Ruthless (39 page)

Layla was watching him, her mouth half-open in shock.

‘Well, say something,’ he prompted.

Layla closed her mouth with a snap. Sat back. Thought about what he’d just said.

‘I don’t want to see anyone else,’ she said at last. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh?
Is that all you can say?’ Layla jumped off the couch and glared down at him. ‘Look. If you’re talking about laying things on the line, then here it is. Flat out. I’ve been in love with you for ever. Like
always.
So don’t dance around me, don’t give me excuses. Don’t tell me what an old man you are, or that you’re in a dangerous line of work, because I don’t give a fuck about any of that.’

Alberto was silent. Abruptly, he stood up. Grabbed her arm, pulled her in tight against him. Layla’s eyes opened wide. She was suddenly painfully aware of their closeness, of his strength. That people were in awe of him; that he was the godfather. Golden, beautiful, powerful and deadly Alberto. She was in awe of him too. She always had been. Maybe that was the problem.

‘You know what?’ said Alberto, close enough for his breath to tickle her cheek.

Layla gulped. ‘What?’

‘You talk too much. You always have. But you want to go on chewing this over, fine. Only let’s take it somewhere more comfortable.’

Layla felt her heartbeat pick up. She was staring into his eyes.

‘Like . . . where?’ she asked.

‘Two bedrooms. One through there, one through there.’ He indicated two doors. ‘Pick one.’

‘Wait a minute. So you’ve skipped the date and now you’re going straight on to the
seduction
?’

Alberto gave a smile. ‘Time’s a little tight.’

‘What
is
it? What’s going on?’ Now he was frightening her.

Alberto bent and picked her up in his arms. Layla let out a small shriek of surprise.

‘No more talk,’ he said. ‘Which one?’

‘That one,’ said Layla, throwing caution to the four winds.

86

‘There’s something you forgot to tell me,’ said Alberto.

‘I thought you said no more talking?’ sighed Layla.

It was nearly an hour later. She didn’t want to talk or even think. This was . . . heaven. She was lying naked in a four-poster bed in a sumptuous suite, and Alberto was here beside her. What else could anyone possibly need?

Precious.

Her heart seemed to contract and her stomach turned over.

Oh God. Precious was dead. It was as if the earth had shifted under Layla’s feet. Her friend, the one real friend she had, was dead, and now . . . Alberto had seduced her. She thought of Precious, beautiful, laughing, generous and bright. If she could see Layla, lying here with him, she’d be cheering. And maybe, somehow, she could. Who knew?

Layla felt her eyes fill with tears, but she blinked them back. She turned, cuddled in close against his chest, feeling his warmth, his strength.

‘It would have helped to know you were a virgin,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Her eyes flickered open and she stared at him. ‘That.’

The reason she was still a virgin was because no one had ever come close to Alberto, in her eyes. She’d had a few dates, but they’d gone nowhere. Maybe she was just that dull, old-fashioned thing, a one-man woman. She’d felt the same way about friendship. It had to be the real deal or she didn’t want to know.

Precious had been the real deal. Now she was gone.

‘I wasn’t expecting this,’ she said. ‘And by the time I could have told you, well . . . it was too late.’

Alberto turned towards her, propping himself up on one elbow, running a hand down over her face, brushing back her loose dark hair. His eyes met hers.

‘I’m so sorry about your friend,’ he said. ‘From what I saw of her, she seemed a very special person.’

‘Yes. She was.’ Layla’s eyes filled with tears again and he pulled her close, held her.

‘Shh,’ he murmured against her hair and she sobbed helplessly, the grief overflowing again in an unstoppable tide.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, kissing her brow. ‘The bastard who did it – we’re going to get him. OK?’ He pushed her head back, looked at her tear-drenched face. ‘Layla. You believe me?’

Layla gulped, wiped at her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe you.’

If anyone could catch that bastard, it was Alberto – and her dad.

Layla stiffened.

Oh God. Dad.

What would
he
make of this?

No. She couldn’t think about that yet. Her mind baulked at the very idea of explaining this to him. She gazed at Alberto. Couldn’t believe he was here, like this, with her. But he was.

