by Jessie Keane
‘Welcome home, Miss Darke,’ said Fabio, leaning in with a manic little laugh. ‘Sadly, you won’t be stopping. In fact, I don’t know when you’ll be coming home. Or should I say if?’
The other door opened, and Vittore Danieri got in and sat beside her. Ruby shrank back.
‘Why don’t you just drive,’ Vittore told Reg. ‘I’ll direct you.’ He turned his dark vulpine gaze on Ruby. ‘Good evening, Miss Darke.’
Ruby said nothing. She was too terrified to say a word. Fabio piled in and both doors were quickly closed. Reg restarted the engine.
She could feel her pulse beating hard in her throat, almost choking off her air supply.
Jesus, they were taking her, they really were.
She thought of Kit, who still resented her, hated her for giving him up all those years ago. Her heart clenched as the bitter, hard pain of realization hit her full force. Kit would not pay to get her back. And if the Danieris wanted an exchange – her for Bianca – how would that work? Would he stand for it? She thought of Bianca by his bedside. Any fool could see that they were deeply in love. Would he really exchange his despised mother for the love of his life?
Answer: no.
Fabio leaned in and suddenly Ruby saw the knife in his hand, felt the horrifying prick of cold steel against her throat.
‘Now, Ruby Darke, you choose. Where shall I cut you first?’ he asked with a smile.
Over the frantic hammering of her pulse, Ruby could only hear Thomas’s last angry words to her: that if this feud went on there could be bits of Daisy sent through the post to her. Bits of the twins. A finger – hadn’t he said that? – a tongue . . .
But that wasn’t how it was going to be, not at all.
It wouldn’t be bits of Daisy or her kids.
It would be bits of her.
103
Rob and Daisy arrived at the Marlow house an hour later, and the first thing they noticed was that there were no guards on the gate. Rob stopped the car and climbed out. It was dark, and Daisy was feeling jumpy. Barely an hour ago, someone had tried to kill her. She sat looking tense as Rob scouted around. Then he came back to the car and got in behind the wheel.
‘What’s going on? Why aren’t they there?’ asked Daisy.
‘Dunno,’ he said. Inwardly he was thinking, Gates wide open, nobody here. Fuck, what’s going on? He restarted the engine and drove on up to the house. They got out. The porch light was on, but the house was otherwise in darkness.
‘Mum should be home by now,’ said Daisy worriedly, opening the front door with her key and flipping on the hall lights. She started up the stairs.
‘Whoa!’ snapped Rob, grabbing her arm. ‘Hold on, Daise. Let me check.’
He went upstairs on his own, while Daisy loitered, pacing nervously, in the hallway. When Rob came back down, his face was grim.
‘Nobody up there,’ he said.
They hurried into the kitchen, the sitting room, flicking on lights as they went.
‘Mum!’ called Daisy.
Nobody answered. The house was empty.
‘She was visiting Kit at home today, right? She had no plans to go anywhere else afterwards – she didn’t tell you anything?’ asked Rob.
‘No.’
‘What the fuck . . . ?’ muttered Rob. He went over to the phone. The answer machine’s red light was blinking steadily. He pressed PLAY.
You have one new message. Press one to play your new message. Message reads . . .
‘This is a message for Kit Miller,’ said a low male voice. ‘Message is, we have your mother. So you better stop fucking around and hand Bianca back, or this is going to get ugly, OK?’
The voice went on, naming a time and location when the exchange should take place – Ruby for Bianca.
Daisy was staring at Rob with horror writ large all over her face. ‘My God,’ she whispered.
And then they heard it – a low continuous thumping.
‘What . . . ?’ Daisy was almost too shocked to speak.
‘It’s coming from outside,’ said Rob, and ran into the hall and back out through the front door. He paused on the step. Then he went and opened the boot of the car, took out a torch. ‘Over there . . .’ he said, and took off.
Daisy followed him and the thin beam of torchlight, stumbling in the dark, down beyond the lawn to the compost heaps and potting shed. The noise was coming from the shed. Rob pulled open the door, flashed the torch inside. There were two men lying on the floor, bound and gagged, amid the tools. The guards who should have been on the gate.
