We’re standing next to the truck, Oliver’s bike off and parked a few feet away.
I shrug. “If he even noticed it when he left, I’ll just tell him the engine was acting up again and that I got a lift with a friend.”
Oliver frowns and looks away. “Why does this feel like we’re having a fucking affair when you’re not even with anyone.”
I smile wryly. “Because life is complicated, and fucked up?”
He smiles, shaking his head. “Truer words,” he growls quietly.
I lean up and kiss his cheek before I turn and open the creaky door to the truck. I’m, about to climb in when suddenly I gasp as he grabs me from behind. He spins me, and I moan as he presses me into the truck and kisses me so hard it takes my breath away.
“Fuck, Delphine,” he groans, panting as he pulls away. I press my forehead to his, shaking at the pure power in the way we kiss.
“I don’t like—”
I kiss him this time, searing my lips to his and gripping the neck of his hoodie tight in my hands. We stay like that, our lips glued together and our breaths mingling for I don’t even know how long. But when we do pull apart, I’m panting for air and my lips are swollen from him.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For everything. For taking me away, for…” I smile. “For all of it.”
“I’m coming back for you,” he growls fiercely.
“Yes please,” I whisper back. I slide up into the cab of the truck, and Oliver gently closes the door after me. I roll down the window as I start up the pickup, and he leans in to brush his lips against mine.
“And when I do,” he purrs, sliding a hand inside to cup my jaw. “When I do, I’m keeping you, all to myself.”
His lips crush to mine fiercely, bruising me, marking me, making me remember before he pulls back. Our eyes lock as I put the truck in gear and slowly, and painfully, drive away from him into the night.
Chapter Seven
Oliver
Ten Years Ago:
“Oy, you little fucking wanker.”
The hit comes hard—and I was expecting this one. I grunt, knocked to the ground with the force of his swing.
“Fuck you, you fucking pricks!”
Asa, my brother, lunges after me, but the fuckers holding him back don’t flinch or break. Instead, he gets a knee to the gut. Basher—that’d be the fat cunt who just pistol-whipped me across the temple—chuckles a wheezing, fat cunt laugh.
“Oy, you’re next, cunt.”
He starts to turn back towards me, but I haul back and spit a fat wad of spit up at him, catching him in the chest. Yep, it’s a stupid fucking move on a good day with Basher Bronson, Shoreditch’s most recent top thug-lord. As you might have guessed, a man named “Basher” isn’t exactly renowned for his cool temper and non-violent tendencies.
And today? Well, today is about as far from a “good day” as Basher can get. For one, his “sure thing” at the horse tracks was a no-show, which put him out a pretty pound, I’ll tell you that. He’s also short two kilos of marching powder from his latest delivery, which ain’t exactly helping his mood. Oh, right, and on top of that, he thinks I knocked up his sister, Silvia.
Believe me, I did no such thing.
I might be a scumbag, and a villain, but even scalawags like me have standards. And my dick is going nowhere near Silvia Bronson, who’s fucked easily two-thirds of East London. I’ve no bloody idea who the lucky father is, and I doubt Silvia does either. But my quid is on either Marcus Cooley or the bartender from the Ditch and Damned down on Queensgate Road.
But what the fuck do I know.
“You daft little prick.”
Fuck.
The hit comes real hard this time, and I can feel warm blood trickle quickly down my face. Asa roars and manages to get one arm free from Basher’s boys, and he slams an elbow into the fucker’s face. But we’re outnumbered about twenty to one right now, so while I appreciate the brotherly gesture, it’s a moot point. Asa bellows as four other fuckers tackle him back down and start to lay into him.
Now, if I didn’t fuck Silvia, and neither did Asa, this begs the question: why the fuck are we here on our knees in the middle of a warehouse straight out of a crime film getting the shit beat out of us? Why not tell Basher it wasn’t us, or fuck, get Silvia in here to confirm it?
Well, it’s because it’s a balance. It’s a give and take, like everything in Shoreditch. Right now, Basher’s giving it to us—“it” being the punishment he sees as warranted for saddling him with a sixth niece or nephew all from the same sister. The beatdown hurts, but it could be worse. He could be killing us, slowly and quite painfully.
The thing is, he might be pissed about Silvia and the newest addition to the Bronson family tree. But when he gets his hands on the daft cunts who were stupid enough to steal his cocaine or fuck up his track bets with a missing horse, well, those pricks are as good as dead.
…You can see where I might be going with this.
Right now, Basher’s doing the giving, for the crime of insulting what very, very little “family honor” the Bronson’s could possibly have left. But earlier today, Asa and I already did the taking.
Give and take. So long as Basher is concentrating on the giving, we might actually get away with the taking.
The two kilos are already gone—fenced to an Albania dealer in Camden for fifty-fucking thousand pounds, which is by far and away the best score Asa and I ever pulled in a very storied history of scores in our young lives. Oh, and that horse? Don’t worry, he’s living his best life right now.
See, the owner was “moved” to retire his prized stallion and gift him to a lovely retirement home for former racing animals after two enterprising and concerned citizens—that’d be Asa and me—showed him the evidence they had of betting collusion with known criminal entities. He fought it, especially when he realized how young Asa and I were. But thirty-thousand pounds, cash, courtesy of the coke we nicked from Basher, did a whole lot of talking, and the man caved.
Oh, and that “sure thing” of a horse? Well, seems everyone knew how sure a thing he was, which meant betting against him was “the daftest fucking thing I’ve seen all year,” as the bookie at the tracks muttered to us when we slid the remaining twenty thousand through the betting window to him.
But “sure things” who don’t even show up to the race? Well, that’s when the real fun started. And now, a hundred and forty thousand pounds in winnings later? Yeah, I’ll take a few cold cocks to the head from a cunt like Basher. I mean he isn’t going to murder what he thinks is the father of his new niece or nephew, right?
Basher glares down at me, and I blink away the trickle of blood that drips into my eye.
“You think you’re a smart fucker, don’t you?” he growls.
“Not smart enough to wear a condom with your bloody sister.”
His crew glances at each other like they can’t believe I’ve said it. Basher just smiles thinly.
“Oy, and he’s a fookin’ comedian too, now isn’t he?”
His grin widens, and he drops down onto his haunches to look me in the eye.