Jessie Keane - Ruthless

Chris was first through the door, Kyle piling in after him.

The red-haired man was gone.

There was only Precious, lying there, naked, bloodstained and groaning.

Layla hesitated at the doorway, in a state of shock. Then she saw the two men staring down at Precious and she felt something erupt in her head.

‘Give me your jacket,’ she said to Kyle. When he hesitated, she yelled: ‘Jacket – NOW! Don’t look at her. Keep away from her.’

‘Layla…’ started Ellie, reaching out.

Layla shrugged her aside. Grabbed Kyle’s jacket, draped it over Precious, concealing her bruised, bloodied body from view. She looked up at Chris. ‘He didn’t go back through the club, did he?’ She was panting, trembling, her eyes flicking from Chris’s shocked face to Precious, and oh shit, all the blood, she could hardly make out Precious’s face, there was so much blood.

The men looked blankly at each other. Ellie shook her head.

‘Then he must have gone down the corridor and out the fire exit at the rear,’ said Layla. ‘Get after him!’

Chris, Junior and Kyle turned and raced along the corridor and out into the alley.

‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ said Ellie, dashing off.

‘What’s happening?’ Opal was at the door, letting out a shriek as she saw Precious lying there. ‘Oh my God…’

Layla fell to her knees beside Precious. She was moving a little, and moaning softly. Her eyes were rapidly being reduced to slits, swelling up where he’d hit her. Her lip was split, it looked as though he’d knocked a couple of teeth out. Precious’s exquisite nose was crooked and bloody. Layla thought with a stab of ice-cold rage that it must be broken.

There was a lot of blood coming from a wound on the back of Precious’s head, where Layla guessed she had collided with the edge of one of the wall-mounted speakers when that bastard whacked her face. ‘Blame it on the Boogie’ was still thumping out of the speakers, adding a surreal note to the proceedings. Layla thought of the sheer brute size of the man, and of Precious’s sweetness and extreme femininity, and felt sickness choke her.

Precious’s eyes were half-open, maybe she could see Layla. She doubted it, but she spoke to her anyway, tried to offer reassurance.

‘It’s going to be OK,’ she said, taking hold of Precious’s hand. She saw that three of the nails there were snapped and bleeding, where she had tried to shield herself from attack. ‘You’re going to be fine. Help’s on the way.’

Opal was starting to cry hysterically.

‘Get her out of here,’ said Layla. ‘That’s not helping.’

Chris, Junior and Kyle returned. Chris looked at Layla and shook his head.

The men escorted Opal out of the door, and Ellie came back in, shutting it firmly behind her.

‘She going to be all right?’ Ellie asked anxiously. She was looking at Layla like she’d never seen her before.

My God, thought Ellie, seeing the way she was snapping out orders, taking control. She is Annie Carter’s daughter after all.

‘She’s going to be fine,’ said Layla, and silently thanked God when she heard the siren.

Rufus thought they were all silly cunts, except Orla. She was different, a princess. Yes, she’d killed Rory, but she’d done it out of loyalty to him. She was damaged, poor love. The other women, they couldn’t hold a candle to her.

It was so easy to charm them into dropping their pants.

A night in a plush London hotel, that was a favourite. Or a mini-break. Then they thought you were serious about them, they started thinking engagement rings, shit like that. Which was a laugh. All he was serious about was causing the Carters maximum pain. Two weeks had gone by since Orla broke into the Holland Park house. Two weeks and not a word from her. He’d been in denial before, but now he knew that Orla was gone. That the Carter bitch had killed her.

Layla went with Precious in the ambulance. She sat there holding her hand but keeping out of the way of the paramedics who were busy working on her.

‘What’s her name?’ the younger of the two asked, while shining a light into Precious’s bruised and slitted eyes.

I don’t know, thought Layla, and wanted to weep. ‘She’s known as Precious.’

He looked at her sharply. ‘ Known as? ’

‘They don’t use their real names at the club,’ said Layla. ‘In case someone tries to target them. Some weirdo.’

But some weirdo had done that. Targeted beautiful, sweet, bright Precious.

This is all because of me, thought Layla.

The ambulance tore through the night streets of London, and Layla could not avoid thinking, This is all my fault.

‘Call Mum and Dad, tell them what’s happened,’ she’d said to Ellie before she left the Shalimar, and Ellie promised that she would. Neither Dad’s men nor Alberto’s seemed to be about, and that bewildered her, but right now she didn’t care, she was too frantic about Precious. ‘Tell them it was the man from the park.’

Once at the hospital, Precious was quickly transferred on to a gurney and rolled away into the bowels of the place for treatment. Layla wandered into the waiting room and sat down with a thump, feeling all the desperate strength that had sustained her through this ordeal suddenly deserting her.

Don’t mix with the girls, Annie had told her.

She’d thought that was snobbery.

She should have known better.

Annie hadn’t been protecting her with that order. She’d been protecting the girls.

She dropped her head into her lap, feeling the dizziness and clammy sickness suddenly overwhelm her. The blood seemed to roar in her ears as she relived it all. The panic, the fear, Precious on the floor covered in blood.

That bastard.

She felt so furious, so nauseous, that she wanted to pound someone until they died, preferably him. To make him suffer as Precious was suffering now.

‘Are you a relative?’ asked a female orderly, coming in and sitting beside Layla, a clipboard and form at the ready.

‘No. A friend.’

Some friend. It’s my fault this happened to her.

‘And her name is…?’ The orderly clicked her pen, held it at the ready.

‘Precious. She’s called Precious. She works at the club, the Shalimar. I don’t know her real name. The girls don’t use their real names. If you phone there, ask for Ellie, she’ll fill you in on the details.’

‘You got the number?’

Layla gave it to her. She was useless, hopeless, but the one thing she could do without any trouble at all was remember numbers. ‘Is she going to be OK?’

‘The doctors are with her now,’ said the woman. She stood up, and left the room.

Layla sat there, waiting. A constant procession of misery passed by in front of her: a mother clutching a child’s teddy and weeping into her husband’s shoulder, an elderly couple fretting over an ancient mother who’d been rushed in with chest pains, a solitary girl who had the gaunt look of a druggie, hunched in her seat, bloodstains on her grubby T-shirt, sobbing quietly.

‘Layla? Honey?’

She looked up. Annie was there, with Max.

Layla stood up and practically fell into her mother’s arms. Annie clutched at her, held her steady.

‘It’s Precious,’ she said, unable to hold back the bitter tears of grief and remorse.

‘Shh,’ said Annie, rocking her.

‘It’s my fault ,’ Layla sobbed. ‘You told me. You told me not to get involved with the girls, you said that, and I thought you meant I was too good for them or something. But you didn’t. I can see it now. You didn’t mean that at all.’