Lawless

by Jessie Keane

  Kit pointed a finger at him. ‘What do you know about

  Michael’s death, you tosser?’ he demanded.

  ‘What . . . ?’

  Kit yanked him back to his feet. ‘What do you know? ’ he yelled in Gabe’s face.

  ‘I don’t know anything!’

  ‘You got out of stir a week before he died, and you were pissed off because you knew he was leaving everything to me, not you. That the truth?’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’

  ‘But what? Did you meet him in that alley, shoot him when he turned his back? Was that it?’

  ‘You think I did that, killed my own father?’ Gabe almost laughed.

  ‘You wouldn’t be the first.’

  ‘No! Not me.’

  ‘You didn’t, uh?’ Kit stared hard at Gabe’s face. ‘I don’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the truth!’

  ‘Don’t give me that. You wouldn’t know truth if it bit you up the arse,’ said Kit, and nodded to Rob. Rob handed him the knife.

  ‘No . . .’ said Gabe, eyes crazy with terror.

  When Kit raised the knife, Gabe shrieked. Someone next door started banging on the wall, yelling at them to keep it down. Kit stood there, looking at the mess of a man in front of him. Gabe was wearing tattered jeans and a sweat-stinking grey T-shirt; Kit could smell his fear, could see the needle-marks criss-crossing his scrawny arms like blue cheese.

  Slowly, he lowered his hand; gave the knife back to Rob. Then he grabbed Gabe’s head, brought those madly swivelling eyes to meet his own.

  ‘Here’s the deal, so listen carefully, OK?’

  Gabe was shuddering and crying.

  ‘I said OK?’ yelled Kit.

  Gabe nodded frantically.

  ‘Good. Real hard nut, ain’t you? Now this is it: I hear you been trying to get close to my family, or doing anything that I find even a little bit annoying, I am coming for you and I am not going to fuck around nicely like I’ve done this time. I am going to kill you. Do you understand me?’

  Tears, snot and blood mingling on his face, Gabe nodded.

  ‘Say you understand.’

  ‘I understand,’ he gulped.

  ‘Not so brave when you’re not trying to scare women, are you?’ said Kit. He gestured to Rob. ‘What I’ll do, if I need to call on you again, is I’ll let Rob work on you. And then I’ll finish you off. You got that?’

  ‘Yeah . . . I got it,’ said Gabe.

  ‘First and last warning,’ said Kit, and let him go. Then he walked out of the flat with Rob following close behind.

  71

  Somehow, Ruby found herself thinking more and more about Thomas Knox. She kept asking herself, Would he be that much of an advantage onside anyway? But she knew he would. And she had to think of Kit.

  Ah yes, but is that really your only concern here? Hmm?

  Ruby always tried to be honest with herself. And she was being honest now when she acknowledged that she was very attracted, physically, to Knox. She might dislike his methods, she might mistrust him – and oh, she did, she really did – but there was no denying that, when he looked at her, something happened. Something that hadn’t happened since Michael was gunned down.

  So, when Thomas Knox came to the store, presented himself at Joan her gatekeeper’s door and asked to speak to Miss Darke, she knew she was in for a bumpy ride. That this was going to happen, whether she actively encouraged it or not.

  ‘There’s a man out here,’ said Joan, coming frowning into her office and pushing the door closed behind her. ‘He says his name is Thomas Knox, and that you’re expecting him. There’s nothing in the diary. You want me to call security?’

  Well, she had been expecting him, sooner or later. She had known from the start that whatever obstacle she put up between Knox and herself would be swiftly broken down. And right now, she wasn’t sure whether that frightened or delighted her. A bit of both, maybe.

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ said Ruby. ‘Show Mr Knox in, will you, Joan?’

  And there it was, the instant he came in the room and fixed her with those eyes. That feeling. She had thought all feeling was past and done, when Michael died. But no: there it was. She was still alive, still a fully functioning woman, after all. And now she realized how miserable she had been, how low she had sunk since Michael’s death. In the brief time she had been coming under the influence of Thomas Knox’s powerful aura, that misery had abated.