‘I love you,’ she said, linking her arms around his neck. ‘Kiss me.’

Alberto kissed her, long and hard and slow. His hand dipped lower, cupping her breast, his thumb rubbing slowly, maddeningly, over the nipple, teasing it into hardness. Layla groaned.

‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked, his hand dipping lower, lower, until she gasped.

‘No. A bit.’ It
had
hurt, but she had been tense, expecting it to. It wasn’t his fault. And as he had just pointed out, she hadn’t told him she was a virgin, and she should have.

‘It’ll be better this time,’ he said. ‘Lie back . . .’

He was caressing her gently, firmly, until she was liquid with longing, gasping with need. Then he mounted her again and she felt him, amazingly hard but silken, pushing into her easily this time, filling her. She clung to him, ecstatic. Nothing had ever felt so right.

‘Jesus,’ he moaned against her neck, thrusting desperately. His eyes met hers and he kissed her, their tongues playing. ‘Jesus, Layla . . .’ he gasped against her mouth.

‘I love you,’ she panted. ‘Alberto, I love you so much.’

‘I know,’ he said, and came, pushing into her so hard she could barely breathe. ‘Oh, Layla, baby, what the hell are we going to do . . .?’

About what?
she wondered.

There was joy in her heart, and overwhelming sadness . . . and now there was fear, too. Not for herself, but for him.

87

So the game was up. Kath the mother had phoned him in panic, the fucking idiot.

‘Help us! Carter’s here and he’s beating up Junior. You said he wouldn’t get into trouble over this, you
promised.
’

As if he’d lift a fecking finger on Junior’s behalf. The little cunt was caught: no use to him now. It was time to up the stakes. No point pussy-footing around. He had one loyalty, and that loyalty was crying out for vengeance.

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.

Well, today vengeance would be Rufus’s, too. He’d waited too long for this. With Orla dead, what did he have to lose? It was time to get on and do it, and then at last he’d be revenged and his poor beloved could rest in peace.

88

Tone picked up Junior’s car within the first quarter of a mile. It was a ratty little Ford in graphite blue, old and rusted, billowing out grey smoke from the exhaust, leaving a trail that made the job easier. He followed it through traffic, edging ever closer.

‘Don’t lose him,’ said Max.

‘I won’t.’

Max glanced at Molls, now crouched silent in the back seat. ‘He been seeing much of this bloke, this Rufus?’

Molls shook her head.

‘The truth,’ said Max sharply.

She gulped fearfully and nodded. ‘Yeah. A lot.’

Max felt the rage rise up again, nearly choke him with its ferocity. This was Annie’s cousin’s boy, someone she’d looked out for since he was a kid, furnishing him with jobs and no doubt with extra cash when he needed it.

He stared at Molly in disgust. He barely knew this girl, or her brother. Kath, the mother, was dog-rough; Max didn’t even want to
look
at her, never had. He reckoned Molly was cut from the same mould as her mother. She could pull men now, but what few looks she had would quickly fade, the same way her mother’s had, helped along by booze or drugs or binge eating till she ended up the spitting image of Kath.

‘Fuck!’ said Tone loudly as the lights changed. He slammed on the brakes. Molly slipped off the back seat and thumped to the floor. Junior’s old Ford was chugging away into the distance.

‘Jump the lights,’ said Max.

Tone didn’t question it. He edged out, jerking the Jag to a halt when a car shot past within inches of the front bumper.

‘Holy
shit
!’ yelled Molly, scrabbling back up on to the seat.

Cars honked their horns. There was a squealing of brakes, accompanied by yells of fury. Tone put his foot down and the Jag shot through the steadily moving line of traffic across the junction, at the head of which was the old blue Ford.

Cutting in and out of the traffic, Tony continued edging closer to the little car up the front. At the next set of lights, Junior pulled away again. Max didn’t have to say a word this time, Tone put his foot to the floor. Then he spotted the cop car parked up at the side of the road, and stopped.

‘Fuck,’ said Max.

