I Knew You Were Trouble

Chapter twelve

Josh’s POV

“Happy Valentines, cutie.” Alex says kissing my cheek whilst holding a single rose out to me.

Valentines Day. Ugh. It’s by far the worse holiday of the year if you ask me. It’s just a lame excuse to get ripped off buying cheap chocolates and ridiculous amounts of flowers which die the next day for the person you supposedly “love”. Or for some others, it’s just a tacky way to get laid.

If you love someone or care for someone you should show them your appreciation everyday of the year, not just on February 14th. I swear it’s just a slap in the face to those who have no one, like thanks for the reminder that I’m never going to be loved and I’m going to die alone.

I glance over at Alex who was holding a bouquet of red roses which he just bought to take home to Jack. I grimace at their sickly cute relationship.

“You suck.” I criticize but take the rose from him. No one has given me a flower before and now someone has it’s out of pity and from my best mate. How depressing. I sigh heavily as I stared down at it.

“I would never have given it to you if I known it would make you so miserable.” He laughs.
“Sorry. Thanks, I guess.”
“Cheer up Josh, it’s not all that bad.”

I glare at him. It’s okay for him to say that, with his fucking perfect relationship. I’m destined to be alone forever.

“Come on, there’s plenty of more fish in the sea.” Oh for crying out loud. If I had a pound everytime someone said that to me I’d be rich, living on a deserted island far far away from here drowning myself in rum and coke where no fuck boys could ever find me.

“We can go home now Mr Grumpy Gills.” Alex laughs with his cheeky grin. I pull a face but he throws his arm around my shoulder and walks us back to his car.

Work was horrible today. It was full of lovey dovey couples who clearly couldn’t afford to go to a more expensive restaurant so they decided to come to ours and win over each others hearts by eating cheap greasy pizza. I’m surprised Alex and I finished at the same time and he insisted that I would walk to the store with him to buy Jack flowers. I objected of course but Alex refused to take no for an answer and said the fresh air would do my grumpy mood some good. It didn’t at all.

The walk here was bad enough, everywhere you looked just screamed advertisement for Valentines. I refused to go in the shop with Alex, I just waited outside until he was done buying whatever. All I had planned tonight was eating pot noodle and drinking beer in my sweatpants whilst I sat on the sofa playing FIFA all night with the company of Max.

We reach Alex’s car and he climbs in the front seat and looks up at me, his cheeky grin disappearing.

“Why don’t you come back to mine, Jack won’t mind.” He suggests and my eyes widen.
“No way, I’m not ruining your night with Jack.” I know I was upset but I would get over it eventually.
“He will understand Josh, really its no trouble at all.”
“Thanks Alex but lets be honest, threes a crowd and beside I know how much you’ve been wanting this night in with Jack.”

Alex’s been going on all week how much Jack has been working a lot lately and that they really need this night in together, despite it being Valentines Day.

“I promise we’ll do something next week yeah? We’ll order take out and watch Netflix. No boyfriends allowed.” He beams and I give him a small smile back.
“Sounds great.” I do appreciate Alex trying to cheer me up even though I’m not showing it right now. But a quiet night in with my gay best friend is probably what I really need. All I’ve been doing since that asshole left is mope about and give everyone a hard time with my constant shitty mood.

I watch Alex drive off and I start walking in the opposite direction to my car. I was still holding the rose he gave me, it was actually really sweet of Alex to give this to me but the way I was feeling right now I took it as pity. I was acting like a teenage girl who broke up with her boyfriend and couldn’t get over it. But that’s just it, Oli wasn’t my boyfriend. He didn’t care. He’s a total asshole who led me on and treated me like shit and didn’t have the decency to give me an explanation as to why he had a gun.

I stare longingly down at the red rose. Being sucked into its pure beauty and happiness that its presence brings but unknowingly after a few days it will leave you with nothing but disappointment and grief as it stands tainted and lifeless.

Looking at this rose reminded me of him, he invites me in with his beauty and charm and then once he’s got what he wants he leaves me with nothing but insults and heartache.
I take my anger out on the rose and start pulling off the petals one by one before completely losing it and ripping it apart and stomping my foot out on it on the ground.

I take a deep breath before standing up and straightening myself out. A matte black Audi pulls up bedside me but I choose to ignore it knowing it was most likely some creep wanting to get laid.

“What did that flower ever do to you?” says the familiar Sheffield accent. I knew by the voice alone who it was.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I huff in annoyance, looking at him. He was the last person I wanted to see.
“Hello to you to Sunshine.”
“Go away Oli.” I tell him as I begin walking down the street to my car.

