Breakers (Academy of Stardom Book 3)

Xeno – A year ago

“What are we doing here, Dax?” I ask, scowling at my best friend. My gaze flicks around the dingy pub situated on a backstreet in Hammersmith that’s frequented by old geezers who look like they’ve got one foot in the grave already. None of these arseholes care that they’re drinking piss-water so long as they get the kick they need to satisfy their alcoholic selves.

It’s the perfect spot for secret meetings. None of the Skins would come here, and Jeb definitely wouldn’t, but I’m guessing that’s the point. Despite that, I’m on edge, just like I am most days. I can’t even remember the last time I ever felt relaxed enough to chill out, to crack a fucking smile even, and this shit they pass off as brandy ain’t helping me to feel any better.

“I told you, we’re meeting someone important,” Dax replies flippantly, like we’re not here doing something we shouldn’t, given Jeb knows fuck all about this meet up. Really, I don’t give a shit about Jeb or what he would think, but I am pissed that Dax is keeping things from me.

“Meeting with who, Dax?” I give him a look that tells him I’m about two seconds away from walking out and spending the night with some random woman to ease the constant pain in my chest. The pain we all carry, because of her. I need this bullshit, today of all days, like a fucking hole in the head. “Dax, I ain’t fucking around.”

“Eastern called me,” he replies, picking up his pint of beer and necking it back in one go, like it doesn’t taste like shit, making my eyes bug out of my head.

“Eastern’s coming to London? Has he got a fucking death wish? Jeb might’ve stepped in and taken over the Hackney’s Hackers crew after the King died, but you know as well as I that those cunts are still after his head,” I hiss.

“No, he ain’t stupid. Eastern, Asia and the rest of them ain’t coming back to London anytime soon. Besides, I never said we were meeting him. I said he called me.”

“If we’re not meeting Eastern, then who the fuck are we actually here for then?”

Dax’s eyes flick from my face to someone entering the pub. He jerks his chin and I follow his gaze which lands on a man who—despite wearing a pair of scuffed trainers, jeans and hoodie—has all the hallmarks of someone with a lot of money. He might be dressed down to blend in, but even from over here I can see the expensive haircut, the bright white teeth and clean-shaven face that tells me he’s more than just some punk off the street. In fact, I know he is because I recognise this man.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter. “That’s Hudson Freed.”

“Yep. Got it in one, mate.”

I watch as Hudson, businessman and co-owner of Freed Corporation—alongside his brothers Max and Bryce—catches my gaze and walks towards us. Their story is the stuff fairytales are made of. Anyone who’s grown up on the streets of London has heard about them. They’re legendary. Street kids turned multi-millionaires who’ve got that way cleanly, buying and selling property. Now they own holiday resorts all over the world. There are no shady deals with dodgy crews for the Freed brothers.

Until now, it would seem.

“Fuck sake, Dax. What the fuck could he possibly want with us? More to the point, what the fuck are you getting us into?” I grind out under my breath. Jeb would have no qualms with loading a bullet into our brains for meeting like this without his knowledge or fucking approval. Again, I don’t give a shit Dax is keeping this meet on the downlow, I just need to know what it’s about so that I can do some damage control if it all goes to shit. That’s what I do, I protect my best friends, even from themselves.

“Behave, Xeno,” Dax warns me like I’m some fucking delinquent child.

“Behave?” I scoff, ready to throw a punch at his meaty head, the dick. “Being a good boy hasn’t been part of my repertoire for a long, long time. You’d do well to remember that.”

Dax rolls his eyes at my threat. Fucker. He’s lucky he’s my best mate and a punch is all I’m threatening.

“You must be Xeno,” Hudson says, holding his hand out to me the moment he reaches the table. I look from his hand to his face and back again.

“That’s right,” I respond, not bothering to ask how he knows who I am or shake his hand that appears as smooth as his words. I’m pretty sure he’s had a fucking manicure given there’s not a scrap of dirt under his nails. Still, I can tell by the way he holds himself that he’s no stranger to slumming it. He doesn’t flinch at the revolting state of this pub or the fact that the carpet stuck to the bottom of his trainers with every step towards us. He simply pulls out a chair and takes a seat. “What do you want?”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” he responds, avoiding my question and sizing us up instead.

“I didn’t agree to shit. You’ll need to thank Dax for this meet.” Whatever he wants from us, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna cost him. Either in blood or cash. I ain’t decided which way this is gonna go just yet.

