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pacifymebby · 3 months ago

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Trouble / Chapter Thirty Six

Alfie

"The fuck are you thinking Solomons you can't take her to that fucking hospital!"

The peaky boys temper really was quite amusing, a little touching even. I couldn't help but laugh at him when he tried to get all up in my face.

Sylvia had slipped away when I'd told her to find a coat, but he'd just stood there, glaring at me. His teeth gritted, nostrils flared. Very angry. When I'd told him that - that he looked very upset - he'd almost lost it. Almost gave me the excuse I'd been looking for to smack a little bit of sense into him.

Because if there was one thing I couldn't get my head around, it was how he could have been so stupid as to help her sneak out in the first place. How he could possibly have thought bringing her to me, came under the notion of "keeping her safe."

She didn't look very safe to me. Wandering around my town house in what was a very, very dangerous part of London now for anyone who bore the name Shelby.

"My fuckin house peaky boy," I said with a smirk and a shrug, hands in my pockets, "I can do whatever I like."

I felt childish saying it to him but the glee it sparked in me to see him scowl. To hear him try and reason with me again, it was too much to resist.

"That hospitals an open target and you know it, she could get herself killed!" He hissed at me, teeth bared in my face. But his hypocrisy kept me smiling, his infuriation only growing.

"Perhaps you shoulda thought about that eh lad, before you enabled this reckless, no no no, fucking suicidal crusade she's on yeah... Don't talk to me about her safety right treacle, because so far right, so far sweetheart, I ain't got no evidence at all, not a fuckin shred, that you've done anything to keep your fuckin word..." I said jabbing him in the chest then, gritting my own teeth as I leered over him, shoved him with one hand on his shoulder against the door frame. "You want to talk about her precious safety yeah, riddle me this khamer, riddle me fuckin this... If you care so much about her fuckin safety then what in the name of all that is good and fuckin right on this here gods earth yeah, did you fuckin bring her here for eh? To me... To this fuckin deathtrap city yeah? Why the hell did you go an do something like that?"

He glared up at me, ever insolent, sullen as Sunday evening, scowling as I debated saying anything else. I could have held my tongue, could have kept the rest of my scattered thoughts to myself, the concerns I had for the girl he'd walked into my office the day before. And for a moment I had decided to. To let him go.

But when he tried to defend himself I couldn't help myself. Couldn't help the loathing I felt for him when he tried to give me an excuse.

"You didn't fuckin see her in her bedroom window with a gun to her fuckin head Alfie, you don't know what she's like!"

It was impossible not to sneer then. Impossible to hold myself back. It was the least I could do when I grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and shoved him up against the wall, ground my teeth and spat every word at him.

"And you do do you treacle? Think you know the little girl well yeah? Cause the thing is right, that little girls been living in my territory since she was 8 years old, that's fuckin 10 years yeah... And you know who it is thats been keeping her and her sister safe these past ten years? Any guesses peaky boy? Who's been keeping the fucking monsters from under her bed, who's been keeping the hooded fuckin claw at bay? Any guesses sweetheart? Ten years of peace and fuckin quiet?" I asked, fist shoving him up against the wall a second time just to drive the point home. "Any ideas?"

Isaiah maintained the same sullen glare, refusing to back down. The challenge in his eyes making me want to smack his stubborn sulk clean from his face. But I wouldn't. And I wouldn't because of Sylvia. Because I needed her to trust me too.

"Think I might know her a bit better than you think khamer."

I shoved him one last time and then left him standing there with his stupid sullen face on. The hunch of his shoulders only driving home my initial observation. That he was wildly out of his depth. That Tommy had made a mistake placing his wildest little sister in the care of this sullen adolescent who was clearly too soft on her to behave objectively.

"Sylvia!" I called listening for the sound of her little feet on the stairs, "Sylvia poppet.." I didn't turn round to see the glower on Isaiah's face but I could feel it, his glare burning into the back of my skull, left a little smirk dancing on my lips. A smirk which faded the second I saw her at the top of the stairs. Her frail silhouette, the way she seemed to teeter on the edge of the steps. I wasn't a nervous man but seeing her descend those stairs had me on edge. Her movements so delicate that she seemed unstable and I felt the urge to climb the stairs too just so that I could help her down them.

"Right darlin, you got a coat? Cause I think you'll probably need a coat yeah cause the skys not exactly lookin too promising an I've got a bad feeling about the rain today yeah... We'll need to get you somethin to keep you cosy warm I reckon?" I said when she'd reached the bottom of the stairs and was stood just in front of me. I put my hands on her shoulders and looked down at her, a concerned little frown on my brow.

She looked up at me with eyes which reminded me of her brother's. That same distance in them. Like she wasn't really standing in front of me at all.