‘Fuck,’ said Rob.
He knelt down, freed the gag of one of the boys.
‘Where’s Reg?’ he demanded.
‘Well he ain’t here,’ said the man angrily. ‘They jumped us, Rob. I’m so fucking sorry. We heard Ruby’s car come in a while ago, maybe an hour, then it went out again straight away. Maybe Reg was driving, we don’t know. Maybe Reg was in on it. We don’t know that either. Fucking well get these ropes off us, will you?’
104
‘I can’t believe you have done this,’ said Bella, beside herself.
‘Hm?’ asked Fabio distractedly.
They were all in the kitchen at the Danieri house – Fabio, his mother, a couple of the boys and a terrified-looking Ruby. Music was seeping from another room, an Italian tenor was singing ‘Funiculi, funicula’.
Bella couldn’t believe what was happening. Her sons were a disgrace. They had sunk to the level of that monster Kit Miller, snatching women away from their homes. This would never have happened during the reign of her beloved Astorre. Her darling Bianca was a prisoner of that awful thug, and now they had this poor woman here, Miller’s mother, who looked frightened out of her wits.
‘When your brother hears of this . . .’ she started, but the words died on her lips as Vittore came in, bringing with him a waft of chilly night air.
‘As you can see, Mama, I know about it,’ said Vittore, looking at her with cold eyes. ‘In fact, I did it. I ordered it.’
‘Then you must take her back to her home!’ demanded Bella, coming to her feet. ‘This family doesn’t make war on women, surely? Shame on you, Vittore, for doing such a—’
Vittore’s fist connected hard with her cheek, slamming Bella into her chair. She let out a shocked cry and then sat there, her eyes round with amazement and the beginnings of fear as she looked up at Vittore, her favourite son. He’d struck her.
‘Shut your stupid mouth, Mama,’ he ordered.
Fabio didn’t even seem interested. He was pacing the room irritably.
‘You hit me,’ said Bella, staring at Vittore like he was a stranger.
‘I should have done that years ago, you meddling cow.’
Bella’s head snapped back at that, as if he’d dealt her another blow, harder than the first.
‘Meddling in my life, fiddling around in my marriage, what the fuck gives you the right to do that?’ demanded Vittore.
Fabio watched his older brother nervously. He was shocked and unsettled to see Vittore turning on Mama. Something’s changed, he thought. Yeah, he’s done Maria for sure.
Ruby sat silent, trying to be invisible. But all too soon Vittore’s eyes turned to her.
‘I’ve told them we have you,’ he said softly, coming so close to her that she strained back against the chair. ‘Now, let’s see what they come back with. You think your boy Kit will give up Bianca, for you? I think he will.’
Ruby thanked God that Vittore didn’t know her family situation. If he knew, then he would realize this was a waste of time – and what might he do to me then? she wondered. She didn’t think for a minute that Kit would give up Bianca. Not for anything, and certainly not for her.
She knew she was doomed. Her shoulders slumped in defeat.
All she could do now was wait for the axe to fall.
105
Kit was up, dressed and walking, but it was perfectly clear to Rob and Daisy that he was far from fully recovered. He still looked
grey around the gills, his arm was still bound up in a sling. A private nurse was coming in every day to tend his wound, and he was mending. But it was slow.
Now, they had to tell him this.
‘They’ve got Ruby,’ said Rob, not dressing it up.
‘They what?’
‘You heard. It was a snatch. Guys on the gate were tied up and put in the shed. Reg? I don’t know. Maybe they’ve dumped him somewhere. Maybe he was in on it, who knows?’
‘Shit.’ Kit sat down.
‘They want an exchange,’ said Rob, standing over him.
‘Right.’
Ruby for Bianca.
Only . . .
Kit thought about this. If they got Bianca back, what would they do? Spirit her away somewhere, far out of his reach? And if she insisted she wanted to be with him – and she would, he thought – what would Vittore do then? Wring her neck for dishonouring him, for going against the family code?