The lights changed. Tone took off again, full-speed, edging up as Junior came within distance. They were three cars behind, then two, then one. Then the lights again. This time Tone ignored them. Brakes squealed, horns tooted, people shouted and screamed. No one got killed, but it was only by luck. Tone was on Junior’s bumper as he headed over the North Circular. Soon as he came off it, Junior pulled the car to the side and with a chirp of brakes parked it nose-first against the nearest pavement. Then he tumbled out of the driver’s-side door, and ran.

Max was out of the Jag before Tone brought it to a halt. He hit the road and was off along the pavement after Junior. Thirty paces and Junior came to a brick wall. He was trying to hurl himself over it when Max caught up and dragged him down. Junior started yelling.

‘Shut up,’ snapped Max, shaking him. ‘We’ve got your sister in the car. You want her to come to grief? Keep
that
up and she will.’

Junior shut up.

Yeah, he thought a lot of his family, Max could see that. Shame that familial loyalty didn’t stretch to Annie. He knew his ex-wife was a crazy, maddening cow, but that had never stopped him loving her one hundred per cent.

He gripped Junior’s arm and marched him to the Jag. Then he threw him in the back with his sister, and Tone drove them all to Holland Park.

89

Annie was in the study when she heard the doorbell ring. Rosa was down in the kitchen, chances were she wouldn’t even hear it. But Bri was there on the door, he’d get it. She’d just got off the phone to Alberto, who’d rung in to say he had Layla with him, she was safe. She was worried for Alberto, but at a loss to know how she could help him. Soon, he’d warned her, he was going to have to run.

Christ, Alberto, please don’t leave it too late,
she thought, shuddering. She went to the window, looked out. There was a van out there, a black van, it had been there for a couple of weeks now; people coming and going around it, workmen she had supposed. But now . . . she wasn’t so sure.

She felt bad about having called him. He shouldn’t be here, helping her. She shouldn’t have asked him to come.

When the Feds took Alberto, she knew the whole edifice of his organization would come crashing down. Without his rigorous control of the streets, Queens, New York, would be a zoo again, wide open to any little tosser with attitude. She thought of Naples, where only recently a whole host of Mafia godfathers had been arrested. Shortly after their trials and convictions, the police authorities had found themselves unable to cope with the sudden outbreak of criminal chancers running wild.

Alberto’s charmed life would be over. No more summers in the Hamptons, no more polo at Cowdray Park or in Argentina or Callien in the South of France, no more champagne and chukkas, no more racing in fiendishly expensive yachts, no more private jets and politicians and high-ranking policemen seeking favours from the don.

All that would be at an end.

Instead, there would be prison, for a lot of years.

Annie stood up. It was too painful to think that Alberto, her stepson, her friend and supporter over so many years, would be lost to her.

Would Max finally believe
then,
when ‘Golden Boy’ Alberto was behind bars, that there was nothing between them? She thought of Layla and Alberto. Thought of the transformation her daughter had undergone, and the way Alberto had looked at her.

Annie sighed. She didn’t want that pain for Layla. She wanted a straight, uncomplicated man for her. Not Alberto, who could be gone at any moment. But it wasn’t her decision to make. They were together, right now. It was out of her hands.

She went over to the door. Bri had let someone in. Who? He should have been tapping on the study door by now, letting her know who was calling. She opened it and glanced out into the hall – and froze.

Bri was lying on the floor by the closed front door. He was on his back, and he was twitching.

‘Bri—’ Annie was stepping forward, her heart racing.

That was when she saw the big man with the shock of red hair step out from behind the staircase.

She spun round, almost fell back into the study, slammed the door, ran for the desk. He was there, flinging the door open, sending it crashing on its hinges. Shaking, terrified, she fumbled to open the top drawer, grabbed the can of Mace. Somehow she held it ready, stared at Rufus Malone standing there in the open doorway.

He moved like an athlete, surprisingly light on his feet for a man that size. The long, curling red hair gave him a wild appearance. The dark grey eyes were cold. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt and a beige corduroy jacket that seemed too tight, stretched across his bulky frame. He was carrying something in his right hand: a black plastic item the size of a small transistor radio, with two buttons on the front.

He smiled almost gently as he pressed one of the buttons.

There was a sharp
zapping
sound. Two electrical probes shot out of the thing on wires and hit Annie like a thunderbolt.