Taken

And so that only left the OMG girls, or as Emmie liked to call them, the bitches. She’d always been selective with her choice of friends and had deliberately kept away from the girls with their loud mouths and cruel comments. She’d never liked being mean to people and the thought of being friends with girls who spent their time bitching about other people made her shudder. No, she was happy being on her own – though she wasn’t really on her own any more was she?

Unable to resist, Emmie logged onto her Facebook account and with a smile she changed her status from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship’. That would give them something to talk about when they saw it. It would stop them calling her ‘Skelly Emmie’. It would show them that someone thought she was nice, someone thought she was pretty and someone wanted her.

Smiling and sitting back on her bed, she took out her white Swarovski crystal iPhone and dialled a familiar number.

‘She’s gone. Where shall I meet you?’

The journey into London took Emmie longer than she thought it would. The traffic was terrible as they hit Upper Street in Islington and with the cab driver playing bhangra music complete with a deep bass the journey seemed even longer.

She’d decided to wear her black leather skinny VB trousers with a pink cowl neck top from All Saints but she wondered if she should’ve just put on her new Rock and Republicjeans with a plain black t-shirt instead; she didn’t want Jake to think she was overdressed.

She hadn’t really wanted to come up to the West End but Jake had told her he was going to have to work later, so if she wanted to see him, she needed to come to him.

Emmie could feel the butterflies in her stomach; she knew she was taking a risk by going so close to her dad’s club but she was desperate to see Jake, and the thought of not being able to see him for another week was more than she could bear.

It was another twenty-five minutes until they made it to Chinatown and Emmie got out of the cab looking round nervously in case she saw her father, whose club was only a few streets away from where she was standing.

The area was packed with people; a colourful mix of tourists, revellers and Chinese residents all milling round. The sounds and smells blasted Emmie’s senses and looking at the array of roast duck, crispy pork and char-siu hanging up in the various windows of the Chinese restaurants made her feel hungry. She’d already had some soup and an apple earlier on in the day and it’d made her feel like a pig and she’d ended up sticking her fingers down her throat, desperately hoping her body wouldn’t have absorbed any of the calories, so any thought of having a Chinese meal was totally out of the question.

Outside the dim sum restaurant she saw Jake standing with a long sour expression on his face. He was twenty-two; six years older than she was, but he was one of the few people apart from her father who made her feel good about herself.

He worked part time for her dad and she’d met him when he’d delivered a package to their house in Dagenham. Her father had been out and by the time he’d arrived back home an hour later, Emmie and Jake had already swapped telephone numbers and email details.

Of course, there was no way that she could tell her father about Jake; he was so protective of her, no boy could even look at her without her father threatening to ‘put brains on walls’.

When she’d had her fourteenth birthday, her father had hired out Sugarhut nightclub in Buckhurst Hill for her and her friends. She’d invited her friend, Paul, a sixteen-year-old sixth former with wandering hands. She’d spent the evening dancing with him and thought she was in love when he’d bent down to kiss her on her neck.

Emmie didn’t see Paul for a whole week after the party but when she did eventually catch up with him, she discovered he had two broken fingers and flatly refused to speak to her. In turn, Emmie refused to speak to her father until she came home from school one day to find a gorgeous Chanel suede jacket on her bed and a note from her father saying sorry.

Emmie so far had only managed to see Jake when he dropped off the packages each week to their house, and she had thought it best if she ignored Jake on these occasions in case her mother or father suspected anything. They’d spoken on the phone every day, sometimes twice a day, and Facebooked each other – but tonight would be her first chance of being on her own with him.

‘You’re late. I’ve been standing here looking like I’m touting for fucking business. My mate’s lent me his flat and I was supposed to be picking up the keys.’

‘I’m sorry, we were stuck in traffic.’

Jake scowled and marched off not saying another word, leaving Emmie to run behind him, trying to keep up with his long strides.

Vaughn Sadler happened to be walking out of Wong Kei’s – a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Chinatown – at the same time as a lanky looking man with bad skin barged past him. Vaughn, who’d always been a stickler for manners, was about to grab hold of the ill-mannered youth and teach him a lesson in etiquette, when he saw he was being followed by a very pretty blonde-haired girl; a blonde girl he’d know anywhere. It was Emmie, his goddaughter.

He didn’t imagine for a moment Alfie knew Emmie was wandering around Chinatown semi-clad, chasing some toerag, and if he did, Alfie would have him to answer to; he took his godfathering duties very seriously. Vaughn pulled out his mobile as he followed the star-crossed lovers across Shaftesbury Avenue.

‘Alf, it’s Vaughn.’

