Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Sounds good.”
“They mark the boundaries of—”
“You already said that.”
He cleared his throat. “They mark the city boundaries at Aldersgate, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Blackfriars Bridge, Holborn, Farringdon, London Bridge, and Moorgate.”
With a bored expression, I mumbled, “Amazing.”
“You’re not impressed?”
“No.”
“Due to heartbreak?”
“Due to mourning Lucy’s death, heartbreak, and the fact that I’m with someone who’s mentally unstable and has decided to kidnap me.”
“I figured since being with Chase, you would be used to a kidnapping here or there.”
“I have a lot more to worry about right now than dragons holding up shields.”
“This is important to me.”
I turned to him. “Why? And before you answer that, why would I care if it was important to you?”
“Because I’m your father. Don’t you want to know where your people came from?”
“You were born in London?”
He nodded. “The great Bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church are known as Bow Bells. If you’re born, when they rang, then you’re considered a Cockney.”
“A Cockney?”
“The name came from countryside people who thought that Londoners were ignorant, and knew nothing about country ways.”
“But why the term Cockney?”
“In Middle English it means a deformed egg.”
“And you’re a deformed egg?”
“No. A Cockney. The church had been destroyed by a German bomb during the Blitz in ’41. The bells crashed to the ground. Restoration began in 1956. The bells resumed ringing in ’61.”
“When were you born?”
“Around then.”
“You can tell me an elaborate story about bells and dragons, but you can’t say the year you were born?”
“There’s things about my childhood I think about, and then there are things that I just don’t care to discuss.”
“Your birth year is one of them?”
“Yes.”
“Will I be meeting my grandmother and grandfather?”
“No.”
“When we were kids, Vivian said you grew up in Alabama. Apparently, you were a young kid of old parents, who passed away right as you started college.”
“Now what do you think?” he asked.
“It’s all a lie.”
“Like I always say, you’re the smart one.”
“Why can’t I see your parents?”
“My father’s dead.”
“How? Old age?”
“No.” He raised his hands and flexed his fingers. “From my own bare hands. That’s actually a story I like to tell, but I doubt that’s something you want to hear.”
He killed his father. Awesome. Just great.
I pretended like it didn’t affect me. “What about my grandmother?”
“She’s a drunk in Hackney, probably hoping bottles can make her forget how much of a devil she is. She used to box. That says a lot about her.”
“It says she was empowered.”
“No, it says she would do anything for a pound. When she’d broken too many fingers, ribs, and cracked her jaw, she made me bare-knuckle fight on cobbled front yards, at the age of ten. If I lost, she’d beat me the whole way home. I went up against men, so you can imagine how many times I got knocked into the sidewalk as we headed back to the house.”
I parted my lips, but had nothing to say.
“Don’t look so shocked. With my sense of humor, there’s no way I came from a family of love. She taught me how to take a beating. By my teen years, I knocked them all out. Got my nickname, Benny, from the Lamb and Flag pub’s back room. People used to call that room the Bucket of Blood.”
“You’re name isn’t Benjamin?”
“No.”
“Then why did the people call you Benny?”
“After Benny Lynch, this Scottish professional boxer back in my day. He was considered one of the best below the lightweight division.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Benny.”
“But you said—”
“It’s Benny.”
“O-kay.” I chewed the inside of my cheek a little from nervousness. “So when was the last time you saw your mother?”
“My last fight.”
“Why your last one?”
“My father had been a great fighter himself. That’s how we ate. All of us boxed in some way, worked for a gang, knocked out a group of kids for a hassled owner. We did things with our hands that others wouldn’t. By thirteen, I stopped going to school, but I continued to read. You know how I’ve always told you how books are important?”
“Yes. You would always say that books help you escape.”
“Well, the owner of this one pub thought it would be entertaining to have a father and son match. The two greats. Young generation against the old and mature.”
“You bare-knuckle fought your father?”
His jaw twitched. “I killed him in that ring. Punched him for every crude remark, every time he made me do all the things I didn’t like. I hit him until blood came, and he begged me to stop. I kept on. He prayed and cried and said he loved me and I hit him. His bloodied-teeth flew from his mouth with each pound. He was pulp. He lay on the ground, and there was nothing but silence in the whole room. All those drunks with their money-filled hands in the air, just stood there as if shocked. All of their mouths were open and their eyes wide in fear.”