“Would you like me to give you a lift home?”
“Is it even your car?” I hint sarcastically, since he did steal mine.
“Yes. I don’t steal cars for a living Josh, I just had to simply borrow yours.” I roll my eyes at him and carried on walking. He drove at the same pace as me, refusing to get the hint and take a hike.

“Come on Josh, no need to act like this.” He smiles, trying to lighten the mood but I was far from it.
No, I wasn’t going to let him fuck me over, not again, not this time. He’s the reason why I’ve been so bloody miserable.
“Leave me alone.” I say as I stop walking. I just wanted to stop hurting but every time I look at his damn face I melt inside.

The smugness falls from his face when he sees how hurt I am and he looks away from me and he stares out his front window.

I see his expression get serious as his eyes fix on something a head of him. But I really wasn’t in the mood for his arrogance and aggression today.

“Get in the car.” He orders and I pull a face in disgust.
“No.” I frown, who does he think he is telling me what to do?
“Seriously Josh, get in the car.”
“Can you just fuck off?” I yell being done with this conversation but at that precise moment a gun shot is fired and the bullet flies past right in front of me. I fling myself backwards, tripping over my own feet and my back falls hard against a brick wall, knocking the breath out of me.

What the fuck?!

Oli scrambles out of his car and starts shooting back at whoever has started attacking us. He uses the car door to shield himself and I’m just frozen against the wall in shock. I’m absolutely terrified at what I’m witnessing in front of me.

My eyes were fixated on Oli, I was watching his every move. The way he held the gun in his hands, how he manage to dodge every bullet which came his way. It was as if he was like some sort of professional. Is this the reason why he carries a gun with him?

“Get in the god damn car!” he yells at me which snaps me out of my daze. My eyes frantically look back and forth to Oli and whoever was shooting at us and took in a deep breath before taking the biggest risk of my life and rushed over to his car, climbing into the back seat.

Oli gets back into the car and puts his foot down and we’re speeding off to god knows where.

I was having a major panic attack right now. I had tears streaming down my face, my heart was pounding out of control that I thought my chest was closing in on me. I was choking on sobs, I felt like I was losing my mind. Someone was shooting at us, someone wanted us dead?

“W-what’s happening?” I cry, finding the strength to lean over the front seat to see Oli’s face.

“Get down!” Oli screams shoving my chest so I fell back against the seat of the car.
“Stay down Josh!” Oli orders, looking back at me with nothing but anger as he quickly looks back at the road ahead. He had a gun in one hand while the other hand was on the steering wheel. He reaches down and picks up a phone.

He was driving like an absolute lunatic, he did not need to speak on the phone as well!
I curled myself up into a ball in the back seat and hid my face in my hands as I cried my eyes out. Please just be a crazy dream!

I felt like I was in one of the Fast and Furious films but this was 100x more scary and I was certain that Dom Toretto wasn’t going to drive in out of nowhere and save the day.

“Nicholls, I need back up now!” I hear Oli scream. I peak through my fingers and see him on the phone to someone.

“Track me. I’m on the other side of town. I’m being attacked by an unknown individual, maybe more.”

The back window is shattered into pieces by two bullets piercing through it, glass falling all over my body. I scream out loudly and cover my head with my hands to try and protect myself.

Oli drops the phone from his ear and leans over the driver’s seat, shooting out the back window at the car behind us. He had his back to the wheel, he wasn’t paying attention to the road in front and we could crash at any second, what was he doing?!

I was losing my shit.

Many gun shots are fired and one hits Oli in the neck and he falls back against the wheel setting off the horn and the car starts to swerve out of control.

“Oli!” I yell and I throw myself forward, grabbing hold of the steering wheel to keep us from crashing. Shockingly Oli still had his foot down on the accelerator keeping the car moving. He groans in pain and removes his hand from his neck and all I could see was blood all over him.

A frantic whimper falls out of my mouth and Oli turns to me and frowns.

“Don’t worry about me, Josh. Get back down.”
“Y-you’re bleeding.” I sob. My teary eyes glanced at him and then back at the road, my vision was blurry and my trembling hands barely hand grasp of the steering wheel. I was having a nervous break down.

Oli’s hands pull mine away from the wheel and pushes me back.
“Josh, I’m fine. Just do as I say, please!” he yells.

I nod and quickly duck back down and grab hold of the seat for dear life as Oli goes completely mental behind the wheel.

~~

The car comes to a stop and I hear Oli get out and open the back door to let me out.

