Lord of London Town

Cheska turned to face me, and I held my chin up, telling her to wait for me. That I’d be coming for her. That no matter what happened, to fucking hold out for me. A weak smile pulled on her face, and she was pushed into the van. The doors shut behind her.

I wanted to charge. To fucking nut the men holding me and send bullets through all their fucking skulls. But I had to think. I had to fucking think. I was outnumbered and wouldn’t put Cheska and Gene at risk of being killed.

Freddie smirked at me victoriously as he watched me be shoved into the back of the van. The two fuckers that were holding me got in with me too. As the van doors closed, I saw Freddie slip into the back seat of the car.

My phone rang. One of the twats beside me heard it, reached into my pocket and smashed it under his foot. But not before I saw the name: Ronnie.

She’d found me something. Ronnie and Vera had fucking found me something.

The engine started and the van pulled away from the church. My hands were tied behind my back with gaffer tape. Stupid fuckers should have used titanium cuffs or some shit. Because I was getting out. I was getting out, and when I did, I was bringing the wrath of the fucking devil down on their heads.

Reaching up, I went to the waistband of my trousers and to the hidden pocket. Not making a single bit of noise, I pushed the knife I kept hidden on me out of the pocket, flipped it in my hands and started cutting through the tape. The pricks beside me were watching out of the blacked-out windows, no doubt checking for any of my men following us. The driver was sealed off by a blackout partition.

The tape gave way under my blade, and my hands got free. My breathing deepened as I tried to work off the last of the effects of the taser. I flexed the muscles in my legs, testing their strength. It was enough. It was enough to fucking kill these bastards and get the fuck out of this van.

I gripped the knife harder, then, in a fucking flash, slashed the sharp blade across both the fuckers’ throats, one at a time, from behind—they never saw me coming. Their eyes widened as they started to thrash. I pulled them to their backs, weighing them both down with my knees on their chests so they were pinned to the van’s floor and the driver wouldn’t hear anything. Their blood drenched me. I ripped their balaclavas off as they fought for breath. I stared right into their newly bared faces as death came calling. I didn’t recognise them. Nothing about them gave me any idea about who the fuck these pricks were.

They were both clutching their throats, pathetically trying to close up the slash. Then I saw their wrists … I fucking saw it: the brand. That circular brand with the V-type shape in the centre. The brand that had become my fucking trigger. The mark that made me want to eviscerate them, all the fuckers in the fucked-up group.

And Freddie was one of them. He was bloody one of the ones who’d killed my mum and sister, and now he’d killed my dad, once and for all, Alfie Adley nothing but a corpse on the bed he’d been stuck in for too many months. I pushed the thoughts from my head. I didn’t have fucking time to think about all that yet and keep my head straight. I had to get out of this fucking van. I had to get back to my family, to my men.

Then the hunt would begin.

The men stopped moving beneath me, and I silently climbed over them and unlatched the van’s back doors. Thank fuck it was an older van that didn’t have sensors that would alert the driver. I turned the lock, then threw the doors open. I knew the road the minute I saw it—we were still in the East End. Still in my fucking kingdom.

Seeing no cars behind us, I jumped from the van and onto the tarmac. I slammed onto the hard ground, my skin ripping at the contact. I didn’t feel it. Not a fucking thing. My heart and any ability to feel anything was driving away with my fucking bird up ahead, heading to Christ knew where. Only the need to kill and seek revenge kept me going. Kept my mind fixed on what I had to do.

And then I was fucking running. When I got behind a nearby building, I looked back at the road and saw the van Cheska and Gene were in and Freddie’s car up ahead. They turned left, then disappeared out of sight.