Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (56 page)

‘Don’t come any closer, or I’ll slit this bitch’s throat from ear to ear,’ he threatens with a tremor of panic in his voice.

Both Dom and Jake take a step back, Dom with both his hands raised, the palms showing.

Jake is the first to speak. ‘If you hurt her, we will kill you. If you let her go now, you have my word we’ll do nothing to you. We won’t go to the police. We’re gypsies—we settle everything on our own. I’ll even give you money.’

‘Money,’ Rob spits. ‘You think you can buy me? This is
my
bitch.’

I see Dom start, his face reddens, and his hands clench so hard the muscles of his shoulders bulge.

‘Listen,’ Jake says. ‘If you think you’re going to walk out of here alive after touching one hair on her head you’re mad.’

My breathing is shallow. Rob’s painfully firm grip on my shoulder has not eased at all.

I feel Rob’s body become tense. In the end he is a coward.

‘You’ll gain nothing by taking a life and surrendering your own. Make no mistake. If you harm her, we’ll kill you with our bare hands.’

Rob’s grip eases a fraction.

‘Let her go. We won’t hurt you,’ Jake adds persuasively.

‘You’ll not keep your word. I know how this works.’

Dom is as still as a statue.

‘No. My word is my honor,’ Jake says.

Rob’s face crumples. Suddenly, he erupts with the hysterical laughter of a madman. Nobody reacts. Both Dom and Jake remain stony-faced. As suddenly as he had begun laughing, he stops. ‘All right. Prove it,’ he says, and throws the knife on the ground.

No sooner does the knife hit the ground than Dom rushes forward with an incoherent cry of rage and starts kicking the shit out of Rob. In his uncontrollable frenzy, strings of curses stream out of his snarling mouth. ‘You fucking ugly cunt. You think you’re so big? Let’s see how big you are without your blade. Fucking piece of chicken shit.’

Jake grabs Dom by the front of his shirt and pushes him back.

‘Look at her face. He fucking hit her. I want to kill the fucking cunt,’ Dom roars.

‘No, you fucking don’t,’ Jake growls. ‘Take your woman out of this hellhole and leave me with him.’

Dom’s face is tight and tense, and his hands are clenched into fists. He takes a great shuddering breath as he fights to control his natural instinct.

Jake lets go of his shirt. ‘Go home, Dom.’

Dom turns toward me, his face immediately softening. Taking his jacket off, he covers my half-naked body with it. While Rob cowers on the ground and Jake stands over him, Dom takes the knife from the floor and cuts the ties around my hands and ankles. Then he takes me into his arms and hugs me tightly.

‘Come on,’ he says in my ear.

I pull away from him. He stands and pulls me up. My legs are shaking. He puts his arm around my back, and leads me out of that hellhole.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I
wait for the door to close then I walk over to the man curled up and writhing on the floor. I stop in front of him and he looks up at me with bulging eyes.

‘Please, I beg you. Don’t hurt me. I’ll do whatever you ask,’ he whines like the coward that he is.

I yank him up, struggling, cowering and screaming like a stuck pig, and pin him against the wall, until he suddenly realizes I am not going to hurt him, yet. I let go of him so he falls to the floor. He lands in a heap, but quickly scrambles into a sitting position against the wall. I fix my eyes on his bloodied face. His left eye is beginning to swell, his cheek is grazed and there is a cut on his lip which is bleeding.

The knife is beside us. His bulging eyes stray to it, and I don’t try to kick it out of the way or reach for it. Instead I smile coldly and instantly his mouth begins to tremble uncontrollably.

‘You gave your word,’ he grovels.

Calmly I reach down and pick up the knife.

‘What are you doing?’ he cries in panic. He is so terrified he is trying to crawl sideways up the wall.

I move close enough to hear his heart thumping in its cage and say nothing. Simply watch the terror behind his pupils. Taking my time, I bring the knife to his throat and point it so the tip nicks his throat. He freezes. A drop of blood appears on his skin.

‘Please, please, don’t kill me. I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just wanted to frighten her, teach her a lesson. I love her,’ he begs pathetically.

I frown. ‘You don’t love her. You can’t. You’re a rat. She’s a woman. Rats don’t love human beings.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m rat. You’re right. I don’t love her,’ he agrees immediately, shaking his head wildly, snot running from his nose and into his mouth.

‘So we both understand this clearly. Whose woman is Ella?’

‘Your brother’s,’ he utters immediately

I inhale the stench of his urine. A dark stain is spreading over his crotch. I raise my eyes back to his blubbering face and feel nothing. Not even hatred. He could be a discarded bottle top on the floor of one of my clubs. A bit of waste. A nuisance. I have to pay someone to clean it up, dispose of it.