“Well, then, thank you, Dax. It’s a pleasure to meet you both…” Hudson holds his hand out to Dax who takes it and gives him what I know will be a bone-crushing handshake. The motherfucker doesn’t even flinch. Interesting.

“So, what the fuck is this all about?” I ask, picking up my shot of brandy and knocking it back all the while keeping my eyes fixed on Hudson.

“I’m Hud—”

“I know who you are,” I interrupt, leaning forward in my seat. “But do you know who we are?”

“I do, yes. You’re one half of the Breakers,” he starts, resting his unflinching gaze on me. “You once danced together, though these days rather than battling opposing dance crews you’re more likely breaking bones—amongst other violent acts—in the name of the Skins.”

Dax glances over at me and I have another urge to punch him in the face for bringing me here today. I’m in a bad fucking mood as it is, which has now been made worse by this arsehole. So what if he’s aware of the violence we dish out. I’m guessing whatever the fuck this is about is more to do with the Breakers’ specialist skills than his need to point out the fact that we’re violent bastards past saving.

“Well done, you did your homework,” I say, slow clapping him. “Want a gold star or can we get to the fucking point already?”

“I’ve not finished—”

“So hurry the fuck up,” I snap, already disliking the arrogant bastard. The fucker should watch his step, I’m still buzzing from last night’s kill. Lingering violence ripples beneath my skin and the edgy feeling after a kill remains. Normally I’d fuck a woman to rid myself of the restless energy, but I’m up for feeding the violence if that’s the way this is gonna go down.

“Your crew,” he continues, not in the least bit concerned, “Is headed up by Jeb Bernard. Who, a few months ago, took over what was left of the Hackney’s Hackers crew, otherwise known as the HH crew. A crew made up mostly of kids. I think their youngest member is sixteen. Wait, your youngest member is sixteen given they’re Skins now too.”

The accusation and judgement in his eyes pisses me the fuck off. I’m well aware that the youngest kid in the Skins is sixteen, I don’t need him to remind me of that fact. “And your point is?”

But the smug bastard ignores my question and looks at Dax instead. “And you’re Dax, an old friend of Eastern’s. You know Asia too, and a couple years back you asked her to draw some graffiti art for a girl you once hung out with. Penelope Scott, I believe that’s her name? She must’ve been very special to you?”

At the mention of her name I lose the last shred of patience I was holding onto. “What the fuck is this exactly?” I snarl, slamming my clenched fist on the table. My reaction is loud enough to warrant looks from several of the drunk patrons who, wisely, look away when I tell them to fuck off.

“I’ll get to the point shortly.” He smirks and I snap, launching myself across the table at him. Lucky for the prick, Dax gets to me before I can knock that smirk off his face.

“Sit the fuck down,” Dax orders, getting in my face.

“Are you telling me what to do?” I snarl, my nose pressed against his. Me and Dax have fought before over the years, but never over something like this. I don’t like his fucking attitude. Then again, of all the Breakers, Dax has always challenged my decisions. It’s why, despite it all, I respect and love the fucker. He reminds me that I’m not impenetrable, and he reels me in when it’s warranted.

“Come on, man. Sit down and hear him out,” Dax says once he realises I’m not gonna take this any further.

Straightening up my jacket, I take a seat. “Go on,” I say calmly, as though this meeting wasn’t about to go to shit. What can I say, I’m fucking unpredictable like that?

“Zayn is the nephew of Jeb Bernard and York is quite the fighter in the ring. Like Dax, he’s never lost a fight—”

“All of this is common knowledge on the street. So if you think I’m impressed you’re sadly mistaken.”

“But that’s not the best part. I also happen to know that the four of you have been putting money away for years now, and you’ve built up quite a small fortune. All of it blood money, of course, but a tidy sum, nonetheless. Lately you’ve been looking at properties overseas, far, far away from London and, more importantly, out of reach of the Skins.”

“How the—” I start, only for the fucker to interrupt me again.

“I also know you’ve heard of Camden, Sonny and Ford given Eastern’s their best friend. As you know Camden was once the leader of the HH crew until he decided to change his life for the better and get the fuck out for good. Alongside my brothers and some other friends, I helped him do that. We helped the five of them get the fuck out and start fresh somewhere new.”

“Ohhhh, so this is some kind of intervention?” I laugh, rolling my eyes. “You found out we put away money and want a fucking holiday home and decide we want out? Are you a closet missionary or something? Did you find Jesus in your climb up the rich ladder and now want to absolve your past sins by helping the sinful?” I laugh, shaking my head at the absurdity of it, not to mention the fucking audacity. How the fuck he found out about our money or our plans is beyond me. It’s also a big fucking worry because the dickhead is right, we do want out. But I thought we’d been careful.

