Lord of London Town

“I met them at a nightclub,” she said, and Cheska tensed. Ronnie met Cheska’s eyes. “I snuck in underage. I met them at the bar. They bought me drinks. They offered me a job, saying they didn’t care that I was too young.” Ronnie’s voice was tight and weak, but she was speaking. She was fucking exorcising her past in the Bentley’s back seat as it took us back to the one place no one would dare come for us. The one fucking place I could keep us protected.

My fucking family’s fortress.

“I was young,” Ronnie said. “I said they’d need to speak to my parents.” Ronnie swallowed like she was choking back a lump made of stone. “I didn’t know my dad had gambling problems. I didn’t know he had racked up thousands of pounds in debt with a loan shark.” She shook her head. “Only, it wasn’t a loan shark. It was a group, an organisation.” Ronnie looked at Cheska’s focused face. “A pack of demons pretending to be good people.”

“What did they do?” Cheska asked.

Vera pulled Ronnie close, and Ronnie continued. “They came to our door. I thought they were there to get permission for me to work for them, so I could help bring in cash to the house. We were poor.” Ronnie gazed out of the window. “But we were happy. When my dad opened the door, I knew something was up. His voice started shaking, and my mum could see something was wrong too.”

Ronnie’s free hand fisted on her thigh. “They were there to offer my old man a deal—all his debt wiped if he handed me over. If they’d let them take me away.”

“How old were you?” Cheska asked.

“Seventeen,” Ronnie said. “He said no, of course. My mum was screaming and praying to God to save us from their evil. He didn’t.” Ronnie’s voice grew hoarse. “They shot them.” The air in the car became charged with hatred and rage. Not just from me, but from Vera, from Ronnie, and by the tightness of her lips, Cheska too. “They brought them to their knees and killed them. Shot them for refusing to sell me.”

“Who would do that?” Cheska asked, her greenness to this life showing in spades. “What kind of loved one would sell their child? Their family?”

“I’d say at least half of that container were debt payments made by desperate or dogshite parents,” Ronnie said coldly.

“No,” Cheska said, but Ronnie nodded.

“Kidnappings, debt payments, runaways, prostitutes. You name it. They make people vulnerable, or prey on the already weak.”

Cheska looked at me and saw by my unmoved face that it was true. We stayed the fuck away from that kind of work, but it was fucking thriving in the London underworld. Dealing in sex and human trafficking was a one-way ticket to money. Lots of fucking money.

“Where …” Cheska straightened her shoulders. “Where did you go? What happened to you?”

“I was sold. Sold at a market—”

“A market?”

“Like cattle,” Vera spat, drying Ronnie’s cheeks with her hands. “Paraded in a ring for people to buy as slaves—for cleaning, fucking, or whatever they fucking wanted.” The famous Adley anger pulsed from Vera’s voice. She was pissed at what her girlfriend had gone through.

“Where did they take you?” Cheska asked. “Abroad?”

Ronnie made sure Cheska was looking right at her when she said, “Knightsbridge.”

“But … what?” Cheska whispered.

“I was kept in a cage, in a basement in Knightsbridge. I was fucked and beaten by a couple who had a thing for pain. For years I served them, gave them whatever they wanted from me. Until they went away on business and the person watching their house had a heart attack and died in front of me.”

“You ran,” Cheska said, pride for Ronnie in her voice.

Ronnie nodded. “I was from the East End. I knew only one family who could help me. Knew only one group of people who could keep me safe and maybe help me bring my captors to justice.” Ronnie smirked and looked right at me. I remembered the day she landed on our doorstep, nothing but skin and bone and covered in bruises, but telling us she’d do anything for us if we helped her. “I knew the Old Bill wouldn’t help me.” She smiled wider. “So, I came to the good guys.”

“The good guys,” Cheska echoed, and met my eyes. The look she was throwing my way made my fucking lungs burn. She knew. My bird knew because she’d done the fucking same.

“And they helped me. Helped me find the couple and let me get my revenge.”

“The couple … they didn’t tell you who sold you to them? The group?”

“It was a front,” Vera said. “A fucking labyrinth of cover-ups and dead ends. A well-oiled machine of deception.”

“My old man took her on and gave her work in one of our factories,” I said, and the colour slowly came back to Ronnie’s face, the fucking life. “Rose to intel when he found out she’d been a hacker as a kid. Vera’s old man took her under his wing after that.”