Bloodlines (The Silk and Silver #3)

Chapter 1 – December, Five Months Ago

FRANKIE

DECEMBER, FIVE MONTHS AGO

It’s been two weeks.

Two weeks since my sister was kidnapped.

Two weeks since my dad was found dead on the side of the road.

Two weeks since my life got flipped on its head.

Before all of this, my life was simple. Well, as simple as it can be for a bottom of the barrel drug dealer.

If I was honest with myself, I’d say my timeline actually shifted the day Lou got involved with that blonde prick who seems hell bent on controlling every aspect of her life as well as mine.

Yeah alright, he set me and Mum up with a swanky flat on the nice side of Brum, but I don’t trust anyone who isn’t blood.

Dad taught me that. A familiar lump forms in my throat when his face comes into view in my head.

It’s not grief that hardens the lump. I’ve lost plenty of friends and family to the game, and I learnt very quickly from a young age not to get attached to anything when you’re a part of this world.

Souls come and go, the only constant, reliable thing in the world is the thin pieces of paper with the Queen's face on it.

Two fucking weeks.

I scrunch my eyes closed. If I do it hard enough will I teleport backwards in time? But where would I go? What would destination Frankie be?

“You gonna have that or what?” My head lolls forward, neck creaking like it’s the first time I’ve moved it in hours. Maybe it has been hours.

Shit.

My eyes fall onto my mate, the music of the club suddenly too loud and the lights too bright. Four Bang’s eyeing up the coke on the table, greedy fucker. But who am I to talk?

“Yeah I am.” I retort, harsher than I mean to, but I can’t help it. I’m stressed to the max, what with the Grenville’s breathing down my neck and my Mum in a catatonic phase of grief. Snorting the perks of the job up my nose is the only way I can unwind. That and drinking myself into oblivion.

“What time is it?” I ask, snatching up the tiny translucent bag and shoving it into my pocket.

“Nearly eight.”

Fuck. I was supposed to be at Mum’s two hours ago. I get to my feet.

“Not staying for the show?” I follow Four Bang’s subtle tip of the head, his braids swaying with the motion and the strobe light catching the gleam in his gold grill. My head throbs.

“Nah.” I don’t spare him with the details; I never do anymore since taking over from my dad. I don’t miss how he narrows his eyes at me though.

“Fancy meeting or something?” He pries. But I ignore him and pull out some cash from the inside of my jacket pocket and chuck it down onto the table in front of us in the booth.

“Something like that. See you later.” I don’t spare him another glance, or any of the other motley crew starting to gather on the sticky floors of “Viva la Birmingham”.

It’s a shit hole, for all intents and purposes, but it was on my dad’s books to funnel money into, owned by some cunt I never bothered to learn the name of.

So I’ve been here since twelve in the afternoon, spending as much as I fucking can and dishing some out to everyone else in here, so that they can spend it too. Where it goes after that—fuck knows.

Lou would know.

I stumble out of the club onto the street, the lights of the city blurring together.

I need to perk up before I see Mum. The baggy is in my hand without even a thought, like it’s automatic. I pour out the white powder onto the back of my hand and sniff hard.

It’s an instant rush, but it won't last. It never does. Hopefully it’s enough to get me to the fish and chip shop for Mum though.

On the way to Mum’s, my life motto repeats in my head on loop.

Pussy. Powder. Pills.

That’s all I’ve ever given a fuck about.

Now, the “three Ps” I’ve lived my whole life by are at the very bottom of my priority list.

Instead of pounding the pavements and dealing with soldiers on the corners, I have to deal with bloody paperwork and organising a funeral worthy of the King of Birmingham.

Not being cut out for this shit is a fucking understatement.

Everything that the generations of dodgy dealing Garrick’s who came before me had done now fell to me.

It was always supposed to be this way in the end, so I don’t know why I feel so fucking unprepared for it, and that’s what pisses me off the most. I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and admit I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, but I did think that this would all come a bit more naturally.

But so far everything feels wrong. The shoes are too big to fill and the crown doesn’t fit my head properly.

