Chapter 1
Alice wiped her knife clean. Specks of blood dotted the snow-white handkerchief even after what she’d thought had been a good washing the previous night.
The man who’d met the end of her blade was strong, but she’d nicked him well enough that he’d turned heel and run, the tosser.
Another street brawl, another lout who thought he could disrespect one of her girls, and she’d shown him a lesson all right.
She stowed her razor in the hidden pocket of her dress and headed to the kitchen for tea and a bite to start the day.
Her mum was still in bed as usual, with her latest illness and weak lungs.
Her brother loudly skulked around his bedroom, and her sisters were God-knew-where, but Dad was bent over his plate at the table.
The only wretched member of the wretched Diamonds that Alice loved to hate and hated to love. Still, he was family.
Family first, above all else.
Alice had recited those words at her dad’s insistence her whole life.
If the family didn’t rely on each other, they’d all be on the street, he’d say as he collected the earnings they’d made from emptying pockets, clearing out shelves, and swindling the gullible.
And they nearly had been on the streets year after year, as he frittered away their income and landed himself in jail for picking fights with the wrong people.
Despite it all, Alice had never questioned her dad’s motto.
The family’s proclivity for crime meant they must stick together, like it or not, and mostly, she didn’t like it.
She vastly preferred the family she’d made for herself: a certain group of friends—certain associates—who followed orders and watched her back rather than beat it with their fists the way her dad had most of her life.
Her girls were the Forty Elephants, and she was their appointed queen.
Commander. Woman in chief. Anyway, if they tried the malarkey that her dad got away with, she’d give them what for, and they knew it.
“What’s the mark?” her dad asked, drowning his breakfast tea in milk. His hair was slicked back with almond oil, and a spray of salt-and-pepper whiskers swept over his jawline. His eyes were red-rimmed from too much gin the night before.
“You know I don’t talk,” Alice replied, taking a bit of buttered toast that had already started to go cold. She didn’t share details with anyone but those involved in the scheme. It limited the chance for double-crossing.
She brushed the crumbs from her wool dress and set her dish in the sink.
“Watch it, girl,” he replied. “You’re getting a big ’ead. That’s when mistakes ’appen.”
She was glad the codger couldn’t see her expression.
These days, her jobs brought in far more quid than his did.
More importantly, her jobs meant posh dance clubs, free-flowing gin and Irish whiskey, the fastest roadster on the streets, and beautiful clothes.
For a short time, her winnings gave her freedom from the squalid life in which she was raised, elevated her above the muck and mire of London’s darkest corners south of the Thames in the Elephant and Castle neighborhood.
For every bolt of silk she cashed in, she transcended the grimy violence of her day-to-day and became someone different, someone with endless possibilities.
At least until the money ran out—and the money always ran out.
She wasn’t the type who believed in saving just to take it to the grave.
Her brother pushed past her much faster than most could on a peg leg.
He’d lost his leg in the Great War, shot clean off.
Served him right, some would say. He’d been a bully his whole life and mostly a good-for-nothing stirring up trouble with the McDonald brothers, leaders of the Elephant and Castle gang.
At war, his time came due. Tommy had always looked after her, though she was the eldest of eight and he, nearly three years younger.
They’d been inseparable for a time. Wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for him or him for her.
Her brother placed a piece of bread in the turnover toaster, cranking the knob on the metal contraption that pushed the bread over a heating element until both sides were evenly cooked.
When finished, he scraped a knife laden with butter across the surface and downed the nearly burned toast in a couple of bites. “You going out?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Alice replied. “But I’ll see you later. At the pub.”
“All right then.”
All her brother needed to know right now was that she had a job.
It was Friday, a day when the stores were swarmed with shoppers—and her girls’ best day of the week to do their own shopping.
Alice knew better than to hit a store in the early days of the week, when the shopgirls were bored and paired up with customers two-to-one.
Before she could leave, her dad grabbed her elbow.
“You’ve had some wins, but you’re headed for trouble with that attitude, you ’ear me?
