Chapter 2 – One Week Later #2
It’s as if Dad’s ghost is right behind me, eyes on me prickling my nerves.
A light tickle of a breath on my neck has me spinning in circles, ready to take out the culprit.
A brush against my shoe, a whisper in my ear.
The veins in my neck pulse, my grip on the bottle has never been tighter.
No. I won't let fear rule me. Dad is dead and now all he can do is watch me fuck everything up from the other side.
That will be his eternity. A never ending front row seat to the fall of the great and mighty house of Garrick.
“Are you finally proud now?” I shout into the neglected space, my head buzzing from the rum.
Unsurprisingly, there is no answer.
“Come on Dad. Tell me how it’s all my fault. Tell me I’m the son you wish you’d never had.” I take another swig, my eyes scouring the place for a sign that he was here and that I wasn’t going batshit.
“The dead don’t like to meddle and you won’t find the answers you seek in the bottom of a bottle.” Zach’s voice startles me, I whirl back around to the entrance wondering if that had really been twenty minutes.
“You scared the shit out of me.” I offer Zach the bottle as he takes maddeningly slow steps towards the bar. How long is this going to take? I’ve got two funerals to plan and a meeting to get to tonight.
“I won’t keep you, I know you’re a busy man. I just wanted to ask you if you had any leads yet.” Zach runs his finger along the bar top thick with dust and debris before he inspects it closely.
“If I did, I would have rang you.” That’s the beauty of technology you rich twat, I don’t have to see or speak to any fucker if I don’t want too. I sigh before lifting the half empty bottle to my lips.
“Tsk tsk tsk… That’s not the answer I was looking for.” Zach’s startling silver eyes turn threatening as they darken.
Pfft. What’s this prick going to do? I’d already lost everything, he can’t kill me because that would leave Lou with nobody when we finally find her. Besides, I’m telling the truth. Whoever had the information isn’t giving it to me.
“What about the guy you mentioned last time? Malachi was it? Didn’t he say he had information? My brother paid a lot of money for him to talk. Did you give it to him?” There’s something deadly in his voice now, and it turns my blood to ice.
I’d forgotten all about it. And I’d lost the cash that Ben had given me on a stupid bet during a laundering night out.
“I gave him the money, but he didn’t have anything useful.
” Lying and saving my own skin has always been easy for me.
But by the way Zach narrowed his eyes, I don’t think he believes me. Shit.
“You seem on edge, Frankie. Why don’t you have another drink?” Faster than my brain can process, my body is lifted from the air and slammed down on top of the bar.
Not a single vertebrae is spared from the throbbing pain.
My groans pierce the still bar, head swimming. The base of my skull grows slick and warm. How the fuck did that just happen?
Zach clasps his hand around my jaw and forces my mouth open in a vice-like grip.
He’s freakishly strong; I wouldn’t be able to get away from him even if I wasn’t tipsy.
“My brother may be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I had your number a long time ago. You see, I have this unique ability to read people. So I always know when someone is lying.”
Rum is poured into my mouth faster than I can swallow, the burning amber liquid spills over the sides, pours off my chin, floods my nose.
It pools around my head, mixing with the blood dripping from my open wound.
Rum and blood seep up towards my cut up the side of my head, until finally the unmistakable searing pain of the acid seeps in.
My eyes bulge from inside my head in panic and pain.
I'm drowning.
I can’t breathe, or think. My hands fumble with his wrist, yet his arm doesn’t move an inch.
Zach’s wide, crazed eyes watch me struggle and choke without an ounce of humanity behind them.
“The thing about being richer than your brain could ever fathom is that I have nothing but time. I don’t have to work; everything I do is for my own pleasure.
I could, quite literally, do this shit all day. ”
Just as my lungs are about to shut down and my vision starts spotting black, it stops and oxygen scorches my lungs as I take deep, gasping breaths and cough. My body begins to shake, but Zach’s grip is still firm.
He leans in close, almost nose to nose with me. “Don’t you ever fucking lie to me again.” He whispers softly.
I stare up at the ceiling of the bar, vision swimming and chest heaving, asking myself how the fuck I got here. How did I get it so wrong?
I deserve every bit of this.
Zach releases his grip on my jacket and pulls away, straightening his own up.
Smoothing away the non existent crinkles on the arms of his black blazer, like he just touched something filthy.
“Get up, Frankie boy. You stole a hundred thousand pounds of my brother's money, so now, you’re indebted to me.”
I roll onto my side, the marrow in my bones screaming at me for water. Everything aches as I cough and splutter. I don’t give a fuck that I have to do his bidding. He’s just someone else I fucked over and have to do dirty work for. I’ve been here so many fucking times.
“I said, get up. We have places to be.” He demands again.
“Where are we going?” My raspy voice reverberates around the room.
Zach straightens his jacket once more and smoothes back his hair without even acknowledging that he almost killed me.
“We're going to see your dear old friend Malachi. We’re without the cash now, but that doesn’t matter.
It's time to see whether you really are a gangster or just playing at being one.”
Terror snakes around my body. “No— Malachi isn’t someone you wanna fuck about with.” Even my Dad had trouble keeping him in line. Malachi came from the Russian mafia, the kind you see in movies. Built exactly like you’d expect; like a brick shithouse.
The fucker had spent more time in prison than he’d spent out and had issues with anyone that so much as looked at him the wrong way.
He’d been in Durham prison with Dad for a while, but Malachi was a slippery fucker.
The pigs can never seem to get concrete evidence against him to convict him for anything longer than a few years a time.
“That’s where you’re going wrong, Frankie.
You’re scared of the wrong people. The only person on this mortal plain that you should fear, is me.
Second is my brother. If you fuck this up, I’ll make your existence a long and miserable one.
Trust me when I tell you I’m capable of inflicting more pain than any Russian brute can. Now get. The fuck. Up.”