Scarlet Women (23 page)

Charlie Foster got the shock of his life when he got up on to the landing and found Annie Carter standing there. She was pointing an old .38 Smith & Wesson revolver at his head. He froze on the top step. Ross, coming up right behind him, paused, looked ahead, saw her standing there.

‘What the fuck?’ he asked in annoyance.

‘Hiya Charlie,’ said Annie.

Charlie carefully put his hands up. He was staring at the gun, which was now pointing towards his chest.

‘Hey,’ he said with a nervous half-smile, a thin shadow of his usual predatory leer. ‘Careful with that.’

‘I’m always careful, Charlie.’

‘We don’t want no trouble, Mrs Carter,’ he said, his pale eyes still on the gun in her hand.

‘What
do
you want?’ asked Annie.

‘You’ve got something of Mr Delaney’s here, Mrs Carter. That’s all we want. Just that.’

‘You’re talking about a friend of mine,’ said Annie, holding the gun steady although she could feel her heart stampeding inside her chest, could feel her stomach clenching with terror and loathing. Charlie Foster was a tough, mean bastard and she was scared shitless, but she wasn’t going to hand Mira over to him, not in a million years.

But here was the thing. She was here, standing in a parlour that paid protection to the Delaneys. She was on Delaney soil. The Delaneys owned this patch and controlled everything in it; she was only
permitted
to be here because Redmond Delaney said she could be. When he said she couldn’t, she was going to have to get the fuck out of it pretty damned fast—and it looked like that time had come.

She had something Redmond Delaney wanted, and that thing was
Mira.
She had no intention of handing her over. He wasn’t going to be hanging the flags out about this; in fact he was going to be seriously pissed off with her.

Charlie smiled coldly, his eyes running over her. ‘She’s ours, Mrs Carter, and you are out of your depth here. Let’s make this nice and easy. You put the gun down and stand aside, we take the girl, no harm done, no comebacks. How does that sound?’

‘Like a bad idea,’ said Annie. She was sweating with nerves. She could feel her hand growing slick with it on the burred walnut stock of the gun. ‘I’ve got a better one.’

‘Yeah?’ His eyes were watchful.

‘Yeah. Here it is. You turn around and go back out the door, and I don’t shoot your balls off. How’s that?’

Charlie’s gaze didn’t waver but his ever-present smile dimmed a bit.

‘Like I said, we don’t want no trouble,’ he reiterated, taking a step forward. ‘Just hand the gun over—’

Annie fired. The shot deafened them all. The bullet struck the ceiling above Charlie’s head. A chorus of screams went up from the kitchen below, but not a peep out of Mira, locked inside the bedroom, tied to the bed, helpless.
Good girl
, thought Annie. Plaster plumed out in a thick cloud, dusting down over Charlie like snowfall. He staggered back a step, blinking, choking, and was steadied by Ross.

Annie stepped forward.

‘I told you, Charlie. Back off. Just keep going. Because I’m telling you, the next one’s going to blow your bollocks into mincemeat. You’re a young man with lots of productive years in front of you, do you really want that to happen?’

Charlie started to back down the stairs. Ross backed up too. Someone was pounding at the
front door.
Tony
, thought Annie. He’d heard the shot.

Charlie held his hands up. The dust in his hair was white; he looked like he’d aged twenty years in the last few seconds. He wasn’t smiling any more.

‘Hey—okay. I’m going, see? I’m going.’

‘Yeah. Keep going, that’s the way,’ said Annie, moving forward, following him down the stairs as he backed up.

‘You ain’t heard the last of this,’ said Charlie when he was at the front door. Ross opened it, glaring back at her.

Tony was there, ready to break heads.

‘Keep out the way, Tone,’ said Annie, and Tony saw the gun, saw the situation, and moved swiftly to one side. To Charlie, she said: ‘Keep going. You too, Ross.’

Annie was aware of Dolly and the two girls watching her from the open kitchen doorway.

‘What the hell?’ demanded Dolly, her eyes opening wide in horror as she stared at the gun in Annie’s hand.

Nobody answered her.