I’m done for.

I check the streets for the paparazzi before I walk up the steps to Mum’s flat in the middle of Birmingham, a box of fish and chips in one hand and a bottle of cheap white wine in the other.

The last thing I need is another headline about how much of a mess I look.

Self care is at the bottom of my list too.

With making sure shipments run smoothly and moaning old men, I barely have the time for a shave these days.

Top of my list today—after money laundering—is Mum.

She hasn’t been eating, just drowning her sorrows, but I thought her favourite food might cheer her up a bit.

Then hopefully she can tell me what the fucking difference is between the lillies that Ben wants and the lillies that I want.

That man is party planner of the fucking year…

everything has to be a big fat spectacle to stop gossip running about.

Which has only worsened since it was announced that my sister’s engaged to the prick.

The whole thing reeked of something foul; we would have been the first ones she’d have told if something that big was happening in her life.

I don’t bother knocking on the door once I reach the second floor, I just twist the knob and let myself in. Mum and Dad’s wedding song blasts from the bluetooth speaker I’d bought her last Christmas, the music so loud my head spins. Or maybe it’s just the whiskey and the coke.

“Mum?” I shout, putting the chippy tea down on the kitchen worktop and opening the bottle of wine. I take a cheeky swig as I push back the voice of my sister in my head. If she were here, she’d call me an enabler, but Lou was just as bad.

After all, she used to sneak Dad’s cigarettes into prison for him. I close my eyes for a second, wishing that I could tell her to her face that she’s a hypocrite.

She’s not here and it’s your fault. A little voice in the back of my head says. Looks like the paranoia is starting to set in. I take another swig of wine and shake the thoughts away…

It will be better for Mum to be drunk and numb before I start asking her to help me plan Dad’s funeral.

She isn’t coping with the loss. Mum goes from being inconsolable to disassociating in a heartbeat.

She never speaks, only cries. It’s like a shank to the gut; watching someone who has always been so strong and put together crumble under the pressure of grief.

All I can do is watch on from a distance and supply her with alcohol so that she actually gets some sleep.

Call me a terrible son, but I haven’t told her about Lou being missing. I don’t think she could handle it right now. I swallow down my own grief and look for a clean glass.

“Mum, I’ve got your tea here.” I call again, the cupboards banging loudly behind me in my search.

No answer.

“Come on, I’ve got your favourite wine, Birmingham's finest fish and chips… I thought we could catch the soaps tonight before I head down to the Boxing Club, just like we used to—Mum?”

The song ends. For a heartbeat, the flat turns still.

Silence piercing through the thick layer of dust that has piled up in the flat.

Looking at it now, in the quiet, is like I’m seeing the disarray for the first time.

I didn’t realise how bad it had gotten. Mum has always been house proud.

When her own parents coughed it, she spent three days scrubbing the house for fuck sake.

You are a terrible son. You let it get like this.

The music starts again. The same song as before.

A knot twists in my stomach. Fear spikes the hair on my arms. This isn’t right.

Mum doesn’t know how to use her phone very well. How the fuck did she figure out how to put the song on repeat? More importantly, why?

My footsteps are heavy as they make their way to Mum’s bedroom door.

I rest my hand on the door knob, fighting the urge to swear at her and leave. That has always been my way of dealing with things—not dealing with them at all. Because whatever lies behind this door becomes my responsibility.

If I leave now, it would become someone else’s.

Maureen, Mum’s downstairs neighbour perhaps. That nosey cow would be up here tomorrow morning to see if she needed anything. I have no idea if Mum had been confiding in Maureen, but I didn’t see the harm of giving her my spare key. If Lou were here, she would be catching up with Maureen every day.

Mum’s flat would be clean.

She would probably be speaking and not drinking.

But Lou isn’t here.

Now I wear the dead King's shoes and crown.

Everything has changed.

There is no room for the “three Ps” anymore.

I have to open the door.

