They all fall silent at my outburst and thankfully I don’t have to put up with his ridiculous nonsense anymore.
Cammie makes a start on the soup she wanted to make and I sit with her in the kitchen.
“I get that you’re going to kill him but I don’t want to know how,” she murmurs, chopping the carrots.
“Do you think I’d give you a blow by blow account?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll know it’s done because we will go home, I just don’t want to know how.”
Fine by me, I leave her to her cooking when William comes through and take his place with Marg.
‘Have you visited your mother lately?’ she writes.
I shake my head and wait for her to write some more.
‘That’s what I thought, the rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon, no one will be around. Go see her, tell her your good news. Don’t let Tommy ruin everything for you. I’m tougher than I look and I will still be here for when that baby eventually comes. No beating can take me down.’
When I don’t jump up immediately she takes it a disagreement on my part. It has played on my mind not visiting my mum, all the times I’ve popped in and out visiting Marg and not her hasn’t sat well with me.
‘This might be your last chance and I won’t be able to go for a while yet.’ she adds.
She’s right. Dragging myself off the sofa, I shrug into my hoodie and pull up my hood.
“Can you text Stan for me? Tell him I’m all good and we’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
‘Yes.’ She scribbles.
“Babe, I’m off out, I’ll be back soon,” I yell through to Cammie.
“Hold on,” she calls back before I reach the front door.
“Where are you going?” she asks, wiping her hands on a towel.
“Just to see my mum, I won’t be long.”
She shakes her head and I’m ready to promise her nothing will happen to me when she collects her coat from the peg I brought back down and yells to William to stir her soup till she gets back.
Our heads are bent, hiding from the rain and so people can’t see who we are and our footsteps are light and quick. It isn’t far to the cemetery from Marg’s place and is easier to go on foot. The rain soaks us in seconds after leaving.
“Thanks for coming with me, although I would’ve preferred you to be indoors where it’s safer,” I yell to her so she can hear me under the hood of her coat.
“You should know by now, Drake Deveroux, I go where you go,” she yells back.
I grin and pull her closer under my arm.
“Who’s that?” she says, as we make our way across the little, winding path to my mother. I trace her line of sight and see a figure overlooking my mother’s grave, standing under an umbrella.
I’m immediately on alert expecting Tommy, the closer we get I relax a notch when I see whoever it is, is too short to be him. Still, there are only three people who have any business standing where he is and Cammie and I are two of them. Marg being the third.
He hears us approach and turns around. I hiss through my teeth when I recognise Sly Sammy holding the umbrella with a sickening smirk plastered on his mucker.
“What the fuck do you want?” I yell.
“I told you I would get you back, it’s took me nine years but today you’re going to feel the pain I did when you fucked me over.”
This doesn’t make any fucking sense. He can’t still hold the same anger for me as he did years ago and how would he know I come here, today of all days? No one knows who doesn’t matter to me.
Pushing Cammie slightly behind me, I’m relieved when she cooperates without protesting.
“So what’s your plan, Sammy? You haven’t got the brains or the savvy to take me out. How did you know I’d come here today?”
He laughs and looks around us. I quickly look everywhere he does and see nothing.
“I may not be the brains but I do have the savvy, Deveroux. You’ve pissed off too many people and we’ve had enough. Marg will probably feel the same after the beating she took because of you.”
I go to reach for my revolver sitting in the back of my jeans. Sammy slowly shakes his head telling me not to and has me over a barrel when he produces his own piece and points straight at us.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, you took my wife from me and now I’m going to take yours,” he laughs, menacingly.
“Unless those bullets go through me to get to her, you aren’t shooting shit, Sammy. Now put the gun down before I rip your throat out with my bare hands and you know I’ll do it.”
He quivers sarcastically and my anger reaches boiling point like I’ve never experienced before.
“You can’t touch me anymore, you’re nothing. Thinking you’re always the big man with all your money…”
It all clicks, this is Tommy’s doing. Sammy wouldn’t be here today if he wasn’t given the information on me. Tommy has set him up to his dirty work. I scan the graveyard to see if he’s lurking around. He’s not.
I feel my hoodie lift slowly at my back and I remain stone faced to Sammy. The cold metal brushes against my burning skin until it vanishes. I hear the soft click telling me she has the safety off and ready to shoot.
“You better know, my wife doesn’t like me being threatened,” I laugh, wiping the smile of Sammy’s face.
Cammie steps beside me which I still don’t like. I taught her a couple of years ago to shoot a gun. All legit of course at a gun ranch out in Spain.
“I’ll tell you how this is going to go now, our safety is off, and yours is on. We have two seconds advantage on you and don’t think she doesn’t know how to shoot. Walk away now and expect to see me again ‘cause I’m not going to let this go,” I warn him.
“A woman always hesitates,” he bellows.
It all happens in slow motion.
He clicks the safety with his thumb and I watch his finger start to squeeze the trigger. He’s aiming straight for me.
“Shoot him, Cam,” I scream.