Dax snorts at my snide remark to cover his own shock, but if he thinks he’s getting in my good graces just because he hasn’t told me to shut the fuck up again, he’s got another thing coming. Ignoring him, I pull out my gun—which until now has been tucked discreetly into the back of my jeans—place it on the table and rest my finger against the trigger. “Lucky for you today I’m feeling generous, so I’ll give you a piece of advice, unless you want to do business with the Skins, I suggest you take your manicured hands and couple hundred-pound hairdo and get the fuck out of my face before I splatter yours against the wall for digging into our personal shit.”

“Woah,” Dax exclaims, the smile falling from his face as he places his hand on my arm. He’s worried. He fucking should be. I could kill this motherfucker without so much as flinching.

“Xeno, don’t start something here… This is on me. I agreed to meet Hudson.”

“You know as well as I do that I don’t start shit, I just end it.”

“Just hear him out. That’s all I’m asking,” Dax says, eying the gun and, more specifically, my finger on the trigger.

I smile slowly. “Fine. I don’t much feel like putting a bullet in all these drunk motherfuckers heads anyway. Which is what I’d have to do if I put a bullet in your brain,” I casually remark, releasing my finger from the trigger and clicking on the safety before tucking the gun away.

Hudson watches me with a confidence that pisses me off. He’s got balls of steel, I’ll give him that. I lean back in my chair, keeping eye contact with him. “You’re quite an interesting man, Hud.”

“Hudson,” he corrects me, folding his arms across his chest and holding my gaze like a true fucking pro. If he wasn’t such an arrogant cunt, I could like him. “Tell me what you think you know.” And even though I’ve just pulled a gun on him, there’s a calmness that settles across his features that I begrudgingly respect. Anyone else would’ve shit themselves at the sight of a gun. He didn’t even flinch.

“I know you’re some hotshot millionaire. I know you once lived in a care home with your business partners because your parents were all worthless pieces of shit. I know you now live in some fuck-off, great big house in the suburbs just outside of London with your two point four kids, and your brothers. Oh, and the most exciting part is that you and your brothers all fuck the same woman—”

Hudson slams his palm against the table, his calm facade slipping at the mention of his family. The look he’s giving me now tells me that, despite appearances, Hudson ain’t so different from the rest of us. You can take the kid out of the street but you sure as fuck can’t take the street out of the kid. We’re loyal to a fault and disrespecting people we care about is a cardinal sin. Looks like I just found his Achilles heel. I file that away should I ever need it.

“Do not speak of my wife or my kids. Do not fucking mention them again—” Hudson says darkly, his lip curling up over his teeth as a little of the smooth calm he came in with disappears and is replaced with someone I think I could admire. You don’t get to be where he is without having balls of fucking steel, street smarts and intelligence to match. He’s what we could’ve been if we hadn’t joined the fucking Skins, and that pisses me the fuck off.

“Fair enough,” I shrug, enjoying the fact I’ve made a dent in his cool exterior. I can tell he’s pissed off at himself for reacting. He recovers quickly though. “So can we stop with the bullshit now and get to the fucking point. I got shit to do, and a woman to fuck.”

Hudson shakes off his anger enough to nod tightly. “This is really very simple. I need your help.”

“Help?” I would laugh if he wasn’t deadly serious.

Dax glances at me. “With what exactly?”

“Someone wronged me a long time ago. Hurt someone I cared about—”

“Ah, so you want us to put a hit on this person, is that it?” I grin, how the mighty fall. Perhaps there’s more to this arsehole than meets the eye. Let’s face it, we’ve all got a dark stain on our souls. Some are just better at hiding it. This fucker wants to knock someone off without staining his own hands with blood. Figures.

Hudson shakes his head. “No. I want revenge. I want his businesses dissolved. I want his fucking life destroyed and then when he’s lost everything, I want him to rot in jail.”

“And why the fuck would we help you to do that?” I ask.

Hudson stares at me, his finger tapping against the tabletop. “Because you and I have the same goal.”

“Is that so? What goal is that?”

“To be free from what haunts us,” Hudson replies, deadly fucking serious as he looks between me and Dax. It makes me wonder what the fuck else he knows. Is he aware of the significance of today? It’s two years to the day when Pen walked away from us and it still hurts like a bitch. I shake my head. There’s no way. No one but us Breakers know what eats away at us every second of every fucking day since she left.