‘Good. I’m glad we agree. Now. You made a mistake when you took my brother’s woman, because that involves me and a whole world of trouble for you,’ I tell him.

Sheer panic leeches into his face. It’s been a long, long time since I brought a man to such fear. It’s irritating that I have to do this. I don’t want to be like this. But men like him force me to return to this unpleasant business.

My voice is emotionless and flat. ‘My brother isn’t a killer. Sure, you got his blood boiling, but a kicking within an inch of your life is as far as it would have gone. Me, I can kill in cold blood. I could kill you right now without breaking into a sweat. As painless as swatting a fly.’

His head jerks.

I continue as if we are having a polite conversation. ‘There are so many ways I could end it for you. Slit an artery and watch you bleed out on this floor. My favorite, actually. Or stab you repeatedly, slicing through every vital organ. A bit messy, but it has its uses. Or many non-fatal cuts to make you suffer a long, slow painful death. So far no one has pissed me off enough to make me resort to this method yet.’

He shudders visibly.

‘I would probably be doing the world a favor to kill you, but looks like you’re the luckiest man alive tonight. We arrived here before you had a chance to really fuck it up for yourself. So I’m going to make this one exception. I’m going to let you live. I am going to walk out of here and you are going back to wherever you presently call home. Once you get there you have twenty-four hours to put your affairs into order and leave London. For-fucking-ever!’

I nod slowly.

‘I don’t care where you go or how you get there. Take a flight, take a boat, take a train, but in twenty-fours if you are still anywhere within 100 miles of my brother,
his
woman, her family or me, you will have a sea burial. There are two men outside. They will follow you home. Don’t mind them. They won’t harm you. Their job is to escort you home safely.’

I stop and pause. ‘Do you understand me?’

He nods so violently his head bangs against the wall.

He reaches out a hand towards my leg, ‘Thank—.’

My voice is like a whiplash. For the first time I actually feel enough raw fury to end his life. ‘Don’t even fucking go there,’ I tell him.

He shrinks and begins coughing and spluttering.

‘Good.’ I stand and look down at him for a few seconds longer, and then I turn away and open the door. I take the stone steps two at a time and see the car with my back-up pair, Eddy and Mace inside. Eddie lifts his hand. I nod. As I step onto the pavement my phone rings. It’s Lily.

‘Hey, baby,’ I say into the phone. And there is nothing but love in my voice.

TWENTY-NINE

D
om opens the passenger door to a blue Mercedes-Benz sedan and I slide in. I want to ask whose car it is, but I don’t. I feel too numb and cold to actually care. Some part of me is still in that disgusting flat, still with Rob. Yes, I was so afraid of him.

I turn to Dom urgently.

‘What will Jake do to Rob?’

‘I hope he kills that miserable fucking coward,’ he rages.

‘I don’t want him to be killed,’ I whisper.

He turns on me. ‘Why do you care so much? Fucking hell, Ella, he had a knife to your throat and he’d already torn your skirt.’ He clenches his jaw. ‘God knows what he would have done if we’d not come when we did!’

‘I don’t want his blood on my conscience, Dom. Please,’ I say with a sob.

His face softens. He grabs my forearms and pulls me toward him. ‘Listen.
Jake is honorable in the old-fashioned way. In the gypsy way. But he’ll
arrange it so that pathetic pussy never comes near you again.’

I start to cry softly. ‘Just take me home, please.’

‘Hey. Don’t cry, baby. You’re safe now,’ he cajoles, and pulls me tight against his chest, careful not to hurt my throbbing jaw.

‘Just take me home,’ I whisper tearfully into the hollow of his throat.

He takes me home and parks outside the entrance.

‘You’ll get a ticket,’ I warn automatically.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, and, getting out of the car, helps me out. Together we walk up the three flights of stairs. When we get upstairs, I realize that I have no keys. I look up at him. My head is spinning, my jaw is throbbing and I can’t think properly.

‘I don’t have my keys,’ I wail as if it’s the end of the world.

‘It’s OK, Ella. I have mine,’ he says gently.

He lets me in. I stand in the hallway of my little home. The first thing I see is the phone book on the floor. I can’t understand why it is there. I look around me. Everything is the same, and yet everything is different. It has been invaded by a man who hates me. The thought makes me feel almost ill. I press my lips together to stop from breaking into tears again.

‘I need to take a shower,’ I say in a trembling voice, and start walking toward the bathroom. Dom catches me and tugs me back so I’m pressed up against his body.

He takes my chin in his hand.

‘I feel so dirty,’ I say.

‘You’re not dirty, Ella. We got to you before anything really bad could happen.’

I frown. ‘How did you find me so quickly?’