Two shots are fired and it takes me three seconds to comprehend I haven’t been shot.
Sammy is on the ground clutching his arm. The gun a few feet away from him. Cammie shot him in his shooting arm and the impact must have jolted it from his grip.
Looking down to my feet, Cammie’s white coat has a burned hole in the centre of her stomach. Blood begins to seep through and the moment snaps and the world speeds up.
Sammy is reaching for his gun, I pick up the gun Cammie used and I run to him and kick it out of the way before turning on him.
He made her bleed, he actually shot her and thinks a simple shot to the arm makes them even? A monster takes over me and a rush like no other takes over. Grabbing him by his hair, I hold on tight while I punch him over and over again.
When he tries to swing at me to defend himself, a rage euphoria bursts out and I snatch the blade I keep in my pocket.
“Drake…”
I don’t hear nothing, flicking the blade free he moves his head to the side straining to keep his head safe from me. I sink the blade into his neck and warm blood sprays my face. I sink it into him time and time again. A fountain of blood pumps out of his mouth and his arms fall off me and hit the ground. I throw the blade down. At this point I don’t know if he is dead but if he isn’t, he’s about to be.
I stand over his bloodied body and unload all six rounds into his chest and head. Fucking cunt, I should have done him in years ago.
Chapter Forty-One
Drake
I was holding the gun but it held no bullets. The whole cartridge was loaded into Sly Sammy’s lifeless body. A strangled gurgle hits my ears and I turn from Sammy’s lifeless body on the ground.
Rushing back to Cammie, her face is ghostly white making the blood spitting from her mouth look brighter than I know blood to look like.
Removing her hands, I unzip her coat to assess the damage.
“Drake…it hurts,” she cries out, as the cold air hits h
er wound.
I hiss in fury seeing the hole in her stomach. Her fucking perfect, tightly toned stomach is marred with a gaping fucking hole.
Patting down my pockets, I search for my phone and find it dead.
“I know, baby. I need to get you to the hospital, I’m going to pick you up and it’s going to hurt,” I forewarn her.
Without any time to waste, I scoop her up into my arms as carefully as I can without making her pain worse and break out into a run across the cemetery.
I don’t think of Sammy’s body lying in a pool of blood, I don’t care about the gun shots being heard and reported. I don’t even care if there were any witnesses when I took his life. All I can think about is saving my wife.
I stop at the gates and frantically look each way to see where I parked the car. Right, we didn’t fucking bring one. What am I going to fucking do?
She coughs in my arms and her face bunches up in pain, followed by more blood pumping from her mouth.
Choosing to go left, I know there is a steak house around the corner. Pushing myself further, I run faster, the world becoming a blur as I focus on getting her help.
A family of four are walking through the door when I get near.
“Move.” I roar as I bowl through the door behind them and they scatter around me.
What normally is a quiet family restaurant turns into a flurry of blood and screams when one by one the diners turn to see what is going on.
“Call nine-nine-nine. She needs help,” I yell, carefully lowering her to the floor.
My ears are full of shrieking and children crying. My eyes are full of Cammie and her blood.
I know we both look like something out of a horror film, Cammie bleeding out from her stomach and me covered in a mixture of her blood and Sammy’s.
“It’s okay, someone’s calling an ambulance,” I tell her, and see her eyes struggling to stay open.
“Come on, babe. Stay with me, I can’t do this on my own, I need you to stay awake…”
“I can help, I’m a nurse at Hackney General hospital.”
I look up to find a woman shrugging out of her coat ready to help. It is the woman I followed in with her family.
“I don’t care what you do, just save her or I will kill your whole family in front of you.” I warn her.
Her eyes widen in disbelief and she begins barking out orders to the waiter who is standing closest and a few of them become a blur of action.
“What’s her name?” the woman asks.
“Cammie.”
“Okay, Cammie, I need you to keep your eyes open. I’m going to put pressure on your wound to help stop the bleeding…”
I tune her out and focus on Cam. She isn’t listening to her, she is looking straight at me. I didn’t realise I am crying, going to wipe the tears away I realise I am still holding the gun. More screams erupt until I glare at them all.
Cammie doesn’t need all this noise right now.
“Loving me like you do, I couldn’t ask for more. I want you to know…I want you to know I love you the same. I’m not scared about dying but I’m scared to leave you…I don’t want to…”
She cries out in pain again and I cut in before she can talk again.
“You’re not going anywhere without me. Are you listening to me, Cammie Fucking Deveroux? We promised each other forever, we’re not finished yet,” I say, trying my hardest to keep calm.
She chokes on more blood and cries out.
“Don’t you die on me,”
I couldn’t give a fuck if I’m yelling and scaring anyone. The woman I love is bleeding out in my fucking arms and I can’t do a fucking thing about it.
“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” I scream, in all directions, frantically looking for the person making the call.
“They say they’re on their way.” someone calls out.
Reverting my attention back to Cammie, her eyes are closed now.
