Kerry Barnes - The Choice

Zara noticed right away that Mike not only looked deeply troubled, but his eyes were intently focused on Willie. Her skin became covered in goose bumps.

Suddenly, Willie clocked that out of all the people in the room, Mike was looking at him.

With wide, frightened eyes he jumped up. ‘What the fuck’s ’appened?’

Mike ended the call and stepped towards Willie, preparing for an embrace. Yet, Mike’s sombre smile filled with grief and sorrow made Willie jump back.

‘What, Mikey? What’s ’appened? Just tell me, will ya!’

‘Willie, mate, I’m so sorry …’

Willie’s eyes darted around Mike’s face. ‘Nah, nah, not my boy, no way. He ain’t part of this. Fuck me, he’s …’

Mike leaned forward to reach out to Willie, to hold him before the man went nuts. But, to his surprise, Willie suddenly slammed his hand into Mike’s shoulder.

‘Get the fuck away from me! This ain’t my war, or my boy’s fight. It’s yours, Mike, and …’ He spun round and glared with spite at Zara. ‘And yours!’ He stared defiantly, looking Zara up and down. ‘Ya see, don’t ya? This is your fault! Why my boy, eh?’

‘Willie, please,’ said Mike, desperately trying to comfort or even calm a situation that could easily turn nasty. ‘Look, we don’t know what’s ’appened yet.’

‘Well, has he been shot or stabbed? What the fuck’s going on? Tell me! Now!’ he bellowed, as his eyes turned red with rage.

Stupidly, Zara thought that being a woman, she could intervene and somehow calm Willie down, but the moment she was a mere foot away, he viciously flung his arms about and knocked her prosthetic hand. The clanging sound made everyone jolt and prepare themselves for the backlash; either Zara would lose it or Mike would.

Willie’s actions shook him into sanity. Instantly focused, he looked from Zara to Mike, expecting a nasty repercussion.

But Mike held his hand out, still intent on comforting Willie. He knew he was the only man in the room who would know precisely how Willie felt.

‘Willie, don’t assume he’s dead. One minute he was in the kitchen, preparing a meal for them all, and the next, he vanished. Someone has taken him, but …’

He looked at Zara and then back at Willie. ‘But Terrence thinks he was drugged and taken away. Now, before you start jumping to conclusions, right, we don’t know he’s dead.’

Willie could hear Mike’s words but they just wouldn’t register. All he could see was his son being cruelly murdered.

‘Get fucking real, Mike. Look what we did to that cunt Torvic. Jesus, it was sick.’ He glared again at Zara. ‘What you made him do to his own son, it was obscene. And you reckon the bastard won’t do that to mine? What … are you lot fucking delusional?’

Zara felt physically sick because she knew no amount of talking would ever stop Willie from thinking the worst. After all, in his position, she’d feel exactly the same. ‘I don’t think it’s Torvic’s style—’

She didn’t get to finish. Suddenly, Willie was in her face. ‘Style? Style? What the fuck would you really know? ’Cos if you knew so much, he wouldn’t have fucking escaped, would he? And he wouldn’t now be torturing my boy!’

It was Lance who brought Willie back to thinking rationally. ‘Look, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Torvic hasn’t got your son because he couldn’t have got to Spain and set this up all in a matter of hours. The kids were rushed out of the country. He would’ve had to second guess everything. So, there’s no way Torvic’s involved. I don’t believe it was him.’

Willie kicked the chair out of the way, ran his trembling hands through his hair, and then punched the wall. No one said a word as they watched the man collapse to his knees with cries that would set off a pack of wolves.

Mike hurried to his side and flung his arms around the man, holding him close. ‘Come on, mate, try and stay with us. We all feel your pain. Ya know I do, what with all that happened to Ricky. You were all there for me, and we’ll all be there for you too. We don’t know what’s happened yet, but I swear to God, we’ll do everything to find out. And one more thing: there’ll be fucking murders when we find the fuckers who have done this to one of our own.’

Willie’s chest heaved in and out as the sobs choked the life out of him. But slowly, after he’d calmed down, those words of Mike’s resonated with him. They were all family. Ever since their school days, it had been all for one and one for all. It had served them well in the past. He earnestly prayed it would do so now.

Zara could only watch on, helpless. This was turning into her worst nightmare.

* * *

It was early evening when Shelley parked outside her father’s office. The rush-hour traffic was at its height, and she couldn’t find a parking space for love nor money. In her frustration, she pulled into a reserved parking bay and climbed out of her car, slamming the door shut. The wind was fierce and almost knocked her sideways, forcing her to regain her composure.

Just as she was about to lock the door, a jumped-up traffic warden called after her, ‘Sorry, but you can’t park there!’

Raging, Shelley spun around to face him. ‘Go fuck yaself!’ she hollered back, to the disgust of some passers-by.

‘Madam, those spaces are paid for and—’

‘Aw, fuck off. It’s my father’s building and his parking slots, so mind ya own business.’

The traffic warden looked at the windscreen of her car and grinned. ‘Well, that might be so, but you don’t have a pass on show, so that means you can’t park here.’

Shelley didn’t have time to argue. She took a deep breath and was about to walk away, but the traffic warden wasn’t having any of it.

‘Madam, I said you can’t park here. You’ll have to move.’

Inhaling through her nose, she tried to hold in her anger, but she was on edge and had been for days.

‘I said, go fuck yourself!’

Suddenly, the tall glass doors to the building opened and out stepped Glen Maitland, the security guard, a long-legged black man with a cold, expressionless face. He held up his hand. ‘It’s okay. She has a pass!’

‘Not on the windscreen she hasn’t, and—’

Before the traffic warden could finish, the security guard pulled a card from his pocket and waved it in front of the man’s nose. ‘Yes, she does!’

Glen turned and sneered at Shelley. ‘He’s waiting for you. Give me your keys.’

Shelley wondered if all of her father’s staff hated her, but then her mind cast back to her son, and, instantly, she went into one of her couldn’t-give-a-shit moods. She slapped the keys into Glen’s hand and made her way into the building and took the lift to the top floor.

As usual, her father was dressed impeccably. Anyone who found themselves in this building facing him would only assume he was a successful financier. Underneath the sleek facade was a razor-sharp businessman, with a keen eye for illegal gains. She had admired him as a kid. Then, as a teenager, she’d understood why he was so well off and why he had men kissing his feet. His game had initially been counterfeit money. He’d set up factories all over the country. So good were his copies that it had caused mayhem back in the eighties, severely affecting the banking system. He knew when to call it a day, though, and by the time he was loaded, he reinvested some of the money into property. He had the local MPs and councillors in his back pocket and managed to secure run-down warehouses and disused factories, turning them into luxury apartments for the Russians to purchase as an investment.

Shelley paused for a moment, wondering what mood her father was in. He was seated and staring at a computer screen. She hated it when he didn’t acknowledge her right away; it was one of his trademark management tricks to show those he allowed into his working space had to pay homage to him. It made her think that perhaps that was why she’d run into the arms of his enemy. The thought sickened her because her father was worth a fortune, and since she was the only child, she should eventually inherit the lot. But that wouldn’t be the case now: he’d made that crystal clear.