Chapter 1
BUTCHER
KILLING PEOPLE DOESN’T MAKE ME A BAD GUY
“You need to stop watching her lad,” Uncle Sean whispers in my ear.
I smirk, because I know that’s one thing I’ll never stop doing. He knew that, which is why he knew where I’d be since I wasn’t working today.
I smelled him coming before I heard him, the menthol from whatever muscle relaxing cream he always used was pungent. My uncle was getting older and was slowing down more than I liked. It had me thinking of my dad, who was at least nine years older than him.
“And I’ll keep watching until that motherfucker is out of her life,” I turn my head a little to better see my uncle but could still keep an eye on my obsession.
And there was no sugar-coating it, I was obsessed with her.
She’d be free of the fecker she was with soon enough.
I’d heard rumours about him… okay... maybe I’d started those rumours when I’d whispered a few things in the right ears.
Ears that were not happy to find out that he was skimming their drugs and selling it on the side.
Now me? I wasn’t a fan of drugs and so long as the gangs running them stayed away from me and mine, I’d leave them alone. I’d also done a favour a few years ago for one of the men in charge of the South End. I’d found the man who’d assaulted his sister and delivered him to them.
They thought they owed me and I let them think that, but I’d never call in that favour. Not when I’d taken a predator off the streets.
“Did Aunt Jess get in touch with her?”
Uncle Sean leans his shoulder against the wall next to me and nods. “She did, and she’ll be starting at the bakery next week. You know she won’t be able to work full time with a little one, right?”
That was the other thing that galled me.
She’d had a baby with the motherfucker. A baby that she’d had to birth by herself because he was too busy getting his end away with another woman to care that his current one was bringing his child into the world.
But that had been nearly fifteen months ago.
I’d watched as she’d struggled for the last year, basically being a single mother while still being attached to the fecker.
That’s how much notice he took of his daughter.
“Mmh,” I nod and watch as she tugs a car seat out from the back of her beat up rust bucket of a car and traipses tiredly up the steps of a run-down house.
You could see that she’d tried to make it prettier by planting flowers and hanging pretty curtains in the window, but a shit box was a shit box no matter how you dressed it up.
“I’ve arranged for a place at a local nursery for her, fully paid as part of her wages.”
Uncle Sean chuckles, “Thought of everything, haven’t you lad?”
When her door shuts, I turn with my uncle, and we walk slowly down the path towards where we were parked. It’s getting late and she’s in for the night, and if I have my way her man won’t be home tonight. Or any other night from now on.
“Just about I reckon.” I answer, taking my keys out of my pocket.
I stop at my bike and swing a leg over it as I wait for my uncle to get in his car.
He opens his window and leans on it as he waits for me to continue.
I never have to explain shit to Uncle Sean; he just seems to know.
“I’ve got to figure out how to get her out of this area and into the house next door to me. I’ll only relax once she’s there.”
Uncle Sean nods, “You’ll figure it out son.” He clicks his tongue then asks, “And the baby?”
I shrug, “The babe is part of her.”
He nods; he knows that it doesn’t bother me who the babe’s father is. As far as I’m concerned once he’s gone, the only father she’ll ever know is me.