Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 128585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 643(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128585 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 643(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
“Did they keep anyone alive for questioning?” I asked.
“They killed themselves,” Betsy said. “When they knew they couldn’t beat us all. They killed themselves first.”
“Fucking cowards,” I snarled.
“What now?” Charlie asked, keeping his shit together, the fucking calm to my raging storm. That was why we worked as well as we did. Why he was my fucking closest friend. He was my true fucking brother.
Not bastard, traitorous Freddie.
“I need a computer,” I said and rushed to the study. I had to focus on how to get her back. Not on the thought of them hurting her, of fucking selling her … killing her.
My fingers smashed onto the keys, smearing them with blood. I brought up the tracking programme I used to have hidden on my phone, then …
“Deptford,” I said, Cheska’s tracker taking me right to the viper’s nest. Freddie had mentioned Deptford. The fucker had never been as smart as the rest of us. But I should have seen the signs. I should have seen that he lived in a family he hated. Seen through his act.
I heard the door open and snapped my head up, my body primed to attack. But it was just my cousin. Charlie was fucking white as his feet stopped just inside the study. “Alfie,” he said. Eric and Vinnie came in behind him.
“He killed him,” I said. “Dad fucking woke up, and Freddie killed him.” I kept my emotions tamped down. I fought to keep them subdued until I was able to set them fucking free. Channel them on the cunts that deserved everything that was building inside of me.
“No!” Betsy said from the hallway, clearly having just seen my dad too.
Someone smashed through the front door of the house. I was in the hallway in seconds—we all were. Vera and Ronnie stood there, guns drawn. “What the fuck happened?” Vera asked, eyes darting around the house for signs of trouble.
“Did you get anything?” I asked Ronnie, ignoring Vera. Her dark eyes fell to my blood-covered clothes.
I heard Eric telling Vera what was happening, that they had Gene. That they had Cheska. That my dad was fucking dead. All because of Freddie. Freddie fucking selling us out. A fucking wolf in sheep’s clothing living among us all these bastard years.
Checkmate. His smug voice in my head grated on my nerves. You’ve lost …
“Lawson,” Ronnie said, interrupting my dark thoughts. My focus instantly snapped to her. She swallowed like bile was clawing up her throat. “It’s Lawson,” she said again when I didn’t fucking move. “Ollie Lawson.”
Fire raged through me, incinerating every cell, every fucking fibre in my body. Ronnie’s dark eyes never left mine as her words hit me like fucking bullets. A spray of fucking bullets that sank into my organs, shutting every one of them down. Until I was dead. Until I was fucking walking death.
“Ollie Lawson,” I said, his name from my lips like fucking cancer. I tensed, stopped fucking breathing, and saw that fucker’s face in my mind. All this fucking time it was Lawson… Ollie motherfucking Lawson!
I shook, braced to fucking explode with napalm. He was there, all along, right under our fucking noses. Laughing right in our motherfucking faces!
The cunt kept clear of the underworld, like the fucking rat he was. No honour, no fucking code that all we fucked-up criminals lived by in this town. Claimed his family had a true business. A legit motherfucking business. Import and export.
Import and motherfucking export.
He traded in humans. Trafficked under the guise of a booming mainstream company. Hidden in plain sight, with pathetic brands on their skin and coward hearts in their chests. A fucking criminal cult packed with pussies too afraid to let their fucked-up faces be seen.
I was going to murder them. Motherfucking Ollie Lawson. Freddie fucking Williams. I was going to fucking massacre them all.
Ronnie handed over a thick file. I took it, the wrath inside me building and building until all I could breathe in was death. “Traffickers. All these bastard years existing under everyone’s noses. Gradually taking out crime families. Stealing contracts. Stealing kids, selling them across the world, and taking the entire criminal underworld down like fucking thieves in the night.”
“Get everyone gathered,” I said, my voice sounding fucked up even to my ears. “Every fucking soldier we have. Get them ready for war. Because we’re going in tonight to get these cunts. This coward-laced empire falls tonight.” I flicked through the file, then stopped when I saw something on one of the later pages. I read the information—text messages, transcripts, emails with no IP addresses … and my blood turned to tar as it tried to push through my fucking demonic heart.
I lifted my eyes. Ronnie was already watching me, waiting for me to see one crucial piece of information. She nodded in confirmation, and as I read it again, just to let the fucking words sink in, a cool blast of calm trickled down my spine.