“Never been,” she says with a frown.
“You like animals?”
“Did you know a giraffe has a blue tongue?”
“That’ll compliment your hair. Who dyes it?”
“I do.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Animal conservationist.”
“Sounds smart. You should be in school,” I add, dismissively.
Her smile drops like a stone. “And you should be in jail.” She swings her laptop screen around to show me what she’s looking at. It’s a piece about Interpol Corruption with yours truly splashed across the front page.
“Can you spell the word ‘propaganda’?” I drawl. “If not, I refer you to the comment I made less than twenty seconds ago.”
She narrows her eyes at me as if squinting at a target. “Did you know a baby elephant sucks its trunk for comfort?”
“Cute. Why d’you like Taylor Swift so much?” She’s wearing another of her T-shirts today. It’s so happy and smiley it’s hurting my eyes.
“She doesn’t take crap from men. At least she says she doesn’t. But men have a way of piling all their crap onto you so it squashes you anyway.”
“What do you know about men?
“Nothing,” she says, blushing slightly.
“Do you think ‘crap’ is a curse, or a weak profanity?”
Rolling her eyes, she swipes the laptop screen back as I slot a Red Camel between my teeth, trying not to laugh. “You shouldn’t smoke,” I hear her mutter. “It’s bad for your health.”
“So is being a gangster.”
“You’re not a gangster, you’re a villain.” That sunshine smile threatens to burst through her frown again. “Same as Viper.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Villains have way more inner conflict than gangsters. You see it all the time in the movies. Gangsters are just dumb fucks with guns.”
I’m too busy laughing at this to pull her up on her language. “You mean the tragic backstory makes us more human?” I say, patting down my pockets for my Zippo. Nothing humane about what I just did to Ronan Kelly. The smell of puke and torture in the room is almost as strong as her sickly-sweet pop star perfume.
“That’s just a cop-out. Villains are way more complex than that.” Her slim hand comes out of nowhere and swipes the cigarette from my mouth. “Here.” She reaches into her pocket and chucks a box of matches at me, along with the lighter I was just searching for.
“What the hell? Are you stealing my stuff again?”
“You put it down on the table next to your cigarettes when you came over.”
“So, you’re a pyromaniac as well as a klepto?
“I only collect things that can hurt people, and from people I like,” she says with a shrug. “It’s a form of protection.”
“My car keys in Spain weren’t hurting anyone.”
She scrunches her face up into a ball of withering disbelief. “I watched the way you drove into that parking lot in Spain, Frankie. Five months in jail seriously messed with your driving abilities.”
“Can I have my smoke back now?” Where the hell did Viper dig this kid up from again?
“Nope.” That ‘p’ is even more pronounced. “Chew on one of those, instead.” She points to the box on the table.
“You want me to chew on a matchstick like a real gangster,” I say, lifting my eyebrows at her.
Her smile widens. “If you and Viper are that serious about burning down this city for revenge, it’ll help to keep one handy.”
CHAPTER 18
ADA
There’s a secret music in words. Sometimes, the beat is so violent it’s like a heart on amphetamines and you can actually feel it leaving marks on your soul.
A black-eyed boy filled my world with noise, but two words will always be the loudest:
No regrets.
I can hear them now as I’m sitting all alone in my empty kitchen with the sound of my bodyguards’ footsteps on the gravel path outside drifting in through the open window.
No regrets.
They’re scrawled across the inside of the book that’s lying open in my lap—the one he gave to me less than four hours ago. This is the first time he’s ever written to me. How fitting that it should be the last thing we ever said to one another.
What are you trying to tell me, Frankie?
I run my finger over the inscription for the millionth time, trying to decode every note and cadence, until I’m interrupted by a sharp rap on the door. Before I have a chance to answer it, Adrik, my head of security comes barging in. He does it on purpose, I swear. It’s all part of his masterplan to make me feel like even more of a prisoner in this house.
“Dobryi den'…” His gaze drops to the book in my hands and his upper lip curls in disdain. “That stupid book again?”
“Good afternoon to you too, Adrik,” I say, clutching the precious pages to my chest. “What do you want?”
He stops and glares at me, with that same sour look on his face he always wears. He’s bored to death with babysitting the unwanted wife of his pakhan. He shows his displeasure by talking to me in staccato sentences, as if I don’t deserve his adverbs. “We’ve added more men to your security detail. Husband’s orders. Five new patsan.”
My stomach lurches, but I keep my expression neutral. This is because of Frankie, I can tell. Something big has happened. That’s why he’s back in London. There’s been a seismic shift in the ground beneath our feet, but I don’t have a name for it yet.
“Any reason why?” I enquire, innocently.
“Business. Ask your husband.”
With this, he stalks back out, leaving my head a riot of noise again.
I’m terrified, optimistic, despairing…
There’s a small flame of hope flickering low on the horizon, but it’s surrounded by tall shadows that could swallow it up at any moment.
For the rest of the week, I hear those two words in everything, pounding harder and faster, like the countdown to an explosion.
Today, they’re in the rhythm of the horses’ hooves as they tear up the grass beneath O’Sullivan’s private box at Ashton Racecourse. I’ve managed to escape to the balcony to drink my third glass of champagne in relative, shadowed-constantly-by-Adrik peace.
There’s a coil of anxiety in my stomach that won’t go away. I keep seeing Frankie in the crowd. Any man with dark hair sends my pulse skyrocketing.
I can feel him coming, but from which direction?
“Placed any bets yet?”
Roisin appears next to me, clutching her own champagne flute. I haven’t seen her in years, and I’m shocked at how much weight she’s lost. She’s attempting to hide it behind her elegant navy-blue silk Dior midi dress and spiky five-inch heels, but she reminds me of a perfectly wrapped present in a department window at Christmas time, where the inside doesn’t match the shiny veneer.
Inside is where she wears her scars.
She’s trapped in her own cage, forced to share her bed every night with a capricious monster called Cian O’Sullivan, who beats her for being too submissive and then beats her for daring to fight back. Her make-up is flawless, but the thick foundation and siren-red lipstick can’t disguise the purple bruises by the side of her mouth.