“Sit down and have another drink.” O’Sullivan snaps his fingers at the bottle of whiskey on the table. “We’re here to talk business, not to be talked at by the mafia.”
“Then let’s do it.” Charlie Razor leans forward, his wrists still planted on either side of his placemat. “You took out five of my men last night, Cian. If that isn’t a declaration of war, you can suck my fucking dick.”
This has sixteen hands reaching for their guns before O’Sullivan roars at everyone to, “calm the feck down!”
I’m still shaking in the middle of it. Anticipating the carnage before it begins. Not every man in this room will be walking out alive because The Red Compass never points towards peace.
O’Sullivan glances at each player in the room before his putrid grey gaze settles on me. I hate those eyes, just as much as I hate the rest of him. It’s as if God himself refused to put colour into something that would never value kindness and humanity.
“Stand up,” he slurs.
I stumble to my feet, feeling the heat of a roomful of scrutiny on my cheeks. Feeling the eyes of the British, more so than the rest.
“Take a good look at her, gentlemen… She won’t mind, will you, Ada?” His voice drops to an unpleasant caress.
I stare at the ground, focusing on a small dark stain on the parquet flooring, spinning my mind off to a better place—a room with bookshelves and a mouth that promised me precious things.
“I’ve seen better tits on King’s Cross Road,” drawls Razor’s son.
“Svolach’!” Kirill explodes, slamming his fists down on the table. “In three weeks, that woman will be my wife!”
“More a girl than a woman though, ain’t she? You a fucking nonce?”
Meanwhile, O’Sullivan is watching Razor’s reaction to me. I’ve seen that look before. It’s his predator expression. He’s about to crush the mice between his claws
“I took her, right before I took out Lastra,” he says, pouring himself another drink. “Barely ten years old. Still in her fucking nightdress. Later, I went back in and fired a bullet right between her bitch of a mother’s eyes. I don’t like loose ends, you see?” He raises his glass at me as he says it.
No.
The blood starts pounding in my ears.
He killed her.
He killed my mother.
“Is there a point to this, or are you coming out as a fucking nonce, too?” Razor sounds bored, but there’s a tic working overtime in his jaw.
Kirill is up on his feet for a second time, threatening him with every kind of Bratva reprisal.
Pain and shock are making me sway on the spot. I force my lungs to work, but my first gasp of breath feels like broken glass. Razor’s son is staring at me again, and there’s almost a flicker of sympathy in his flat expression.
“Oh, there’s a point, Razor,” O’Sullivan drawls. “There’s always a fucking point with Ada, but you knew that already.”
He smiles, and then the room explodes into violence.
The first shots come from the Italian in the corner, the bullets fluttering the sleeves of my dress before wreaking havoc on the wall of Razor’s men.
I drop to the floor in terror as O’Sullivan erupts from his seat, reaching Razor in seconds. Driving a knife deep into his chest, he grabs him by the hair and smashes his head, face-first, into the table.
The Brit reels back in his chair, choking and spluttering. “You Irish bastard!” he rasps, staring at the knife sticking out of his body as his son next to him fumbles for his weapon. A beat later, he’s flat on his back and bleeding out from a hole in his shoulder.
Our gazes meet again—this time under the table—as his men fall around him like dominoes. “We came for you, Ada,” he wheezes, clutching at the spreading crimson patch on his white shirt. “We came for—”
Before he can say anything else, he’s being lifted to his feet. There’s a loud thump above me as he’s flung across the table, and then I’m being hauled up myself.
The smell of death hangs thick over the room. My dress isn’t white anymore, it’s red.
Razor is still alive, but not for much longer. He’s slumped in his chair, blowing crimson bubbles from his mouth, with a bloodbath strewn at his feet.
O’Sullivan’s eyes are glittering with that same hateful malice again.
“They underestimated me, Ada. They all fucking underestimated the great Cian O’Sullivan. If you walk into my house with your dick swinging, you better come in peace, or you’ll be carried out in a coffin, eh, Charlie Boy?” Surging forward, he buries another knife deep into his left shoulder. “This is my fucking compass! My fucking city!” he screams, like a man in the grips of madness. “You boys have had your fun, running around with your guns and whores, and messing with my business, but that ends today!”
“Ada.” Charlie Razor is looking right at me. Mouthing words that have no meaning.
“Took you long enough to figure it out.” O’Sullivan steps between us. “I know she’s the real reason you came here tonight.” He holds his hand out to Kirill who passes him a gun. “She’s also the reason you’re going to die…”
“At least I die with the truth on my lips, you Irish cunt.”
“Aye, that you will... Remember this moment, Ada,” he hollers out to me, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he presses the muzzle against Razor’s forehead. “This is your lineage going up in gun smoke.”
“You piece of shit,” rasps Razor. “Don’t you make her watch this.”
“On the fucking contrary, it’s why I brought her down here. Thought I’d give you a proper family reunion before I sent you straight to hell.”
“Cian, let her go!”
“Never.”
I can’t stop looking at Razor’s salt and pepper hair. It was so flawless when I first stepped into this room, and now it’s in such disarray. I can’t stop thinking how much his green eyes look like mine.
“Ready to be an orphan, Ada?” yells O’Sullivan, as my whole world shudders and shakes. “That’s right, sweetheart. You’re a bastard Razor child. Your old man here never even knew you existed until last week. Your mother kept you a bad secret until I found out.”
“No,” I whisper, but my word is lost to the thunder of bullets.
Razor’s body is driven backwards off the chair by the force of the firepower.
“Four become two, Charlie Boy.” O’Sullivan spits at his dead body and wipes his mouth again. “It’s only Irish and Russian flags flying over London now, with a little Italian flavour.” He nods in respect at the giant who’s busy dragging Razor’s dying son out of the room. “Take the lad down to the basement. We’ll work him over there. You’re coming too, Kirill. Leave Ada to say her first ‘hellos’ and her final ‘goodbyes’.”
The door slams shut, and I find myself alone again, only this time I’m counting the drips of my father’s blood as they hit the parquet floor; grieving for my mother and a stranger I never had the chance to know.
This time, I’m shaping my future into a needle-sharp point that I’ll be driving into Cian O’Sullivan’s murderous black heart one day, if it’s the last thing I do.