No escape from the past (book 1)

Chapter thirteen

'You said we would do it together,' I almost shout at Thomas, who is sitting at the dinner table with a cigarette in his mouth.

'It was my call to make, Mila,' he answers simply and I scoff, he looks at me with no emotion and that only makes my blood boil even more. 'I am still in charge here.'

'You sure about that?' I say with indignation and Thomas doesn't look at me anymore. 'Because that copper that came here a few days ago is claiming a lot of it.'

'You don't know anything,' Thomas says and stands up. I move as quickly as possible and take a step forward. 'I still make the calls here, Mila, not you.'

He walks away and without thinking I follow him into the betting shop towards his office. He puts down his head on the table and looks at me with a calm face. I cross my arms and look at him with pure anger.

'It was my plan,' I scoff and shake my head. 'You said we would do it together, but instead you go off earlier in the morning and do the job yourself.'

'You are fifteen, Mila,' Thomas says calmly and finally meets my eyes. 'You are still a child who isn't supposed to make those kinds of plans.'

'Like you didn't when you were my age,' I simply answer and Thomas stays quiet. 'You and I aren't that different, eh, the only difference here is that you are a man with power and I'm a little girl with an attitude, isn't it?'

'I'm not having this conversation right now,' Thomas says simply and looks down at his papers. 'You are too heated to have a normal conversation with.'

'Well you better, because I am not stopping,' I say and throw my hands on the table.

'Mila, you need to calm down,' he says slowly and stands up, with his hands close to his desk. 'I get that you wanted to come, but I didn't want more witnesses with that copper around, eh.'

'Like the copper isn't already looking for something to arrest us,' I mumble and Thomas looks at me with a warning look on his face. 'You know I'm right, he doesn't just go around beating up fifteen year-old girls if he doesn't have a reason, right?'

'That's something we don't need to worry about, right now?' Thomas says and walks around the table. He stops in front of me and looks me in the eye. He gently touches the bruise on my face and I look away.

'You know I would have killed him if I could, right?' he asks and I gently remove his hand. I look him dead in the eye.

'I would kill him myself if I have to,' I snap and he looks at me with no expression on his face. I just shake my head and take a deep breath.

I open my mouth to say something, but am cut off by someone bursting into the betting shop. I turn around and see an angry face that belongs to Arthur.

'Where are you?' I hear Arthur shout and I take a few steps back to make space for him. I hope he isn't mad at me, because I don't know if I could handle that right now.

Thomas leans a little closer to the table and takes a deep breath. Arthur walks over to Thomas and lays some documents on the table right beneath Thomas' head.

'It bloody won,' Arthur says dangerously calmly. I look at the two men a little confused, but keep my mouth shut, not wanting to start another fight with Thomas. 'Monaghan Boy bloody won!'

I try not to smile, but the feeling that I get knowing that my horse, the horse I have trained for as long as I know him, has won the race. That is something I just can smile for. Appreciate the little things, right?

'Yeah. It won,' Thomas calmly answers and looks at me for a second. Then he looks up to face Arthur, who is really close to Thomas's face. 'And word will spread. So the next time we use the powder trick, it won't be just the Garrison, that'll be on the horse, it'll be the whole of Small Heath. And you know what? The horse will win again. And the third time we do it, we'll have the whole of Birmingham betting on it. 1000-quid bet on the magic horse. And that time, when we are ready, the horse will lose.'