Charlie coughed behind us. “I’m her brother, you twat. Spare me from hearing shit like that.”
“It’s okay, Chuck. It’s not like I’m asking you to watch.” Eric walked into the house. “I need to get showered and head to the club. You did good today, Ches.”
“Thank you!” I called after him, getting a wave in response.
Charlie shook his head as I walked toward the house. “They need to either actually get together or leave each other alone,” he said, referring to Eric and Betsy. “If I have to hear them angry-fucking one more time while we’re all stuck in this house, I’m going to slit their throats myself. There’s just some things a brother shouldn’t have to be subjected to.”
I laughed. “If it’s any consolation, I think they love each other to death.”
“To death,” Charlie mused, flicking his finished cigarette into a drain. “I’m afraid that’s what might happen one day if they push each other too far.” The spark in his brown eyes told me he was joking, but the way they pushed one another at times—it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility.
“They’ll work it out,” I said, shrugging. “It took me and Arthur years to get to this point.” I felt my face burn. Charlie knew this, of course. He’d been there through it all.
He eyed me, and I wondered what he was thinking. Then he said, “These past few days …” He stared off over the top of the ancient headstones in the garden. “Before you. Before you came back, I mean. We’d have been razing London to the ground by now. After he’d seen that video, the old Artie would have been drenched in blood and still taking people down minute by minute until he had found out who was to blame. He would have made us even more enemies, and we would have had to double all our firm’s protection efforts for the next few years until the people he took out during one of his black-out rages backed the fuck down.” Charlie smirked. “Or until they were killed by my cousin too.”
My heart fell.
Dark. That was all Arthur’s life was before. Just pure darkness. Nothing good.
“But he’s thinking this time. Using his men more. Ronnie, Vera, letting them use the skills they’ve wanted to bring to the firm for a while now.” Charlie stepped off the wall and straightened his jacket and tie. “He’s being smart about the revenge. He’s coming to us all for advice, involving us in the decisions.”
Pride surged through me at Charlie’s assessment. “Arthur has always led this family well. He is the best gaffer this firm could’ve asked for. People either love him or are shit-scared of him. And rightly so. He was born to do this. To run this fucking lawless city. But this version of him? This thinking Arthur, the one who’s using his brain … this is the one everyone should be fucking petrified of. Because Arthur is strong, and violent, and can fight like a bloody pit bull. But the edge he has on everyone else in the crime underworld is that he’s fucking clever. He’s intelligent. That’s the part of my cousin I’ve been waiting to see come out, to see put into action. But the rage had to go first.”
He laughed. “Or at least turned down to a simmer instead of an uncontrollable flame.” Charlie nodded at me, true gratitude on his handsome face. “We have you to thank for that, Cheska. With you by his side, he is truly lethal. And in our world, that’s the equivalent of winning the bloody lottery.”
I shrugged. “I just love him.”
“And he loves you.” Charlie went to go back inside, but his attention was pulled in the direction of the garden. I followed his gaze to see Gene sitting down against a tree. He lit a cigarette and just stared out at the sky. A look I couldn’t decipher flashed over Charlie’s face as he watched Eric’s younger brother.
“He seems lost,” I said, feeling sympathy for the young man. Twenty years old and so, so lost.
“Yeah,” was all Charlie said, then he went back inside the house before I could say anything else.
I followed and had just sat down in the living room when Ronnie burst out of her room and toward us. She had bags under her eyes, and her hair was unstyled, her clothes rumpled. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes searched the room.
“Arthur?” she asked.
“Here,” Arthur said, coming up behind Ronnie. His eyes immediately fixed on mine, and at the heat in his gaze, I wanted nothing more than to disappear into our bedroom with him. Arthur pushed past Ronnie and leaned down and kissed me. He picked me up off the chair as if I weighed nothing and placed me on his lap. I immediately felt at home.