Cheska’s eyes grew huge as she stared at me and whispered, “Arthur Adley …” Her cheeks paled, and I knew right then that she’d heard of my family, our firm, our fucking notorious last name. There weren’t many people in London who didn’t know the Adley family. Knew that we were the London reapers. When we came calling, it was because you’d made a deal with the devil. The fucking dark lord himself.
I lifted my chin in pride at the sound of my name from her lips, then her daddy ushered her away out of sight. I fell into step beside my dad as the butler opened the front door, and we stepped into the cold, wet London night. The sounds of black cabs rushing by and pompous twats falling out of pretentious nearby bars filled the air. As I went to climb back into the car, I gave one last glance at the SW3 house. And in the top right window was a hand pressed to the pane, and a pair of brown eyes with hints of green staring back, watching me leave.
Chapter One
ARTHUR
Marbella, Aged eighteen
“Get the fuck out here, dickheads. The views are fucking spectacular!” Eric winked, then climbed the stairs toward the deck of the yacht, wearing his tight shorts that he claimed showed off his dick to perfection.
The arsehole was such a fucking slut I was surprised it hadn’t fallen off with an STD or some shit.
Beside me, Charlie took a sip of his gin and flicked his cigarette ash into the crystal ashtray on the glass coffee table. “If said ‘spectacular view’ is not a harem of men who’ve just descended from a CrossFit competition, covered in oil and waiting on their hands and knees, then I’ll be sorely disappointed.” I smirked at my cousin sitting like a fucking king on an Italian leather throne.
“Artie!” Eric shouted from the back deck. “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Here! We’re in bloody Marbella. If we’re not pissed and knee-deep in pussy in two hours, I’m going to fucking shoot someone.” He wasn’t joking. I’d rarely seen anyone enjoy killing quite like Eric. And the psycho did it with his fucking cheesy grin plastered on his face.
I lit a cig, got up from my chair and kicked Charlie’s foot. After inhaling a long drag, I said, “Get the fuck out of that seat. You’re coming too.”
The door opened behind us. “We here?” Freddie asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Out of us all, Freddie was the quietest, the most introverted. But as Eric shouted us again, even he smiled and pulled off his t-shirt, leaving him in his black swimming shorts. He moved past us and climbed the stairs to join Eric up top.
Charlie sighed and stood from his chair. “Just so you know, this is my idea of hell. Marbella in July, how fucking original.”
“But at least we’ve got a bloody megayacht to be here in, you fucking miserable tosser,” Eric said, ducking his head into the cabin to check we were coming. He nudged his chin at me. “Artie, get the beers ordered. And keep them coming.” I glared at the fucker trying to give me an order. “What? We’re on holiday. You can take off your gangster-leader hat for a fucking few days and just be one of the fellas. All for one and all that shite.” Eric disappeared before I could plough my fist into his pretty face to shut him the fuck up.
Charlie picked up the phone and placed the drinks order with the staff. “Down boy,” he said to me afterwards. He reached for a silver tray with our finest blow already sorted into perfect lines on its surface. Taking an ornate glass pipe from beside it, he snorted a line. He offered me the tray. I took a line and inhaled deeply as it hit the back of my throat. “Better?” Charlie asked. I nodded, feeling the coke poisoning my veins and waking me the fuck up. “Then let’s go and enjoy the delights of Marbella and our fellow British pieces of shits that visit these shores.”
I was making my way to the stairs when the door to the bedrooms opened again and Vinnie came through. His eyes were red and flitting about the living room of the yacht like all he saw were living, breathing demons around him. His hands were shaking, and his teeth scraped along his bottom lip. “Are we here? I’d like to be here now. Don’t like the waves too much, Artie. Don’t like the waves too bloody much right now. I’m sick of the sway,” he said, looking out of the windows at the sea, the muscles in his back twitching.
“We’re going over the top, old boy,” Charlie said, nodding to the stairs. “A ‘spectacular view’ awaits us, apparently.”
Vinnie’s cheek twitched. I moved in front of him until he met my eyes. Fucking blank as always, unreadable, like pits of no emotion. “Have you taken your medicine?”
Vinnie smiled his wide, disturbing joker’s smile, his mouth showing a fucked-up type of glee which his eyes didn’t reflect. Vinnie owned the smile that struck fear into our enemies. It showcased how fucked in the head my friend really was. “Just taken it, Arthur. I’ve just taken the magic tablet. It’s travelled down my throat and down to my stomach. Yes, yes, the tablet has gone,” he said, his psychotic mania seeping out through his incessant talking. His medication did nothing but keep him a bit calmer than normal. It took the edge off his unpredictability, made him slightly easier to manage. But it didn’t take away the hallucinations, or the voices in his head.
Vinnie was taller than me by an inch, and fucking ripped from the weights he lifted to blow off steam. His blond hair fell to his shoulders, a wild mess on his head. His blank eyes were bright green, his skin covered in scars and tattoos of the most random things—shapes, animals, and a fucking massive helter-skelter on his back. He’d kill anyone who threatened this firm in a second, hysterically laughing the entire time. He was also a paranoid schizophrenic and had spent a few years in and out of the loony bin, which had done sweet fuck all but make him more deranged and off-kilter. And he was as close to me as a brother. All my friends were. We were the future of the Adley firm, no matter how fucked up we all were.
Charlie, in his Burberry shorts, made his way up the stairs first. Vinnie followed, bouncing and humming all the way like a kid going to Disneyland. I threw my t-shirt off, tossing it to the couch, and tied the waist on my shorts. We had just docked in Marbella an hour ago. We were on my father’s fifty-million-pound yacht, and we’d just parked beside the other “moneyed families”. No doubt their cash wasn’t made in the same way ours was. And they’d fucking hate us for it. One hint of our East End cockney accents and they’d turn their uptight noses up at us.
We didn’t give a flying fuck.
I pushed my glasses up my nose and climbed the stairs. The heat of the Spanish sun slammed into me like an iron fist, and I pushed my dark hair back from my forehead. White Mediterranean buildings surrounded us, and tourists sat in restaurants and bars, gaping up at our yacht.
I joined my friends on the rear deck overlooking the restaurants and took a beer from Eric. He spread his arms. “Fucking paradise, boys.” I took a swig of my beer and glanced over to the yacht beside us. I didn’t see anyone on the back deck, but then I heard the people talking at the front of their boat, overlooking the sea.
“So, where are these spectacular views?” Charlie asked Eric, lighting up another cig.
Eric winced as he met my cousin’s waiting gaze. “Well, maybe not spectacular to you, Chuck, but definitely to the rest of us.” He flicked his eyes to Vinnie, who was circling the back deck like it was a track, and screwed up his nose. “Okay, maybe not to our resident nutjob either since he already has a bird. But to me, Freddie and Artie, what a view it is!”