Lord of London Town Read online

  “She’d love you,” I said.

  Cheska’s face crumpled in sadness. “And I’m sure I’d love her. Your sister too.”

  I nodded, a smile pulling on my lips. Because Pearl would have loved Cheska. She’d told me many times that she wished she’d had a sister instead of me—her annoying big brother.

  I stayed kneeling on the ground until the sky started to lighten. Until the pitch black of the sky started to turn royal blue. Taking Cheska’s hand, I said, “Let’s go home.”

  “Is it my home?” Cheska whispered, showing me how the wounds I’d inflicted last night had cut her deep.

  I didn’t know if it was feeling my mum around me that pushed me, or whether it was just Cheska. My heart and fucking black soul recognising her as ours and claiming her for all time. But I pulled her face to mine. “Princess …” I said, feeling my pulse throb in my neck. Feeling heat scald my skin even though it was baltic here outside. Cheska held her breath. “I …” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I love you.”

  “Arthur,” Cheska cried and crushed her mouth to mine.

  So I fucking took her mouth right back.

  “What I have is yours, princess,” I said, and Cheska folded into my chest. “Everything, it’s all fucking yours.”

  “I just want you.” She sighed. “I’ve always just wanted you. Only ever you, Arthur.”

  The drive back to London was quiet, the winter sky lightening until the sun was out and we pulled up at the church. Cheska had fallen asleep on me, head in my lap. Not wanting to wake her, I carried her into the church. Betsy and Charlie came to the hallway, checking who’d just come inside.

  When Betsy saw Cheska in my arms, with her arms hooked around my neck even in sleep, she gave me a relieved smile and went back into her room. Charlie winked at me, choosing not to give me shit about leaving the house when I’d ordered everyone else to stay locked down.

  I placed Cheska on the bed, removed her trainers and put her under the covers. I watched her move around, but ultimately sleep took her under again. I threw off my jacket and went into the kitchen. I boiled the kettle and made myself a cup of tea. I was knackered, fucking empty inside, but … but I felt different. Like I’d just woken up from a decade of being knocked out cold. Like I’d just stepped out of a year-long storm into a fucking summer’s day.

  I went into the living room to drink my builder’s tea and saw Vinnie was sat in his usual place. The fucker hardly ever slept. He was beside the fire as always. I almost left the room, needing to be alone. But I stopped in the doorway when I thought of Cheska. Of the night he told her about her mates, that they didn’t blame her for their deaths. I thought of Eric and what he said weeks back … You haven’t got paranoid schizophrenia at all, have you? You’re a fucking medium or some shit. Talking to the dead all day every day …

  My feet were moving before I was conscious of it. I sat down opposite Vinnie, my fucking mug of tea shaking in my hand. “Artie,” Vinnie greeted me, his manic smile spreading on his lips. I had no idea what went on in my brother’s head. Wasn’t sure how he got through every fucking day. But out of us all, with the hallucination of Pearl by his side, he was probably—ironically—the only one who lived a somewhat normal life.

  I thought that, despite the mental illness, he was happy.

  “Vin.” I downed half my scalding tea. It burned as it went down my throat. Vinnie was staring into the fire, lost in his head as always. But like he could read my fucking mind, he turned to me, and I knew he was waiting for me to speak. His shoulder-length blond hair fell over half his face. My heart pounded like I’d just run a fucking marathon.

  I inched forward on my chair, the rhythmic tick-tock of the grandfather clock behind me my soundtrack as I asked, “Are they okay?” My voice was so weak I wasn’t sure Vinnie had heard me. That was, until he nodded his head. I nodded back. “Did …” I stared at my hands. I placed the tea on the table between us and clasped my hands together. I lifted my eyes to Vinnie. “Did they feel pain?”

  Vinnie didn’t need me to explain who I was talking about. He knew. Somehow, he always fucking knew. “No pain,” he said, shaking his head. “It was quick. Like falling asleep.”

  Relief coursed through me. I exhaled a sigh and got to my feet. I was dog tired and just needed to sleep. I wanted to fucking pull Cheska close to me and close my eyes. As I passed Vinnie, I pressed a hand on his shoulder in thanks.

