Chapter 2 – One Week Later
FRANKIE
ONE WEEK LATER
Ilook up at the rundown, old red brick factory and last night's dinner threatens to come up as I do. This is it. The last piece of the Garrick estate. ‘The Old Brewery.’ is now nothing but an empty shell in the middle of old Birmingham. It used to mean something in this town before… everything.
It was the only asset the police never managed to get their greedy hands on due to it being in my name and not Dad’s.
Everything else, they either seized, or we had to sell to try and make up the fees for Dad’s solicitor.
While most of the police around here are rotten to the core, the ones that aren’t tend to have a vendetta against the families that make up the entire drug organisation.
Pinning that murder on Dad was like Christmas-fucking-day for them.
They still sniffed around, oinking at the scraps we let them have, but so far nobody else had been caught.
If you were to ask me if I think that the fact that none of Dad’s mates had ended up in prison like he did is suspicious, my answer would be yes. I’m not that thick to not recognise the signs of someone else lining their coffers, but I simply do not give a single flying fuck.
Even though I should.
This is the Garrick legacy after all…
Lou would bring them all in and question them until they spilled all of their secrets (like Dad would have done).
However I’m not him. It’s easier for me to bury my head in the sand.
Go through the motions of being some big bad drug dealer, without actually committing to it. Ignorance is bliss and all that shit.
My eyes trace the veins between the bricks.
This place used to be a symbol for the community, like the boxing club.
If you were in trouble, you could come here.
Had a business proposition? Pop in for a pint.
You found your misses in bed with the postman?
We’ve got a drink just right for that occasion…
Now it’s abandoned, forgotten, just like me.
Not that any of it matters. I’ll see the deal I made with the Grenville’s through and then…
assess the situation again. While this place is legally mine, and the deeds are officially released from evidence and in my hands, imposter syndrome threatens to swallow me whole.
I pull the rotten wood off the doors which takes less effort than I thought it would. A slice of sunshine lights the way. I think of Lou as I push it open, the creaking makes my hairs stand on edge.
Where could she be? Is she safe?
What leads that had seemed fruitful over the last three weeks have run dry.
My usual associates have been less than willing to come forward with information.
Doesn’t take a genius to know why. Despite training for this pissing job from the moment I was evicted from the womb, it’s not just me who thinks I’m completely incapable of succeeding in the way that everyone wants me to.
I’m a fighter, not a killer. Fighters don’t inspire fear, not when violence is as monotonous as pouring milk in your cereal.
Fear makes the hardest of fuckers bend the knee and kiss the ground you walk on, and that is the key to winning the game.
My head has not been in it since Lou got with Ben.
She pulled me out of it and made me look weak by setting me up in that fancy apartment and stupid 9-5 job at one of Ben’s businesses.
There was a moment at that new job where I thought I could really make a go of it and keep on the path of the straight and narrow…
And then all that shit with Oscar happened.
It all happened so fast; one minute Lou was at the university, slinging coke for me so I wouldn’t get in the shit with Oscar, the next thing I know, I’ve got blokes kitted out in all black packing up mine and Mum’s stuff and moving us into an area full of people who look down their noses at me.
Now, I’m displaced. A foot in each world.
I hadn’t been back to that desk job since Lou was taken and Dad was found dead.
It had been instinctual to lean on the people I’d known my whole life, to come back and beg them all to help me.
But in the one pissy month that I was away, the old families of Birmingham's underworld had restructured everything.
Executing something like that should have taken months if not years to start running smoothly again, but they made it look like this had all been years in the making.
And while their arms were open wide to me when I returned, there was no loyalty behind their eyes.
It’s shameful really, that these people had staged a coup and didn’t fear the consequences if they refused to give me the information that I needed. If it was my dad here, instead of me, they’d have given Oscar up quicker than he could light a cigarette.
That thought should make me feel something. Sadness, guilt, shame… But I don’t care. I don’t care that everything my family built has come crashing down around me. We never saw eye to eye; I was a constant disappointment to him and he made no secret of it. It was always:
“You’re not doing it right, Frankie.”
“Frankie, stop fucking it up!”
“Get your head out of the clouds son, you were born for this”
No matter how much I’ve tried over the years, I just simply don’t have the stomach for it, or the wits.
Now here lies what’s left of our family name: nobody trusts me, nobody wants to do business with me and my history of indifference.
Which pisses the Grenville brothers off.
I want my sister safe, but I could do without the constant nagging from those rich cunts.
They’re like desperate hounds clinging to any tiny bit of information we got.
They even hired a bunch of mercenaries to try to get the job done.
Paid soldiers don’t know Birmingham like I do; every backstreet and underground club in the district has been searched.
Yet Oscar disappears like a puff of smoke each time we get close.
Like clockwork, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I roll my eyes already knowing what the caller I.D would say… Sure enough, “Rich Cunt” in big bold letters flashes across the screen. I answer quickly, knowing how impatient those fuckers are and put it to my ear.
“The situation is the same as it was an hour ago.” I say as I finally summon the courage to enter the derelict pub. Broken glass crunches beneath my trainers and dust twirls around the stream of light peeking through the door.
“My brother isn't the most patient of people. Do I have to remind you that the people you were supposed to be in charge of took something that didn’t belong to them?”
I bite back a snarky response about how nobody owns my fucking sister, remind myself that I need them; I have no family, no allies, no money. Just a derelict pub and an old notebook filled with business addresses to funnel money through.
“Did the lawyers we provided follow through with their promise on your family's establishment?” Zach’s bored voice drifts through the phone, bringing me back to the present.
“Yeah, I'm here now. Why?”
“Stay there, I'll be there in twenty. My brother has a surprise for you.” The line goes dead and I’m left with nothing but the startling silence of the bar and images of my mothers body hanging in her bedroom.
Zach’s statement does nothing to help the uneasy feeling this place was giving me.
There is always a catch with anything the Grenville brothers give you.
I need a drink.
I head for the bar, going straight around the back to inspect the top shelf of dusty alcohol bottles still lined up in the same place that Dad had placed them. It’s some fucking miracle that this place hasn’t been looted.
There had been many times that I’d sat here, watching Dad work.
He was a force to be reckoned with; he commanded the attention of the room no matter who was in it.
I had been in awe of him when I was younger, but I wish I’d asked him if he’d always wanted to be a gangster or if he’d simply done it because it was a right of passage for the family.
Maybe if he hadn’t, I’d feel better about resisting the job so much.
My eyes linger on the unopened bottle of rum.
“Fuck it.” I mutter before grabbing it and breaking the seal. I don’t bother with a glass, just drink straight from the bottle. My throat burns as the liquid trickles down.
This is a slippery slope.
I’d been on and off the wagon since the ripe old age of fourteen. If I’m honest, I wouldn’t even know what sober looked like, even if it punched me in the face. I always need to have something to take the edge off: smoking, drugs, drinking, fighting. Different situations call for a different vice.
I’ve always been remarkable at hiding it, too. The trick is to never let it fully take hold of me. Now, I’m not an addict; addicts use their vices first thing in the morning, but not me. I wait until the streets go dark before starting. That… doesn’t mean I don’t think about it though.
So I distract myself during the day with fitness and boxing. Boxing is my true passion and the only thing I'd ever been remotely good at my entire life. I had dreams of going pro… once.
A dark shadow moves in the corner of my eye, slipping over the broken glass like a snake as I take another swig.
I pivot towards the door, but there’s nothing there.
Shivers spark down my spine as a waft of tobacco and musk hit me square in the face from the open door.
I’ve never believed in the supernatural, but I know my dad well enough to know that he’d make it his life's mission to haunt me from the great beyond if he could.