He thought of what Thomas had told Ruby, then Ruby had told him about Bianca. His life seemed to be inextricably bound up with hers, and he couldn’t let her go now. He just couldn’t.
But they had Ruby. Vittore’s words to him at Tito’s funeral rang in his head: I’ll rip the heart out of you, out of every one of you. Vittore had her. His mother. The very mother who had abandoned him, given him up.
Rob was staring down at him.
‘What we gonna do?’ he asked.
‘We have to get her back,’ said Daisy. ‘We have to exchange them. Ruby for Bianca.’
Kit looked up at her. Then at Rob.
‘Kit?’ demanded Daisy, panic lacing her voice.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘For God’s sake! What are we going to do? We have to do something.’
Kit seemed about to speak. Then he sat back, said nothing.
Rob was watching him. He was afraid that Kit was going to say something like: I’ve got Bianca. They can do whatever the hell they like with Ruby. He exchanged an uneasy look with Daisy. He could see that she was thinking the same thing. He glanced back down at Kit. Years of anger and hurt there, all directed against Ruby. Was he really going to let it go now, come riding to Ruby’s rescue when she needed him?
Rob didn’t think so. And he could see that Daisy didn’t, either.
106
Bianca was lying on the bed in the safe house, bored out of her brain, wondering when she would see him again.
He was probably the one who killed Tito.
She knew that. But she couldn’t hate him. God knows, she had tried so hard to do it. Hate him as a true camorristi should hate. She’d shot him. Doing that had devastated her. Fearing him dead, she had thought she might as well be dead too.
No, she couldn’t hate him.
Impossible.
When the key turned in the lock, she thought, What’s this? I’ve had supper.
No one ever disturbed her except at mealtimes. It was part of her routine, her endlessly boring routine, that this was the case. So the only other living person she saw was the thin one with the cold eyes who came in to leave her a tray of food. He never spoke. He just put it down, and departed.
So what was this about? She tensed, turned away from the wall and sat up.
Kit was standing in the open doorway.
He didn’t say anything. He just came in, closed the door behind him, leaned back against it.
Her heart beating hard, she stared at him, taking in every detail. He looked stronger. He was dressed in jeans, a white shirt, a dark jacket draped over his shoulders. He seemed almost himself, but for the slight pallor of his skin and the sling still supporting the weight of his left arm.
Their eyes met and held.
‘So I’m your prisoner,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ Kit walked forward, came to stand over her. ‘Seems you are.’
Bianca stood up. He was very close.
For a moment she hesitated, then with a breathless moan she leaned in, snaking her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in his thick dark hair. His head dipped and he kissed her, long and deeply.
When the kiss ended, Bianca stayed there, her breath mingling with his. ‘I love you so much,’ she murmured. ‘I shouldn’t, but I do.’
‘I know. Bianca . . .’
‘Hm?’
‘I have to talk to you. About Tito.’
‘No . . .’ She started to pull away. He held her fast.
‘Honey, yes.’
‘I can’t!’ She was shaking her head wildly. ‘I don’t want to hear it. I can’t take it!’
‘Look.’ He grabbed her shoulders, shook her lightly. His eyes were intense as they bored into hers. ‘Bianca, we have to somehow get past this, or it will wreck us. We have to talk.’
‘But it’s no good,’ she said, almost sobbing. ‘I can’t . . .’
‘Bianca. I’m sorry you lost your brother. Really sorry. But Tito did something awful to a woman I loved very much. He tortured her, killed her. I know you don’t want to hear that about him, but he did.’
Bianca was staring at him; her skin, already pale, was now white as snow.
‘And you see this? My hands? You asked me about them, remember?’ Gingerly Kit held out hands, palms upward. The angry scar tissue right across them was horrible. ‘Tito did this to me. The same night he killed that woman, he did this.’
Bianca was silent, staring at his hands.