My hand shakes violently against the bronze metal, rattling the wood it’s screwed into. I grip it so tightly, that I’m sure if I concentrated hard enough I could pull it clean from the door.

With that hard lump in my throat again, I twist the handle and push the door open. The music blares. The familiar song that my parents had lovingly waltzed around to in our old family kitchen morphs from something warm and nostalgic into something I hope I never listen to again.

Those memories will be forever tainted by the sight in front of me.

My heart shatters as Mum’s rigid body swings back and forth. My body freezes. My lungs burn as they urge for me to take a breath. A lethal cocktail of hopeless sorrow and shock embraces me, squeezing my insides into stagnancy.

Do something, anything, cut her down, call an ambulance. But my body won’t comply with my mind's frantic demands. Simple steps suddenly seem mountainous.

It’s been hours since I last checked in.

Is that why she did this? To punish me? She knew I was coming. Why would she want me to find her?

When Dad was alive, he’d made it no secret that I was an utter disappointment to this family, but Mum? I was her golden child. The reason she got up in the morning.

Finally, something inside of me breaks.

I look up at the woman who gave me life, drop to my knees, and I cry. I curl myself inwards like a small child and sob until my throat turns dry and the world disappears.

I leave the music on.

Finally, after what seems like days, I manage to pull out my phone and straighten myself out. Dad’s words ring in my ears.

“You’ve got a job to do. Get it done, or it won’t be my backhand you’re fearing. These are serious cunts Frankie. They don’t give a fuck about me or you, all they care about is getting their fucking money. I’m warning you, boy. Don’t get it fucking twisted. Remember you’re a fucking Garrick.”

That’s what it always comes down to.

Not allowed to cry, or laugh, or grieve. A scripted life was better for everyone. It kept the order of things, and ensured that the power stayed within the family. All I have to simply be, is a Garrick. Nothing more and nothing less.

I pull up Ben’s number, sniffing slightly as it starts to ring.

I straighten myself up to my full height and blow a gasp of air out of my mouth.

What I really need is a cigarette. I walk back to the kitchen, still listening to the dull ring on the other end of the line.

I grab my jacket from the counter and pull out the packet with shaking hands.

“Have you found her?!” Ah, fuck. Where is my lighter?

“Um, no.” I mutter, the cigarette bounces between my lips as I rifle through my pockets.

“Then why the fuck are you calling me? I told you, you are only to communicate with me if you find her!” He was a touchy prick, this one.

I can’t understand what the obsession with my sister is.

If only he knew that this wasn’t totally out of character for her.

Yes she had been kidnapped, but the bitch has run off with that wanker before.

That’s what I tell myself at night anyway. What I need to tell myself. Because the alternative was worse than what lay in the bedroom.

“I’m sorry, alright, I’ve got a bit of a situation. I didn’t know who else to fucking ring.” Throwing caution to the wind, I lean down over the hob and light the gas, igniting the cigarette. I let the smoke travel deep into my lungs before coming up for air.

“What kind of situation?” Ben asks gruffly. I run a hand through my hair and pull at the strands. The sting is grounding, keeps me focused.

“Well, as much as this might inconvenience you. My mum’s—she’s—” The words stick to the back of my throat. I’m not even man enough to say the fucking words.

You’re a fucking disappointment to this family, Frankie.

“Where are you?”

“Mum’s flat.” My voice cracks.

Remember you’re a fucking Garrick.

“I’m tied up in London right now, but I’m sending Zach. Call the number I text you; they’ll deal with this discreetly.” The line goes dead and I feel like bashing my fucking brains out on the counter.

My dealings with Zach so far had been… weird.

He was eerily quiet during my meetings with Ben, but the bloke was intense.

He’d look at me like he could see right through me, as if he knew my big man attitude was an act.

He set me on edge. The last thing I needed was him showing up, but I guess it was a blessing to not have to deal with Ben and his million and one questions on why I haven’t got any intel on my sister yet.

I swallow the lump in my throat and pull up the number that Ben had texted me.

“Remember you’re a fucking Garrick.” I mutter as the line rings.