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The body lay on the cold steel table for me to identify. A white sheet covered him, but it had been pulled back to below his chin, but just above the red smile cut from ear to ear.
The face was a ruin. Once so lean and handsome, the thing before me is black and blue and swollen with cuts and bruises. More a haunch of rotten and beaten meat than a man. And the blood, so much blood.
I couldn’t bear to look. He was unrecognisable, yet I knew. I knew this was him. I knew this was David.
I knew this was my brother.
I forced myself not to run as unshed tears burned the corners of my eyes.
Anything can happen. Yea I suppose he was right about that. There were monsters out there, monsters who’d stolen the only person I had left.
I walked without thinking, letting my feet lead me wherever. Anywhere. I didn’t care, I just needed to keep walking. Until…
Until what? They found me? I thought they’d find me in that shithole. They’d found David there, or at least that’s what the police thought. Evidence had been lacking. Witnesses unwilling to come forward.
They didn’t care. No one cared about one dead boy raped and butchered in a gutter.
But I cared.
He was my brother, and I wanted the bastards who did that to him.
But instead, I’d found him. Or rather he’d found me. Lucian.
Just the memory of him made my belly flutter.
There was something off about him, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. He was just too suave, in that old fashioned, debonair, Jane Austen and Mr Darcy sort of way. From the moment he opened his mouth, he had just exuded charm. And that face, all sharp lines and smooth planes, he was a work of art carved from pristine white marble with black pearl eyes glinting out from beneath tumbles of thick jet-black hair just that bit too long it begged for a hand to run through it. He was the very embodiment of dark and dangero-
I froze, a cold cascade sloshing down my spine. What was that?
“Hey babe, you lost?” A man’s voice, deep and guttural called from behind me, close. Very close.
Swallowing, I turned and found myself surrounded.
“A hot little dish like you must be pretty stupid to be walking around this neighbourhood all alone,” the body that came with the voice was immense, a big thuggish brute with a spider’s web tattooed on his bald head. “You a ho looking for work?” The others all gave him space as he stepped forward, like mangy dogs backing from the alpha. “Well, we don’t pay for cunt, ho, ya hear me, we fuck it. Ya hear that boys, we fuck it till it’s broke!”
They all began to snigger and lick their lips at that, and my hand dropped down to my clutch, its familiar weight giving me strength.
The black guy on my left stepped forward, grinning with a set of large pure white teeth. “Where’s your pimp ho? Little bitches shouldn’t wander the streets all alone. Anything could of happened...” He stepped in close, one hand brushing over my shoulders to scoop up my hair. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed, making me shiver with revulsion. “Good thing we found you.”
“Yeah, anything coulda' happened.” The giant grinned as the two to my right closed the gap. “Don’t worry, you’re safe now. This is our neighbourhood.” I’d been snared like a mouse in a trap.
It was them. I knew it. I couldn’t explain how, but I just knew.
“And nothing happens on your streets without your say so.” My voice came out as cool as ice and I had to keep my fist clenched around my clutch to keep from shaking.
“Ya could say that yea.”
“Did you, do it?” I knew this beast killed David, but I needed to hear it. Hear him say it, confess.
“Do wha?”
I saw red. How could he not know? The black guy was tall. Much taller than I. And the way he was trying to cover my back to keep me from running away left him completely open so that when I jammed my elbow back, it hit the one place it would do the most damage.
His grunt caught them all off guard. They’d expected me to run, to plead and beg. Never to attack. So they were too late to stop my hand as it slipped into my clutch.
They all stepped back when I pulled out the Browning Hi-Power Mark I.
It had been my father’s old service pistol. He’d carried it through his national service. I’d found it buried amongst his things whilst I was clearing out their house after their funeral. I’d kept it along with a few other mementoes and forgotten all about it until tonight.
