Lord of London Town

by Tillie Cole

  Ronnie snapped her head around, and her dark eyes turned ice cold. “I didn’t work for them, Ches. I was taken by them.”

  “What?”

  The room was silent and thick with tension as Ronnie dressed, right down to her jacket. She sat back on the bed. “It’s a story for another time, but I was kidnapped by them.” Vera took Ronnie’s hand. Ronnie squeezed her fingers tightly. Apart from that telling move, Ronnie was unreadable, appearing unshaken. “I was trafficked, Ches. I was whored out and made a slave.” Bile rose in my throat. Ronnie took a deep breath. “The Adleys saved me. Brought me into their fold.” She gestured to the picture of the unique brand. “I’ve been looking for these cunts ever since.” She lifted her eyes to mine, promise in her gaze. “And when I find them, I’ll murder them. Every last one of them.”

  “They’re untraceable,” Vera explained. “Rarely leave any sign of themselves behind. No one knows who they are. We’re close to many crime families and organisations around London, shit, all over the UK. No one knows them.”

  “Your video was the first bit of evidence we’ve had on them in years,” Betsy said. “We were hoping you could shed some light on them.”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea who they are.” I paused when something came to mind. “My father. The men mentioned to me that my father and Hugo owed them money. That they hadn’t paid them for some kind of loan.” Another thought occurred to me. “Harlow Biscuits? Who’s running that right now? Are people looking for me? The police?”

  “The board has stepped in at your family’s business. They have it covered for now. But you’re officially a missing person.” Vera smiled widely as she said, “We’ve sent the little piggies on a hunt to lead them far, far away from us. That buys us some time to work out exactly who we’re dealing with.”

  “Arthur won’t stop until he finds them. They’ve fucked with what’s his. So they’re all going to die. That’s the law of his fucking land.”

  “His …” I said, liking the way that sounded as it rolled off my tongue. I liked it far too much.

  “Whether he admits it or not, you’re his,” Betsy said, pure mischief in her expression. “He’s been sleeping on it, Ches. I’d say it’s time to wake him the fuck up.”

  A thought quickly came to mind. “My father’s computers. His work email. His phone. His home laptop. Maybe those can help you. Hugo’s too. They had to communicate with someone over all this. There must be something somewhere that can give you a lead.”

  “Good thinking, darl.” Ronnie pulled out her phone. “I’ll get them brought to me.”

  As Ronnie typed on her phone, I watched her, wondering what she had been through. As I did, the reality of what had been going to happen to me sank in. “They were going to traffic me,” I said out loud, a cold chill wrapping around me. “That was the payment they were talking about, wasn’t it? They wouldn’t kill me, because they were going to sell me? Recoup the money my father and fiancé racked up?”

  “You would have been a high-price ticket too,” Ronnie said, as if she were talking about general groceries. “I’ve seen enough auctions to know. They’ll be so pissed off that you got away.”

  “Then they will want me back,” I realised. If they could have sold me for a lot of money, that meant I was an asset they wouldn’t stand losing.

  A hand threaded through mine and immediately chased away an echo of the chill. “You’re an Adley now. No one will get you,” Betsy said, her touch exactly what I needed.

  “An Adley,” I repeated. Betsy had said it with such surety, such conviction, that it made me believe it. Made me crave it. Made me want to be worthy of it.

  “Where’s Arthur?” I asked.

  Betsy smiled knowingly. “He’s out on business for the next several days. But he should be back for the weekend. That’ll give you plenty of time to rest and heal. The doctor said you should be feeling a lot better by then. Almost back to normal, I’d say.”

  “Saturday night,” Vera said, her announcement confusing me. She got off the bed. “Let’s see if our Chelsea princess can manage to convince the ‘lord’ that she can come with us on our little night out.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” Ronnie said, clearly confident Arthur would cave and bring me to whatever they were referring to.

  As the couple left the room, Vera called over her shoulder, “Let’s just hope that you didn’t lie when we asked if Arthur’s line of work fazed you or not.”

  That could only mean one thing awaited us on Saturday. The one thing Arthur seemed to bring to London Town in abundance: death.