  He grabbed my hand as I went to leave. I looked down at my brother-in-arms, and he said, “She’s glad you went back.” The hairs on my neck stood on end. “To say goodbye. She was happy to see you there.” I nodded, pretty fucking sure I couldn’t have bloody spoken if I tried.

  Vinnie let go of my hand. “Your mum likes Cheska. She likes her a lot. Said she’s happy you let her into your heart … at last.” Chills spread over my skin. Because I could hear Mum saying it. Hear her thick cockney accent saying those exact words, then kissing me on the cheek.

  Vinnie went back to staring into the hearth, and I went to my bedroom in a fucking daze. I threw off my clothes, then crawled into bed with my bird. I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back into my chest. “I love you,” she murmured, still mostly asleep.

  As her breathing evened out, I replied, “Love you too, princess.” I knew I wasn’t ever going to be the most romantic person on the bastard planet. I was a fucking East End London gangster; my blood ran with hate and vengeance. I didn’t show love to anyone. But maybe … just fucking maybe …

  I kissed the back of Cheska’s neck, hearing her sigh in response.

  Maybe I could make an exception for her. Only ever for her.

  Always her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  CHESKA

  “Again,” Eric said as I wiped the sweat from my brow.

  I sucked in a deep breath, then held my dagger tightly. I rushed at Eric, knocking his arm away to stop him grabbing me, and pressed the tip of my hairpin dagger to his heart.

  “Good,” Eric said as I stepped back. “Better.”

  I grabbed my bottle of water from the leaf-strewn churchyard ground. I gulped the cool liquid down and tipped my head back, looking up at the grey sky. It was freezing outside, but I was sweating. Hours of practice out here, amongst the old headstones, with Eric were helping me shed some of the anxiety I had been feeling lately. The pent-up frustration from the guilt that still lingered in my stomach, and the aching sadness of missing my friends, my dad, Hugo.

  I faced Eric again as Charlie stepped into the churchyard with us to light a cigarette. He leaned back against the wall of the house and watched me with an amused expression on his face.

  Eric took my dagger and turned the tip on his shirtless body. He pressed it to his heart. “Remember, hairpin daggers are most effective at piercing major organs, not slitting throats or tearing flesh.” He pressed it into his skin, leaving a dent to show me precisely where I should aim if I ever had to use it. “Heart,” he said, then lowered it. “Lungs. Kidney. Liver,” he said, moving to each in turn, then he dropped it to his thigh. “Major arteries. Here.” Then to his neck. “Here.” He pressed the dagger to his temple and smiled. “And if you want to be a proper fucking savage, the temple. Send this fucker straight into the brain. Through the eye works too.”

  I felt nauseous at the thought. But I had to know. I had to be prepared for anything. I had been helpless last time someone came for me. If it happened again, I’d be prepared. I’d be able, in some way, to fight back.

  So, I had taken Eric up on his offer of training me to use the daggers Ronnie, Vera and Gene had given me for my birthday. Arthur had been teaching me how to shoot. But after Dad and Hugo and that night in the pits, guns were still a bit too much for me.

  Still, he had taken me to the church’s cellar and helped me aim. He insisted I learn regardless, that in this life I needed to at least know how to use one. And my heart warmed when I thought of the reason why.

  Because he couldn’t bear to lose me.

 
; It had been a few days since our visit to the cottage, and he had barely left my side. As if I were the Holy Grail, and he the head of the Knights Templar. If I wasn’t with him, I was with one of his family members. Someone was always at the church with me and Gene. Adley soldiers patrolled the house twenty-four-seven.

  It was a fortress.

  I would have thought it all too excessive. But I had seen my friends and family killed. Lived every moment of my kidnapping every day. I had now seen the footage of Arthur’s mum being attacked and thrown inside her cottage. And I had seen the fear in Arthur’s blue eyes. I had seen the worry as the raking of the city for the unseen enemy came up empty. I felt it as he held me close to him at night. As he kissed me and as he sank inside me, haunted gaze locked on mine.

  Eric handed me back the dagger.

