A loan. That was how we’d met. Dear old Daddy had taken a loan from my old man, and he was late with the repayment. So, Alfie Adley paid Mr Wright a visit, and I’d crashed into his fucking daughter with the force of an asteroid colliding with Earth. Cheska’s dad took his little virginal princess and placed her directly in my line of sight. Made a fucked-up East End boy take notice of her forbidden posh-as-fuck arse. The future dark lord finding his innocent little goddess, biding his time until he stole her right from under Daddy’s neglectful gaze and brought her to the dark side.
Now Daddy was gone. So was her bellend of a betrothed. She was fucking adrift, no home, no family …
“You said they sent a video to your phone?” I said, needing to step the fuck back from her. The bruises on her face and body were getting darker, and I could see by her heavy eyelids that she was getting tired. I needed to back the fuck off. I needed to calm the hell down. I needed to think. I couldn’t ever fucking think around Cheska.
“I don’t have my phone. It’ll still be at the spa. Everything happened so quickly that I was unable to retrieve it.”
“We can hack into your number and messages. Just need your number.” Ronnie was a fucking genius at that kind of shit.
Cheska’s eyes grew even more heavy. “Sleep,” I said. I made myself hold back from kissing her wrecked mouth. Cheska closed her eyes, and her body started losing tension. I eventually let go of her hand. I saw that fucking ring again and wanted to rip it off her finger. Hugo the posh cunt was dead. He had no claim
on her anymore.
I got off the bed, needing to clear my fucking head. As I stood, Cheska’s eyes rolled open and she looked down at her hand, empty now that I’d pulled mine away. “What’s your mobile number?” I asked, that fucking devastated expression on her face hitting me too bloody hard in the chest.
“The same one as always.” Cheska stared at me, and the look she was throwing my way made my chest tighten. “I didn’t want to change it.” She took a deep breath, favouring her side when she did. “Just in case …”
Just in case I ever called her again, needed her again. She’d been waiting. This fucking bird had been waiting for me to come back to her.
What she didn’t realise is that I ran this town. I didn’t need to call her to check in on her. I could have found out what she was up to on any given day and she’d know nothing about it.
“Sleep, princess,” I said and watched her close her eyes. No one would dare enter this fucking house unless they had a death wish. She was safe here. And until I found out who had come for her, she wasn’t setting foot out my front door.
I waited until her breathing evened out, standing at the end of her bed like some demon ready to snatch her soul and drag her to my lair in hell. When she was out, I made my way back to the living room, replaying everything she’d told me in my head. Ronnie and Vera were at the church now too. Good. It was time for a fucking family meeting.
They watched me in silence as I entered the room and poured myself a gin. I downed a glass, then refilled it to the brim. I turned to them, leaning against the bar’s counter. “Her old man and fiancé were murdered tonight, along with her two best mates. The attackers tried to kidnap Cheska too, but she got away. Came to find me. That’s why she turned up at the club.”
“Fuck,” Freddie said, shaking his head, and Ronnie got to her feet. If there was one thing that lit a fire under Ronnie’s arse it was women being attacked. Even more so if it was by blokes.