I didn't like it. It wasn't that it made me nervous, didn't disturb me the way it was intended to. The way it did most people. It was that it left a certain sadness chewing away at my heartstrings. Made me feel all kinds of melancholic when I looked at her and saw all the feeling drained from her. Because I understood that look on her brother, understood it in the eyes of Polly Gray, but I didn't understand it on someone as young as her. Someone who had for the most part, been kept safe from the horrors of the world I lived in.

She looked cold. Her skin had a greyness about it, a translucence which made me wary to touch her. But one look at her told me that that was what she needed. Hands on her shoulders to hold her. Because more than anything she looked lonely and a little scared. Despite all her efforts I could see the apprehension in her eyes.

"Yeah," I said as I looked her up and down, "We'll find you a nice warm coat and uh, something with a hood I reckon, yeah, cause it's gonna rain I reckon and we wouldn't want you catchin a chill would we poppet." I said as I called out for one of my boys to come and find the girl a coat, "one of my hoodies an all," I shouted after the lad as he disappeared up the stairs, "a pair of sunglasses too mate..." I added because I could predict the look she'd get on her when she had to leave her cousin in his hospital bed.

Fuckin heartbroke. And she wouldn't want to admit it, she'd hate anyone who looked in her direction whilst she was trying her best to fight back her tears.

When the lad I'd shouted to had returned with a black Barbour jacket and a dark pullover, Sylvia didn't even seem to notice him. He stood by waiting for her to take them from him and she just stood there looking straight through him vacantly until I coughed and caught her attention.

"Thank you Ben," I said, "good lad, now I ain't takin Cyril with us cause well he don't really like hospitals and they don't really like him, so you make sure he gets his lunch yeah, right, come here poppet," I turned my attention back to Sylvia when I saw she'd taken the coat but had made no move to put it on. "Let me help you with that yeah sweetheart," I said pulling the hoodie down over her head, kick-starting her reactions so that when I stepped away she slipped her arms into the sleeves and shrugged the jacket on too, coming back to us from wherever it was she'd slipped away to. "There we go see, now don't you just look the part darlin," I said fixing the collar of her jacket before I shrugged mine on and tucked her under my arm leading her out into the driveway.

It didn't go unnoticed by me that she didn't look back over her shoulder for Isaiah, didn't go unnoticed how she'd shoved her hands in her pockets and stepped out that front door with all the impatience and confidence of someone who took it for granted that they were safe. That nothing untoward would ever infringe upon their little life. And I knew she wasn't really naive enough to believe all that. Could see it somewhere in the swirl of those empty sorry eyes that she was a frightened little rabbit who wasn't really sure who the big bad wolf was anymore.

Made me wonder what had changed. The day before when she had walked into my study and danced on my rug, she'd kept glancing at the lad who watched her so possessively, as if to reassure herself that he was still there. Today she seemed to be living as if he was long gone and it was brutal. The way she'd looked straight through him when he'd tried to reason with her. Brutal the way she appeared to have turned on him so quickly. He was lucky really, that I was so hospitable. That I valued the agreements between me and the Peakys. That I didn't really intend on hurting him or the girl who'd so willingly abandoned him in favour of me. In favour of getting her own way. If I had they'd both have been completely fucked now.

Then again, Sylvia was a canny girl and I didn't doubt she'd have worked all that our for herself.

"Now then poppet, since as I promised we're going to have a little Alfie/Sylvie bonding day yeah, I thought you might like to choose which car we go in?"

From beneath my arm she looked around the drive at the cars which were parked up, looking no doubt for the one she had arrived in, a small frown etched into the bridge of her nose when she didn't see it.

"What happened to my car?" She asked making me chuckle, my smile lingering fondly as I shook my head.

"Well you see little Shelby, you see that wasn't actually yours now was it... And having stolen cars yeah, especially posh fuckin stolen cars, parked up in your driveway right, it just ain't a good look is it... So that old things long gone yeah, long gone..."

"Makes sense." She said shrugging herself free from my hold around her, walking up to the side of a black number with tinted windows and ostentatious unnecessar-in-the-big-city four wheel drive, "This one please Mr Solomon's."

Her manners amused me then. When she turned back over her shoulder to look at me, waiting for me to unlock the door. How she'd gone from vacant and sullen to suddenly sweet again. It didn't surprise me though, everything I'd seen of her over the last few years had taught me to expect this from her. The rumours and whispers which went round about her. The fact that no one ever quite believed she was dealing to the other girls at her school, the way even I'd struggled to believe she might have any bad habits to fund with illicit business endeavours.

Because she was the sweetest girl in London and everyone knew it. It was easy to believe she was a Gray because you wouldn't for one second believe she was related to her brothers.

And yet, there she was, leaning up against the side of my car with a gun tucked somewhere in the back of her ballet skirt. One she thought I didn't know about. But of course I did.

Sylvia

I leant against the side of the car looking up at Alfie, wide brown eyes blinking up at him. I was doing my best to remind him of the girl he thought he knew. The sweet, innocent Shelby. If I could appeal to his little known soft side I knew I would be safe. Knew not only that, but that if I could appeal to that softer side he'd treat me as I knew he had always treated Sonya. With a doting kind of softness.