Charlie backed up out to the front gate, Ross following behind him. Tony fell in behind Annie, who was out on the front step now and still pointing the gun at Charlie’s undercarriage. In bright daylight, Charlie looked pale as milk.

‘You’re bang out of order, you,’ said Ross angrily to Annie.

‘I’m doing what I have to do,’ said Annie. ‘Go on now. Piss off, Charlie.’

With one last poisonous glare at her, Charlie went.

Ross stared at Annie and shook his head. ‘You’re fucking crazy.’

‘You too. Go,’ said Annie.

Ross went. When they were both out of sight, Annie handed the gun to Tony, who slipped on the safety and pocketed it. They went quickly back indoors, shut the door behind them. Tony threw the bolts over.

Dolly was staring at them both, aghast.

‘What the fuck have you
done
?’ she shouted at Annie.

Annie went to the phone. ‘Don’t worry, Doll, I’m going to make sure the Delaneys know you had no part in this.’

‘Are you crazy?’ asked Dolly, barging along the hall and glaring angrily at her. ‘Of course they’ll think I had a part in this. I run this place, what the hell do you think you’re
doing
?’

Annie snatched up the phone. Then she paused and looked at Dolly.

‘Doll—they were going to take Mira.’

‘Why the hell would they want to do that? What possible interest could a wreck like that be to the Delaney boys?’

‘They came to get her. Ross heard me say her name and they came for her. Redmond wants her, I don’t know why. I couldn’t let them take her, Doll, even you must see that.’

‘All I
see
is that you’ve landed me in the crap right up to my neck, that’s all. I told you she was trouble. How am I supposed to explain this away to Redmond Delaney?’ Dolly’s eyes were crazy with exasperation and growing fear. ‘I don’t question what he does or don’t do. That ain’t my place.’

‘Yeah,’ said Annie. ‘You’ve made
that
clear enough.’

‘And you didn’t fucking well listen to me!’

‘You mean you’d have let them take her? I don’t believe you.’

‘Don’t be a silly cow, Annie. If the Delaneys want to snatch a junkie—even one who’s a friend, or one who has been in the past, anyway, and let’s face it, she was your friend, not mine—then I don’t question it. What, do I look suicidal? And what am I supposed to do about Ross? You can’t just order him out of here, he’s my bloody doorman, he’s a Delaney boy…what the fuck are you up to
now
?’

Annie was dialling a number.

It was ringing.

She was praying he was there. Oh shit—what if he wasn’t?

Constantine picked up. ‘Yeah?’

Thank you, God.

Annie gulped down a breath and pushed the words out. ‘I need you. Right now.’

‘What’s happening?’ His voice was suddenly sharper.

‘And a safe house, you got a safe house for somebody? And a doctor?’

‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Where are you?’

Annie told him.

‘Don’t move.’ He put the phone down.

Annie glanced at Dolly, who looked mad enough to spit blood. At the two girls, cowering in the doorway. At Tony, whose expression said nothing. He just folded his arms and prepared to wait for backup to arrive.

Half an hour later, someone rapped at the front door. Dolly and the girls were sitting around the kitchen table. Annie was still standing in the hall, so was Tony. All was quiet. Even Mira had given up kicking off.

‘Jesus, what now?’ muttered Dolly.

Tony approached the door. ‘Who is it?’

‘The cavalry, who the fuck else?’ said an impatient American voice from outside.

Tony drew out the gun, slipped off the safety, opened the door a crack. A youngish dark-haired
man was standing there wearing a black biker jacket. He had a heavy nose and cleft chin and looked as if he had Mediterranean blood running through his veins. He was holding an automatic pistol. He looked at Tony standing there with the revolver, and gave a grin.

‘Hey, pal, that’s a proper museum piece you got there. You’re Tony, right? Mrs Carter’s driver?’

Tony nodded.

‘Hey, how ya doin’?’ The man stepped forward and patted Tony briskly on the shoulder. ‘Mr Barolli’s compliments.’

Tony pushed the door wide open. Outside were six handy-looking hard men, all grouped around Constantine Barolli. He looked up and saw Annie standing there in the hall.

