I was forged in war before I had a choice. I was never supposed to be anything but fire. My father made sure of that. He was a bastard of a man – a cold-blooded, ruthless gangster who didn’t believe in second chances. He saw the world as a battlefield, and claimed power isn’t given. It’s taken. I wasn’t just raised by a violent man, I was shaped by the kind of brutality that shaped an era, and I wasn’t just the boy of a man clawing for power in the underworld, my father stood beside the Sullivan twins who ruled London’s crime scene with fear and force. They ran protection rackets, controlled clubs, London was in their grip with a ruthlessness that turned them all into legends. But when the Sullivans were taken down, London’s criminal world shifted. Their empire collapsed overnight, leaving behind chaos, uncertainty, and power struggles. And in that wreckage, my father made a choice. Instead of clinging to old ways, instead of fighting for scraps of a dying era, he built something new. A family.Me.Unfortunately, the lessons he’d learnt in the shadows of the Sullivans didn’t disappear. He carried them into fatherhood, shaping me into not just his son, but as his legacy to continue the family name. I was made to inherit his world whether I wanted to or not. And, for a long time I did. I lived it. Ibecameit. Untilshedied. Then everything he had taught me, and the brutality, felt like poison in my blood. So, I walked away. I let someone else shape me, and mould me into someone else. For ten years I was quiet – I couldn’t be the man I was born to be. Now, I’m wondering if that was the right decision.
I push through the warehouse, my heartbeat like a war drum. Every breath tastes like gasoline and sweat. I’m close. But when I step into the next room, my breath is stolen. Her body is slumped against a metal chair, restraints biting into her wrists, head hanging like a marionette.
‘Stella?’ I whisper, but the floor beneath her is slick, dark and pooling. The kind that tells me it’s too late. I take a step closer, and more light illuminates a massacre frozen in time. There are bodies lying crumpled, parts butchered among lifeless forms tangled in carnage.
The room reeks of iron, like someone had bottled fear and let it ferment. The walls, once white, are now a patchwork of grime and splatter, streaked with new and old, dried blood in patterns that look like some form of modern drip art. Fresh blood glistens in sharp, arterial crimson, still wet enough to catch the light like lacquered paint. It runs in jagged rivulets, dripping down over older stains that have long since dried into a muddy maroon and rusted brown. It reminds me of a Jackson Pollock canvas – if Pollock had traded paint for blood and rage, I wonder if he’d have been more famous. What’s a little human suffering splashed across canvas worth these days?
My eyes widen, seeing the gaping wound where her arm hangs by a thread. As I cup her face, relief hits first. It’s sharp and sudden. It hits me like a tidal wave – first the shock, and then the confusion, and finally the guilt.
It’s not Stella. I’d braced myself for devastation, for the unbearable weight of seeing her sitting lifeless. My chest is tight, my breath is shallow, and every step towards her felt like I was walking through wet cement. But then…I saw her face. My mind couldn’t catch up with my eyes. I blinked, my mind wondering if somehow I’ve missed the contours of her face. But no – itissomeone else. A stranger. Relief surges through me, but it’s tangled with something darker. I feel like I’ve trespassed onto a tragedy that isn’t mine.
For a fleeting second, my ribs loosen, my pulse stutters, and the worst-case scenario I thought fractures. But that relief dies fast. Because, if this isn’t Stella, who is it? And where is Stella? My fingers twitch, my jaw clenches, and I exhale slowly.
Where are you?
CHAPTER 12
THE CURATOR
‘Scream for me, bitch.’ The room stinks of sweat, leather and a faint, metallic tang – blood, both old and new. It’s claustrophobic, with a single bulb humming above, casting Charlie Thompson’s hulking shadow across the floor. I let my wrists fall against the chair, they’re bound but loose. He thinks it’s the rope keeping me here.Cute.
Charlie leans in close to my face, his foul breath hot with beer and exhaustion. ‘So, are you gonna scream, or talk?’
‘Neither,’ I answer.
His lip curls, a classic London snarl. These kinds of men wear them when they want to feel powerful. How I’d like to rip that from his face, and start a new collection. He pulls a photograph from his back pocket; a boy – soft-eyed, innocent, like he’s unaware that he’s the grandson of a man who cracks ribs like walnuts. I lean back, tilting my chin. ‘Tell me, Charlie. How’s he holding up?’
His fist slams against the wall. It’s an act. If he really wanted me dead, we wouldn’t be talking. He exhales through his nose. ‘Your lover – what’s his name?Sal?Yeah, Sal – he’s screaming right about now. Thought you might wanna know that.’
I laugh. It’s a proper belly laugh. It’s so loud it rolls through the room, unwelcomed. Charlie watches, confused, unsettled. He wasn’t expecting this. I lean forward, as far as I can go. ‘You think Sal means something to me? You think torturing him bothers me? Let me tell you something, sweetheart – pain is temporary, but regret? Oh, that shit sticks.’
His jaw tightens and begins to twitch, so much so, I see the vein at his temple throbbing, pulsing with each second.
‘We both know the boy is dead. Not missing. Not taken. Just dead. D. E. A. D.’ I spell out. ‘He bled out, and then your fire swallowed him whole. This isn’t about finding him. You want someone to blame.’
‘So, which one of you did it?’
I exhale, long and deliberately, like a cat stretching in the face of a dog. ‘That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?’
Charlie exhales. He’s a man teetering on the edge between patience and violence. He rubs his jaw. ‘I should just kill you both,’ he mutters, low like he’s talking to himself, weighing in on the satisfaction.
I grin. ‘Not a bad plan, Charlie. Clean, quick. No loose ends.’ I pause, savouring the tension. ‘But you won’t.’
‘Sal’s spilling his guts in there, screaming your name.’
I laugh again, loud and unbothered. ‘So why aren’t I dead already? And Sal?’ I shake my head. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Sal isn’t my lover.’
‘Oh, good, he won’t mind me doing this then...’ he snarls as he unzips his trousers and rolls up his sleeves.
I don’t blink.
‘Among the wreckage, among my grandson’s body, we found jars of blood. Rather peculiar don’t you think?’ he asks, baring his forearm, showing old scars, and veins thick beneath his skin. ‘Would you bleedmedry, Stella?’ His lips twitch – half amusement, half challenge.
He’s convinced it was one of us – mostly me – who slit his grandson’s throat beneath moonlight, whispering incantations as blood spilled into a waiting glass...so I could drink it. It’s almost funny. Almost.
I tilt my head back, watching the way his pulse flutters at his wrist.Tempting.I watch his face, trace each line and shadow, then softly hum,
‘Your grin so smug, ugly and wide,