Because I wasn't naive to all the ways Alfie and his men had been keeping watch over me and my sister since Tommy had packed us off to London. I wasn't naive to the reasons I'd gotten away with dealing on his territory, the reasons it had been so much harder for me to get into trouble.

And after Isaiah's hateful display in the middle of the night I knew I didn't really have anyone. Not just to dote on me but at all.

I'd been tired last night, tired but determined. Fuelled by a desperation to see my cousin, to see him alive so that someone could be there to hold his hand, to tell him he was going to be alright. That was a heavy emotion to carry. And the heavy emotions, those are the emotions I struggle to carry for very long. The feeling too overwhelming. Overpowering enough to leave me shaking, nerves frazzled. Heart pounding in desperate need of something to numb. And when Isaiah had pinned me down, his elbows and fists digging into my arms, his body weight baring down on me, marking me with grey and blue bruises. When he'd spat those unforgiving things at me in the dead of the night he had flipped that switch in my brain again and just like that the numbing had begun.

I'd lay there on my back all night, gazing up at the ceiling until I'd fallen asleep. Numb even in my dreams when I'd seen Sonya in a lake floating face down, hair and white dress floating around her. Numb even when I'd awoken from the dream with all the certainty that it had been a little more than just a dream.

I had turned my head to see Isaiah asleep, listened to his restful breathing and resented him for the peace he had found after instilling such a doomed feeling in me. Not fear but something worse. A nothing that eats you from the inside out.

If I'd been at school there'd have been ways of coping. If I'd have had my sister nearby there'd have been someone to ground me. But I wasn't at school and I didn't have Sonya. I was alone in the passenger side of Alfie Solomons car and he was looking at me with a contemplative calm on his scarred face.

We'd been sitting in the quiet for several minutes now. The both of us sitting still, looking out over the dashboard at the driveway and the thick iron gates which remained closed. He hadn't said a word, hadn't reached for the keys or tried to start the car.

We were simply sitting there side by side. And because I was tired, and because that hollow feeling had been left to grow and grow, I didn't mind. Wasn't concerned about the stillness or the silence. Wasn't worried that the erratic older man might snap whilst we were alone.

"Now," he said, his hands resting on the wheel, "you may have noticed, little Shelby, that we have been sitting in this vehicle now for five minutes, and I ain't yet made any efforts to start driving..." He patted his hands against the wheel and then let go, hands in his lap, then back to the wheel.

"Well I know you like to take your time with things Alfie..." I said with a little smirk, turning to meet his gaze with an impish light in my eyes. Pleased when he smirked too.

"Yeah," he said nodding his head, frowning as if thinking the notion over quite seriously, "yeah, I suppose you could say that little Shelby, I suppose you could say that yeah, cause I do... Slowness yeah, as Milan Kundera used to say, how did he say it, right yeah, there is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting..."

I knew the book he was quoting well and smirked as I leant back into the headrest, let the seat hold me. Remembering for a moment quite how tired of holding myself up I was. Quite how tiring everything really was sometimes.

"The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory, the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting," I said with a bored drawl, cutting him off with a small smile, it was a notion I'd always appreciated, even if I didn't particularly agree.

"Oh so you know it then," he smirked, "you're familiar with his philosophy on relaxing, taking your time..." I wasn't expecting him to turn then, the way he stared the conversation round a corner so carefully, so gently that when he asked his next question he really did catch me out and leave me speechless, "clearly don't believe in it yourself though do you little Shelby," he said, "something about slowing down taking one's time, don't really appeal to you or somethin poppet? That why you've spent the last few months pestering my boys for a bit of Charlie?"

I bit my lip.

"And on school nights no less..." He said with a quiet little whistle, faux amazement, almost as if he were teasing me. The frown on his features saying otherwise.

"Yeah," he said when I remained quiet, "silence," he said, "yeah sweetheart I was expecting that." He said, fingers still drumming one by one along the wheel. Slow and steady. Almost hypnotic. I couldn't help but watch them rather than him as he spoke. "Yeah, little miss Frankie Valli in my passenger seat," he said with a sigh, "now I must say poppet, if you were any other girl right, any average 18 going on 19 year old girl, I wouldn't be so... How dya put it eh? Concerned? Yeah we'll say concerned. If you were any other girl I wouldn't be all that concerned about a bitta blow on a Friday night yeah, but you little Sylvie with your opera house dreams and your sparrows appetite, you my girl, well... I'm puzzled right... Now dealing yeah, thats one thing, and of course dealing on my streets well that's just f... That's just plain cheeky ain't it... But sniffin the stuff, nurturing a habit of your own... Now poppet, really?"

When he said that word, really, he looked at me with his head cocked slightly, a look of genuine confusion on his scarred face.