“Get the fuck out of here.” I tip my head back and laugh. A deep belly laugh that normally proceeds me losing my shit. I’m feeling particularly unhinged today. “Are you fucking hearing this shit, Dax?”

“Listen, Hudson. You’re talking in riddles. We ain’t got time for no bullshit,” Dax says hurriedly, intervening before my trigger finger gets happy. “I’m here because Eastern is an old friend. Xeno’s here because he’s my brother, but we ain’t no fools and we ain’t got time to dance around the truth. Tell us what you want, or we’re gone.”

“I want you to help me take down Santiago Garcia,” Hudson says, calm as a fucking cucumber.

“You fucking what?” I hiss. Fuck me. This is not what I expected. Not the fuck at all. The colour drains from Dax’s skin whilst red hot anger bleeds into mine.

“I said, I want you to help me take down Santiago Garcia.”

“Why the fuck would we do that? He’s our boss’s, boss. The main man. You know that, right…?” I hiss, reaching for my gun. My fingers press against the cool metal. Looks like I’m gonna be putting a bullet in this fucker’s brain after all.

“I know that,” Hudson responds tightly.

“Yeah, of course you fucking do. Then you’ll also know you ain’t got a hope in hell in taking that man down.” I drag my gaze away from Hudson and glare at Dax. Over the years Dax and I have fought, but I swear to fuck I’ve never wanted to beat him unconscious until now. We are not getting mixed up in this. “What the fuck, Dax?”

Dax holds his hands up. “I swear, this wasn’t what I was expecting either.”

I take a deep breath, then lean forward, my forearms resting on the table as I concentrate on the clueless motherfucker in front of me once more. He might be some hotshot businessman, but he doesn’t know shit about the circles we walk in or how fucking dangerous that man is. If Jeb is a shark in the food chain, that motherfucker Santiago is a killer fucking whale and you do not take a punt at the biggest predator in the sea if you want to stay alive.

“Let me get this straight. You want us to help you take out Santiago Garcia? The same Santiago Garcia who supplies London, the whole fucking UK, with cocaine and heroin. The Cuban crime lord of the fucking century and the Skins’ real fucking boss?”

“Precisely.”

“You’re fucking insane.” Internally, I’m cursing Eastern. The little prick. What the fuck was he thinking dragging us into this? “There’s no way you’ll be able to pull this off.”

“I can with your help,” he insists, leaning forward on his elbows.

“No. It’s a suicide mission. Why the fuck would we sign our own death certificates for you? Because that’s what we’d be doing.” I point out.

“Because we wouldn’t just be taking out Santiago, we’d be taking out Jeb too. I have the money to fund whatever you need to get this done. I have the contacts. I know people who can help. We can do this.”

“No.” I shake my head, and move to stand, but Dax rests his hand on my arm. I recognise that look in his eyes and I don’t fucking like it one little bit.

“What’s in it for us?” Dax asks after a beat, and I swear I almost swallow my fucking tongue. He can’t seriously be considering this. No one fucks with Santiago Garcia. No. Fucking. One.

“You help me take him down and I can promise that you get immunity from the law. You get enough money to do whatever the hell you want, but more than that you get what you desire the most.”

“And what the fuck is that?” I snap.

“To be out from underneath Jeb, to be free of the Skins. You get the life you should’ve had. All four of you,” Hudson says vehemently.

“That’s a bit fucking presumptuous, don’t you think? You’re assuming we want out of the Skins. Tell me Hudson, what makes you think we’re not gonna just take you out now? Who the fuck do you think you are coming in here like some fictional fucking superhero? The world doesn’t work like that.”

“Believe me when I tell you that I have enough money and enough contacts in the right places to ensure that it does.”

“Why us?” Dax asks.

“Because you’re already on the inside. Because Eastern tells me that, despite your namesake, you’re good people.”

“This is bullshit. You don’t know the first thing about us or the kind of men we are.”

Dax rests his hand on my arm. “This might be our only fucking chance, Xeno.”

I see the look in his eyes, and I swallow hard. Dax never wanted to be a part of the Skins. Both he and York only joined because of their loyalty to the Breakers. Zayn had no fucking choice, and I joined because who the fuck else would look out for them, if not me? Maybe I’ve settled into my role all too easily, but every decision I make is for my brothers. Every last one. They fucking deserve a chance to live a normal life.

Turning my attention back to Hudson, I nod once. “What do you need us to do?”