But I’d be taking away her future. Our future. Our home, our children, all those plans we made together would all be gone the minute I slit his throat. I didn’t want that for her or me. Our future was more important than her past.
If she was here right now, she’d hold my face, look at me with those beautiful eyes, and tell me she didn’t want this. I’d fought so hard to get here, to win her heart when all the odds were stacked against us. I wasn’t blowing it now. She needed a better man, so I’d be a better man.
“We ain’t going to Ireland or to America. We’re staying in Canning Town, and I suggest you keep your arse this side of the bridge and a long way from London. I’m assuming though, that at some point, you’ll decide that stupidity overrules reason, and you’ll come looking for her again. When that happens, we’ll be waiting, and Em won’t be alone. You won’t be reporting our little ‘visit’ to the police because if you do, we’ll be reporting your altercation at the university. I’m sure the university campus will have footage of you on camera. We’ll get a restraining order against you and then document you breaking it time and time again until the courts start taking this a little more seriously. How long before this shit bleeds into your job and you lose that? Then what? Your house, your car? How long you wanna keep playing this game for?”
“You have no fucking clue who you’re dealing with! A few quid to the right police contact and that security footage goes the same way as the rape kit.”
“How could you possibly have anything to do with the rape kit?” Kieran asked.
“The kid who arrested me was a newbie. They’re all gung-ho, but know hardly anything about evidence collection or procedure. All I needed to do was have a word with a few good friends at the station, grease a few palms, and one of them calls him and asks him to be messenger for the rape kit. Stupid kid thinks he’s helping out, and as soon as he touches that box, the case is dead.”
“Sooner or later, those contacts will run dry,” I warned him.
“You have no idea how far my reach goes. By the time I retire from that piece of shit job, Emily and I will be set for life.”
“You weaselly little fucker. What scam have you and your dirty copper friends got going then?” Kieran asked him.
“It doesn’t matter, Kier,” I told him standing up. “This guy’s done. Whoever he’s working with ain’t got no fucking loyalty if they can be bought. They’ll sell out sooner or later, and when that day comes, Frank, you’re history,” I told him.
“You have no idea what loyalty is. Your own family sold you out for peanuts.” The smug smirk on his fuck-ugly, bloodied face made me want to smack the piece of shit again but I held back, letting him say his piece. My family was solid. There’s not a single one of my brothers who could be bought. I didn’t have to ask him what he was talking about before Kieran muttered “Sylvia” to himself.
“So the penny drops,” Frank said sarcastically. “Took me all of five minutes to realize how useful she could be. I walked into the arena the night I came for Emily and offered her fifty quid to separate dipshit over here from her. Fifty quid and she was all alone. So don’t preach to me. There isn’t a drop of blood in that filthy, inked-up body of yours that’s faithful. All the more reason she belongs with me. Twelve years I’ve been waiting for her. That’s devotion.”
I waited for the stab of pain that came with Ma’s betrayal but there was none. There wasn’t even fucking surprise. “Sylvia ain’t family,” I told him.
“I give this knife to Kieran and ask him to gut you, tell him this is what our family needs—he’d do it. Just like I would for him. There’s no blood or money between any of us. There’s just loyalty. That’s what makes us family. And our family is a fucking army. You ain’t getting to a single one of us without the whole fucker army following. You think about that next time you decide to pay us a visit.”
I handed the knife to Kieran. “Find something to clean the prints off this and stick it in the second drawer down in the kitchen. Best wipe the prints off the drawer handles too.”
“Your prints are all over this place,” he told me.
“I can explain away all the prints except the knife and the drawer.” Kieran nodded and went off to do as I asked.
“This isn’t over,” Frank told me with a sneer.
“The fuck it ain’t,” I told him. “You come after Em or any other member of my family, and I’ll be waiting.” Just for good measure, I threw him a right jab to the face and knocked the fucker back out.
“We done here?” Kier asked me.
“We’re done,” I answered. As we walked to the front door, Em’s mum hovered in the doorway of one of the rooms, sporting a killer black eye.