  ‘You’re a hard woman to track down,’ he said, taking a seat and looking around her office with interest. There were awards on the walls. Best British Retailer. Businesswoman of the Year. And there were pictures of her shaking hands with royalty and celebs.

  ‘That isn’t true,’ said Ruby. ‘You’ve been tracking me for some time, Mr Knox. I suspect you know where I am, what I’m doing, every moment of every day.’

  ‘You calling me a liar?’ It seemed to amuse him.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  He put a hand to his chest. ‘I’m wounded,’ he said.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘Yes, I am. Last time we met you called me a bastard and walked out on me.’

  ‘You are a bastard.’ They were flirting and she was finding it hard not to smile.

  ‘I was just doing a bit of business.’

  ‘And trying to combine it with rather a lot of pleasure, as I recall.’

  ‘Businesswoman of the Year, uh?’ His eyes met hers. ‘This is where you feel safest, am I right? Here at work. In control of things. You know it’s Saturday, Ruby? It’s the weekend, and here you are – working.’

  ‘The store’s open on a Saturday,’ said Ruby.

  He eyed her for long moments. ‘You know, I look at you, sitting there behind your desk, and I begin to see you more clearly.’

  Ruby cocked her head to one side and returned his stare. ‘All right, what do you see?’ she asked, amused.

  ‘I see . . .’ He pursed his lips, his eyes never leaving hers . . . ‘I see a woman who hides from the world because the world once hurt her. I see a woman who buries her sexual nature beneath all this work stuff.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Yeah, really. That’s what I see. Now let me buy you lunch. There’s a hotel in Covent Garden, chef there does the best poached salmon I’ve ever eaten.’

  ‘I usually eat at my desk.’

  ‘Christ, throw me a bone, will you? Come and eat with me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Ruby looked at her watch. ‘I suppose I can spare an hour . . .’

  ‘Terrific.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s go.’

  Three hours later, lunch was over and they had checked into a room in the same hotel. Ruby was feeling a little tipsy from several glasses of Merlot but mostly she felt drugged with lust. The moment they were inside the room, Thomas Knox pulled her into his arms and kissed her very thoroughly. Ruby responded, dragging her hands through his hair, inhaling his scent, her tongue touching his. When they fell apart, they were both panting.

  Thomas leaned back against the door and folded his arms over his chest.

  ‘You ready to play ball then?’ he asked, his voice husky with desire.

  Ruby shrugged, her eyes playing with his.

  ‘Are you ready to do what you promised, give Kit your full support?’ she asked.

  ‘I already said so.’

  ‘Say it again then.’

  ‘All right. I will.’

  ‘I ought to get back to work.’

  ‘You’re such a prick-tease. And the firm won’t founder because you’re not there for an afternoon, will it.’

  ‘Joan will wonder where I am.’

  ‘Joan will know where you are, because while you were getting your stuff together I told her you would be spending the afternoon with me and you probably wouldn’t be back in.’

  ‘That was presumptuous of you.’

  A flicker of a smile. ‘As you said, I’m a bastard. So c
ome on. Let’s do this deal. The top. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying, not this time.’

  Ruby felt suddenly reckless. She took off her jacket. Then, her eyes holding his, she slowly unbuttoned the front of her crisp businesslike white cotton blouse, then the cuffs.

  ‘And . . . ?’ he encouraged, making winding-up motions with one hand.

  Ruby slipped the blouse off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. She was wearing a lacy white bra, her burgundy skirt that matched the jacket she had already tossed aside, black tights, white pants, high black court shoes.

  ‘Nice,’ said Thomas. ‘Go on.’

  Ruby unhooked the bra, slipped the straps off her shoulders, let that too fall to the floor. His eyes were on her nude full breasts, and she felt her nipples rise and harden in response. Suddenly she felt breathless, flushed, weak.

  ‘Better,’ he said. ‘Don’t stop there.’

  Her fingers fumbling, feeling awkward, Ruby reached up under her pencil skirt and yanked down the tights. Stepping out of her high-heeled shoes, hotly aware of him watching every move she made, she tossed the tights aside.

