Prologue

London, 2000

The room was freezing, so cold you could see your breath mist in front of your face.

There was something about it that made everything feel wet. The electricity had been cut off several weeks ago, and with it the central heating. The old couch in the living room was damp to the touch; so too were all the blankets and pillows in the bedroom Lee shared with his three brothers. He climbed into bed and closed his eyes, tried to ignore the discomfort of damp bedding and just go to sleep, but it wouldn’t work.

He’d never admit it to any of his friends, but he often cuddled tightly to his older brother, Stu, for warmth. Liam and Trevor shared the bed on the other side of their small room, while their cousin Sophie slept in his mum’s old room. His aunt Jenny had abandoned her there months ago, right after Lee’s mum passed away. She’d then gone on an extended holiday with her boyfriend; “messed up” didn’t even begin to cover it. As far as social services were concerned, Jenny had moved in to take care of her late sister’s children. In reality, she was off sunning herself in Magaluf, boozing it up to her heart’s content and leaving all five kids with an envelope of money to survive on that had long since dried up.

There was a man who wore a suit and gold rings who’d started coming around more and more often, offering Lee a way to take care of his family. He’d seen him a few times about the estate. Once he’d been beating a man half to death because he couldn’t pay back the money he owed him, and another time he’d been visiting a woman whose husband died, bringing her a hamper of food to feed her kids. It was difficult to reconcile the violent man with the one who helped the widow. How could someone be both kind and cruel?

Still, Lee wanted to trust him. He wanted what the man was offering to be real and not a con, because he saw his expensive suit and stylish car, and deep in his gut he coveted those things for himself. He was tired of suffering, tired of seeing his brothers live a life of poverty. He wanted to make sure his family was never cold or hungry again, and the man represented an opportunity to do that.

Stu coughed and turned on his side, his eyes open, clearly unable to sleep, either.

“I hate her,” he said, drawing Lee from his thoughts.

“We all hate her,” Lee replied. “What she did was selfish. She deserves to be hated.”

“I’m not talking about Aunt Jenny. I’m talking about Mum. She was worse than Jenny. She never loved us. Mums are supposed to love their kids.”

“She didn’t even love herself,” said Lee as he thought of her. “Junkies don’t love anything but getting high.” Both his mum and her sister had grown up in a house that was the worst kind of dysfunctional. It was no wonder they turned out how they did.

Stu let his head fall back and stared up at the ceiling. “I’ll never do drugs. I’m swearing it now. If I ever try to touch a single pill, I want you to punch me in the face.”

Lee chuckled quietly. “No problem, bruv.”

“I’m serious,” Stu insisted. “I’ll even let you break my nose if it stops me from being such a stupid fucking fucker.”

Stu’s proclamations woke up their younger brothers. Liam, who was just nine and the youngest, whined, “You two are being loud.”

“Our bad, little man. Go back to sleep. We’ll be quieter,” said Lee in a hushed voice.

“I’m hungry,” said Trevor, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes.

Lee and Stu had been shoplifting food for weeks, but it was only going to be so long before they were caught. They couldn’t keep doing it. They had to find an alternative. Again, the man in the suit invaded his thoughts.

“When is Aunt Jenny coming back?” Liam asked, too young to realise she was never coming back, not for them anyway.

“She’s not,” Stu gritted out abruptly. He didn’t have Lee’s sensitivity when it came to dealing with the younger boys. Liam’s eyes started to shine right before he burst into tears, and Lee climbed from the bed, going to his side to comfort him. He threw his arm around his little brother’s shoulders and brushed away his tears with his thumb.

“It’s going to be all right. We don’t need her,” he promised him.

“How can you say that?” Trevor asked bitterly. “We have nothing. We’re just a bunch of kids nobody gives a shit about.”

“I give a shit,” Lee threw back. “I give a shit about all of us. And I’m going to figure out a plan.”

“A plan?” Liam piped up, sniffling.

“Yeah. I don’t care what I have to do or who I have to step over — I’m going to make sure we never want for anything ever again. I’m sick of living like this.” A silence elapsed as he felt all three boys stare at him. He broke the quiet when he asked finally, “Who’s with me?”

Stu immediately reached over and placed his hand on top of Lee’s. “I am.”

“Me, too,” said Trevor.

“And me,” Liam agreed.

Lee made eye contact with each of his brothers, their pact sealed. Tomorrow he’d go see the man in the suit, and, with any luck, their lives would change.

He just hoped it would be for the better.

One

London, 2010

Karla

The first time I met Lee Cross, I was doing something as ordinary as shopping for groceries.

Standing casually outside a betting shop, he’d called on my best friend, Alexis, who he knew because she’d dated his brother. Time seemed to move in slow motion when his eyes landed on me, and I immediately felt flushed. Almost against my own will I found him attractive, from his tousled brown hair to his mischievous blue eyes, to the tattoos that peeked out from the ends of his shirt sleeves.