Jessie Keane - Ruthless

‘There’s been some stuff going down, I just wanted to tell you,’ said Annie.

‘What stuff?’ asked Jimmy Junior.

Annie looked at him. She wondered what Kath had told the kids about their father. Had she told them he’d once been Max Carter’s number one man, trusted and revered? Or had she told them the real, painful truth?

Annie pulled out a chair. She didn’t dust it off, although it took an effort of will to resist the temptation. She sat down, took a breath. And told her cousin and her cousin’s children about the intruder – leaving out the shooting and who she believed the victim to be – and the bomb, and the man who had tried to attack Layla.

‘Holy crap ,’ said Molly when Annie finished speaking.

‘I think you should all clear out for a while,’ finished Annie.

‘So that’s why Layla’s at the club with all that muscle hanging around,’ said Junior.

Annie didn’t reply to that.

‘I don’t run,’ he said defiantly. ‘Not from nobody.’

Annie looked to Kath, then Molly. ‘I’m here to let you know, that’s all. I think you’d be well advised to disappear, take a holiday, tell no one where you’re going. Because they’ve had a serious pop at me, and at Layla too. There’s no telling where they intend to stop. And you’re family.’

‘And if we don’t?’ asked Molly.

Junior crossed his arms over his well-muscled middle. ‘Fuck ’em. Let ’em come.’

Annie stood up. ‘Look – I’m telling you, you should go. Talk to Steve, there’s a safe house waiting.’

‘And if we don’t?’ asked Junior.

‘If you don’t … well, keep your eyes open. Whoever they are, they’re not messing about.’

Tony drove her back to Holland Park. She hadn’t been indoors ten minutes when the doorbell rang. She poked her head out of the study door, expecting to see Rosa letting someone in. Instead she saw Bri doing the honours.

Instantly she recognized black-haired Sandor, big as a bear as he lumbered inside. He was scanning the interior, checking everything was clear. Then Alberto Barolli stepped into the hall, two more men coming in behind him, covering his back.

Annie leaned against the door frame and grinned with delight. ‘Shit!’ she said. ‘The eagle really has landed.’

‘Hiya, Stepmom,’ said Alberto, striding across to give her a hug. ‘You OK here? I came as soon as I could.’

‘I’m fine. There’s been some trouble, though.’

Alberto glanced around. ‘Layla here?’

‘No, I thought she’d be safer elsewhere.’ She told him about Ellie’s place.

‘I’d like to see her, I’ll go today.’

‘She’d like that.’ Annie said it automatically, though she doubted her own words. Layla had been awkward around Alberto all through her teenage years. Attending school in England, she had managed to duck out of any significant contact with him. Teenage girls were funny.

When she had been a teenager… Annie thought back and almost cringed with the shame of it. God, she had been obsessed with Max. She’d hung around wherever she’d thought he’d show up. She’d literally thrown herself at him. Annie was convinced that Layla’d had a similarly massive crush on Alberto. And she wondered whether her daughter nursed an infatuation for her glamorous and dangerous ‘stepbrother’ even now.

‘Look, I’m going to get washed up, then we’ll talk, OK?’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Annie, and she watched him go up the stairs to his usual room, watched the heavies disperse – and felt comforted.

Almost despite herself, Layla was beginning to get quite comfy at the club. Already Precious – or ‘the Glamazon’ as Layla secretly thought of her – had taken to coming into her room and sitting on the bed with her, just chatting. They had a connection: they’d ‘clicked’ straight away.

She was quickly learning a new respect for the girls who worked here. They weren’t stupid, as she’d previously suspected. They weren’t slappers, either. Circumstances, she found, had pushed them into this line of work. And the pay, as Precious so rightly said, was tops.

‘We get all our friends – only the pretty ones, management doesn’t like dogs in the club – to come in,’ Precious told her. ‘For that, we get ten pounds per girl. They add to the club vibe.’

‘Let me get this straight.’ Layla was outraged at this. ‘You’re saying that, if a girl’s ugly, she’s turned away?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘But that’s…’

‘Business,’ said Precious. ‘All our nice-looking mates get free drinks, too.’

Layla squinted at Precious. ‘But aren’t you sort of prostituting these girls? Your mates?’

‘In what way? They’re having a great night out, all expenses paid. And they encourage the male punters to buy drinks for us, and for them too, at a hefty mark-up. Everyone’s happy.’

‘And the men sit around ogling them – and you – like prime cuts of beef.’ Layla shuddered.

‘It’s nature,’ smiled Precious. ‘The laws of attraction.’

Layla raised a doubtful eyebrow.

‘And then there’s the podium work,’ Precious went on.

Layla was fascinated, despite herself. It was another world!

‘See, we get a basic wage, but the podium pays an extra seventy pounds per dance. And it’s a hundred pounds per private dance in the VIP rooms. I pull down just under a thousand a week, on average.’

‘ How much?’ Layla didn’t earn that in a month. ‘And does anyone ever – you know – proposition you, in the club?’

‘Constantly,’ said Precious. ‘Goes with the job.’ There were voices out in the hall. ‘Look, the other girls are in, it’s time you met them, don’t you think? Come on. Let me introduce you.’

Precious led the way out into the hall and along to the dressing room. There were two women in there. They glanced up as Precious came in with Layla.

‘This is China,’ she said. ‘China, meet Layla Carter. Her dad owns the club.’

China couldn’t speak much English. She was tiny and exquisite, with hair like a bolt of black silk, big dark slanted eyes and peachy olive skin.

‘She’s from the Philippines,’ explained Precious. ‘Every penny she earns here, she sends home to her husband and her little girl. She used to be a cleaner, but the pay was lousy.’

Layla thought about that – the reality of being parted from all that was familiar, having to clean other people’s toilets to scrape a living, then the hell of realizing it wasn’t enough, would never be enough to feed your loved ones on the other side of the world, and having to do this – table dance for strangers – instead.

‘And this is Destiny,’ said Precious.

‘Hi,’ said Layla, and Destiny smiled. She had sad eyes and seemed quiet, Layla thought.

Destiny looked older than the others, maybe in her mid-thirties, but she was still ravishing. White-blonde and deeply tanned, she looked more Scandinavian than true-blue Brit.

‘They seem nice,’ said Layla when Precious came back to her room later.

Layla was ashamed of it now, but she had prejudged Precious. Prejudged all the dancers. She’d thought they must be dense to do a job like this one. But that wasn’t the case. Talking to Precious soon convinced her that there was a pin-sharp brain working away inside that beautiful head.

‘They are nice,’ said Precious with a sigh. ‘I feel sorry for China, though. She’ll never get out of this game. She’ll always have to be funding her family.’

‘What about you?’ asked Layla, curious.

‘Me?’ Precious’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, I won’t be in it for much longer. Let me show you something.’