Flesh and Blood by Sian Rosé (100 books to read .txt) 📕

overcompensated for her remarkably slow-processing brain, wanted nothing more than to appease her father and win his approval. She watched him carefully, wondering what suggestion would impress him the most.

Lloyd, as the stereotypical teenager fuelled by testosterone, wanted more women. He envisioned himself as one of those chiselled mafia members, with big-titted women on each arm whilst he smoked a pipe and kept a gun in his shirt pocket.

Flo just wanted to play. She was happy to work, as she had the previous evening, transferring the money and hacking into the old lady’s banking account. However, what was life without any play? She’d already been deprived of pre-school and all that crap (not that the idea of sticking her fingers in play dough surrounded by twenty other snot-nosed kids appealed).

And Minnie was torn. She wanted it all. She wanted a lavish, luxury mansion and all the riches. But she also wanted a torture chamber.

Was that really too much to ask?

“I know we all want to have some fun,” said Ronnie, understanding the expressions on his family’s face. “And we will,” he assured them with a nod, “but we also need a new vehicle, and we need somewhere steady to live. Enough money to keep us going.”

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Minnie chimed in. She took a sip of the rich red wine that she had ordered on room service. “We can’t just get a house, can we? Fuck, we’d have to sell up and move every couple of months.”

Zach nodded in agreement, “if we were tied down to one place, we’d have been caught by now.”

Silence again.

“What about one of those motor homes?” Stella suggested, suddenly. “You know, one we could drive around and shit.”

Minnie nodded, “that’s not a bad idea,” she said, “but we’d be all sleeping on top of each other.”

Flo wrinkled her nose. “Insect. Gross.”

“For fuck’s sake, Flo,” laughed Zach, shaking his head, “you’re thinking of incest again.”

Stella tapped something into her phone, then turned the screen around to reveal a YouTube video entitled “My Double-Decker RV.”

The video had only generated a modest amount of views, a couple of thousand, but still, the family all watched in silence as a man with a heavy foreign accent showed them around. It was, quite literally, a double-decker bus that had been converted into a miniature house, complete with a bathroom, kitchen, living area, and bedrooms.

“Damn, that really would be perfect,” said Ronnie.

Stella’s cheeks glowed at having won his approval.

“How much we talking?”

“Oh, at least a million,” she said quickly, turning the phone around. “Took this guy and his wife a few years, he was saying. They’re trying to make it big on YouTube, and they travel around the UK at the moment.”

Lloyd scoffed, “I’ll just pull a million quid out of my arse hole then, shall I?”

Zach sucked his front teeth, “what if we robbed the money? Enough to buy it outright?”

The others all stared at him.

“What?”

Ronnie sighed. “Look, son, I appreciate you are ambitious and all, but we have to be realistic. Can you really see your baby sister holding an entire fucking bank at gunpoint?”

Flo jutted out her chin and folded her arms, “don’t underestimate me.”

“Okay,” said Zach slowly, “so what about fraud of some kind? A scam? We got a little kid on our team, and everyone knows kids are the best at scamming.”

His parents both thought for a moment, weighing the idea up.

“I mean, what if we dress her up all scruffy and put her on the street? She’d probably get given a decent amount,” Lloyd said.

“Yeah, but not a million quid, Lloyd,” said Flo, rolling her eyes. “I’m thinking we get into drugs. I’d be a good runner. Mum and Stella could maybe get in with some good suppliers, and you three can be the muscle,” she nodded towards her older brothers and father.

Ronnie and Minnie exchanged looks, but then both mutually shook their heads.

“Flo, that is a very good idea, sweetheart,” said Minnie, “but your father and I cannot put you at risk like that. What if you got taken for ransom or something? We’d be put back at square one, and you might end up getting an ear cut off.”

“Okay, I’ve got it!” cried Zach, “I’ve got it.”

“What is it, son?” Ronnie asked.

Zach pointed at Stella’s phone, “why not just fucking nick that one?”

His father blinked back at him.

Stella jumped up from her seat and stamped her feet excitedly. “Oh my god, yes! That’s the best idea.”

“Because clearly there are so many double-decker mobile homes about, no-one will ever know we stole it,” scoffed Flo. “Come on, Stella, you aren’t that dumb.”

Stella narrowed her eyes and glared at her little sister coldly, pretty eyes glittering angrily. “They’re wannabe YouTubers. They’ve spilled their fucking guts on the internet. Neither of them has a family. Both adopted from shitty backgrounds. Moved from someplace in America. We just force them into making a video saying they are quitting YouTube. They disappear off the internet; no one asks questions. We kill them, bury them someplace…”

“We can draw up some documents,” Zach interjected, “force them to sign them. So if anyone questions us, we’ll say we fucking bought it off them fair and square.”

The idea sat in the atmosphere for a few moments, its fragments settling slowly like stardust on top of the family.

“You know what,” Ronnie finally said, “I think that sounds like a cracking plan.”

Minnie nodded, “it’s genius,” she agreed. “And I think I already know exactly how we can pull it off.”

Chapter Seven

Summer, 1999

That evening in the fiesta in the woods melted away quicker than lemon sorbet in the sun.

As 10 pm approached, Minnie found herself nestling closer into Ronnie, gripping the fabric on his chest even tighter with her fingers, as if she were worried that he would simply fade into nothingness. They laid beneath the blanket in comfortable silence; the only sound the low fuzz of the radio, the distant rustle of wildlife, and the steady beating of their