Fatal - Jacqui Rose

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were something Alice understood. Business allowing it, Cabhan had visited her every day, then after a while a smile had slowly returned to Alice’s face.

      What followed was the blossoming of a beautiful loving bond between Cabhan and Alice Rose. He loved Alice as Alice loved him. Completely and absolutely. In fact, Franny didn’t know anyone who’d met Alice and hadn’t fallen in love with the sweet, innocent, kind-hearted girl, who somehow had been shielded from the world turning upside down.

      Suddenly, Franny shook herself out of her thoughts. She didn’t want to start feeling sentimental, she had a job to do: somehow she had to get Cabhan out of the mess he’d found himself in, before the Russos began to point the finger of blame.

      Quickly looking along the corridor, making sure no one was coming, Franny tapped lightly on door 493. ‘Cab! Cab! It’s me.’

      It took less than thirty seconds for Franny to hear the locks of the hotel room unbolt. Then, looking stressed and tired, Cab opened the door, giving her a quick, grateful smile before his expression immediately turned pensive as he glanced up and down the hallway. ‘You made sure no one followed you?’

      Saying nothing, Franny nodded as she walked into the large Presidential suite, which looked out west across the city, over the Broncos’ ‘mile high’ stadium to the snow-capped Rocky Mountain National Park.

      She turned to Cabhan, who was pouring himself a large bourbon at the bar in the corner of the freshly decorated room, and gently spoke, her large emerald eyes imploring him and full of kindness. ‘How about you leave that drink for a minute until you give me a hug … It’s good to see you, Cab.’

      With her mane of thick, glossy chestnut hair falling over her beautiful face, skin like a porcelain doll, she smiled at Cabhan, though it was tinged with sadness. For a long time now, he hadn’t been himself. He’d been withdrawn, troubled, and each time they had spoken she’d also got the sense he was on edge. Nervous. She’d even go so far as to say he seemed afraid, and the man she’d known all her life had never been afraid of anything. But that was before. Before he’d started working for the Russo brothers.

      She’d warned him. Begged him to think carefully about getting involved with them, because she knew, knew how dark and dangerous they were. Her father – who at one time had done business with the brothers – in the end refused to do so, which spoke volumes, because the game they were in was filled with sewer rats, scumbags, thugs, but the Russo brothers? They were on another level entirely. They had no moral code. Anything went. She’d heard the stories and wished she hadn’t. Nico, Salvatore, Bobby. All three brothers as twisted and dark as each other.

      But there’d been no telling Cabhan back then. After what had happened with her father, he’d retreated and put a whole ocean between them. It’d hurt her and she’d missed him, but although she’d never been happy with him heading off to America, she’d understood that was Cabhan’s way of dealing with things. Though what she’d never grasped was why he’d gone to work with one of the most notorious families on the East Coast. The only reason she ever came up with was that it was some kind of self-imposed punishment, Cabhan’s guilt over her father; though when she’d put that to him, Cabhan had simply laughed it off.

      Now, however, he’d realised that he needed to come home, and nobody could’ve been more delighted than her. It was the right thing to do for everybody, but after what happened to Ally, to get Cabhan away from the Russos would be harder than ever.

      Welling up with emotions, Cab’s voice broke. ‘Fran, I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come. Thank you. I’m indebted. I—’

      She cut in. ‘Cab, stop. You don’t owe me anything, and truthfully, there’s nowhere I would rather be. Okay, maybe under different circumstances, but you, me and Dad, we were always a team, weren’t we? So, me being here certainly doesn’t need any thanks.’

      Absentmindedly patting down his short, boxed Afro, Cab asked, ‘What about Alfie? Was he all right about you coming?’

      Franny’s pause, although only a millisecond, was long enough for Cabhan, who knew her so well, to say, ‘You haven’t told him, have you? Franny, don’t ignore me.’

      Franny’s tone was slightly irritated. ‘I’m not a child, Cab.’

      ‘That’s right, so you can start off by telling me why Alfie’s in the dark.’

      Putting her bag down on the tangerine orange furniture, Franny decided to take a bourbon herself. ‘Look, it’s just best like this. The fewer people who know where you are, the better.’

      Cabhan pulled on Franny’s arm, turning her round to face him. His Irish accent was always more pronounced when he was passionate. ‘Don’t give me that, Franny Doyle. This is Alfie we’re talking about. There’s no way he’d say anything to anybody. We both know that. So, come on, tell me what’s really going on.’

      ‘Cab, I love you, but I know what I’m doing, so leave it, please. Besides, I think you’ve got more to worry about than what I do or don’t choose to tell Alfie.’

      Before Cabhan had time to reply, his phone – which was sitting on one of the dark wooden deck chairs on the balcony – began to ring.

      Stepping outside, he gazed at it, his expression becoming strained again. ‘It’s Salvatore.’

      ‘Have you spoken to him since the accident?’

      Cabhan shook his head. ‘No, you told me not to, but he knows about Ally. Actually, the whole of the American press seem to know. It was splashed across all the papers yesterday. The headlines all say the same thing: notorious crime boss’s daughter dies in accident. The only reason I left my phone on was in case you needed to get hold of me, but Salvatore’s been calling day and night. I haven’t listened to the messages, I thought it was probably best not to, though I doubt he’s wishing me well.’

      ‘Give it to me.’ Franny gestured with her hand, her manner and her authority reminding Cabhan of her father, Patrick. But then that wasn’t surprising: Patrick had taught Franny everything he knew about the business they were in. He’d started her off young, knee-high, showing her everything from how to pick pockets like she was the Artful Dodger to cracking safes and locks. And when she was old enough he’d gone on to show her how to run large business empires built on handshakes with dangerous men and dangerous deals.

      Taking the phone, Franny looked at Cab, then, giving a tight smile and taking a deep breath, she swiped the answer button.

      ‘Salvatore. It’s me. Franny Doyle. You need to listen to what I’m going to say, because there are a few things we have to talk about …’

       7

      Salvatore Russo, holding the phone, kicked away the naked teenage hooker who seemed to think helping herself to his best cocaine was part of their deal. Watching her sprawled on the floor, he glared angrily as he sat at his gold-leafed kitchen table in one of his palatial homes in Fort Collins, northern Colorado, in only his cream cotton boxer shorts, which were straining at the seams and sticking to him like glue. His diamond-encrusted medallion, given to him by his father, hung amidst the sweat-drenched hair on his chest, and the oozing perspiration trickled leisurely from between the creases of his twenty-inch neck.

      It was hot. Too damn hot, added to which the maintenance guy had given him a whole heap of bullshit along with some prissy smirk about how he wasn’t able to fix the air con until Monday. Two goddamn days away. Well, he’d teach the motherfucker about how it wasn’t possible to fix things. He’d make sure no doctor, no hospital, no surgeon could fix his goddamn legs and face once he’d finished with him and then he’d see who was smirking … Two goddamn days. The man was a jerk. And now, now, he had this bitch, this ball-breaker of a woman answering the phone like she was goddamn Capone.

      Spitting at, but missing, the

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