‘The gorgeous Annie,’ he said with a grin. ‘You at home to visitors?’

‘I’ll clear it with Redmond Delaney,’ said Constantine, sitting in Dolly’s kitchen with Dolly, Rosie, Sharlene and Annie. ‘No worries.’

‘No
worries
?’ echoed Dolly angrily. She’d had a shock when Charlie Foster had come in and Annie had fired the gun, then an even bigger one when Constantine Barolli pitched up with half an army, but she was recovering fast. She always did. ‘How can you say that? I pay protection to the Delaneys, and there’s a Delaney man on the door—at least there was until this one,’ she indicated Annie with a tetchy twitch of the head, ‘took it into her head to throw him out in the street.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ repeated Constantine. ‘The Carter family and me, we got a mutual thing going; everyone knows that. The Delaneys won’t want to cross me up. It’ll be fine.’

Annie felt limp with the aftermath of fear. Even cocky Sharlene and laid-back little Rosie seemed shattered by the experience they’d just been through, too traumatized to even give a magnificent hunk like Constantine the glad eye.

Annie had half expected to die, or to see Mira perish in front of her. She couldn’t believe that they were all sitting here in one piece. Now Tony and Constantine’s men were bringing Mira down the stairs, and she was wailing and crying again.

Redmond wanted Mira, and I’ve thwarted him
, she thought worriedly.
Is he really going to let this go?

She thought of Layla, across town at Ruthie’s, both of them unprotected. And her cousin Kath and the kids. She went out into the hall. ‘Tone?’

Tony drew back from the crowd and looked at her.

‘Send some of the boys over to Kath’s, and to Ruthie’s in Richmond, right now.’

‘Sure, Boss,’ he said, and went out the front door.

Mira, her face haggard and streaked with blood, was stretching out a bony hand to Annie as they manhandled her carefully, wrapped in a clean blanket, down to the bottom of the stairs. Annie took the girl’s hand.

‘It’s okay, Mira,’ she said, squeezing her hand tightly. ‘These people are on our side. They’re not
going to hurt you. You’re going to see a doctor, we’re going to get you well again.’

‘I don’t want him to get me…’ sobbed Mira.

‘Jeez, is she out of it or what?’ complained one of the men. ‘That’s all she keeps saying. I keep telling her, everything’s cool. But she keeps on saying that.’

Because she’s terrified for her life
, thought Annie, her heart wrenching with pity.

‘Be careful with her,’ said Annie.

‘Hey, no problem.’ The young one who’d knocked at the door gave Annie a winning smile. ‘A friend of yours is a friend of ours, Mrs C. Don’t you worry about it.’

They took Mira out to the car. Annie went back along the hall and met Constantine coming towards her.

‘I’m going to phone Redmond,’ he said. ‘But until I do that, I’m leaving one of mine on this door, okay? Just until I straighten him out. You want one of mine with Layla?’

‘No, I’ve got that covered,’ said Annie, feeling suddenly awkward.

Well, she’d said it. She needed him. Now she knew that if she was honest with herself, she wanted him too. Not out of gratitude, and not on the rebound from a dead man.

She looked at him. Constantine stared back at her.

‘You got some time to spare?’ he asked her, eyes sparkling with challenge.

She didn’t waver. She nodded.

‘Then let’s go,’ he said.

This time was better—slower, more sensual. This time
he
set the pace, not allowing her to rush towards climax, holding her back on the edge until she was gasping, sweating, panting out his name.
His
name. Not Max’s.

‘Oh God, here I go again,’ said Annie out loud.

Constantine propped himself up on one arm and looked down at her. It was warm in his bedroom in the Holland Park mansion with the windows shut, and they’d certainly generated a fair bit of heat, rolling around naked in his huge bed.

‘That sounds like regret,’ he said, smoothing back a lock of dark hair from her shoulder, running his hand over her skin.

Annie shuddered deliciously. Oh fuck, she was in trouble here. He knew all the moves, this mobster. But she’d thought she was pretty safe. That no one could please her in bed the way Max had pleased her.

