Declan looked around. Everyone in the club was looking at the floor; no one wanted to catch Michael’s eye, or bring his wrath down on their heads.
Michael was in total shock. He was in the process of making a deal with one of the most dangerous men on the planet, and nothing – nothing – could go wrong. If Salvatore Ferreira thought that there was even a minuscule chance of aggro he would back off faster than a transvestite at a tractor pull. Salvatore had travelled to England because he had been assured that nothing could happen to him while he was here. If he was dragged into a police investigation because the Cornel brothers decided they wanted to chance their arm, it would cause murders – literally.
‘Get out there, Declan. I want everyone we have on our payroll looking for them. There’s a twenty grand bonus on each of the Cornels’ heads. Find them, and find them soon. I’m going home. I assume you already have people watching my drum? The last thing we need is my wife and daughter put in the frame.’
Declan nodded. ‘’Course. Give me some credit, for Christ’s sake.’
Michael stormed out of the club and, as soon as he was gone, Declan turned to the doorman. They were terrified for their lives, knowing they had made a major fuck-up.
‘Patsy, get on the blower and get four of your guys over to Michael’s drum sooner rather than later. I will organise geting everyone out on the pavements. We need to find the Cornels and, when we do, I will fucking skin the bastards alive myself.’
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Jessie Flynn woke up suddenly and, turning on her bedside lamp, she listened intently. Whatever had woken her from her sleep was still going on. She could hear her mother’s voice shouting at someone. Her mother never shouted at anyone. She was one of the most inoffensive people on the planet. This was not something she had ever experienced before in her life. But she could hear panic and fright in her mum’s voice.
Jumping out of bed, she ran from her bedroom, and across the large landing to her mother’s room. ‘What’s happening, Mum? What’s going on?’
Josephine was at her balcony doors and, at the sound of her daughter’s voice, she turned quickly towards her, saying quietly, ‘Go back to your room, darling, and lock your door. Don’t argue with me, just do what I say.’
Josephine didn’t want the men on her drive to know her daughter was in the house with her. They were after trouble. They wanted Michael, and she knew they were not leaving without a fight.
‘Have you phoned the police, Mum?’
Josephine shook her head angrily. ‘’Course not, and don’t you either! Just do what I said, will you!’ She was almost shouting at her daughter now, and Jessie was getting more frightened by the second.
She could hear a man’s voice shouting angrily, ‘I’m warning you, lady, open the fucking door or I’m blasting my way in.’
Jessie watched in shocked amazement as her mother shouted back loudly, ‘Go on then, I dare you. But it won’t be easy. A fucking cannon couldn’t get through there. My husband will fucking be here any minute, and he will kill you. He will fucking take you out, mate, and laugh while he does it.’
She shut the balcony doors and pulled the wooden shutters across, locking them quickly. Then, as she ran from the room, Jessie followed her mother down the stairs, and into her father’s office.
‘Mum, we need to phone the police!’
‘No, we don’t! They are the last people we want on the fucking doorstep!’
Jessie Flynn couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Mum! We need to get the police here now!’
Josephine was opening the large safe Michael used for his cash, and Jessie watched as her mother removed a large shotgun. Priming it expertly, she pushed her daughter out of the door roughly and, standing in the hallway with the gun aimed at the front door, she bellowed, ‘For the last time, Jessie, will you do what you’re told for once. We don’t need the police, OK? I’ve already rung for help. Now will you just move it!’
Jessie heard the urgency in her mother’s voice, and she ran up the staircase quickly, but she turned at the top of the landing, and watched her mother – her quiet, kind-hearted mother – calmly lock all the downstairs doors, before she once more positioned herself in the centre of the hallway, the gun cocked, her lovely face set into a grimace of hate.
This was unbelievable – it was like something from a TV programme! There were men outside trying to get in, trying to burgle them and, instead of phoning the police, her mum was preparing to take them on single-handed. It was wrong. It was terrifying. This was something that the police should be dealing with, surely? Her dad knew the police, they were always round the house having meetings with him.