I was hell bent on following my destructive path and I knew it, but I had a plan, at least most fucking days I did. The reason I had ended up on this path in the first place had been resolved, my two sisters Jasmin and Bella were happy in their lives and I knew that I now needed to come to terms with my own. But it was my own heartbreak that kept me following the same destination. Lily was long gone and no matter how hard I, Charlie and Katy had tried to find her, she had just simply disappeared. Sometimes, I wondered if I had only dreamt her, but as I remembered the floral smell of her perfume and the way her small hand felt inside my large one, I knew I hadn’t.
I snapped myself out of the thoughts that engulfed me at least once a day and glanced at Charlie. I looked up from the small chrome and leather handle that his large fist had a hold on, to the huge form sat next to me with one full-sleeve tatted arm completely outstretched as he concentrated hard on the road ahead. I was six foot three and thanks to all the training I had done with him, I was substantial in width. But Charlie, he was fucking enormous. Our shoulders nearly touched in the middle of the car. Since his last fight and subsequent stay in hospital, he had taken a good hard look at his life. I wished occasionally that something would jolt me into doing the same for mine.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Charlie forced out.
I unwrapped the natural fibre rope from around my fists and dropped the coils down in between my bare legs to the floor, flexing out my exposed, scarred digits. I had used the rope earlier to toughen the skin on my hands as I punched the canvas bag in my gym. Slowly, I rubbed each of my hands in turn, taking in just how fucking awful they were beginning to look. Thank Christ my face wasn’t in the same state, but it was often that way with bare-knuckle fighting.
‘Yeah, I know I don’t have to fight… It’s ok, Cyclopes. Just keep your one good eye on the road, yeah.’ I tried to instil some humour into the serious atmosphere in my car.
‘Fuck off, you bastard,’ he forced out. I could see the start of a grin from the corner of my eye.
Losing his last fight, in which he had been punched with absolute conviction to the ground, had seen a couple of his teeth knocked out and had also resulted in Charlie being knocked unconscious. He had been rushed to A and E and then into ICU, and for a few days it was touch and go. Only his closest friends and family knew he now only had partial vision in his left eye, the only outward signs were a small disk-shaped flat spot on the back of his head and a fleck in his eye that wasn’t there before.
The murderous bastard that Charlie had fought, Michael “Mad dog” Maguire had gone to ground. We had heard rumours about him fighting in Russia, and as far as we were all concerned, good fucking riddance. I had seen many fights before, but that last one of Charlie’s was something else. Sure, all fighters want to win, they all have their own personal demons to conquer through fighting, but “Mad dog” seemed to get sadistic pleasure from the fucking thought of taking away someone’s life and causing them as much pain as possible in the process. It had taken me and four others to pull him off Charlie after he had been punched to the floor. As we held “Mad dog” in our arms he thrashed around, every sinew still taut with the blood lust that was careering through his body. He sunk his teeth into one of the others holding him. That’s how I’ll always remember him, being dragged away with a fucking mouthful of blood and skin from some poor bastard’s cheek.
Charlie had been forced to give up bare-knuckle fighting, as doctors advised that he couldn’t risk another punch to the head. Although after facing “Mad dog” I should think that somewhere deep inside he was fucking relieved. We had been best mates since we had fought over a girl at school in reception class. He had helped me when I’d had problems and now it was my turn to help him, by taking his place in the underground fight we were on our way to in central London.
If we didn’t turn up, it would place a complete and utter shit fest in the lap of Charlie and his family. Too much money, property, illegal substances and people’s lives had already been bet on the fight, there was too much woven so intricately into the result that there was no backing out now, not without creating more trouble than anyone in their right mind would want. The people involved weren’t the sort of people you messed around with, I had already placed myself on the wrong side of one of their previously well-thought-of families as I fought to protect my sisters.
My thoughts were broken by the sound of a forced grinding noise coming from my baby’s gear box. I spun my head around quickly.
‘Oi… Don’t forget it’s my fucking car you’re driving,’ I reminded him after he crunched the gears yet again on my brand new, gun-metal coloured Audi TT.
‘And don’t ya forget that after this fight is over, gobshite, you’ll be wanting a lift back home… Now listen to me, I’m gonna say it again… you don’t have to fight. My dad, my brothers and me will sort out the repercussions, eventually.’
I shook my head as I spoke, thinking that although Charlie came from a typically large Irish family with one born almost every year, there were only girls for years after him. Darragh, the second born son was only sixteen. Although he was a fantastic fighter in his own right, he was far too young to fight this one in the here and now.
‘It’s a done deal, I’m fighting… I’ve got this. You don’t need all the crap that will implode if your family don’t keep their side of the deal. You’ve said it yourself, it could end in a feud. Your dad is getting on and your brothers ain’t old enough to help you deal with it.’
‘But the fight is…’ He stopped speaking, running the words around in his head just trying to find the right ones.
I thumped him hard, using my closed fist to his bicep causing my car to veer very slightly.
‘Fuck off… it’s all good. Now, just drive.’ It was the last I wanted to hear on the subject.
I reached down to turn up the music. I knew that he was trying hard to find the right words to say. We both knew that the fight we were on our way to was a step up for me and probably way out of my league, but I couldn’t focus on that right now. I had to concentrate on the films I had been analysing of my competitor, John-Joe Walsh. I knew how he fought, I knew what tactics he used when he was placed in certain situations, and that was what I was going to use against him. I brought something extra to the party that many others just simply didn’t have. Sure, I had the affinity to violence that they all had, but I also had intelligence and an ability to process things much quicker than “normal” people. This processing skill had been great for my academic life and even more so for fighting. It gave me an almost natural ability. I had been fighting well for the past eighteen months and had won every single fight in the last year.