  ‘And the rest,’ he said.

  Ruby stretched a hand behind her, freed the button on the waistband of her skirt, unzipped it. The silky lining slithered down her legs, and she stepped out of it, feeling smaller, somehow more vulnerable without her day-to-day armour, her work uniform. Her eyes met his. He looked so much bigger than her now that she was out of her heels – so tough and threatening, so invincibly male.

  ‘All of it,’ he said.

  Ruby took a gulping breath and hooked her thumbs into either side of the white lace briefs she wore – her own label, everything she wore was her own label, the suit, the blouse, the bra, everything, and what was she thinking about that for at a time like this?

  She pulled the briefs down over her long tanned legs and kicked them off. Stood there naked, trying to get her breath, while he was still fully clothed. She felt so aroused, flooding with wetness, ready for him.

  Thomas stepped forward, came right up close to her, looming over her. He reached out a hand, cupped one breast, rubbed his thumb almost thoughtfully over her rock-hard nipple.

  ‘Oh God,’ groaned Ruby.

  ‘Good?’ he murmured, bending to kiss her throat. His teeth nipped hard at her shoulder, and she gasped with shock.

  ‘You said you didn’t bite,’ she managed to murmur.

  ‘I lied. Get on the bed.’

  As if in a dream Ruby turned, feeling him touch her buttocks, smoothing over them, delving, slipping deeper . . .

  ‘Oh . . . oh Jesus . . .’ she moaned as he caught her around the waist, nearly snatching her breath away. He held her there against him for long moments, her back pressing into the front of his body so that she could feel how hard he was. Then he let her go.

  ‘Go on. Hurry.’

  Ruby went to the bed and lay down. He would take his clothes off now, she wanted him to take off his clothes and be naked with her, but he didn’t. He got on the bed with her, pushed her back, opening her legs.

  ‘Please . . .’ she murmured, and all sense of shame was gone, to be replaced by heat, desire, total readiness. This was what he had wanted, all those times he had watched her, and now she wanted it too, she was weak but she was also powerful, enticing him, drawing him into her. ‘Thomas, oh, Thomas please . . .’

  But he didn’t take off his clothes. Still fully dressed, he knelt between her legs and unbuckled his belt, unzipped himself, and plunged into her.

  ‘Oh, you bastard,’ shouted Ruby.

  Thomas only laughed.

  What was supposed to be lunch turned into a long day. Late in the afternoon they went back to Thomas’s house, and after eating fruit and cheese in the big barnlike kitchen Thomas gave her the complete grand tour, finishing up in the room that housed a huge swimming pool surrounded by fake Corinthian columns and blue-skied, green-ivied trompe l’oeil. The whole effect was of a fabulous sunlit Roman bath house.

  Ruby gazed at it, and laughed. ‘For God’s sake! A little bit extravagant, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Extravagant?’ Thomas looked at her. ‘Nah, I enjoy a swim, it’s heated and it came with the house. I thought of changing it, but then I thought, what the hell? I like the idea of living like a king.’

  ‘I can imagine you would,’ said Ruby, smiling uncertainly. She didn’t know this man. And she had fallen shamelessly into bed with him. Somehow, he had seduced her completely. Taken down her guard, smashed it to smithereens. But she still thought he was scary. And unknown. And – oh God – extremely sexy.

  He started loosening his tie, unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Coming for a dip then?’ he asked.

  Ruby stared at him. ‘I don’t have a swimsuit.’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he said with a roguish smile, ‘you don’t need one.’

  72

  At seven years old, Bianca was forced to face the fact that her family was different to those of many of her school friends. It was brought home to her quite horribly. Bella and Astorre got her a puppy from Battersea Dog’s Home. He was a Labrador crossed with some other thing, God knew what, with a flat silky ginger coat and a wide grinning face.

  Bianca christened the puppy Joey, and she loved him absolutely and completely, grooming him, feeding him, poor little unloved mite. He’d been just like her, in an orphanage just like Mama Bella had told her, scrawny and unwanted; but now look. He was home. He was safe.

