Ruthless (40 page)

Next thing she knew, all the strength went out of her. Her fingers went numb. She dropped the Mace. Instantly, she collapsed in a heap, every particle of her body short-circuiting.

Taser,
she managed to think.

The shock danced all over her skin and nerves like a firestorm. Suddenly, nothing worked. Her limbs were dead weights, and the greater part of her brain seemed to be in the grip of a detached paralysis. She lay there, aware that her legs and arms were trembling but unable to stop it. She was breathing, but it felt as if someone else was doing all the work.

How many volts did those things carry? She’d read once that it was fifty thousand, which – if you were unlucky and had other health issues such as an undiagnosed heart condition – could kill you.

She wasn’t dead. Neither was Bri. But they were both about as useful right this minute as a couple of babes in arms.

Rosa,
she thought, and screamed out the housekeeper’s name.

The sound that emerged was a tremulous whimper. What good could Rosa do anyhow? Nothing except get hit by that thing herself – and she was frail and old, the shock would most likely kill her.

Rufus pocketed the taser gun in a businesslike fashion, then came around the desk, bent and hefted her over his shoulder. She felt one of her shoes drop from her foot. Her brain was disjointed, sluggish to respond, firing a few synapses here and there.

He was going to carry her out the front door?

But there were men watching the house. Max’s men. They would see, they would come and stop him. And what could have been a curse could now turn into a blessing. Those men in the black van, the ones she believed were watching Alberto’s every move, would now come to her aid.

Wouldn’t they?

Rufus was out in the hall now, stepping over Bri, who was still shaking and helpless on the floor. Opening the front door, he casually hefted her in a fireman’s lift down the front steps.
Someone
was going to stop him.

She tried to see, tried to look around, but the world was upside-down and she couldn’t move her head, couldn’t move
anything.
She could see a car, and that was one of Max’s men in the driver’s seat. Why wasn’t he moving, why wasn’t he seeing this and hurrying towards them? His eyes were closed. Whether he was just asleep or had been zapped like her, she didn’t know. He wasn’t coming to anyone’s rescue, that was for sure.

Shit.

As if this was a normal everyday event, Rufus Malone opened the back door of a car, and unloaded her across the seat. She lay there, thinking
How long until this wears off? Until I can move again?

She had no idea.

Rufus got behind the wheel. No one stopped him. No one lifted a finger. He drove off, clipping the wing of the car parked in front of him. He didn’t stop. He kept going.

‘You
see
that?’ asked the man in the black van.

‘What?’ said his companion, a squat little guy with a squint and a pair of headphones more or less permanently attached to his bald head. He was thinking about lunch. His stomach was growling. He was bored to hell with this gig.

‘That guy carrying Annie Carter out the front door,’ said the one who’d been looking out of the black-tinted windows at the street. He was bored too, and the scene he’d just witnessed had enlivened his day.

‘You’re joking, right?’ The man with the headphones knew his colleague for an inveterate practical joker. He’d been on the receiving end of a few of his pranks. He
hated
practical jokes.

‘I’m not joking. Brought her down the steps over his shoulder. Big man, red hair. Light cord jacket, jeans. You know what’s even weirder? No one tried to stop him.’

The little man took off his headphones. ‘Serious?’

His colleague nodded.

‘Better phone it in then.’

90

They were in the back of the car, Sandor at the wheel. Heading to Holland Park.

‘Alberto,’ said Layla.

‘Hm?’

‘You keep saying that you can’t start anything now, and then what do you do? You
start
something.’

He looked at her. ‘Are you sorry?’

‘No. Of course not,’ she said, the memory of the past few hours bringing heat to her face.

‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ he said, shaking his head almost sadly. ‘But . . . I wanted to.’

‘Well, it’s too late for all that
now.
So will you please tell me what’s happening?’

‘Things might be catching up with me.’

‘What things?’

Alberto stared at her. ‘Layla. You
know
what I am.’

‘You mean . . . the police?’

‘I mean the FBI.’

Layla went pale. ‘Oh.’ She sank back against the upholstery, anxiety clamping her chest. She swallowed hard. ‘How long . . .?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Soon.’