I didn't say anything. Smiled a little because he sounded like some old werrit. Like an aunt who gets all her news from the daily mail and still gets it confused.

But I didn't say anything because I didn't really know what to say. It was true, I had asked on a handful of occasions for a bit of coke or some mdma from some of his lads... And sometimes it had been with the intention of selling it on to girls I went to school with who were richer than me and whose places in class were not so fragile as mine. And it was true that sometimes I'd been known to trial the goods or share a bag between friends in the bathroom of a bar in town. But those occasions were rare, blue moon rare and it wasn't so much I hadn't thought Alfie would find out, it was that I hadn't really imagined he would care.

"What's the matter poppet?" He asked, "didn't think it'd get back to me? You were asking my boys after all, an my boys are good lads ain't they, you know that... Always done a good job lookin out for you and your sisters yeah? You know they're good, honest lads, course they told me what you'd been up to poppet and don't get me wrong yeah, don't get me wrong, I'd rather you were getting it off my lads than say, Italians... But here's the thing yeah, I'd rather you weren't doing it at all..."

"Didn't realise you were so invested in my wellbeing Alfie..." I started with a small smile. Glad to know that my theory had been correct. That the old grudge of Camden Town had a soft spot for at least some of life's beauties, that his care for me and my sister wasn't simply bankrolled by Tommy. That our art had made us an interest to him too.

"Actually poppet I know you ain't that naive so I don't wanna hear none of that yeah, if you didn't know all of that already you wouldn't have skipped into my office yesterday, wouldn't have slept the night in one of my spare bedrooms... Certainly wouldn't have left your boyfriend behind with my boys... Would you?"

I smirked at that. The bitter tone with which he said the word boyfriend. I wondered whether he had realised the resentment which came out with the word, wondered if he thought I would pick up on it. Was only grateful that the spite, the hatred Isaiah had showed me in the middle of the night had drained me enough of feeling that the suggestion didn't leave me struggling to hide a blush as it might have done even a handful of days before.

"No." I said, thinking about correcting him, deciding I definitely didn't need to.

"No," he confirmed nodding his head slowly, starting the ignition and beginning to creep slowly towards the towering iron gate at the end of the drive. "No, you wouldn't..." He said drumming his fingers again. "See the thing is my darlin," he said starting again just when I had begun to think he might let us rest in silence for the journey, "the thing is yeah, now you're going to be staying with me for a little while yeah, little old me - a very 'ospitable man right - now youre gonna be staying with me for a little while yeah, your health and safety and general wellbeing right, well that's all my responsibility aint it... And your peaky boy lapdog might be a bit of a soft touch yeah, might value keeping you sweet over keeping you safe yeah, but I, am first and foremost, primarily concerned with all of the above yeah? That is your health, your safety and your general sense of spiritual wellbeing, right?"

I nodded my head, held my hands in my lap and played with the rings on my fingers.

"So I'm gonna ask you very nicely yeah, and we're going to come to a couple of little agreements yeah?" He waited this time for me to answer him and when I nodded my head he nodded his too almost satisfied.

"Good," he said, "good girl."

I looked out of the window at the street as we pulled out of Alfie's driveway. I hadn't realised the evening we'd been brought to his house but he lived on a private road, one of those with a monitored gate at both ends. Huge evergreens which lined the avenue. Like something from an old movie. So quiet, so peaceful. It seemed strange to be driving down it with such a gruff, brutal man by my side.

"So, agreement one, I reckon it's pretty self explanatory right, plain old common sense yeah... You keep your precious distance from those illicit substances yeah?" He asked, of course it wasn't a question and it also wasn't really a question which needed to be asked. How was I supposed to deal his drugs when I was essentially under his house arrest.

"I haven't got a drugs habit," I said chewing my cheek, glancing to my right to look at him. He was watching the road now but every now and then he would turn his attention back to me.

"Agreement number two," he raised his voice a little to hush me, cracking am almost cheeky grin when I smirked, "me an you yeah, we're gonna uphold a policy of truth... You know what that means little Shelby?" He asked without giving me a chance to answer him, "you ain't gonna tell me no more lies alright? You're gonna be a good, honest little lady from now on yeah?"

I nodded my head and waited for him to move on but when he remained silent, held his tongue and turned back to me, his brow raised, I realised he was waiting for me to speak up.

"Truth," I said, "are you gonna tell me the truth?"

I'd half expected him to laugh at me, to think me naive for asking the question. Surely his answer couldn't possibly satisfy me.

And yet it did.

When he appeared to soften upon looking at me, his eyes flickering over me, my bored sullen features, my body tucked beneath his hoodie and coat. I thought I saw a flicker of sympathy. Wanted to hate him for it.

"Yeah poppet, I'm gonna tell you the truth an all." He nodded his head solemnly. Tapped his hands on the steering wheel as we slowed in the traffic.