” He squeezed, his fingers digging into her flesh until she cried out.
He may not be able to beat her senseless anymore—she was a grown woman, taller than most men, with large fists and a mind three times as quick—but he still had the ability to wound her.
“You underestimate me.” She wrenched from his grasp. “And people see through you. That’s how you always get caught.”
He lunged for her, but she sidestepped his outstretched hand and headed for the door. “Don’t wait up,” she called over her shoulder. She snatched a brolly on the way out in case of rain.
He shouted expletives as Alice slammed the front door behind her.
A big head, my ass, she thought. He didn’t know the meaning of humility except to dish it out to others.
He’d never shown her mercy, not even as a little girl; he hadn’t shown it to any of them.
She and her siblings had collected impressive bruises over the years to prove it.
Even the Lord Mayor of London had permanent scars on his face after a meeting with her combustible dad.
Outside, the scent of rain lingered in the air, and a bank of clouds hung low and so thick that not a single shard of sunlight pierced them.
Good thing she’d come prepared. She walked purposefully to her car, not losing pace as a rat scurried across her path before disappearing beneath a stack of abandoned crates.
She’d grown up with them scampering through her flat—the nasty creatures were practically her siblings.
She’d suffered their sharp teeth far too many times.
Truth be told, she was lucky she still had all her fingers.
She opened the door to her shiny black Chrysler and slid into the driver’s seat.
She smiled as the smell of new leather rushed her senses.
Nothing beat the smell of money. She drove across the borough, parked her car in the street, and strode to a shuttered munitions factory.
These days, the old factory served as a meeting place for the Forty Elephants.
It was quiet, abandoned, and not a place the coppers spent much time patrolling, though she and the girls had fended off squatters a little too often.
Still, it was a decent location, despite the grit and grime that blanketed every nook and cranny.
She wound through the musty dark around broken machinery that had begun to rust from the perpetual damp air that seeped through the building’s cracks and shattered windows. When she reached the back office, the Forty Elephants were already gathering, seating themselves around the table.
They were waiting for her, as they should be.
Alice took her role as leader of the oldest and strongest all-women crime syndicate very seriously.
The Forty Elephants had been around since before Queen Victoria’s days, though they’d never been properly organized until Mary Carr had come along as the first queen.
When Mary passed away, Alice had taken over, made the gang stronger, larger, and taught them both the art of the con and how to use a knife when the circumstances called for it.
The circumstances almost always called for it.
Maggie, one of Alice’s best girls and closest friends, gave a short wave as Alice entered the office.
Baby-faced Maggie looked youthful with her round face and blond curls and the fact that she barely reached five feet in height.
Her appearance fooled people; Alice had never met another woman as good with a blade as Maggie was.
Her friend also had the foulest temper in London.
On occasion, her hot head got them into trouble, especially when she’d been drinking, and drinking was Maggie’s favorite pastime.
“Hiya, girls,” Alice said. “Are we ready for a big day?”
The Forties whistled and clapped.
“That’s what I like to hear. Enthusiasm,” she said. “If all goes well today, we should bring in enough for new frocks and a nice night out.”
Her words were met with more cheering.
Before listing the jobs of who would do what that afternoon, Alice quickly scanned the room, making sure everyone was present.
Maggie and Scully, June, Marie, and Lily Rose.
Sherry and Bertha and the other fifteen girls were also present.
One face was markedly absent: Ruth. She’d been out a lot lately, either sick or with injuries.
With Ruth in and out, Marie’s recent flightiness, and Lily Rose’s obsession with the new boyfriend who kept trying to lure her out of the gang, Alice thought it might be time to remind them all how lucky they were to be counted among her esteemed band of hoisters.
“It’s time we had a little chat about loyalty.”
All eyes were trained on her, expectant.
“Who helps you put food on the table?” Alice asked.
“The Forty Elephants,” several said in unison.
“Who has your back when your sweetheart leaves you in the cold?”
“The Forty Elephants!” Their enthusiasm grew.