| BOOK SIX | THE LONDON CRIME KING | A DARK MAFIA ROMANCE NOVEL |
This book contains adult language and subject matter, including graphic violence, drugs and explicit sex that may be disturbing to some readers.
This series is NOT a typical romance...
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The miasma of pain and death carried through the air like medals of honour as I passed the prison-like cells of moribund prisoners in the secret world of Club 11's dark underground chambers. Huge, well-muscled men, bodies welted, contused and bloodied, lay motionless on the bitterly cold floor. A strict, ruthless and violent disciplinarian boasting evil propensities preempted the defiant reprisal of unfortunate souls by ensuring the success of law and order and behavioural compliance with mental and physical torture.
No eye contact, cry for help or foul-mouthed broadside. The acceptance of systematic torture is the only option for those imprisoned. If they speak out or protest, which I am sure they have done before, it will be the final nail in the coffin. A death warrant. A premeditated murder.
My moral compass oscillated like an indecisive swing of the pendulum. In an active state of agitated uneasiness and nervous apprehension, I eyed the dead body of a bruised and battered middle-aged man left on the heavy-duty steel workbench of cordless power tools and instruments of maltreatment.
I never voiced my innermost anxieties, but Brad, who had the daily pressures of leading a double life, seemed to know when something troubled me.
"Do not be a sympathiser." Brad bypassed boxes of stainless steel shackles, metal fetters, rot-proof ropes, maximum restraint chains and forged steel manacles with screw mechanisms. "Mountebank. Renegade. Whistle-blower." He pointed to the unbecoming blond male with third-degree burns on his face. "A bastard pederast."
Listening to him reel off the perpetrators' names and the severity of their crimes, I stand aside with aches and pains in my stomach, nausea aggravated by the rivulets of blood and gore on the floor.
"Where did I find you?" Brad stopped by a padlocked cage with an impression of ponderousness. An older male is facedown on the makeshift bed: filthy cardboard sheets and the soiled articles of The Guardian Newspaper. His arms and legs roped together behind his back, flopped helplessly about. "Ah, that's right. Human trafficking. I stole him in a raid." His lips puckered for a moment. "A knave with a penchant for little girls: pale, petite, supple, blonde hair and blue eyes. His vision is sacrosanct in the underworld. His requirements are inviolable."
My mouth parted in absolute abhorrence.
"As I said, do not feel sorry for them." He proceeded down the chilly mile of the wickedest-looking villains. The irredeemable monsters, I shall call them, kept under lock and key, leered and sneered ominously in sudden detestation. If they could free themselves from the reign of sin to obliterate the institution, they would do so with pleasure. "Those creatures are here for a good reason."
The magnitude of the situation burrowed deep as I traipsed in his dark, looming shadow with timid footsteps. "Are they all guilty of major crimes?"
"No." The expressionless tone mirrored the man's remarkable equanimity. "Some of them are pests and nuisances. Eight's in a serious amount of debt. You do not steal from a drug baron and embezzle funds for extra profit. That's not your hustle."