"Now number three, I ain't really sure how to word this yeah, not when you seem to be as wild and as reckless as the rest of your bloody family... And we've come full circle really right because it ties in rather nicely with rule number one I reckon... Rule number three yeah, you little miss Shelby, are gonna stop putting yourself in harm's way yeah... You're gonna start eating your f... Eating your breakfasts and getting your early nights, and you're gonna hop off this little suicidal roller coaster you seem to think you're on now yeah... I'm taking you to see your cousin now right, because although I might have the reputation of a cold blooded serial killer yeah, a soulless bloody monster... I'm still not fond of seeing little girls such as yourself, looking as fuckin... Sorry poppet, I'm really tryin here you know poppet, yeah... I don't like seeing little girls lookin as sad as you looked last night... So I'm doing you this kindness, against my better judgement... And the way I see it right, the way I see it is that if me, yeah, an 'orrible, evil old man, can compromise and take you to see your rather messed up cousin in the hospital, then you my sweet, you poppet, can be good for a couple of weeks yeah, you can at least do me a favour and make takin care of you a little bit bloody easier..."

"You want me to eat breakfast?" I asked feigning confusion. Trying to pretend I didn't really understand what he'd been banging on about for the last five minutes.

We were nearing the hospital now and I was hoping that if I stalled a little longer his absent mind would wander. But I knew better than to believe his mind was really absent at all.

"Amongst many other things my darlin..." He said a little softer, his voice strangely gentle as he spoke to me then. He met my gaze across the car and held it. Gave me this look I didn't want to understand. It was one of concern, one I wasn't quite sure I wanted to trust.

"And if I don't promise you?"

"Well," he said pushing his bottom lip out in s pout, hid thick brows knitting together too, "well that wouldn't be very nice would it sweetheart, that wouldn't make me a very happy man..."

I let us linger in silence, him still pulling that ridiculous face at me. My mind flitting through my limited options. If he had simply been asking me to promise to "look after myself" I could have done so easily, could have made my throwaway vow and not worried, not felt guilty for breaking it. It was everything else I was hesitant to agree to.

"You know poppet I'd really rather you did..."

"After we've been to see Michael..." I started, let him cut me off because I wasn't entirely sure what I was asking him to clarify.

"Yeah, after we've been to see Michael today right, I want you to drop all this runnin around with guns and gangsters, stealin cars and killing your neighbours... Ain't healthy is it... Ain't no way for a young lady with opera house aspirations to be behaving... Might be your brother's game poppet but it ain't yours, shouldn't be yours..."

"Right..." I said letting my word linger in the quiet between us as he parked up outside the hospital doors.

"Right..." He said gesturing with one hand to coax me along, to get me to give him a little bit more. "You gonna say those magic words for me now yeah poppet? You gonna promise me from the bottom of your pretty pink heart?"

"Well you see that's just the thing Alfie," I said being careful to sound as sweet as I could, "I can't promise you anything until I've seen him can I?"

"Ain't hard little Shelby, it's just a handful of teeny tiny little words..." He said.

"I've just promised you I'll always tell you the truth though you see..." I bit my lip, tried to keep my voice steady as we neared the hospital and it's shadow loomed over the city. This old gothic looking building they'd never bothered to update.

I'd been in once for a suspected concussion. I'd fallen from a lift and knocked my head off another girl. Both of us had had to sit side by side waiting to be checked over. Both of us hoping they'd simply send us straight back to school. We'd been young enough then that a couple days off wouldn't really have mattered, but sitting there in the gloom of that waiting room had struck fear into us both. I'd learnt after that to lie, to do my best to hide each and every injury so as never to end up back there. Especially as the injuries got worse and the chance at an over night stay grew higher.

"Yeah," he said, "yeah you have... So perhaps yeah, I need to ask you another question then, bare with me poppet, I reckon this will be my last for now right?"

I waited quietly for him to carry on, sat patiently whilst he pulled us onto the hospital car park and mulled his thoughts over. His thumb stroked the steering wheel maintaining that hypnotic rhythm and I found myself once again unable to take my eyes off his hands. The rings on his fingers which caught the sunlight each time he flexed or drummed that slow rhythm against the leather wheel.

"Alright," he said, "answer me this little Sylvia," he said, "can you even shoot that gun you've got tucked away in your skirts?"

"You think I've spent the last ten years at a boarding school full of Hampshire's most promising without ever visiting a shooting range..."

"Bit different sweetheart, a little bit different that I reckon..."

"All the same," I said, "I know how to fire a gun."

"Alright," he said, "alright darlin I believe you yeah, reckon you probably do know how to fire a gun actually yeah you're very right, very correct... But don't you think yeah, it might be best to leave the killing to your brother's... Now don't get me wrong I'm no misogynist..." I bit back a laugh when he said that.

"Of course not..."

"Exactly, of course not," he reiterated, "but don't you think yeah, that on this occasion, when you ain't shootin at little targets, and the targets in question are pretty experienced when it comes to shootin back, don't you think it might be better to leave this one up to your big brothers...."