  Chapter Nine

  ARTHUR

  I threw my coat on the rack and walked down the hallway. I cracked open the door to my old man’s room. His nurse was changing his nutrient bags. “No change, sir,” she said, acknowledging me, and I nodded. I glanced at my dad’s face. Still pale. Still thin. Still in a motherfucking coma.

  I shut the door behind me and headed to the guest room. I intended on walking past my own bedroom door. In fact, I’d promised myself I’d keep my bloody head down and just fucking ignore it. Instead, I stopped right in front of it and turned the knob. It was after two in the morning. It was pitch black outside and I was knackered. But not knackered enough to fight the fucking pull that yanked me inside that room.

  I opened the door. The lights were off, but the light from the blazing fire was enough for me to see her. I tried to stay in the doorway, to see her from afar, but she turned in her sleep, rolling in my direction, and I found myself walking inside. I only made it six steps before I stood stock-still.

  The bruises on her face were almost gone. The swelling on her lips had reduced to make them normal size, and the cuts on her body were barely there.

  She looked like the Cheska I’d always known. My prim and proper Chelsea girl. The one I sank inside week after week. It was never enough. Never fucking enough.

  I stared at the open door behind me. Leave, you fucking prick, I said silently to myself. But I didn’t. The sadistic cunt that I was sat in the armchair and just fucking listened to her breathe. Watched her chest rise and fall. And tried not to imagine what would have happened to Cheska if the traffickers had got her. Where the fuck would she be now? Where the fuck would they have taken her?

  My fists were clenched so tightly that my bones ached. There was nothing. Nothing that Ronnie’s research had flagged up so far. Nothing that my acquaintances had heard. It was a motherfucking stealth job. No one knew jack shit.

  And that was just pissing me the fuck off.

  I was a man that needed answers. When it came to Cheska Harlow-Wright, I had none. She had always fucked with my mind. A fucking algebraic equation my tosser of a teacher expected me to work out. Bloody impossible.

  Cheska moved, and the duvet slipped down her body. She was dressed in a purple silk nightdress. It made me think of the first time I fucked her in Marbella. She’d been wearing purple that night, looking like a motherfucking goddess as she’d climbed onto my yacht in the pitch black of night.

  Thinking of her back then, and seeing her now, it took all my strength not to climb into bed beside her and fuck her like old times. But I forced myself to my feet. I wouldn’t do this. I wouldn’t get fucking caught up in this again.

  But as I went to leave, I saw her hand. That bloody left hand. The crack in my chest that had never fucking closed started to ache, to fucking widen at the sight of that left ring finger without that bloody diamond wrapped around it. It was gone. That shackle to Hugo the shitstain was gone. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t look away from that bare finger.

  Leave. Right the fuck now, dickhead, I told myself and took my bastard head from the clouds. I was tired. I was just fucking tired. That’s all this was.

  I left the bedroom and showered off the past few days of making new contracts with dealers and chasing leads on who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to fuck with my docks. Nothing. Just like what we were finding on
the cunts that tried to take Cheska.

  A pile of sweet fuck all. And it was doing my nut in.

  I wiped through the steam on the bathroom mirror and stared at my reflection. I had to keep my fucking head in the game. I would find the pricks who took Cheska, and then let her go. The bird had filled my head too many times over the past few days. Betsy was checking in too fucking much, giving me updates.

  The porcelain of the sink creaked. When I looked down, my hands were clenched on the lip, almost cracking it in two. I moved my hands and ran them down my face. I slipped on my glasses and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t let myself do this. I had my family to protect. A fuck-ton of people to keep from our doors.

  Cheska was a distraction I couldn’t afford.

  “Who the fuck else is here?” Eric asked as we walked toward the abandoned warehouse just outside Essex. Eric stopped beside a Mercedes. “And what tasteless fucker would take a German car over a British one? Haven’t they heard of Bentleys? Aston Martins? Unpatriotic twats.”

  “Old Sammy said he had one other group he was considering selling the dock to,” Charlie said, keeping by my side. “Arthur here said he respected the old geezer too much to strong-arm him into giving it to us.” Charlie smiled and nudged me. “Of course, it’s fucking game on if Old Sam goes with the other buyer. They’ll be wishing they never met us.”