“Josh, it’s okay. We’re safe now.” I shake my head too afraid to step out of the car. I ended up throwing up during the insane drive here and now I felt all weird and jittery.
Oli leans in and holds his hand out to me.
“Please, love.” He says in a softer tone and I move my hands from my face and I reluctantly reach for his hand as he carefully pulls me out of the car.

I cling to his side in fear something would happen to me if I left him. I glance up and see the blood dripping down his neck. Oh no, he’s hurt really bad.

“I’m fine.” He tells me when he sees me looking at his wound.

He walks us up some steps to a very large house which was basically in the middle of the woods.

Oli kicks the door open and yells out and within seconds I see about four guys come into view and run to his aid.

I sit Oli down on a chair near the door.

“Boss, what’s going on?”
“Where’s Nicholls?” he asks as a tall pale guy pushes me aside giving me an odd look before he crouches down and starts to inspect Oli’s neck. He begins cleaning and patching up the wound with bandages he took out of the first aid kit.
“He left to track you down the second you called. He should be back any minute.” A short chubby guy informs him.

Oli looks at the guy who finished inspecting his neck.
“You’re lucky that bullet only skimmed your neck. It wouldn’t have been too pleasant if it did.” The guy says. So, Oli’s okay?

“Oliver!” a voice comes from the front door and everyone turns towards the man.
“Good, your back. We need to leave now.” Oli says to him, standing up from the chair and the other guy nods in agreement.

They all go into another room and I’m left standing by the front door, my feet glued to the floor. After a while they come back into the hall, carrying several guns and other weapons in their grasps. And if I thought I was in a panic back in the car, then I definitely was now. Holy shit.

They head towards the front door again with all the guns in their hands. They weren’t going after the people who were shooting at us are they?

“We’ll take two cars, Nicholls and Lee’s.” Oli says walking past me.

“Don’t leave me!” I whimper, grabbing hold of Oli’s arm stopping him in his path. I look up at him with scared teary eyes. I had no idea what was going on but I was terrified.
“Who’s the kid?” someone asks as they’ve only just acknowledge me.
“His name’s Josh Franceschi.” The tall strawberry blonde says.

“Josh, I need to go now and you need to stay here okay? You’re safe here.” He assures.
I shake my head, tightening my hold on his arm. I didn’t want him to leave me. I didn’t want to be left on my own in this big house without him, anything could happen to me.
“Y-you promised me you’d stay.” I confronted, feeling myself getting more emotional. His eyebrows furrowed together as he looks down at me. He cups my cheek with one of his hands and brushes my cold skin with his thumb before he lets out a sigh.

“I didn’t promise you anything.” He mumbles and I hold in a sob. He didn’t exactly promise me but it was as good as.
“I need to go.” his hand falls from my face and turns away from me and back to the others who were standing staring at us.

“Don’t just stand there, get a fucking move on!” he hisses at them and they immediately walk out the front door.

The youngest of the group goes to follow them out but Oli stops him.

“Not you Tom, you’re staying here.”
“What, why?” He questions Oli in confusion.
“I need you here.”

The young boy opens his mouth to say something but instead he looks past Oli and glares at me before his gaze turns back to Oli’s.

“I’m not being left behind to look after your cry baby boyfriend!” he yells and I can’t help but feel offended.
“You do as I say.” Oli tells him in a firm voice.
“Why can’t I come with you?!” he whines, stomping his foot on the ground in irritation.
“Because I said so.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Suck it up, Tom.”

Oli picks up a couple of last things before heading out the door.

“Be nice to him.” he nods in my direction and the younger boy scoffs and with one last look, Oli disappears along with the rest of them. And I’m left standing in a huge hall way with some boy I didn’t know who seems to hate my guts already.

I didn’t want to be left on my own so I follow the boy who was Tom into the other room. It was huge, it was obviously their living room, it had a massive chandelier which hung from the ceiling, a massive plasma TV attached to the far wall above the grand fire place which was the ultimate beauty of the whole room.

I was too distracted taking in the entire room I didn’t realise my feet were still moving and I bump straight into the back of Tom.

“Sit down and stay out of my way you stupid idiot!” he yells shoving my chest harshly that I stumble backwards tripping over the rug and crashing to the floor.

I groan in pain and send him a nasty glare but to find he was already sending me one straight back. What was this guy’s problem?

I get up from the floor and take a seat on one of the sofa’s and tried to steady my breathing. I put my head in my hands and start to take deep breaths quietly so it wouldn’t annoy Tom and give him an excuse to hurt me again. I needed to calm myself down but that’s a lot easier said than done as I’m still in shock from everything that has happen.