Kit shook his head. ‘I couldn’t let it go, Bianca. How could I? The things he did to her . . . I won’t tell you. It makes me want to puke just thinking about it. Tito . . . yeah, I know this is the last thing you want to hear, and I’m sorry. He was a sadist. A psycho. He was cruel right through to the bone, particularly with women. But Michael Ward – my old boss – he said that Tito was his wife’s kin, that I mustn’t do anything. So I didn’t. I respected Michael’s wishes. But once Michael was gone, I was free to act. And I did.’
Bianca was staring at him. All the colour had drained from her face and her eyes looked enormous. This was it, at last; now she knew for certain. All the rumours on the streets were true. Vittore and Fabio were right. He’d killed Tito.
‘For fuck’s sake, say something,’ said Kit.
She swallowed convulsively. ‘I loved him so much,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘And I love you,’ she said, dragging a hand through her hair. ‘God forgive me.’
‘He’s got fuck-all to forgive you for. You loved your brother, you didn’t know that side of him. How could you? And Bianca – you and me, there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing that feels this right could possibly be wrong.’
Bianca put her head on his chest, slipped her arms around him, held him tight. A deep, shaky sigh escaped her.
Kit took a breath and said: ‘There’s more.’
‘What?’ Bianca murmured.
‘Honey – Tito was never your brother.’
She looked up at him. ‘I know, I was adopted. Mama always said I was special because she chose me from an orphanage. I’ve always known he wasn’t my blood brother, but—’
‘Bianca, there was no orphanage. You weren’t adopted.’
Now she was frowning at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
He took her hand, led her over to the bed, sat down there with her. ‘Before he died, Michael Ward told a friend of his about something that had been preying on his mind for years. It used to wake him up in the night, give him nightmares. In the end he felt like he had to tell somebody or he’d go mad.’ Kit paused, took a breath. ‘He said it broke his son, Gabe, because he was there when it happened, and afterwards he couldn’t live with the guilt. He took to drugs, to drink – anything to wipe out the memory. And Michael was so disgusted that Gabe had been a part of it that he split with him, kicked him out of the house, when he was only nineteen.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Bianca. ‘What does this have to do with me being adopted?’
‘You weren’t adopted, Bianca. Tito took you. You were sto
len to order,’ said Kit.
‘But . . . what . . . ?’ she asked. Then she shook her head. ‘No, don’t be silly. I was adopted.’
‘No, you weren’t. Bella wanted a daughter, but she couldn’t have one by normal means and she was too old to adopt. That only made the wanting worse. She craved a daughter like a druggie craves his next hit. So Tito went out and got her one. He got her you.’
For a moment Bianca was too stunned to speak.
‘Bianca—’
‘No! What are you saying . . . ?’
‘Bianca.’ Kit was holding her hand very tightly in his. ‘Honey, Tito . . . well, he went on a trip with Gabe, searching until he found a couple with a little daughter, a three-year-old child. I’m sorry, but he slaughtered the parents, and took the daughter home. You—’
Bianca surged to her feet. She whirled and stared down at him. ‘No!’ she said firmly.
Kit stood up too. ‘It’s the truth. It’s what happened. You’ve been lied to all your life. I’m sorry.’
‘You want me to hate him,’ she said.
Kit shook his head.
Bianca started to cry. ‘Not Tito,’ she sobbed. ‘He wouldn’t . . .’
Kit pulled her to him and held her tight. ‘He would. He did.’
‘No!’ She tried to pull away. Kit held on until she gave up struggling. ‘He wouldn’t,’ she said more quietly.
‘Jesus, I’m sorry,’ Kit murmured against her hair as she shook with the force of her tears. He was hurting her, and it killed him to do that. ‘You were stolen from your parents. Kidnapped. Taken because Bella Danieri wanted a girl. And your attachment to Tito . . . I’m so sorry, Bianca. It was him who snatched you away from your family, and your strong feelings for him, the way you’ve always loved him . . . it’s all wrong. It’s like that thing kidnappers’ victims develop.’
‘I can’t believe this,’ said Bianca.
‘Believe it. It’s true.’
She stood up, walked away from him, arms clasped around her, as if to keep out a chill. She was shaking her head slowly. He kept quiet, let her take it in. Poor little mare, this must be a hell of a shock.