  It was true that at first Bianca had thought her adoptive family was the same as any other. They were Italian immigrants, and her father and brothers were out every weekday and most weekends doing business.

  When they were in, they muttered around the kitchen table and she heard snatches of their conversations, about money going through the businesses, ‘laundering’, they called it, and she gathered that there were three stages to this process – placement, layering and finally integration. At seven years old, she didn’t know what the words meant, but as she grew, she listened, and she learned.

  Tito told her that Daddy Astorre was Camorra from the streets of Naples, but there’d been big trouble and they had to flee or die. Now, there was peace. There was church on Sundays and at least an illusion of security.

  Then there came the incident, and Bianca discovered how thin the illusion was, how insubstantial. That was when she realized that this family’s secrets were darker and their ways more dangerous. They had power on the streets; and that meant they also had enemies.

  She called Joey in from the garden one day, and he didn’t come. She searched for him everywhere, she opened the gate into the back yard, she looked upstairs in the house, downstairs too. He was gone.

  Bianca was in tears. Then there was a commotion inside the house, in the hall. She ran through from the kitchen, smiling because this meant they’d found Joey, that he was all right. Her father was shouting, the boys were clustered around the open doorway, there was something . . .

  Bianca ran forward and her mother caught her. Bella looked shocked, strained.

  ‘No! No, darling, come back . . .’

  Bianca was still surging forward. Tito grabbed her arm, held her, but she could see . . .

  There was blood. Something there, on the front doorstep.

  It was . . .

  Bianca felt a scream building in her throat, building and building . . .

  It was Joey.

  It was just Joey’s head.

  Someone had cut her puppy’s head off, and placed it right there on the step.

  Bianca never asked for another pet, not after that.

  73

  Kit, Rob and a couple of the boys turned up as promised at the Barton restaurant at eight o’clock sharp. Kit had decided to give it an hour, time for a snack or something, a small drink, then his duty would be discharged, everyone could see that the Barton family’s protection was right there on the spot and that any little tossers causing trouble here had better think again.

&nbs
p; The family were effusive in their gratitude.

  ‘You want steak? Aberdeen Angus, the finest, the sweetest steaks in the world,’ offered Mr Barton.

  Rob and the boys had the steak, Kit settled for the prawn starter, he’d be eating later with Bianca – assuming she showed up. The restaurant was packed and everyone seemed to be enjoying their meals. Then a couple of tough-looking young lads started to loudly complain about the food, playing up to their tarty-looking girlfriends.

  ‘This the best you can do?’ one was saying, loud enough for everyone in the place to hear. ‘I can get slop like this off my old mum, any day of the week.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. Can I bring you something else from the kitchen?’ the waiter asked, red-faced as the other diners fell quiet, listening.

  ‘I wouldn’t risk eating anything that came out of that rat-hole. I heard you put cat food in your pies, the health people found a load of empty tins in the bin round the back.’

  ‘Please, sir, if you can just keep your voice down . . .’

  Samuel Barton was hovering anxiously by the till now, and his wife was starting to come over. Kit gave her a small headshake, and she stopped walking.

  This them? he mouthed to her.

  She nodded.

  Kit stood up; so did Rob. Together they walked over to where the lads and their girls were sitting.

  ‘You want to keep it down a bit, pal?’ asked Kit of the one with laughing dark eyes, who seemed to be the ring-leader.

  The waiter stepped back.

  ‘Who the fuck invited you to join the party?’ sneered the dark-haired one.

  Kit eyed him steadily. His smile slipped a notch.

  ‘Yeah, fuck off, mate,’ said the other one, and the girls giggled.

  ‘You’re disturbing the other diners,’ said Rob.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, you ought to stop.’

  ‘Yeah? Make me,’ said the bolder one, standing up.

  Kit shot out a hand and grabbed a rough handful of Big Mouth’s testicles, and Big Mouth let out a noise somewhere between a bellow and a scream. Kit’s other hand gripped the back of his jacket, and he marched him out the door.