Layla sucked in a panicky breath. They’d only just found each other. And here he was, telling her that he could be snatched from her?

‘Then we have to get away. Go somewhere. Anywhere.’

‘I’m not leaving yet, not with you and your mom in a fix.’

Layla stared at the face she loved so much. Strong, tanned, sometimes fierce, sometimes gentle. She
couldn’t
lose him. Not now.

‘Look, Layla, when I go, I go alone,’ he said.

Layla opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. She felt a wave of hurt hit her, snatching her breath away.
He didn’t want her with him.
She would go to the ends of the earth for him, but he didn’t want that. She shrank from him. He’d used her. And now he was telling her
this.

‘But . . .’ she started, then stuttered to a halt. She was shocked, bewildered. ‘Didn’t that . . . didn’t that mean anything to you, this afternoon?’

Alberto turned his head and looked at her. Then he looked away again. ‘We had sex, Layla. It was good, but it was sex. That’s all.’

Layla gasped as if he’d punched her.

Alberto suppressed a sigh. This was so hard. It was crucifying him, but he knew he had to do it – make her let go, make her despise him, if he could. It would be cruel to do otherwise.

‘Do you know how many women throw themselves at me in the space of a year?’ he asked her.

‘I don’t . . .’ she said, faltering.

‘Dozens.’ He glanced at her face. It was a picture of distress. Quickly he looked away. He couldn’t afford to weaken. Not now. ‘This afternoon was nice. Let’s not read too much into it though, OK?’

Layla could only stare back at him blankly.
Nice?
She couldn’t believe he was saying these horrible things, not to her. He was making his feelings very plain, though. He was going to take off somewhere, and she wasn’t invited along for the ride.

91

The instant Max got to Holland Park, he knew something was wrong. Paul was asleep in his car. And Bri opened the front door looking as if he’d been dragged through a hedge. He was sweaty and pale.

‘What’s up with you?’ said Max, marching Molly inside while Tony followed on with Junior. ‘And I just passed Paul, he’s
asleep
out there. What the fuck’s going on?’

‘Something happened, Boss.’ Bri’s speech was laboured, disjointed.

‘Where’s Annie?’ demanded Max.

‘Let me
go,
will you?’ whined Molly.

Max gave her a shake. ‘Shut up, you.’ He turned back to Bri. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Sorry, Boss. Nothing I could do. Bastard came to—’

‘Who?’ A hot bolt of panic shot through Max’s gut.

‘Big guy, long red hair. Hit me with a taser. Didn’t see it coming. Went down like a sack of shit. Couldn’t move.’

‘Where’s Annie?’ Max repeated, his mouth going dry.

‘He took her. I couldn’t stop him.’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Alberto, catching the last few words as he came up the steps, Layla trailing behind him.

‘That’s what I want to find out,’ said Max, thinking fast. Bri had seen Rufus Malone, he was certain of that. And Malone had snatched Annie.

Layla was surging forward, her face twisted with anxiety. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Mum?’

For Layla’s sake, Max knew he had to clamp down the panic rising in him. He couldn’t allow his fear at the thought of what that bastard might do to Annie spiral out of control. Looking his daughter in the eye, he told her, ‘We’re going to find her.’

The colour drained from her face and she sagged a little, as if she might faint. ‘It was him, wasn’t it? He’s been here. Oh my God, no!’

‘Don’t wor—’

‘Don’t worry? Precious – the girl he beat up at the club – she died today, Dad. She
died.
And now he’s got Mum.’

‘We’ll get her back,’ said Max.

‘We will,’ said Alberto, taking Layla’s arm. She flinched away from him. Max looked at them both. He had never seen Layla react like that with Alberto before.

‘Don’t
touch
me,’ she snapped.

Max gave a nod to Tony to follow with Junior, and he hustled Molly into the drawing room. Alberto and Layla followed.

‘Go and check Paul’s OK,’ Max flung back at Bri.

Bri hurried to obey.

‘Precious told me . . .’
Before she died.
Layla took a breath and started again.

