Con: Lord of Conquest (Bow Street’s Most Wanted: The Four Horsemen #1)

Prologue

St. Giles, London

October, 1827

The food was drugged. Con should have known. He pulled himself up and leaned over the side of the old cart just in time to cast up his accounts onto the cobblestones below. With a stifled moan he fell back into the pile of filthy rags and tattered burlap sacks that covered the bed of the cart. If the driver noticed Con was awake, he gave no sign. He merely continued to guide the horse down the moonlit streets deeper into the rookery of St. Giles.

Con recognized the desolate buildings leaning against each other like drunken whores leaving a tavern in search of a penny fuck to pay for their next glass of gin. He recognized the aroma even better--the sharp sting of piss, the cloying scent of horse dung and rotting meat. They'd pass St. Giles in the Fields next, and he'd taste the air thick with smoke, coal, and rotting bodies from the mass graves open in the cemetery.

Con Dyer had lived eight of his twelve years in St. Giles, most imprisoned in Ma Dyer's baby farm and supposed orphanage. He didn't know where he was being taken. If he was this far from Ma and her control, his life was about to change. He was too belly-sick and too hard of heart to believe that change would be for the better.

Someone stirred next to him.

"Con?"

"Shut your gob!" He clamped his hand over his brother's mouth and glanced at the broad back of the driver who swayed on the bench as the cart rattled over the cobbles. Fam was here too. They'd been together at the baby farm these last five years. Their ability to survive the beatings, starvation, and Ma's ever inventive punishments had bound them together more tightly than any ties of blood and bone.

Con twisted onto his side and searched the rest of the cart. Three more small bodies lay amongst the stinking offal strewn across the uneven cart bed. A finger to his lips, he removed his hand from Fam's mouth and crawled to the other passengers. When he put his ear to their mouths, each in turn, the familiar smell of laudanum told him what Ma had put into their food, their unexpectedly fresh and generous food. No wonder the bitch had fed them well tonight. She'd gotten rid of them, sold them most likely. He moved back to lie next to Fam so he could whisper in his ear.

"Warrick and Ban are 'ere too. And Nell."

"Alive?" Fam asked. His bony fingers wrapped around Con's wrist. He was trembling, from cold or fear or both.

"Aye. Drugged. We all were."

"The stew. Fucking bitch. Where we going, Con?" Fam tried to sit up. Con pushed him back down.

"T'ward -Rats' Castle, less I miss my mark. She's sold us, she 'as."

"To who? For what?" Fam never whined, but he was coming bloody close. He was only nine so Con made allowances, but there was no time for weakness if they were to muddle through whatever fresh hell fate had in store for them. The two of them had to be strong and quick and clever as rat-catching dogs. That was the only way they, their two brothers, Warrick and Ban, and their sister Nell, would keep sleeping on this side of the grass.

He used to think their ability to survive was a blessing. Not anymore. When it came to Ma Dyer's, death was a blessing. And surviving? That was just a curse that prolonged a life that meant nothing more than a bucket of warm piss to you or anyone else.

The driver made a sharp turn down a narrow alley and pulled behind a row of buildings into a yard. The noise coming from the rear of the nearest structure told Con they were likely behind one of St. Giles's taverns. He raised his head enough to see where they were, but there was nothing to identify which tavern. Light spilled over them from a door that suddenly burst open at the rear of the building. Heavy footsteps announced the arrival of several men at the back of the cart.

"Oy!" Con cried as he was lifted by one arm and dragged from the cart. "Leave off, ye buggering catamite!" He swung blindly, his vision still blurry from the laudanum. The man who'd grabbed him slammed him against the cart. Con clutched the wheel and braced himself to keep from falling.

"Con!" Fam wailed. Con winced and turned toward the sound of his brother's rail-thin body landing on the cobblestone yard. Fam dragged himself to hide behind Con's legs. The yard behind the tavern was lit by torches jammed into iron sconces mounted on the various buildings that made up the carriage yard. More than a tavern...inn. Con scanned his memory and went over the landmarks and distance they'd traveled. The Angel. They'd been brought to The Angel on St. Giles's High Street.

Fuck!

He dropped one arm to his side. Once Fam grasped his hand, Con dragged his brother to his feet. Fam swayed, unsteady, but stayed upright and leaned against Con's back. They watched as three burly brawlers lifted the limp forms of Ban, Warrick, and Nell from the bed of rags and offal. The man who had pulled Con and Fam out took each of them by the arm and steered them toward the back of the tavern. The men carrying the others followed.

"Christ, Dawkins, they're naught but skin and bones," one of them said. "I hope Bill didn't pay the auld bitch much for 'em."

"That would be Bill's business, now, wouldn't it?" The one he'd called Dawkins opened a door and shoved Con and Fam inside the warm, narrow corridor at the back of The Angel. "Up the stairs," he ordered. They began to climb the long staircase to the right of the door.

"This one's a girl," the man carrying Nell growled behind them as they went up the narrow staircase. "Skinny or not, wouldn't mind breaking her in meself."

Con turned and tried to get past Dawkins and the men carrying Ban and War. "She's six years old ya filthy, cankerous, lecher. I'll kill you!" He kicked and hit as Dawkins wrapped a thick arm around his waist and hauled him back. His vision went nearly black with rage and his blood boiled beneath his skin. He heard Fam cursing and fighting behind him.

"She's for Sally Big'uns, Sykes," the one carrying War warned over his shoulder, while Con was dragged back up the stairs. "Bill bought the girl special ta help Sally 'round the inn. You touch the girl, and Bill's Sal will have your cock nailed up behind the bar next ta her last husband's."

"They're all Bill's until he says different." Dawkins opened a door at the top of the stairs and pushed Con and Fam into a dimly lit, dingy, low-ceilinged corridor. "They're not ta be buggered. Understand, lad?" He glared at Con. Fam and Con exchanged a look and settled for the moment.

Dawkins led them to a set of three steps that rose to a heavy oak door at the end of the corridor. Once he'd drawn an iron key from his coat pocket and unlocked the door Con and Fam scrambled up the steps into a cold, dark, windowless room.

Three narrow cots with threadbare mattresses and a scattering of ragged blankets stood across the wall, the only furniture in the room. Once they'd placed War and Ban on one of the cots, two of the men left without a word. Sykes lingered and stared at Nell after he dropped her onto the second cot like a sack of potatoes. Fam stepped between the rancid smelling wretch and the cot and covered Nell with a blanket before he sat down on the mattress beside her. When Sykes growled at him Fam bared his teeth like a feral dog and raised his skeletal fists.

Con suppressed a grin despite their dire situation. This Sykes had no idea what Fam was like once he decided to fight. And these days Fam fought for only two things--food and their sister, Nell.

"Ger' out, Sykes. Now." Dawkins stood at the open door arms crossed. Sykes backed away slowly, his gazed never wavered from Fam's face. Not nearly as big a fool as he looked. Once he'd left the room, Dawkins stood there and studied Con for a few minutes. He finally stepped back onto the first of the narrow steps.

"You all belong to Bill Green now, lad, and you'll do as yer told if ye wanna live. Everything yer told. Understand?"

Con made him no answer. Dawkins slammed the door behind him, and they immediately heard the key turn in the lock.

"Bill Green?" Fam slumped and swiped at his face with his sleeve. "She sold us to Bill Green?"

Con dropped onto the third cot and tucked his hands beneath his armpits in an attempt to warm them. Not that doing so helped. His entire body had gone cold. Bill Green ran the most ruthless, cutthroat gang in London. Rumor was, he had men killed for looking at him the wrong way.

Ma Dyer had not freed them at all. She'd just sold them into another level of hell.