As the huge Russian steps further into the room, the burgundy walls start closing in on me. I drop my eyes to the table and count the footsteps until a rough finger is sliding under my chin and jerking it back up.
“Stand,” he orders.
I do as he says, my white napkin fluttering from my lap. He stinks of hard alcohol, strong cigarettes, and something cruel and unforgiving.
“Your fear has the sweetest scent, meelaya.” He presses his fleshy wet lips to my cheek, his words curling around my soul and squeezing. “You don’t think I see the fire in your eyes? The way you long to be free of this house?” He clucks impatiently with his tongue. “Your quiet defiance is louder than you think. O’Sullivan may have beaten some modesty into you, but you’re still just a little English slut hungering for my cock.” With this, he wraps his palm around my throat, his fingers bruising my skin. “I don’t think I can wait another four weeks, meelaya,” he adds huskily. “O’Sullivan won’t mind if I have a taster tonight. You’re as good as mine already.”
He crowds me up against the table.
“Please,” I whisper, reaching behind me, my hand closing around an empty wine glass. “I don’t want it to be like this, Kirill.”
“You’ll take it however I give it, meelaya.” His flat face curves into a lethal smile. “My heirs will be created from suffering to make them stronger. You will bleed before I am satisfied.”
Nausea burns the back of my throat as he drops his other hand to the hemline of my dress. Humming to himself, he draws it slowly up my bare legs as I cringe against the edge of the table—still gripping the stem of the wine glass—not thinking about consequences anymore, just survival.
“It’s time to see what O’Sullivan is prepared to offer me in exchange for my cooperation.” He sweeps aside the plates and cutlery and tries to force my shoulders flat to the table.
“No!” I go to swing the glass against the side of his head, but he catches my wrist.
“I like it when you fight, Ada,” he says, chuckling darkly. “Just remember you will never win. I have been dreaming about breaking this pussy ever since you were a little girl. Ever since O’Sullivan forced you to come and live in this house.”
Disgusted, I try to roll away, but he’s twice as big as me and twice as strong. His grip on my wrist tightens, and I drop the wine glass with a yelp.
He goes to pull my legs apart. Rough fingers start tearing at my underwear.
“Please, stop! Please!”
Somewhere outside this nightmare, outside the sound of Kirill’s determined grunts to get at me, I hear the door to the dining room swing open.
“Anika, see to it that we remove the dirty plates first—” The voice of O’Sullivan’s housekeeper, Orla, stops sharply, her stone-grey eyes fixing on mine.
“Get out!” Kirill snarls, barely looking up as Anika goes crashing into the back of her, and then scuttles away like a frightened rabbit.
Help me.
Please help me.
Orla hesitates, her mouth flattening into a thin red line, as she averts her gaze. Through a veil of tears, I see her hand clench around the door handle.
There’s a pause laced with indecision.
“I apologise for the interruption, Mr. Semenov,” she says brusquely, just when I think all hope is lost. “Mr. O’Sullivan is looking for you. I understand it’s quite urgent.”
It’s a lie.
Lies have subtle nuances. They never come out as smooth as the deceiver intends. Orla’s words were too jerky for her usual, passive monotone.
Cursing angrily, Kirill climbs off me, and the air comes rushing back into my lungs.
Pausing to take a long swig from Roisin’s half-drunk bottle of Latour, he pushes past Orla, leaving me lying across the ruined dinner table, my dress still pushed up to my hips, and shaking like a leaf.
The next thing I hear is a click as the door shuts firmly again.
Orla’s mercy will never stretch to kindness, but in this house of fear and broken hearts, I’ll take whatever I can get.
CHAPTER 5
FRANKIE
“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” Aiden grumbles, shoving crisps into his mouth faster than he can swallow them. “I thought we were shoulder surfing again today?”
“I’m expanding the empire, fuckface,” I mutter around a mouthful of black plastic before slipping the ‘Lebanese Loop’ into the ATM card reader. Slamming the fake fascia into place, I turn and shoot him a grin. “This way we can steal their money out of their hands and read their PINS. Chill the fuck out, Raven. High blood pressure doesn’t suit you.”
“Neither does a two-year stretch in a juvenile detention centre,” he drawls, recovering some of his attitude.
At sixteen, my adopted brother is a couple of years younger than me, and most of that is easy charm and mouth. He’s a good kid, though. He never asked questions about why I ended up on his parents’ doorstep seven years ago. He just accepted the home invasion and moved on.
Matteo would have liked him, too. Aiden even looks like my blood brother with his messy dark hair and watchful eyes. That’s why I call him Raven. Nothing escapes him. Girls fucking love him. The good-looking bastard is already collecting blow job rent from most of the neighbourhood whores.
“No one’s getting busted,” I reassure, shoving the tools of my crime into my back pocket. “Not on my watch.”
I say it with confidence because I’m a good criminal. My bloodline found its way to the surface, even when it was forced to live in a council house in Shoreditch with two law-abiding foster parents. In the last year, I’ve stolen close to a hundred grand with these kinds of cashpoint scams.
“Yeah, but why here?” Aiden yawns, shoving the empty crisps packet into his jacket pocket. “A nun sees more action than this ATM... Take a look around us, Frankie,” he says, gesturing to the empty pavements. “This street is dead. The door to that shitty newsagent on the corner hasn’t swung open once since we’ve been here, and that fucking library looks like it belongs in the eighteenth century. Don’t these people know there’s an internet revolution going on?”
“Why read soft porn when you can download the hard stuff for free?” Stifling another grin, I glance at the crumbling, grey-stone building. I stopped reading books the night my family was killed. There were too many good guys. Not enough villains. Clean endings will never be my reality, so why read about them happening to other people?
When I finally come for O’Sullivan, I don’t expect to be walking out alive.
Not that Aiden will ever know.
My new family were told my folks died in a car crash. They never questioned it, and I never volunteered the truth. Besides, they have a selective memory where Tommaso Zaccaria is concerned. Back in the early days, any mention of his name was instantly shut down with blank stares and subject changes, so I gave up trying.
It doesn’t stop my restlessness, though. With each year, my hunger for revenge multiplies. O’Sullivan from the past has morphed into my entire future. His face is the first thing I see when I wake up and the last thing at night, right before I pass out drunk again.