This day had been horrendous, exhausting. She couldn’t remember ever having a worse one. It was agony and joy and terrible disappointment, all churning together. Her head hurt. And her heart ached too – both for the loss of Precious and at the painful discovery of how little she really meant to the man she loved.

Do you know how many women throw themselves at me in the space of a year?
he’d asked her. Like she was just one in a long line of easy lays. Nothing special. To be used, and discarded.

Now she couldn’t get her mind off the image of her mother,
her
mum, being held by that bastard Malone. She couldn’t stop thinking about the things a man like that, a man who would happily beat a woman to the point of death, could do to her mother.

‘Take your time,’ said Alberto. ‘Just breathe steadily.’

She thought of Precious and her heart-brain exercise, and wanted to weep all over again.

‘Precious told me that he beat her up to send a message to us, to the Carters,’ she said. ‘And now he’s got Mum . . .’

Max was standing by the mantelpiece, Alberto alongside him. Shooting Junior a venomous look that should have killed him on the spot, Max growled, ‘If he hurts her, you will pay the price.’

‘Look, all I did was little things, I told you. He just paid me.’

‘If you wanted or needed money, why didn’t you talk to Annie? She’d have given it to you like a shot.’

‘Oh yeah,’ sneered Junior. ‘Lady Bountiful, the great Annie Carter.’

‘You little shit.’

And you won’t touch me,’ said Junior with sullen resentment. ‘’Cos if you did,
she’d
throw a fit.’

Max was across the room in a second, yanking Junior to his feet by his shirtfront. ‘Yeah? Well, she’s not here.
I
am. And you, boy, are starting to get on my
fucking
nerves.’

‘Where would he take her?’ asked Alberto of no one in particular.

Max glanced at Alberto, then shoved the quivering Junior back down on to the sofa.

‘Who knows,’ said Max. ‘Not Partyland. The place on the marshes? Would he go back there?’

He might have taken her to the nearest quiet place, killed her and buried the body,
thought Max.
She could be dead already.

That thought filled him with anguish. He’d returned only for Layla’s sake, and it had shocked him to discover that his feelings for Annie, even after eight years apart, were as strong as ever. He wanted, needed, loved her.

Whatever
had gone on between her and Golden Boy in the past – and he was starting to think he’d been wrong about that all along – he no longer gave a shit. She was his. He was hers. But had he come this close, only to lose her?

‘We have to check every place we can think of,’ said Layla. She was staring at Junior in disgust. She felt sick to her stomach at what he’d said. ‘So you
helped
that awful bastard? Against us? Against your family?’

Junior squirmed, shrank into his seat.

‘Oh God, I can see it now. That night when he hurt Precious,’ she said, advancing towards him, ‘you were skulking in the toilet because you couldn’t face looking at those monitors, seeing what he was going to do. You didn’t even have the balls for that.’

Junior looked up at her, his face red with shame.

‘Look, what I did was
nothing.
I just started the fire in your office and a couple of other little things. It was money for old rope. I didn’t know he’d actually
kill
. . .’ He hesitated.

‘Her name’s Precious,’ Layla said through gritted teeth. ‘You let him beat Precious to a pulp. You let him kill her.’

‘I didn’t know he’d go that far! I swear it.’

‘No? But if you’d stuck around in the monitor room and you’d
seen
how far he was going, would you have tried to stop him? I don’t think so. You’re a coward and a bloody traitor.’

Max was watching Molls throughout all this. She was staring at the floor. Her cheeks were pink. He went and stood in front of her. He was getting a strong feeling about sneaky, goofy-looking little Molls. She looked up, then quickly away, her eyes darting sideways.

‘Where would he go, Molls?’ Max asked her, his voice low and dangerous. ‘You got any ideas?’

She shrugged, hugging her arms around her body as if she was cold.

‘Where?’ repeated Max.

Molly said nothing.

Max reached down and yanked her upright. She let out a yell.

‘Hey!’ said Junior, jumping to his feet.

Alberto placed a hand on Junior’s chest. ‘You want to start something?’ he asked, and Layla was struck by his voice – so cold. She looked at him. This Alberto was frightening. His gaze as he stared into Junior’s eyes was lance-like, threatening as a viper’s. Suddenly, she felt she didn’t know him at all.