Alfie slammed the phone down. He was just about to go on stage and do his set when he’d taken the call from Vaughn informing him that not only was Emmie in London without his permission, but she was chasing some guy like a bitch on heat.

If it’d been anyone else phoning to tell him, Alfie doubted he would’ve believed it, but Vaughn was Emmie’s godfather. If he said it was Emmie, then make no bones about it, it was Emmie.

He attempted to get through to Janine to see what the fuck she was doing letting Emmie out, but it went straight to voicemail. He was grateful his wife wasn’t standing in front of him right now, as the promise he’d made to himself to never raise a fist to her might have been sorely tested.

‘Tell Oscar to wait for me, I’ve got some personal business to attend to.’ Alfie barked the order at his cousin, who was leaning back on a chair, drinking a bottle of Becks at the back of the busy club.

As Alfie raced past the bar, situated by the entrance of the club, he caught sight of one of the new bar staff who’d been giving him the eye earlier in the week. He’d planned to take her back to his place but now instead of feeling lips round his dick, he was going to have to go and find Emmie and deal with the fool who thought it was okay to date Alfie Jennings’s daughter.

Knocking several customers into the wall by the cloakroom, Archie marched out into the cold of the Soho night, ready to put brains on walls.

‘They’re in there.’ Vaughn looked at Alfie sympathetically, thankful he’d only himself to worry about rather than an unruly daughter. He could see the beads of sweat under Alfie’s thick fringe of black hair on his forehead.

‘You want me to come with you, Alf? Maybe I could stop the situation becoming too heated. Go easy on her and him. You know what kids are like.’

Alfie just looked at Vaughn; he didn’t want to use any more energy than he had to.

The stairs leading up to the flat looked like they were never swept. Alfie could hear a baby crying from another landing and the sound of televisions coming from the various flats. It was a shithole and a perfect place to do what he was about to do.

‘It’s that one. I watched them go in.’

Vaughn pointed at the door and then proceeded to grab hold of Alfie’s arm, feeling the tension in it.

‘Alf, remember what I said. Keep your head, pal.’

Alfie didn’t bother answering or knocking; he raised his right foot and kicked hard, using the momentum of the kick to put enough force behind it to boot the door open first time.

‘What the …’ Jake bellowed as he walked into the hall, clad only in a pair of off-white boxer shorts, ready to confront the intruder, but he was met by a fist slamming into his face, knocking his front teeth out before he managed to finish his sentence.

Jake’s blood sprayed over the damp walls of the hallway as he was sent sprawling across the floor by the punch. As Alfie raised his foot above the boy’s head ready to bring it down, he recognised who it was; Jake Bellingham, one of his employees, who he’d thought he could trust, had been trying to bang his daughter. The realisation made Alfie bring his foot down hard as he ignored Jake’s pig-like squeals.

Alfie looked up quickly as he heard a scream directly in front of him. It was Emmie.

‘Daddy no! Don’t! It was my fault. Daddy, please leave him alone!’

Alfie stared at his daughter, noticing she was in her bra, though thankfully she still had her trousers on – unless of course they’d already … Alfie stopped his thoughts. It was too much to contemplate, so instead of picturing what might have happened to his precious daughter, he dug his heel deeper into Jake’s face, twisting it into his nose; shattering the bones and making it bubble with blood.

‘Go and put some clothes on, Emmie. Now.’

As she ran back to the front room to get dressed, Vaughn looked at Emmie but turned his head quickly. He didn’t like to think of her with the pitiful piece of scum squirming on the floor; she was far too good for that.

‘Take her to the club for me, Vaughn. I’ve still got a few things to do here.’

‘Leave it now Alf. You’ve made your point.’

As Vaughn led the hysterical Emmie out of the flat, he grimaced as he saw Alfie take a pair of pliers out of his pocket.

Vaughn squeezed Emmie hard to him; all this violence wasn’t good for her to see. He’d have a word in Alfie’s ear when he’d calmed down.

As much as Vaughn had been born into the arms of London gangland and he’d been good at what he’d done, his heart had never really been in it; unlike the other men he’d known over the years, he’d never lived for the violence.

His dad had been a face, as had his granddad and his father before him, and from a very early age he’d known that there was only one option, and that was to go into the family business whether he liked it or not.

He knew over the years he’d gained a fearsome reputation, but mostly that’d come from the early days when he’d been young and over the top with his fists; trying to compensate for the fact the aggression didn’t come as naturally to him as everyone presumed it would. The reputation had suited him well; it’d meant a lot of men only needed to see him walk into the room before that look of fear crossed their face and they told him what he needed to know.