Brotherhood of Blades Read Online Free Page A

but had soon learned better. Anyone who dared to take them on lived, if they were lucky, to regret it. At best they bore a scar in the shape of a spider somewhere on their body; at worst they lay six feet under, a bullet lodged in their brain. No one messed with Yo-Yo Reilly or anything belonging to him. The Brotherhood were his crew, and Chantelle was now his puppet.
    Her continued need for the pipe meant she now worked the streets around the estate for Yo-Yo, with her friend Luanne. At first she just screwed Yo-Yo in return for drugs, but then he brought members of the Brotherhood in for some action and she was too scared to refuse. Then he told her he was bored with her, and she had to work to earn her way. That meant going out on the streets with the other girls, and offering herself to passing motorists. When she begged him not to make her he turned nasty and gave her the first of many punches in the face. He’d split her mouth open, and worse, told her she’d get no more drugs until she showed she was grateful. He was doing her a favour, he told her, by showing her a way to make money to pay for her habit. He forced her to apologize and tell him he was right, that he was always right. Then he had made her sink to her knees and beg him to let her whore for him. Whoring was competitive, he explained, and she had to learn to use her assets to their full advantage; then he made her suck him off slowly and meaningfully. He promised to help her get work as long as she paid him a cut; but if she crossed him, he’d really hurt her.
    Now she was one of the girls she used to feel sorry for in the old days, when she passed them on her way to dance classes. The days when she was happy and free, and Jason was around. She used to watch those girls as they stood at the kerb, offering their bodies to the cars that crawled the area, and her heart had gone out to them.
    She should have seen it coming. Aunt Haley had warned her time and time again: Keep away from drugs . Drugs had been her mother’s downfall, had led her to an early grave, leaving Chantelle with only strict Aunt Haley to look after her. Jason’s mother had gone the same way. That was why he’d always said he’d sell, but never use; and he never had. Yet for her it had all happened before she realized. It seemed like one day she was happy, and the next she was craving a pipe and working the streets to pay for her need. Yo-Yo had assured her that that no harm would come to her because she was one of his girls, and Yo-Yo took good care of his whores – for another fat fee.
    But now it had gone one stage further. Chantelle was really worried.
    It was Friday night, best night of the week for trade. She would carry on as usual. What else could she do? She was dressed and ready in a red PVC mini-skirt and a black basque with red ribbon threaded through, so her brown breasts and the edge of her nipples were on display. A black leatherette bomber jacket hung over her shoulders. She checked that the tops of her lacy black hold-up stockings were visible below her hemline – always good for trade. The outfit had to be chosen for luring punters, her best friend Luanne had told her, not for comfort. Luanne was experienced; she had been whoring for Yo-Yo for a long time. She only smoked grass, but that cost too, and Luanne had a twelve-year-old sister who needed to be fed and clothed and kept out of trouble. Luanne and her sister Alysha lived on the thirteenth floor of the Sparrow block. They had no mother, only a father who only came home to sleep off his drunkenness, and was, in Luanne’s words, just another liability. Luanne was a little older than Chantelle, and had also grown up on the estate. She taught Chantelle how to jump in a car; if it was blow job, which mostly they were, she could be in and out without removing anything if she dressed right. Or if you had to do the full business, and you had knickers tied at either side with ribbon, you just pulled the ribbon free