I deserved to win. I had studied hard, trained hard and worked hard to do just that. I needed the money for my next project and the O’Neills needed their obligation to compete in this illegal fight sorted.
Losing just wasn’t an option.
We eventually pulled into the garage that had been cleared out especially for the occasion. I felt the vibrations run through the car as Charlie deliberately applied extra pressure to the accelerator, the deep rumble announced our self-assured arrival and I watched as some of the spectators turned their heads to watch us come down the last slope into hell. We took our place in the large circle of cars they had created to form a pseudo boxing ring, and jumped out quickly making sure our confident air was felt, if not seen, by all that were glancing our way.
I looked around the cold concrete enclosure, it was lit with bright fluorescent lighting and I inhaled the petrol fumes. A feeling of pleasure entered my blood stream as I realised that not one of the Antonescu’s family were anywhere to be seen. At last it seemed the bastards had been eradicated from the community.
London gangsters were some of the biggest snobs I had ever met. Laughable that they considered so many crimes as legitimate business, but others, namely those involving woman and children, they found to be a huge fucking step too far. It was a real shame that the European gangsters that seemed to be arriving by the fucking coachload didn’t seem to have their old-fashioned morals.
I ran fast on the spot to increase my heart rate and with it, I hoped, the much-needed adrenalin that was essential for me to come out fighting would flood my system.
Charlie grabbed the bag from the small backseat of my car, which contained the fifty thousand pounds in cash that made up his family’s bet on the fight. Saying nothing he nodded to me as he made his way over to find the bookmaker. Charlie unzipped the black duffle that contained the small denomination notes that once the fight was over would be easier to distribute. After the bookmaker had checked the bag and cast his eyes over the contents, Charlie zipped it up quickly and strode back to the car to once again throw it onto the backseat.
The money would be exchanged at the end of the fight, as trust in the underworld was in extremely short supply.
Others were getting out of their cars now and starting to come closer to where I was warming up and going through my pre-fight ritual. It was like my lucky talisman. I could hear some of the women behind me almost purring as they watched my body flex. It was just like being a fucking horse, eyes examined every sinew and muscle on my body, but no one reached out to touch me as they did with other competitors. It was already a well-known fact that I would come out fighting if anyone touched me. Once I was in the zone, I hit first and asked questions later.
I could see across the open concrete space that they were doing the same to John-Joe. Rolling my neck around in circles, I heard the clicks that I knew would release the tension that was building as I waited to get on with the job in hand. I watched as one of the heads of a somewhat new family, Nicolae Vasile, patted John-Joe on the head like he owed him. The wig-wearing, fat, puce-skinned dickhead then proceeded to offer him words of wisdom, like he knew what the fuck he was talking about. I could see he had his entourage gathered around him, which was made up of thugs and numerous young ladies. It was well known that these young ladies fulfilled his, and his son Tony’s, sexual deviances and fucked up desires. My heart went out to them, knowing but for sheer luck my sister Bella could easily have been one of them.
I shook the thought free from my head.
One of the women caught my attention, as my eyes briefly skimmed over them all.
Fuck knows why?
I noticed she was stood just outside of the main throng of bodies that were each competing for either of the Vasiles’ attention. I couldn’t see her face as her head was hung down and her long, overly-bleached blonde hair covered her profile. But it was obvious from her body language that she wasn’t like the rest and she didn’t want to be here. She wasn’t looking to impress either of the Vasiles, her hands were placed together in front of her dipped face as she seemed to nervously flick or pick at her nails. The pull to carry on watching her was strong, but I could feel eyes staring at me.
I moved my eyes from her to see Tony watching me, looking at her. A sneer crossed over his features as he slapped her hands down and pulled her closer to him by the elbow, causing her to recoil in pain. Those cruel actions energised my whole system, anger flowed around my veins at her plight. The brutality towards the woman got my heart rate going better than I could have managed from the whole of my warm-up routine.
Finally, the preliminary crap was over and facing each other we listened to the rules as the referee went through the few that there were.
‘Ladies and gentlemen…’ He went on to say more, but I just blanked everything out and stared deep into my opponent’s eyes, we were nose to nose and I could smell the sweat that was already pouring out of his pores. At last I heard, ‘I want a clean fight, gentlemen, at all times. Gentlemen defend yourselves at all times.’ I heard the blocks of wood as they were banged together to signify the start of the bout. I had stepped into the ring to fight, not realising that this round would be easy compared to what was to come.
Only two hours later, we were speeding through the darkness in complete silence. The bright street lighting streaked past my car. Charlie had turned on the radio to inject something, almost anything, into the tense, closed-in atmosphere. I felt him turn his head to me more than a few times. I refused to look, just like I was refusing to look anymore in the small make-up mirror that the passenger visor held.
I knew what he was wordlessly asking, I was asking myself the same questions. As I hadn’t been able to answer any of them in my head, I couldn’t give him any fucking answers either.
My body should have been hurting by now. Tiredness should have crept into my muscles. The only things that let me know I had fought an hour ago, was my partial payment of the tiny figure curled into a foetal position on the small bench seat behind us and my swollen hands that now rested on my thighs.
Strangely nothing hurt, but then adrenalin was still pumping around my system. My body felt on edge from her presence, but oddly at peace.
‘Jack… JACK!... Ignoring me, gobshite, isn’t going to make me shut up. Where the fuck am I taking her?’
‘Home, Charlie… just take us home.’