Maja
Her face burning with rage, Maja stepped to her much taller son.
‘How dare you speak like that? Have you no sense of gratitude?’ she hissed, aware that Ria Delano had entered the room along with a maid who was carrying a load of laundered bed clothes. The pretty young woman smiled and walking over to the windows, threw them open, revealing a view of the lawns. Maddy who had begun to whine about the pup having been taken away, was immediately distracted and she jumped up to race across.
‘Mom, look, the view is fantastic!’ she cried, jumping up and down, clapping her hands.
As she made to move across to her daughter, smiling faintly, Magnus’s low voice hit her in the chest, ‘Stupid f*cking c*nt. You could not even keep your own husband with you…’
She whirled on him, shocked but he had stomped away. Minutes later, she heard the adjoining door slam and she bowed her head in shame as Ria and the maid turned around in surprise. One look at her downcast face and they exchanged silent looks.
‘I will send my sister, Tara over to keep you company,’ smiled Ria and she swung her hips in a manner reminiscent of her mother as she left the room. Maja felt the tears spring to her eyes.
She had gone horribly wrong in bringing up her children. Wrapped up in her misery and her constant arguments and quarrels with Tomasso, she had ignored her children to a large extent. Her husband had not helped; every time she tried to make Magnus understand how he should behave, the man would step in and challenge her by goading his son to do the opposite. And Magnus, being the older of the two, had idolised his father and listened to him.
Frankenstein Reborn, thought Maja as she stepped into the bathroom and leaned against it, letting the hot tears fall.
*
Philippe
The body sprawled on the bed was that of an older woman, perhaps in her forties. He was sickened by the amount of blood on the bed and the floor. The poor woman had been tortured before her throat had been slit, he thought grimly as he stepped out. Taking care to see that they did not touch anything, his men and he walked about taking photographs.
“Nothing to be found here, Capo,’ said Nitin in his soft voice. Philippe nodded.
The inhabitant of the room must have been a cheerful woman, he thought as he studied the photographs on the wall. Travel buff too, he mused as the took in the pictures of the places she had visited, Rome, Venice, someplace in East Europe, Thailand and India…
He shook his head, the smell of death swirling about him.
“When do you think she died?’ he speculated quietly as his men carefully began to move away with him leading the way out.
“Five to seven hours, I guess, Capo,’ said Max , who had been in the gang for a long time now and was fairly accurate in his estimates.
Philippe grunted
, mind racing as they left as swiftly as they had come. No one was around so he put a call through to the Boss and sent Claude a voice message. He was glad that the hot-headed young Claude had agreed to have the men accompany him. This was getting to look uglier and bloodier by the minute. He shut his eyes briefly as he thought, ‘Paddy, where the f*ck are you?’
*
Claude
The woman leaned across the bar, smiling, batting her lids at him as she said,
‘Baby, you looking for something special?’
A wave of repugnance hit him as he saw the yellowed teeth and the stale breath with a strong smell of cheap cigarettes that hit him squarely. But he schooled his expression and said,
‘I’m looking for a pal. And before she could move away, he waved a photo of Paddy that he had on his phone.
Her expression, which was one of clouded disappointment, became a sly one as she studied it, a wave of recognition flashing across her ageing face. He could see the wheels turning in her head as she said, flirtatiously,
“How much do I get out of…’
He snatched the phone from her hands as he said with a laugh,
‘Uh huh…depends on what you are offering, babe.’
The woman grinned as she moved, leaning forward to expose her cleavage and then her expression altered fractionally but Claude could feel the alarm bells going off in his head immediately.
The air in the room had changed fractionally but trained to detect signs when he was fighting, he knew that something menacing, something dangerous was about to happen.
Someone was approaching. The murmur of voices in the room had died down and the grating footsteps as someone heavy moved closer made him stiffen. Glancing up at the mirror on the opposite wall, he saw two men, large and older than him, with hard faces, approaching him. He sighed. He hated to fight in bars; Pappa would be livid but if he was forced to…
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and he turned, halfway to look at the owner of the meaty paw.
“We don’t like strangers asking questions around here, boy,’ growled the man as he raised his fist to slam it in Claude’s face.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw his father’s men, Hanks and Castle, moving swiftly as they came to his aid. But Claude was faster and without waiting to count till three, he head-butted the man full in the face, moving off the bar stool he had perched on, It happened so suddenly with a thrust of his legs that his opponent never saw it coming. Then, before the stunned giant could get his bearings, he whipped his head forward and slammed it into the man’s nose.
A loud crunching sound made him draw back, satisfied though his head hurt like hell.
The big fellow screamed, his hands cupped on his nose as the blood gushed out.
As though from a great distance away, he heard the frantic sounds of the other patrons in the bar but these were obscured by the blood pounding in his ears. Suddenly, the other man, who had been galvanized into action by this, slammed his fist into Claude’s jaw and he felt a coppery taste of blood in his mouth.
Before he could react, the man kicked him in the ribs. Claude felt as though the wind had been knocked clean from his chest and he lay for a minute, gasping for breath. Claude felt a searing pain in his arm and knew at once that the man had had a knife. More men reached out to surround Hanks and Castle who were wrestling the men away frantically. As yet they had not pulled out their weapons for they did not want to create a scene, although he knew they were packed. If word were to get back to Lucien Delano, there would be consequences.
Outnumbered, thought Claude bleakly as he clutched his arm. They had known that Claude would come here, searching for Paddy. they had probably dealt with Paddy’s contact here, the woman.
With a sudden spurt of anger, he kicked hard, causing the startled man to drop his knife. Claude scrambled, grabbing the knife with his good, uninjured arm as the man bellowed.
He surged to his feet, his training coming in handy as they circled each other warily. The smell of sweat, the rank smell of fear pervaded the air and then, in a surprise move, the man lunged forward.