Welcome to the new world
, she thought.

She felt high, like somebody had stuffed a fistful of amphetamines down her throat. She felt relaxed, and satisfied, and—oh shit—ready for more any
time
he
was ready, which please God would be sometime soon.

Constantine understood the responses of the female body and knew exactly how to make those responses happen in spades. She shouldn’t be surprised by that: like Max, he was a man of formidable intelligence and considerable experience. Once in bed with him, any woman was putty in his hands. And of course he’d been married.

Annie thought about that.

Had Constantine been happy with his late wife? She couldn’t bring herself to ask. This whole situation was fraught with danger and difficulties and she didn’t want to think too much, not yet. She just wanted to sink into bliss and stay there.

But she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that for long. There was so much to consider, so much trouble in store. Why could she never resist the allure of bad, powerful men? First there had been Max, someone else’s property, and what a shit-storm
that
had caused. Now there was Constantine. Mafia. Enough baggage to sink a battleship. His family—all except Alberto—had made it plain that they were determined to set up barriers rather than welcome a new woman into his life.

She knew why.

If Constantine got seriously involved, if he
remarried
, then the pecking order would change. Annie would come first to him. Well, she was
used
to coming first. She didn’t do second fiddle, and that was a fact. And if things progressed, if they—oh fuck—if they had a
baby
together, then the fur was bound to fly. Lucco would throw a fit. Gina would disapprove. Cara would feel usurped. The whole balance of the clan would be upset.

And the boys—
her
boys. They wouldn’t swallow this. Not in a thousand years.

Oh shit
, she thought, and sighed. But then—she had never yet, not once in her life, pulled back from a fight.

‘So do you regret this?’ he asked her.

Annie shook her head, cuddled in close. ‘No,’ she murmured against his chest, thinking that she really was up the creek this time, but that it was wonderful, that her veins were fizzing with happiness and desire, but that it was awful too because she had never faced such difficult choices. When they had made love, she had stifled the urge to say it, unwilling to give too much of herself away. But now she thought it, and knew that it was true:
I’m in love with you.

She loved him. She knew it. All her fine intentions to cut this dead had come to nothing because that
wasn’t
what she wanted in her heart of hearts. Damn. She really was in trouble.

She sat up, ran her hands through her hair, clutched her arms around her knees. ‘I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my entire life as I
was to see you, when you pitched up at Dolly’s place. Do you think you can really square it with Redmond?’

‘It’s done, that’s who I was speaking to on the phone when we got in,’ said Constantine, smoothing a hand down her back.

He’d taken her up to the bedroom, then gone back downstairs to his study. Ten minutes, and he’d been back. Redmond sorted. Or was he?

‘Hey, he wants to kiss my ass, or have you forgotten?’ Constantine went on when she sent him a dubious glance. ‘He still thinks I might cut him in on some business.’

Annie looked back at him. ‘And will you?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘If he goes against you, he goes against me.’

Annie nodded, but she wasn’t completely reassured. She knew that Redmond was no normal man. She knew that he and his twin had been abused as children, and that the trauma of it had made them both cold and controlling. What lengths might Redmond go to, to get hold of Mira? And
why
was he so intent on doing that?

‘Dolly’s really pissed off with me. Did you explain to him that it wasn’t down to her? That it was nothing to do with her?’

‘Yep, I did. Say, what’s the deal with this Mira?’

‘Let’s just say that a lot of things that didn’t make any sense before are starting to add up now,’
said Annie. She stared at Constantine. ‘And you’re really not intending to cut him in on the clubs up West?’

She was keeping it businesslike, even though she was here in this intimate situation with this extraordinarily gorgeous man, even though something softer would be in order, some warm words of love or adoration; anything rather than chewing on and on about a business matter that he had
already
reassured her over.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Constantine, ‘didn’t I already say it was cool? What do you want, that I should try to hammer the deal down with you? That I should ask for extras? Actually,’ he smiled, ‘I think I’ve just
had
those.’

‘I don’t want the Delaneys stepping in, that’s all,’ said Annie, now feeling as flustered as a teenager on a first date.