  A steroid-bloated bloke from Old Sammy’s syndicate opened the door to the warehouse. The meeting table was directly in front of us. Old Sammy was sat at the head of the table, and to his left was—

  “The fucking Lawsons. Of course it is,” Freddie hissed from beside me. Ollie fucking Lawson stood from the table, his right-hand twat, Nick, following his gaffer’s lead.

  Ollie was all smiles, his veneered teeth offending my eyes. “Here they are, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.”

  “I’d better be Lancelot in this scenario,” Eric said, flanking Freddie. “He was the good-looking fella, right?”

  “And what does that make you?” Charlie said to Ollie. “The plebeians beneath us?” Charlie fixed his cufflink, and I saw Ollie’s jaw clench. The fucker hated us as much as we hated him.

  Almost.

  We were oil and water. Our businesses were night and day. We didn’t mix.

  “Sit, sit,” Old Sammy said, gesturing to the chairs on the free side of the table. I pulled out my seat beside Sammy and sat down. That put me directly opposite Lawson.

  He glared at me, and it took all I had not to pull out my revolver and pierce a hole in his forehead. But as my father taught me, I didn’t react. I didn’t give fuck all away. Stayed neutral. He wasn’t even worth the wasted bullet.

  “What’s going on, Sammy?” Charlie asked. “You going legit on us?” Charlie turned to Ollie. “Or are you lot going rogue and selling your soul to the dark side?”

  “My business is legit,” Ollie said. “In fact, it’s doing so well, I need more docks to keep up with demand. Some of us don’t need to turn to crime to be successful.”

  I sparked up a cig and blew the smoke across the table, right in Ollie’s face. The prick’s nostrils flared. “What do you want for it, Sammy?” I asked. I wanted to get this over and fucking done with. “Cut the bloody theatrics and make your choice—this pathetic cunt or us.”

  “More drugs to supply to the masses?” Ollie asked, smirking.

  A gun fired. Old Sammy’s men came crawling from their posts, their own weapons drawn. I flicked my eyes down the table toward Vinnie, who had fired a shot into the air. He laughed out loud. “Just checking it was stocked with bullets.” Vinnie aimed the gun right at Lawson’s head. Ollie froze as Vinnie cocked his head, closing one eye as he aimed. Ollie jumped out of his fucking skin when Vinnie slammed his hand on the table and screamed, “BANG!”

  Vinnie laughed louder, his sick, taunting laugh directed right at a flinching Ollie. The laugh most of Vin’s victims heard right before he tore out their throats. “A-tishoo, a-tishoo,” he sang, then pointed his finger at Ollie and Nick, fucking death in his gaze. “They all fall down.”

  “You’re all fucking tapped,” Ollie snarled, tapping his head. “Fucked in the head.”

  “A correct assessment,” Freddie said, the look in his eyes just fucking daring Ollie to strike.

  Ollie reached into his pocket. I watched him like a hawk. But the pussy wouldn’t dare attack us; it wasn’t who he was. He just pulled out a piece of paper and placed it on the table before Sammy. “This is what we’re prepared to give you. Let me know what you decide.”

  Ollie flicked his head at Nick, and the two of them walked out of the meeting. When the door was shut, Sammy said, “I was never giving it to that sniffling prick. I owed his father a favour. I always pay my debts. That was the last one—just letting that posh wanker in here for this meeting was payment enough to his old man. Debt done.”

  “His dad died last year,” Eric said.

  “Call me old-fashioned, but an outstanding debt is still an outstanding debt.” Sammy shook his head, laughing and sucking on his pipe. “The dock’s yours.” He winked at me. “It’s always been for the EastEnders. If you’re not born-and-bred cockney, you’re not getting shit from me.”

  I stood and shook Sammy’s hand. “Essex, Sammy. Really?”

  He shrugged. “The old ball and chain wanted out of the city. Couldn’t be arsed to fight her on it. I’m old and don’t have the fucking energy anymore.”