"If I could trust them I would." I said solemnly, with such certainty that all Alfie could really do was nod his head. There was no defending my brothers treachery. This wouldn't be the first instance of him lying and manipulating the family, of him selling blood down the river in the name of preservation and the greater good. Alfie knew that better than most. He'd been on the receiving end of that imorral streak more than once.

So instead he simply nodded, sat there by my side staying quiet for long enough that the subject changed without either of us trying.

I looked out at the carpark, he'd parked us close to the doors, in a disabled bay no less, and I wasn't naive enough not to know why.

He wasn't expecting this to be a simple visit. Wasn't expecting to get me from the hospital back to his all in one piece.

I tugged my bottom lip between my teeth, watched the automatic doors slide open and closed.

"Now I reckon I already know how this is gonna go yeah little Sylvia," he said lowering his voice, "ain't gonna patronise you though yeah, just gonna do my due diligence right and let you know, ain't gonna be pretty, an I'm sure you've a stronger stomach than most little girls yeah, but if at any point you want to leave yeah, either cause it's all a bit much or cause you've got a bad feeling about somet, you just give me a look yeah, any look you like right cause I'm a clever old man me and I will know exactly what you mean yeah, you just give me the look and I'll have you outa there in seconds... No questions asked right?"

"I'll be fine." I said starring straight ahead. I already knew what I was going to see, already knew it would be devastating, would probably sicken me. Already knew I wasn't going to feel safe once we left that car. Already knew that if in fact something awful happened and the enemy were waiting for us, Alfie might not be able to get me out at all. That once we left the sanctuary of his car, we had to accept we might never return to it.

"But thank you all the same." I said a little quieter, my hand reaching for the door handle. Hovering for a moment when he stopped me, his hand on my thigh. A softness in his low gravelly voice when he implored me to look back at him once more.

"I'm sure you will be little one," he said, his eyes warm, almost emotional, "I don't doubt you for a moment my dear."

Michael looked terrible. Everything everyone had warned me, the brutal descriptions and implications paled in comparison to the truth which lay, unconscious in a hospital bed, wires slithering like snakes from his nose, oxygen mask covering his face, latched onto him like a parasite. A cannula in his hand, yellow and purple bruising watercolour staining his knuckles. He looked dead, a corpse wired up to a machine. Some kind of dystopian Frankensteins monster esque figure.

He had two black eyes and a broken nose, his skin sore. Patched up in so many places, two many bloody bandages and packed wounds to count.

He'd had major surgery, medical induced coma, under constant observation. He was on a ventilator for now and when the nurse had looked at me she hadn't told me not to worry.

But it wasn't the state of him that worried me. Because I kept telling myself that if there wasn't a chance they could save him, they'd have given his bed to someone they could save.

It wasn't the blood and the deathly shadow which stained him.

It was the fact that when we'd arrived the men Tommy had organised to watch his room, to wait outside and guard him with their lives, were both napping. One had fallen asleep playing fucking candy crush on his phone, the other had dosed off with his flat cap tilted down across his eyes.

Alfie had seen them in the same moment I had, his arm around my shoulder tightening his grip, tucking me into his side a little closer so that I couldn't escape or do anything drastic.

Before we'd left the car he'd told me to put my hood up, tucked my hair behind my ears and under the hoodie. He'd opened my door for me and his arm had fallen around my shoulder, tucked me into his jacket as if I belonged to him. I knew it was so people would think I did. So that anyone watching us would think twice about whatever moves they'd been ordered to make. I knew it was also because he was hoping he could get me inside without anyone realising who I was.

Now however he was holding me tight to his side to stop me waking the dinlows sleeping on duty with my gun. With the metal of my handgun cold and sharp against their skulls.

Instead they were woken by Alfie's subtle cough.

He wore a smirk on his lips that was smug, the kind intended to put them in their place immediately. And they were. When they woke it was with a start, scrambling to attention, their eyes wide when they saw not only me but the fearsome bastard king of Camden Town looming above them.

"Nap time is it boys?" He asked them with a chirpiness to his voice which wound me up beyond belief and left them stuttering to spit out an excuse. Though of course there was no excuse they could give me that would see me forgive them for their carelessness. "Leave them to me poppet, you're here to see your cousin right so you just go an see your cousin..." He said, his hand on my lower back pushing me through the door to Michael's room gently.

I hesitated, gripped by a cold, unforgiving anger when I turned my head to lock eyes with the lads that had been sleeping on duty. It was only when Alfie spoke again that I stepped inside Michaels room.

And when I saw him that familiar hollow feeling returned and sunk its teeth in deep. The numbing bite I knew wasn't going to let go. Because he was everything Isaiah had warned me and worse and the grey light from the rain outside only served to create an even more bleak mood in that sorry little hospital room.

