Jessie Keane - Lawless

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.

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?’

‘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.

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.