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.”