  “I’d be careful to not show Betsy those moves.” I motioned to the red dots that remained on his body from the demonstration. “She might be inclined to use them on you the next time you piss her off.” Which was more than often. My head ached when I tried to figure them out. They claimed they hated each other, but their heated looks and frequent shags said otherwise.

  “She’d try,” Eric said, the clown tattoos smiling demonically on his skin as he threw on his t-shirt. “But we’d just end up fucking and dripping in blood—my favourite.”

  Charlie coughed behind us. “I’m her brother, you twat. Spare me from hearing shit like that.”

  “It’s okay, Chuck. It’s not like I’m asking you to watch.” Eric walked into the house. “I need to get showered and head to the club. You did good today, Ches.”

  “Thank you!” I called after him, getting a wave in response.

  Charlie shook his head as I walked toward the house. “They need to either actually get together or leave each other alone,” he said, referring to Eric and Betsy. “If I have to hear them angry-fucking one more time while we’re all stuck in this house, I’m going to slit their throats myself. There’s just some things a brother shouldn’t have to be subjected to.”

  I laughed. “If it’s any consolation, I think they love each other to death.”

  “To death,” Charlie mused, flicking his finished cigarette into a drain. “I’m afraid that’s what might happen one day if they push each other too far.” The spark in his brown eyes told me he was joking, but the way they pushed one another at times—it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility.

  “They’ll work it out,” I said, shrugging. “It took me and Arthur years to get to this point.” I felt my face burn. Charlie knew this, of course. He’d been there through it all.

  He eyed me, and I wondered what he was thinking. Then he said, “These past few days …” He stared off over the top of the ancient headstones in the garden. “Before you. Before you came back, I mean. We’d have been razing London to the ground by now. After he’d seen that video, the old Artie would have been drenched in blood and still taking people down minute by minute until he had found out who was to blame. He would have made us even more enemies, and we would have had to double all our firm’s protection efforts for the next few years until the people he took out during one of his black-out rages backed the fuck down.” Charlie smirked. “Or until they were killed by my cousin too.”

  My heart fell.

  Dark. That was all Arthur’s life was before. Just pure darkness. Nothing good.

  “But he’s thinking this time. Using his men more. Ronnie, Vera, letting them use the skills they’ve wanted to bring to the firm for a while now.” Charlie stepped off the wall and straightened his jacket and tie. “He’s being smart about the revenge. He’s coming to us all for advice, involving us in the decisions.”

  Pride surged through me at Charlie’s assessment. “Arthur has always led this family well. He is the best gaffer this firm could’ve asked for. People either love him or are shit-scared of him. And rightly so. He was born to do this. To run this fucking lawless city. But this version of him? This thinking Arthur, the one who’s using his brain … this is the one everyone should be fucking petrified of. Because Arthur is strong, and violent, and can fight like a bloody pit bull. But the edge he has on everyone else in the crime underworld is that he’s fucking clever. He’s intelligent. That’s the part of my cousin I’ve been waiting to see come out, to see put into action. But the rage had to go first.”

  He laughed. “Or at least turned down to a simmer instead of an uncontrollable flame.” Charlie nodded at me, true gratitude on his handsome face. “We have you to thank for that, Cheska. With you by his side, he is truly lethal. And in our world, that’s the equivalent of winning the bloody lottery.”

  I shrugged. “I just love him.”

  “And he loves you.” Charlie went to go back inside, but his attention was pulled in the direction of the garden. I followed his gaze to see Gene sitting down against a tree. He lit a cigarette and just stared out at the sky. A look I couldn’t decipher flashed over Charlie’s face as he watched Eric’s younger brother.

  “He seems lost,” I said, feeling sympathy for the young man. Twenty years old and so, so lost.

  “Yeah,” was all Charlie said, then he went back inside the house before I could say anything else.

  I followed and had just sat down in the living room when Ronnie burst out of her room and toward us. She had bags under her eyes, and her hair was unstyled, her clothes rumpled. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes searched the room.

  “Arthur?” she asked.

