Me. I was that bastard darkness. I was the one who had infected her. Tarnished her innocence.
“Fuck, Vin, you’re going to kill us all one day, right?” Eric sat forward on his chair. “We’ll wake up one night with you at the end of our beds about to stab us. You’re fucking barking, mate.”
“Eric,” Charlie warned.
Eric smiled at Charlie, and I knew the fucker wasn’t finished. “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, and that’s what sent you to the nuthouse.” Eric flicked his thumb at Vinnie. “We could make some serious money off this fucker.” Eric winked at Vinnie; Vinnie smiled back. It was a fucked-up sight, these two sadistic clowns grinning at each other. Normally only their victims got to see those crazy smiles.
“I talk to them,” Vinnie said, and we all stared at him. He shrugged. “Our old men. I talk to them all the time.” He looked at me. “Even Alfie. He comes to me too.”
My jaw clenched. I got the context. He was telling me that my old man was as good as dead. But I refused to fucking believe that. I refused to let him go. He’d wake up. I knew he’d wake up. Some fucking day.
Eric’s smile fell. His face had paled at the mention of our old men. He opened his mouth to say something, when Ronnie came back into the room. She pressed something on her tablet and the TV above the fire came to life. Seconds later we were watching men dressed in black silently killing Cheska’s dad and fiancé.
When the screen cut to black, Ronnie said, “No sound. No trace. Whoever these guys are, they’re good. Really fucking good.” Ronnie glanced to Vera, and Vera immediately got to her feet.
She wrapped her arm around Ronnie. “What is it, babe?”
Ronnie rewound the video, then stopped on a particular part. She zoomed in on one of the men’s hands. I squinted to see what we were looking at, and I saw the sliver of skin between his leather glove and the end of his jacket. Ronnie was watching me, waiting for me to see it.
“My traffickers.” She rubbed the mark on her shoulder. The same one this fucker wore on his wrist. Fire built at my feet and started to rise. I felt it incinerate my bones until it was everywhere. Until it was all I fucking was. The darkness, the fire, the evil that lived inside me, taking full control.
“What the fuck?” Vera snapped. “They’ve appeared again?”
“Been a while,” Charlie said, running his hand over his stubble. “What do they want with the Harlows?”
I was burning. I was fucking boiling, ready to explode. “They’re not getting near Cheska,” I snarled. “Where are they?” I said to Ronnie.
Her shoulders fell. “No address. No trace. Same as fucking always.”
“Cunts!” I shouted and threw my glass into the fire, watching it roar as the alcohol fuelled the already high flames. “I’m about fucking done with these wankers!”
Freddie jumped to his feet, staring at his phone. “Fuck’s sake!” He turned to me. “We’ve been motherfucking hit again.” I stilled and stared at my brother. He turned his phone to show me the text and the picture of the west dock, the empty shipping containers and the dead guards bleeding out on the ground.
“What the fuck is happening?” I said, grabbing my coat from the back of a chair. I threw it on, and my brothers followed suit. This was the fifth hit on our docks and haulage ships in the past six months. Some fucker was trying to get to me. And it was working. No one fucking took on the Adley firm. And no one challenged me and lived to tell the tale.
“Cowards,” I said. “Hiding behind sneaky attacks and killing guards. Face me, toe to toe. Cowards. Fucking face me!” I opened the barrel of my gun and checked it was full. I clicked it back into place and tucked it into the holster in my coat. “We’re going to check it out.” I turned to Betsy. “Watch Cheska. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
“I promise, Artie,” she said, and I felt the fire calm a little. Then I walked out of the room, my boys behind me. Whoever was fucking with our gear was going to die. So were the traffickers who’d fucked with Ronnie and now had their eyes on Cheska.
The devil inside wouldn’t let me fail.
Chapter Eight
CHESKA
My legs were stuck. I tried to move them, to run to Freya crawling on the floor a few feet away, but I couldn’t reach her. Her eyes widened and she reached for her throat. Blood. So much blood began to pour from her throat, pour from her ears, pour from her eyes.