Slapping her cheek harder than I intended, she comes awake again and I feel like I can breathe a little more.
“Unless the paramedics show in the next thirty seconds to a minute, she isn’t going to make it,” the women whispers to me.
“Don’t you fucking make me watch you die.” I cry, unable and unashamed to let tears fall in heavy drops.
“Tell the operator, the ambulance needs to get here, like now,” the woman yells out to the waiter on the phone.
This isn’t happening, I won’t let her go.
“I need a phone,” I say quietly, then more loudly when no one hears me, “I need a fucking phone.”
Three different men rush forward offering their mobiles and I reach out for the one closest.
I roll Cammie’s head onto my leg and use my spare hand to dial. Three digits, it isn’t hard to remember.
It rings once and when the stoic voice on the other end answers asking what service I need, I ask for the police.
“What is your emergency?”
“I need you to pass on a message. My name is Drake Deveroux and I need to see Detective Henry Barnes. I’m currently at Joe’s steak house restaurant on Tintern Road and I am holding everyone hostage. I am the one responsible for the bank robbery at the national bank in Norwich back in 2002. I am also responsible for the diamond heist at Ponsonby’s in York in October 2005 and I beat a man to death in the Hackney Cemetery this afternoon and shot six rounds into his body after he shot my wife. The longer Henry Barnes makes me wait, I will kill one person in here every five minutes.”
I end the call to screams and everyone moving further away from me, trying to find protection behind their tables and chairs. The place should be covered in police within three to five minutes.
“What have you done?”
I look down and pull Cammie closer to me.
“Exactly what I needed to.”
From her positon she can only look up at me. I reach over her for her hand and regardless of it being covered in blood, I bring it to my lips and kiss her long and hard. A mixture of my tears and her blood turn her hand a funny pink colour.
She was ghostly looking before I got her here, now she looks like she has already died. I really don’t have long left.
“You should go. I don’t want you going back to prison.”
“I promised you I wouldn’t go back. I’ve told you a hundred fucking times, I’m not breaking it.”
“I don’t understand…the police…they’re coming for you,” she chokes out.
And right on cue, faint sirens fill the air.
“Drake…”
I watch a tear roll across her cheek, “Go,” she whispers.
This woman is dying and all she cares about is me being arrested.
“I should’ve left you alone. My life is killing you,” I cry, rubbing my thumb across her lip.
Her head rolls from side to side, “You’re wrong…my life…is you…wouldn’t change it.”
I stop her from talking when she is coughing around her words, spurting more blood from her mouth.
“She’s not going to last much longer,” the woman speaks.
I aim my gun at her and she blanches back on her arse, scrambling back into her husband’s waiting arms.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I warn her, I’m not shouting, I don’t need to. My voice carries all the violence in the world to be believed.
The sirens get louder and Cammie eyes drift shut. Grabbing her chin, I force her to open them again.
A soft smile crosses her face when her eyes adjust on mine.
“I love that you are the last face I get to see.”
No, no, no.
“Babe, stay with me,” I’m full out begging, “I have one last question for you.” I say, gathering her onto my lap and holding the blood soaked towel on her stomach myself.
More blood flies from her mouth when she tries to laugh.
“Will you wait for me?” I whisper, close to her for only her to hear.
“Always.”
Within seconds, he
r body starts convulsing. The eyes that I have adored from the first time I saw her roll into the back of her head and a trickle of blood escapes from her ear.
“Cammie!...No, stay with me…fucking stay with me…fight!”
I scream at her through the pain.
It’s no good.
The convulsing stops.
Her eyes roll back and don’t move.
Her body goes heavy in my arms.
She is gone.
An unimaginable pain rips through the centre of me and I forget how to breathe. Nothing matters but the pain. It’s only the pain I can feel, the only thing around me that is registering. I believed I was untouchable, nothing could hurt me. I was wrong. Unbelievably fucking wrong. The tears that came before had nothing on the tears that were coming now. My eyes feel too small to accommodate them all. To rid some of the pain from my chest, I pull at my hair but it’s too much. I can’t take it anymore.
“Drake Deveroux, this is Detective Henry Barnes. Come out with your arms above your head.”
I barely hear him over the white noise in my head. The pain isn’t so bad now he is here.
I briefly close my eyes and compose myself. Placing one last kiss on my wife’s blood stained lips, I lay her down and brush the hair away from her face. Pure perfection.
All the years I washed away the blood before the police turned up and today, I walk towards the door knowing I am covered in it and know it will be in my advantage, not disadvantage.
Before I open the door, I slide the gun up my hoodie sleeve. I count nine police cars, four police vans and riot officers in head to toe black gear milling around the restaurant, circling me.
Casting one last glance at Cammie, I warn the restaurant.
“Nobody move and no one go near my wife and you will all live.”
Opening the door, I step into the door way and feel the fresh air upon my face. Inhaling deeply, I ignore the guns trained on me.
“Get on your knees, Drake and put your arms above your head,” Detective Barnes yells into the megaphone he’s holding.