I trod carefully towards his bed. Heard the door close quietly behind me. Heard the slam of someone's body up against the glass seconds later when Alfie began "dealing" with the lazy bastards who had valued a little nap over my cousins life. When I reached Michaels bedside I felt this receding feeling, like all the blood draining away from body leaving me untethered and half alive.

He looked half alive. Half man, half the wires and machines the doctors had fixed him up to in order to keep him alive.

There was a scar near his temple, an old wound and not from any real fight either. Him and John, when Michael was only small, they'd been fighting at the top of the stairs and John had tripped him. He'd tumbled down head over feet and knocked himself unconscious on the radiator. Well now there would be a second scar not so far from the first. The wound had been dressed and though the dressing was relatively fresh there was still a little blood poppy which had seeped through.

"Hi," I said softly, voice so quiet he wouldn't have heard it even if he'd been awake. And of course the moment the word left my lips I felt ridiculous. Over emotional, a child playing make believe, talking to a sleeping half-dead man pretending he could hear me because it made me feel better. Made me feel more in control. And what was I supposed to say to him anyway. I wasn't about declare that I'd avenge him or that everything was going to he okay. I wasn't and it wasn't and there was no point kidding either of us. Especially not myself.

So instead I did the only thing I knew how to do when people were lost or almost lost.

I drew the sign of the cross, head to heart, shoulder to shoulder. Mumbled the prayer I still carried from childhood but couldn't be sure I still believed in, father, son, holy spirit.

"Amen," I whispered before dropping to my knees at Michael's bedside, the cold hospital floor reminding me of my knees when it chilled me through my tights.

I didn't keep a rosary anymore - my mother would have cried - but I still wore my virgin mary round my neck and as I pressed my palms together I felt the warmth of her copper medal over my chest. Tried to think of her as I whispered a prayer to Saint Anthony. The only prayer I could really still remember because in her last year our mother had had us recite prayers to the patron saint of miracles every morning and night without ever telling us what miracle it was for which we were begging.

The older I had grown the more I had understood that the miracle had been for her. To save her from the curse which ran in our blood. The hollow feeling which gripped me now.

"Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints," I whispered, "Saint Anthony pray for us." I said, eyes closed, palm to palm on the hospital floor. My forehead resting against the cool metal bedframe which held my unconscious cousin. "Saint Anthony, pray for us." I said it again, realising I could not remember the prayer as well as I had thought. Feeling untethered when I tried to conjor the memory of my mother kneeling by the fireplace in watery lane, praying to our statue of the virgin mary. When I realised how far from her, from home, I had grown.

"Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints, Saint Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, pray for us..." I said, my lips moving quickly and quietly as I struggled to remember the flow and rhythm of the prayer. Outside I could hear Alfie, his words were muffled through the walls but I could hear the scuffling and panic they instilled.

"Whisper my petition into the ears of the sweet Infant Jesus, who...."

I could hear the groaned pain from one of Tommy's men, could hear the blunt thud as someone slowed against the wall.

"Who loved to be folded in your arms.... The gratitude of my heart will ever be yours..." I knew I hadn't uttered it correctly, knew there were verses I had long since forgotten. But it was the best that I could do as I knelt there on that cold floor, feeling oh so far away from my family and from my home.

I thought of Aunt Polly. What she would have given to trade places with me, to kneel at her son's bedside. And I worried that I was doing everything wrong, doing her a terrible disservice, michael too.

I was glad then that he couldn't hear me. That no one was witnessing my moment of childish weakness. Me fumbling through a prayer I used to know off by heart, hoping god and the saints would forgive me. Know that I was only trying to pray on behalf of Polly, who would have known every word and still believed in every prayer she uttered.

"Amen." I whispered as the door clicked open behind me. I heard Alfie's feet on the floor, the corridor was quiet but for wheezing and I already knew what he was going to say to me when I turned to look at him from where i knelt on the floor.

"Come on poppet time to go yeah, think I might have caused a little bit of upset..."

"No." I said remaining in my place on the floor, my fingers skimming over the miraculous medal around my neck. I hadn't expected myself to voice the doubt outloud until the defiance had left my lips but once it had I wasn't really shocked. The reckless way I was feeling today of course it had.

"Eh.. now hang on a minute girl..." said Alfie, he kept his voice quiet and sweet but I could tell he was growing impatient, "I thought we had an agreement yeah, you've seen your cousin so now..."

"That was before I knew Tommys men are fuckin incompetent!" I snapped.

"Woah, woah now little girl mind your language yeah..." he said holding his hands either side of his head.

"I'm not leaving him here alone."

"Yeah... well he ain't alone is he, your brothers lads are with him, keeping him safe..."

"They were asleep when we got here, you don't really expect me to trust them now?"

"Yeah well they was, asleep when we got here right... but darlin they ain't sleepin anymore right and you see me and you yeah, we need to leave right, cause I need to get you out of here yeah, away from you know..."