  “Here,” Arthur said, coming up behind Ronnie. His eyes immediately fixed on mine, and at the heat in his gaze, I wanted nothing more than to disappear into our bedroom with him. Arthur pushed past Ronnie and leaned down and kissed me. He picked me up off the chair as if I weighed nothing and placed me on his lap. I immediately felt at home.

  “I’ve got a trace,” Ronnie said. Arthur tensed beneath me. I stared at Ronnie. Charlie, Freddie, Vinnie and Eric had all stopped talking, and their heads swerved her way. Betsy, clearly hearing the commotion in the living room, slipped inside.

  “What did you get, babes?” Vera asked Ronnie.

  “They’re in South London.” She waved the piece of paper in her hand. “The video that was sent to you, the encrypted number,” she said, so fast I struggled to keep up. “It came from South London.”

  “Where?” Arthur said darkly, lighting a cigarette.

  “I haven’t managed to pin it down yet. But I will. I know I will.” A manic, sleep-deprived smile spread on Ronnie’s pretty face. “This is the first breakthrough I’ve had on these fuckers. Ever.”

  Arthur was still unmoving beneath me. Still tense. “Good job, Ron,” he said. Vera got up and kissed her girlfriend.

  “I’ll keep going,” Ronnie said, and they left the room.

  “South London.” Charlie became lost in thought. “None of the usual lot down there seem likely to have the resources to do something on this level.”

  “They don’t,” Arthur said. “This isn’t someone we know already. No two-bit drug-dealer unit could swing all this. This is someone else. Something else. The gangs we know of in South London—all through London—are pretenders next to this group. These cunts are a motherfucking empire. A hidden fucking empire.” Arthur inhaled a drag of his cigarette, then exhaled. “Because only another empire could come at us like this.” He flicked the ash into the ashtray beside us. “But empires fall. And these fuckers are going to be buried along with anyone else who tries to tear my family down.”

  I felt Arthur’s lips on my shoulder. “Let’s go, princess.” I recognised that tone in his voice. I stood, and he followed me into the bedroom. He peeled off my clothes and turned on the shower.

  Arthur fucked me against the wall, his lips on my mouth, my cheeks, my breasts. He fucked me hard and fast until I screamed out in the foggy, steamy room. Arthur’s skin was slick against mine, his head tucked into the crook between my neck and shoulder as he came, his roar echoing around us.

  Stil
l inside me, he carried me to the bed and laid us down. He kissed me like he would devour me. His hands slipped over every inch of my skin like he owned it.

  He did. He owned me heart and soul.

  Breathless, I tore away from his mouth and gasped for air. Arthur, still unwilling to release me, pulled me into his chest, and I caught my breath, watching the sunlight fade in the skylight above.

  “Checked in with my contact in your family’s business today.” I lifted my head and stared into Arthur’s eyes. He had slipped his glasses back on and lit cigarettes for us both. He passed one over to me.

  “You did?” I asked, taking a drag.

  “They’ve hired a temporary CEO while you’re still a missing person.” I swallowed and smoked, the tobacco calming me down. “The police are still running around like idiots, falling for our false leads. They still haven’t recovered your dad and Fuckface’s bodies.” I tensed, wondering where they might have been dumped. Arthur and Charlie thought they had probably been burned. No evidence that way.

  “And Freya and Arabella?”

  “Both have been buried. Funerals were done as soon as their bodies were released by the police. The investigation is still open.” Arthur placed his hand under my chin and lifted it up. “There won’t be any answers for their families. At least, not until we bury these fuckers and you’re able to be seen again.”

  I swallowed. “What would I tell them?”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  I traced the inked London skyline on Arthur’s chest, my fingertip ghosting over the top of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. “I’m not sure I ever want to be found.” I sighed, feeling more than off-kilter at the thought of returning in any way to my old life.

  Arthur put his cigarette in his mouth and pulled me up to lie on his chest. My face hovered above his. Leaving his cigarette perched between his lips, he said, “You’re too high profile, princess. You’re Cheska Harlow-Wright, not some fucking nobody.” A shadow crossed over his face. “If you want to be with me, and not have every fucking bobby in the country thinking it was my family that took you, you have to resurface at some point.”