floor.
Staring in disgust, Shannon stood up and sighed. Today was her sixteenth birthday.
Charlie Eton was one of life’s bastards and he prided himself on this self-proclaimed title. If anyone called him a bastard, rather than be offended, he took it as a compliment, knowing that he must be doing something right, because to Charlie being a bastard showed strength. It showed aggression. It showed he’d wound somebody up enough for them to be upset. Everything he aspired to do and be – that word said it all.
He didn’t ever want to be called nice, kind, warm, loving, not by anyone. Not by his ten kids he never saw, not by any of his ex-wives and certainly not by the people who worked for him. Though after being in the business for as long as he had, he doubted anyone who knew him would call him those names. And he was comfortable with that. Very. Because those names were synonymous with weakness.
Weakness to him was a disease. A disorder. It was what his mother had been, night after night when instead of fighting back, she’d allowed his father to beat her up and then done nothing when his father’s attentions turned towards him and his younger sisters. Attentions that not only included kicks and punches, but also long, painful, drawn-out attentions in the bedroom, day or night.
And it’d been after one particular night when Charlie Eton was just twelve years old, when the friends his father had brought home – to join in with his perversions – had left, that Charlie had first heard his father call him a bastard. And it’d been a revelation to Charlie. Like listening to the sweetest music. He’d seen it as a coming of age. His own version of a bar mitzvah. Because that winter’s day in the cold, cramped, damp two-bedroom house he shared with his parents and four sisters, Charlie discovered that he too had power.
His father had been sprawled naked on top of one of his sisters whilst their mother drank herself into a stupor in the next room. Charlie had seen the fear in his father’s eyes as he held the coal fire’s burning red poker against his neck, and right then Charlie had understood that his father, the man he’d spent his whole life terrified and cowering from, could also be afraid. Could also be weak.
And the weakness exuding from his father had spurred Charlie on, exciting him. Making him feel alive. Making him feel worthy. Strong. Powerful … Untouchable. And for the first time in his life, Charlie had felt a glimmer of happiness. A glimmer of peace. And the more fear, the more weakness his father had shown him, the more it had encouraged Charlie to use his new-found courage to burn and blister his father’s flesh further, smelling the sizzling, stubbled skin mixed in with the smell of his father’s fear. Then it’d happened. The moment when the words, ‘You bastard,’ were screamed from his father’s lips and the moment Charlie Eton knew life would be different.
Although he’d got the beating of his life, ending up in hospital with a broken arm, fractured skull and dislocated jaw, he’d learnt a priceless lesson that had helped his bruises and broken limbs hurt less. He’d learnt that weakness was a man’s enemy.
‘Hey, boss! Boss?’
Sitting on the gold-leafed toilet seat, trousers around his ankles with his bloated body falling over the lavatory bowl in waves, Charlie’s thoughts were sharply interrupted by one of his men who stood in the entrance of his expensive, black-tiled bathroom. Annoyed by the intrusion, Charlie snarled.
‘Can’t a person go to the frigging carzey in peace?’
‘Sorry, Charlie, I just …’
‘Watch your manners!’ Throwing the nearest thing he could reach, which just so happened to be the toilet brush, at the man’s head, and fuming, Charlie stood up, pulling up his trousers without bothering to wipe.
‘Sorry, Mr Eton, it’s just that you asked me to let you know when I saw Alfie going into his club.’
Narrowing his grey eyes, Charlie glared. ‘Yeah, but I don’t remember that including disturbing me when I’m having a shit.’
‘Yes, boss. Sorry.’
Sighing and deciding there and then that he was going to give the man his marching orders, Charlie asked, ‘How long ago?’
‘Must have only been about ten minutes ago. He didn’t look so great to tell you the truth. He looked a bit ill.’
Stepping forward, Charlie breathed into the man’s face. The sticky aroma of unbrushed teeth wafted between them. ‘When I want a medical diagnosis, I’ll call 999, but in the meantime, just shut the hell up. You understand?’
‘Yes, boss.’
Satisfied, Charlie nodded. ‘Good, now off you trot … oh and whilst you’re at it, get your things and go.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me, go. Leave. You’re sacked. I don’t want to see you around here again. Got it?’
‘But why? I don’t understand.’
Bemused, Charlie brought back his leg, kneeing the man hard in his balls. ‘Why? Because I’m Charlie Eton, that’s why. And for your information, I don’t need a reason to sack you, and come to think of it, I don’t need a reason to kill you either. So, if I were you, I’d piss off out of my sight before I count to ten.’
Fifteen minutes later, Charlie Eton sat on the large blue leather sofa, dressed in designer jeans and a pink Ralph Lauren shirt, in the crisp white back room of his club, deep in thought and ruminating about Alfie Jennings whilst Shannon attempted to work on his limp penis.
Fed up and feeling a bit of chafing, Charlie kicked Shannon away, sending her crashing into a pile of beer crates.
Indignantly, she screamed, her big green eyes filling up with tears as she looked down at her laddered black tights, which she’d only just bought cheaply from one of the shoplifters who regularly came by the club selling their goods. Looking through the fringe of her red curly hair, Shannon’s bottom lip quivered as she wailed. ‘What did you go and do that for?’
‘Turn it in, Shan – or at least turn it down. I’m not in the mood for any of your whining and blubbering. I’ve already had enough shit tonight, and that’s before I decide what needs to be done about Alfie. I mean, who the hell does he think he is setting up a club right on my doorstep? He must think I’m a flipping mug. Do I look like a mug, Shan? Come on, be honest. Do I look like I’ve got idiot written on my forehead?’
Wiping away her tears, Shannon shook her head. ‘No, Char, he’s the one who’s the mug.’
Charlie stared at his niece and smiled. He liked her loyalty. That went a long way in his book. Okay, so she moaned a lot, she chewed off his ear more than the other girls that he had working for him, but when all was said and done, Shannon was a good grafter – he’d give her that. And underneath the thick, exaggerated make-up, there was a beautiful girl and even though she was just sixteen, there was still the look of a child about her. A vulnerability. When she wiped off the cack from her face, she could easily pass for as young as ten. A ten-year-old with a woman’s body. Punters paid a lot for that.
The other thing he’d always liked about Shannon was that she seemed grateful. Grateful for the care he gave her. He supposed there was something to be said about having family working for him. Not that his sister, Shannon’s mother, had been much use to anybody. Far from it.
Like their own mother, she’d been weak, spending most of her life in and out of mental institutions before she’d been found dead from an overdose of heroin in a back alley off the Old Kent Road. As a result, Shannon had gone to live with one of her aunts who, in his opinion, had done a good job with the girl. She’d prepared Shannon for the harsh realities of life. She’d made her strong. She hadn’t wrapped her up in cotton wool, which didn’t do anything for anybody apart from making them weak.
No, what his sister had done was get Shannon out there. Exposing her to how life really was. Getting her to earn her keep from the start by pawning her out, before putting her full time on the