What the fuck is going on around here? Oli just left with a bunch of friends to go after the people who were shooting at us and to do what exactly? I wasn’t sure and I don’t think I want to know either…

It’s been a couple of hours since they left, shouldn’t they be back yet? I was going out of my mind waiting for Oli to come back safely. Tom didn’t seem bothered at all. He was too busy playing some racing game on the play station to even give it a second thought. And every now again I would catch him sending me glares from a cross the room which was making me feel so uneasy. Seriously, what was his problem?

“Why do you keep staring at me?” I ask, finally finding the confidence to call him out about it. The arrogant twat didn’t answer me though, his eyes stayed glued on the TV screen and it only irritated me.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” I yell and he finally looks at me.
“Because ever since Oliver has gotten out of prison all he seems to do is spend his time fucking you! I have no idea why, you’re nothing special kid, he’ll get bored of you soon.” He seethes but all I got out of all that was “prison”.

“O-Oli was in prison?” I stutter not quite believing what I’ve just heard.
Tom sniggers obviously finding my reaction hilarious.

“You have no idea who my brother is, do you?” he asks with a hint of a smirk on his lips. Brother? Oli is his brother? I had no idea, they look nothing alike. Tom had short light brown hair, his skin was a lot paler and he had these bright blue eyes which had tiny birthmarks just below them.

“Oliver is the leader of the most feared and deadly gang in the whole of Sheffield. Oliver Scott Sykes, mostly known as “Syko” the sound of his name alone is enough to make anyone’s skin crawl and make a break for the hills.”
“H-he can’t be.” I stutter in disbelief and Toms burst out laughing.
“What were you expecting? Charming loving Oliver? Ha, he might be gentle and sweet with you underneath the sheets but he’s far from it. He’s a ruthless man and you’re a fool to not have known it.” he states and I’m sat there completely gobsmacked.

No, Oli can’t be, he just can’t. Yeah he’s abit hot headed that doesn’t know how to control his tempter and he does a lot of drugs and carries a gun around with him but that doesn’t make him a fearful gang leader, right?

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask looking back at him.
“Because he won’t tell you and I think you should know who he really is.”

He’s stitching up his own brother, who does that?

“I think you have the right to know that your life is on the line. My brother is a dangerous man and it will only be a matter of days before your buried six foot deep. That’s what’s happen to all of the rest of them who’s got themselves involved with him.”

“W-what?!” I gasp in shock but Tom just un pauses the game and continues playing, leaving me to squirm with this unsettling information.

~~

The sound of the front door closing shut had mine and Tom’s heads shooting up and twisting towards the living room door seeing the others all enter through. They all seemed alright, none of them injured.

Tom jumps up out of his seat and rushes over to them, wanting to know everything what happened.

“Well, did you find them? How many were there? Who were they?” Tom asks, desperate to know any sort of information.

Having them all being back had set off my anxiety again and I remember everything Tom told me about being involved and it started to freak me out. I hug my knees close to my chest and sink myself deeper into the sofa hoping they wouldn’t remember I was here.

“We found them. Only two were in the car.” I hear Oli’s voice.

“Neither of them had any sort of identification on them to identify who they were. And none of us recognise them.” Says the strawberry blonde.

“You got their fingerprints right?” Tom asks and the guy nods.

“So you have no idea where they came from or who sent them?” he raises his eyebrows.

“There are a couple of suspects but we don’t know for certain. We need to investigate it further before we point the gun at anybody.” I hear Oli say and my head flicks up at his words.

He glances over at me through the others and I quickly look away from him not wanting our eyes to meet contact.

“Boss, we really should start investigating right now.”

“Later.”

“Boss?”

Oli ignores them and makes his way over to me and I suddenly begin to shake. Come on Josh, hold it together. He crouches down in front of me and I knew I was screwed.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks me in a soft tone but after everything Tom had told me earlier I found it really hard to find it genuine.
“Josh?” he frowns when I don’t answer him, my eyes closed shut.

“I wanna go home.” I mumble quietly I doubt he heard me.
“Not tonight, Josh.”
“Please, I want to go home.”
“I think its best if you stay the night.” He says and that scares me most of all.
“No, please I want to go home, please just take me home!” I beg opening my eyes wide in fright. I wanted to get as far away from here as possible.

He reaches a hand out to me but I flinch away from it and I see Oli looks a little taken back at my reaction. He gets up and faces his brother.