  “The money’ll be dropped off tonight,” Eric said, shaking Sammy’s hand too.

  As we turned to leave, Sammy said, “Heavy is the head that wears the crown, Arthur.” I stopped and turned to one of my old man’s closest friends. He was sat back in his seat, pipe in his mouth. He was staring right at me.

  “Luckily, I have a fucking strong neck.”

  Sammy didn’t react, but then he nodded, getting the message to leave it. If anyone else had said that it wouldn’t have been without consequence. But this was Old Sammy. He was a fucking East End institution. He was family.

  “Plus, haven’t you heard?” Eric wrapped his arm around my neck. “The king here has his fucking Round Table to keep him in check. Just ask Lawson.”

  “That he does,” Sammy said and nodded at his man to open the doors. We left, and I climbed in the first car. Charlie got in too. The rest of the boys took their seats in the car behind us.

  When we pulled out, en route back to Bethnal Green, Charlie said, “I’m getting people on Lawson. That fucker rubs me the wrong way.”

  I lit up my cig and took a deep inhale. “He’s a fucking pretender. A rich tosser playing with Daddy’s money.” I took another drag. “The wanker wouldn’t know what to do if he really wanted to play outside of the rules and stepped into the underworld. He’d be fucking ripped apart the second he made it through the gates.”

  “Still, the way he stared at you,” Charlie said, looking out of the window, watching the trees blur into one long dark line. “I’m putting men on him. I want to know if he even shits the wrong way. That fucker’s not sitting well with me.”

  I remembered how, in Marbella, he was all over Cheska like a fucking rash. The guy was a bloody creep. But let Charlie tail him. If that fucker stepped even an inch out of line, I wanted know. I rolled down my window and flicked my finished cig onto the road. Cold wind filled the car, and I let it wash over my face.

  “You got everything sorted for tomorrow night?” I asked Charlie.

  “Done.” My cousin smiled. “Should be a good one.”

  I nodded my head. I couldn’t fucking wait. I had pent-up anger I needed to unleash.

  And unleash it I fucking would.

  I sat beside the fire in my old man’s old study. There were no windows in the smallish room. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered all four walls. Two library ladders leaned against them on either side of the room. The old desk took up the north side, and two wingback armchairs sat before the large fireplace. A small table sat between the chairs.
And on top was my grandfather’s old chessboard.

  I sat in one of the armchairs. I’d been here for hours. I knew it was dark outside. But I had no fucking idea what time it was. Two in the morning, maybe? I didn’t fucking care. I was nocturnal by nature. Late nights were nothing new.

  A large gin sat in front of me. Only the lights from the fire and a standing lamp filled the room. This was my old man’s favourite room. A place where he could shut out the world and the pressures of leading the family for a fucking minute.

  It was my favourite room for that reason too.

  I sipped my gin and moved a pawn on the chessboard. I stared at the pieces. My entire fucking life was just one big chess game between me and God.

  I wasn’t sure who the fuck was winning.

  The door slowly opened. I was about to tell whoever it was to fuck off and give me a few fucking hours of peace, but when I saw familiar dark hair and green-brown eyes appear in the doorway, I didn’t open my bloody mouth.

  Cheska’s gaze swept around the room. A flicker of a smile kicked up her lips as she drank in the mass of books. While she was busy observing the study, I was busy looking at her. Her bruises were practically gone, just one place on her cheek where a slight blue tone was apparent on her olive skin.

  She wore skinny jeans and a short white t-shirt. There wasn’t a scrap of makeup on her face, and she still looked like a fucking model. As if she’d heard that compliment, she turned back to me and squared her shoulders.

  “So, this is where you’ve been hiding?” Her posh fucking Chelsea accent washed over me. Normally I couldn’t stand that Queen’s English bollocks, but it was perfect coming from her. I lit a cig and just watched her, wondering what she might do, why she was even here. I should have sent her the fuck away, back to my bedroom and out of my sight.

  But my mouth chose to stay shut.

  She stepped further inside, glancing over her shoulder at me as she turned and closed the door. As it clicked shut, she leaned against the old wood. She met my eyes fucking head-on. Then her gaze scanned down me.