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not available to speak to you … but I am.’ Franny stopped, then, with her tone dripping in sarcasm, added, ‘And it’s good to see you’ve got your priorities straight.’

      Salvatore, shaking with fury, hissed through his teeth whilst he squeezed his phone in both hands. ‘Fuck you!’

      ‘No, fuck you, Sal. I would’ve thought you’d have asked about Ally first, but I forgot, you’re a Russo.’

      ‘There’s nothing to ask, my niece is dead. Now if I were you, I’d go and sort your fucking period out and pass the phone to Cab. I don’t deal with women.’

      Another pause before Franny, coolly and matter-of-factly, said, ‘That’s not what I’ve heard, Sal. I hear you deal in women all the time.’

      Flickers of white light appeared in front of Salvatore’s eyes. Blind rage and fury surged through him as he felt his blood pressure go from baseline to sky-high. He pressed his muscular fingers onto his eyelids, massaging them, trying to find some relief from the stress.

      ‘Bitches like you need to be put in their place.’

      ‘And that’s why I’m at the top of my game. I’m in my place … So, are we going to keep going round and round in circles, or are we going to talk business? But I do want you to know I am genuinely sorry about Ally. Le mie condoglianze.’

      Standing up, Salvatore began to pace around the large, expansive kitchen. He laughed scornfully. ‘Is that some kind of joke? I don’t want your fucking condolences. I curse them. You hear me? Like I curse Cabhan. He murdered my niece, and he’ll pay for that.’

      Franny spoke firmly. ‘Salvatore, we both know that it wasn’t Cab who killed Ally. She was the one who was driving, not him.’

      Mopping up the trickling sweat from his brow with the corner of a blue napkin, Salvatore opened the fridge and stuck his head inside for cool relief. ‘Let me tell you something, if you were standing next to me right now, I’d blow your fucking head off. My niece is dead. She was sixteen years old, yet you think you can disrespect her when she’s not even cold in the ground?’

      ‘No, Sal. I’m not saying it was her fault, I’m saying it was an accident. A tragic one, but she was driving nevertheless. They are the facts.’

      Salvatore raised his voice along with his head, banging it hard on one of the fridge shelves, sending cooked meat and salad along with his temper up in the air. ‘Goddamn whore, pass me over to Cabhan! I wanna know what happened to my coke.’

      ‘He got rid of it.’

      It was Salvatore’s turn to pause. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

      ‘Like I say, he got rid of it. Ripped the bags open and let it go.’

      Incandescent with rage, Salvatore ran his arm along the breakfast bench, dragging and smashing the bowl of cut fruit along with bottles of olive oil and vinegar onto the marbled floor.

      ‘So Cab thought it was a good idea to play snow globe with my coke, like it was Santa’s fucking day out?’

      ‘It was a good job he did, otherwise the police might’ve been wanting to talk to you.’

      ‘Rat me out? That wouldn’t be a smart idea, he knows exactly what happens to rats and their families.’

      ‘No, he wouldn’t have, but it would’ve been pretty easy for the police to work out who it was they needed to come and talk to. He did you a favour.’

      Salvatore burst into menacing laughter. ‘Some fucking favour. Do you know how much money I lost?’

      ‘Not exactly, but I’m willing to compensate you. Every dollar. So, what do you say?’

      Salvatore stared out of the large window of his house, which looked out across the lawn towards the ornate water fountain. ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘Problem is it’s not your decision to make, is it, Sal? We both know who’s really in charge.’

      ‘Where you’re concerned, I am in charge.’

      ‘No, but you’re not. I want to speak to your brother. I want to speak to Nico. Make it happen, otherwise the offer’s off and you’ll be out of pocket by about three million dollars.’

       8

      Back in the heart of Essex, Lola Harding sat in Janine Jennings’ mansion worried sick. She’d had a sleepless night fretting about what she should do, about what she should think, and this morning she was still none the wiser.

      Looking out of the bedroom window of the house, located just outside the pretty village of Wimbish, Lola groaned, the shot of rum she’d added to her morning coffee not helping. The problem was she classed herself as a close friend to both Alfie – Janine’s ex-husband – and Franny, knowing them both for as long as she could remember.

      When she’d been a tom in Soho, they’d been kind and looked out for her, making sure none of the pimps gave her a hard time. And when eventually she’d turned her back on the street, becoming the proud owner of a café, Alfie, the number-one face at the time, had made it known that her café and her café alone was the only place to go. Consequently, customers flocked in, not wanting to get onto the wrong side of the irrepressible Alfie Jennings.

      But time had passed and Soho had changed. Most of the faces, including Alfie, had moved away, leaving her alone. With business bad and it becoming too much to run the café, she’d closed up and the life she’d loved, had cherished, vanished overnight. It’d made her feel like there’d been a death. Loneliness had engulfed her, strangled her, and the days and weeks had been passed in her small flat, which soared high above the city, not speaking to a soul.

      They’d been awful days and she’d sunk into a dark depression, but out of the blue she’d bumped into Janine at a supermarket, or rather she’d watched from one of the aisles as Janine gave the manager a tongue-lashing. It had made her laugh, reminding her that some things never changed.

      Although she knew Janine well through Alfie, they’d never been particularly close, but that afternoon they’d had a cup of tea and a chat and reminisced for hours. By the end of the day a miracle happened: Janine, with her loud, coarse mouth, and her busybodying, troublemaking ways, had asked her to come and stay and she’d never looked back. Not once, and she loved Janine for that.

      Despite being fraught with fights and quarrels, Alfie and Vaughn had recently moved into the house. They had come back from Spain to set up their business and Janine was allowing them to stay whilst they got back on their feet and re-established themselves as faces to be reckoned with.

      But now there was trouble. Big trouble. Franny, who’d been so good for Alfie, made him grow up, had taken none of his bullshit or his womanising ways, had done what she thought Franny would never do – she’d taken his money and disappeared. Just like that.

      She was supposed to have joined Alfie back in England, but instead she’d cheated him out of his money. And Lola had to admit it hurt to think that’s what Franny had done, because to her, Alfie and Fran were family, and family looked out for their own.

      But the question she had to ask herself was why? Why would Franny do it?

      Taking a sip of her coffee with the sun blazing through the window, Lola shook her head. She couldn’t stand to see Alfie – whom she loved like a son – so torn apart. She had to do something, somehow try to sort it out. Both Alfie and Franny were too important to her and, even though he’d told her to stay right out of it, telling her not to breathe a word to anyone, she needed to follow her instincts and do what was right.

      Sliding out her phone from the pocket of her pink towelling dressing gown, Lola dialled a number. She moved across to her bed

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