“What the fuck did you say to him, Tom?”
“What he deserved to know.”
“You’ve scared him half to death!” he shouts, pointing his finger back at me so everyone can see me all scared and pathetic.
“Good. Maybe now he will see that he’s made a mistake getting involved with you and piss off.” Tom shouts back and Oli lets out some sort of angry growl.

Oli’s hands were in balls of fists but after a couple of seconds he lets out a heavy sigh before turning back to face me, the annoyance fading from his face.

“Come on, let’s go upstairs.”
I shake my head at him feeling my lip quiver but I keep it together. I wanted to stay put until he agreed to take me home but I was wrong.

“Don’t be difficult Josh.” He frowns and I sigh, knowing this wasn’t getting us anywhere. And it was awkward as fuck trying to talk in front of everyone else in the room. I slowly get up from the sofa and he leads me upstairs to I guess what was his bedroom.

Just like the living room, his bedroom was massive with a huge queen size bed placed up against the far wall. He had his own bathroom and there were two glass doors opposite the bed which looked like it lead to a balcony.

I stood nervously in the middle of the room, playing with the cuffs of my hoodie not knowing what to do with myself. I didn’t even know how to talk to him anymore. He wasn’t the Oli I thought I knew… not the Oli I grew feelings for.

Oli walks over to a set of draws and starts rummaging through them and pulls out an over sized t-shirt.

“Put this on. It’s been a long day, you must be tired.” He says holding the t-shirt out to me.

Did he really expect me to sleep? Act like I didn’t just experience a horrifying car race shooting battle with him. Oh and not to mention I just found out he’s some ruthless gang leader who does things like this on a daily basis.

Oh Josh, you really know how to pick them don’t you?

“Please take me home.” I murmur, looking down at my feet. I didn’t want to be here, I was so afraid of him now. How could I be so stupid?

“I told you, not tonight.” He drops his arms to his sides and huffs.
“Why?”
“I need to keep an eye on you.” And that concerned me.
“What’s going on?” I question but he doesn’t answer me.

He steps towards me but I take a step back out of fear but Oli takes two more steps forwards and lock me up in his muscular arms so I couldn’t escape.

I let out a little shriek and shove at his chest hoping he would let me go.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Josh.” He snaps trying to get me to stop struggling against him.
I look up at him with watery frightened eyes; I was still holding him back at arms length.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He says with hurt lingering in his tone. His annoyed expression was soon overtook by sadness.

Apart of me felt sort of guilty but I was speechless. I didn’t know how to string a sentence together right now.

“The whole time you’ve known me have I ever physically hurt you? Tom had no right to say shit about me to you, it wasn’t his place to say.”

I stop struggling and I tear my gaze away from his. The man I had crazy feelings for were now replaced with a mixture of the unknown. I just wanted back the man who held me in his arms as I fell asleep… where did he go?

“Have you ever thought the reason why I never told you about me was because I knew you would act like this?!” yells when I don’t response.

He untangles his arms and pushes away from me and storms into his bathroom closing the door behind him.

A mouthful of air leaves my mouth and I wipe the un fallen tears away from my eyes with my fingers. I wanted to bang on the door and tell him I was sorry but sorry for what? I haven’t done anything wrong, he should be the one explaining things to me and apologizing.

I should probably do as he says before he comes back out of the bathroom and gets even angrier at me.

I quickly get changed into the t-shirt he gave me and I crawl into his bed. I bury my face into the pillow and it all suddenly hits me and I just burst into tears. What have I got myself into? Max said he was trouble all along and I didn’t believe him and now I’m lying in a gang leader’s bed. Oh fuck.

I hear Oli come out of the bathroom and I instantly clasp my hand over my mouth to muffle my sobs. I feel the bed shift but thankfully I already had my back turned to him, I didn’t want him anywhere near me right now. My mind was all over the place and I didn’t know what to think.

My whole body was trembling though as I tried to hold in my sobs but Oli must have felt the bed shaking which made him come up behind me and wrap his arm around my waist. He pulls my back close to his chest and I choke on a sob when he does and tense my body in fear of him.

“Shh, baby.” He whispers into my ear and I cry harder. How can he been so sweet and caring towards me when in reality he’s suppose to be some lethal thug?
He’s one big head fuck and I can’t deal with it. I don’t get how I’m supposed to feel for him now? I just want to go home.

He starts stroking my arm softly, calming me as my sobs gradually begin to die down.

“I promise your safe here and I’ll never let anybody hurt you.” He whispers before kissing the back of my neck and I let out a shaky breath. Could I really trust him?