"Danger?" I asked still sitting quite stubbornly on the floor. "So I should be worried then? You're admitting it isn't safe to leave Michael unattended..."

"I mean..." he started, one hand on the back of his neck, the other joining it as he stepped inside and shut the door to with his foot. "No... it ain't safe for you Sylvia, but Michael... your cousin here, he'll..."

"Be fine will he? He's unconscious Alfie, completely fuckin defenceless... That how stupid you think I am? I'm not leaving him to lie here alone in this place like a fuckin sitting duck!" I snapped still kneeling at Michaels bedside determined not to be moved.

"Alright poppet enough of that yeah, I've had enough."

"I mean it Alfie."

"Yeah alright so you mean it," he said approaching me with a sudden temper on him, one which sent my heart racing in my chest, more so when he pulled me up from the floor with one simple movement. He grabbed my arm just above my elbow and yanked me to my feet so fast that I stumbled straight into his side. He held my head to his chest and ushered me into a far more gentle hold, softening again so quickly I ought to have had whiplash.

"Well I mean this yeah, it's time to go sweetheart, can't linger here yeah, especially because your brothers useless lot were sleepin on the job, its dangerous yeah, for you... and its you I care about protecting right..."

"I'm not leaving him with them" I said a little quieter as I pushed away from his chest just enough that I could meet his eyes with my own glare. He realised I was going to cry before I did, saw the glisten of tears in my eyes before I felt them. And I didn't feel them because I still felt so very hollowed out, the only feeling I had to latch onto my hatred for the useless lads outside.

"Eh..." he said even quieter then, his hand on my cheek calloused and rough despite his gentle hold, "I know, I know... you don't wanna leave him alone I know Sylvia, I know..."

"I'm not fuckin l..." I started but his thumb stroking my chin left my words hanging stale and forgotten in the air.

"We ain't gonna yeah," he said stroking my cheek gently with his knuckles before taking my head in his palm and guiding my face back to his chest, holding me against him. Doing me a kindness in hiding my tears from the two of us. Allowing me to pretend they weren't there at all. "Now don't get upset yeah poppet, don't wanna get you upset yeah, been warned about that by your little lapdog right... tell you what I'm gonna do right, I'm gonna phone my boys yeah, get some real goodens down here, and they're gonna watch over your Michael, see he's alright... promise you, I'll pick a good few better than your brother did yeah, how about that?"

I listened to his voice mumbling his apparent promises to me, tried to calm myself with a few calculated breaths. Wanted to be able to look back up at him without tears glistening in my eyes. Wanted him to look at me as a Shelby he respected rather than a little girl he felt sorry for.

"Fine." I said knowing I had no choice. Knowing from the way he'd ulled me to my feet without a second thought that he could shift me like a rag doll whenever the notion took him and I would have no choice but to do as he wished.

I pushed back out of his embrace, his arm falling away from me easily, the smirk of approval on his lips when he saw that I had regained my cool glaze driving me to stand my ground.

"But we aren't going until I've seen them."

"Yeah," he nodded, his hand stroking my shoulder as he let me go, slid his phone out his pocket and made a call. Winking at me as he turned away from me and took several slow steps towards the window.

I stood where he had left me, suddenly cold as I pulled the coat he'd lent me a little tighter around my body. I pulled the hood of his pullover up over my hair and then I stood there, watching his back, listening to him as he spoke quiet and calm on the phone.

He lent with his elbows on the sill. Slipped his phone back into his pocket and then nodded me over to his side.

"Oh," he said with a smirk, a mischief in his chuckle with drew me closer to him out of curiosity, "would you look at that," he said beckoning me over to his side in the window.

I joined him, let him tuck me under his arm again as he held me close to his side and I followed his gaze down to the carpark where we could see our car quite clearly.

"Someones left you flowers look..." he said with a chuckle, nodding towards his car, a bouquet of lillies and lilac flowers wedged between the door handle on the passenger side, "now ain't that a bit sweet eh? Ain't that just adorable..."

I felt a shiver run through me, that blood draining away feeling flooding through me again. So he'd been right, we were being watched, the hospital, his house, perhaps both. Perhaps we'd been followed. Perhaps those lads outside had already been bought.

Perhaps when we walked out of here thered be Italian open fire ready to rip through us both.

I tried to swallow down the thought. Tried to ignore the creeping fear and accept what I'd brazenly gotten myself into.

Alfie let out a laugh as he turned us both away from the window and walked us far enough back into the room that we couldn't be seen from outside or from another window.

"Good job our Ollie's bringing us a new car darlin thats all I'll say yeah..." he smirked shaking his head, "fuckin Italians, awful cliches... awful." He tutted as he let his fingers drum that hypnotic little rhythm along my shoulder as he squeezed me into his side. "Like I said though yeah poppet, nothin to worry about... though I can tell yeah, already know you yeah... you ain't exactly one for worrying, aint exactly faint hearted..."

And then I knew he was just being kind.

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