‘They are not stepping in,’ said Constantine. ‘They are not anywhere
near
stepping in, okay? Three thousand sterling a month’s not a bad deal, and the Carters have done a good job over…I guess it’s six, seven years…so that’s sorted and there’s no need for concern. Or are you just trying to keep this business when it so obviously is pleasure?’

Yeah, he was clever. Like Max had been clever. Good at reading signs. Perceptive. It was fucking irritating how clever he was.

Because he’d hit the nail square on the head. She felt uneasy with all this. Happy about it, yes—but worried too. Of course, if she hadn’t enjoyed this little interlude (and here she glanced at her Rolex and discovered that in fact it had not been so little. In fact, they had been indulging themselves shamelessly for nearly three
hours
), she wouldn’t feel quite so bad about it all. But enjoy it she had. She owned up to that. To be touched, caressed, overwhelmed by passion, she had forgotten how good all that could feel.

But now what? Where did it go from here?

‘You know your trouble?’ Constantine said, sitting up and dropping a kiss on to her forehead.

‘No, what?’ asked Annie distractedly.

‘You think too much. Analyse too much.
Agonize
too much.’

‘You think so?’

‘I do.’ His mouth moved to her lips. His tongue ran warmly over them, parted them. After a moment, Annie kissed him back. Jesus, this man was seriously
hot.
She could feel his erection stirring again against her hip, feel her own insides melting like cheese on a hotplate.

Then Annie could hear the sound of the front door opening, and then voices, male and female. She became aware that the female voice was young-sounding, and distinctly American, and she stiffened.

‘Who’s that?’ she asked, sitting up.

Constantine sprawled back on the bed and groaned. ‘It sounds like…’ he started, and then the female American with the young-sounding voice yelled, ‘Papa! Papa, where are you?’

Annie looked at Constantine.

He looked at her. Sighed. ‘Sounds like Cara,’ he said.

‘Where is he…?’ they heard Cara ask impatiently, and again the male voice, maybe telling her not to do what she was about to do, but then they heard light footsteps coming quickly up the stairs.

Annie tucked the sheet up around her and shot her lover a furious look.

‘
Constantine
,’ she said warningly, but he was springing off the bed already, slipping on his robe, belting it. Before Cara could come bursting in—couldn’t these people ever knock on doors?—he opened the bedroom door and went out on to the landing, closing the door firmly behind him.

Annie sat there, royally annoyed, feeling like a stupid kid caught necking in the back of a car. She slumped back on the bed, hearing their murmuring voices right outside the door. Any moment she expected the spoiled brat to come bursting in, demanding to know what her father was doing in bed with a woman in the middle of the afternoon.

Eventually, she heard Cara walking off along
the landing, and Constantine came back into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

‘Can you stick a chair under that handle?’ asked Annie in annoyance.

She grabbed her undies and started to get dressed.

‘You don’t have to go yet,’ he said, coming over to the bed and sitting down.

‘Yeah, I do. I’ve got business to see to. Can I use this phone?’

He nodded. Annie called Tony’s place, and he said he’d be there in ten minutes.

She put the phone down and got dressed.

Annie held up her hair so that Constantine could zip up her dress.

Maybe Cara had done her a favour, interrupting them. Did she really need any more complications in her life? Did she really want the boys turning against her? Did she really want to embark on a full-blown affair with someone whose family clearly disliked her and saw her as an unwelcome interloper, someone who was based on the other side of the
Atlantic,
for God’s sake?

Annie fiddled for her bag, got out her brush, applied it with hard strokes to her hair. Avoided his eyes. ‘I’m not sure about any of this,’ she said, keeping her gaze averted.

‘Hey.’ He caught her shoulders, forced her to look at him. ‘
Hey.
Mrs Carter.’

‘What?’ demanded Annie tensely, her eyes meeting his. Oh God, she loved his eyes.

‘No pressure,’ he said. ‘And…’

‘And what?’

‘I love you,’ he said, and kissed her.

No pressure, my arse
, thought Annie.