Josephine laughed. ‘’Course she does, Mum! It’s called being a teenager. It’s what they do. But she knows that me and Michael wouldn’t put up with too much nonsense from her. She is still young enough to listen to what we say to her. Now, do you want another glass of wine or not?’
Lana nodded. Josephine poured the wine, and Lana turned her thoughts to her daughter. Josephine rarely left her house now – more often than not it was Lana who did the shopping for the family these days. Josephine was becoming more insular by the week, and young Jessie wasn’t a fool – she would be bound to use that to her advantage. It was human nature. She had a lot of her father in her; she was stubborn just like him, and she was prone to serious anger when thwarted. She was her mother’s double in her looks, but she had inherited none of her mother’s kindly nature. Like her father, she rarely showed anybody her real self. She had inherited Michael’s temper too. It had occasionally surfaced over the years and, just like Michael’s, when it did finally erupt, it was a powerful force in its own right.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Michael was exhausted, but he had no choice but to carry on. He was negotiating a deal that would bring him millions over the next few years if it came off. He had planned it down to the last detail; it had taken nearly a year to bring to fruition. Now he was almost there. He was working with a huge Colombian cartel personally, and he was only too aware how dangerous that could be. These people were not impressed with anyone, anywhere, and it had taken him a lot of time and effort to convince them he was a viable partner. He had his own rep as a bad man in Europe, but compared to them and the world they moved in the Europeans were fucking amateurs. These men were a law unto themselves; they would shoot their own mothers if they deemed it necessary to the cause, and were more than capable of torturing and murdering a rival’s child to prove a point. They inhabited a world where a human life was valued cheaper than a can of Coke. It was a different ballgame altogether.
Now he, Michael Flynn, was fronting one of the biggest deals ever negotiated on British turf. And, once it was in place, he would be the undisputed king of Europe. No one could have a shit, shave or a shampoo without asking his permission first.
He looked out of his office window over the Thames. He loved this view; it made him feel invincible. He surveyed his domain. London was all his. He had bought, fought and forced his will on everyone who mattered, and it had paid off.
The offices had been recently revamped, and he wasn’t sure he liked the results. With the white walls and bleached oak flooring, there was nothing remotely attractive about it – it looked far too impersonal for his tastes. He missed his old desk – an antique captain’s desk. It had been bulky and scuffed, but it had character. Now he sat at a very expensive modern desk that was basically two planks of highly polished wood, held together by willpower and two pieces of eight by four. It had six spindly legs, which didn’t exactly fill him with faith it would stay up, and it was without even one single fucking drawer to give it an iota of usefulness. Even the chair he sat on was uncomfortable – yet it had cost more than his first car. But it was all about front – he knew that better than anyone – and it impressed people he dealt with.
He was getting old, he supposed. He was turning into the very people he had loathed as a young man. Yearning for the past; now, of course, he understood why they had felt that way. He still wouldn’t let anything be done over the internet. He was classed as a dinosaur because of that, but he didn’t care – he didn’t trust it. They could shove cyberspace up their arses. For the right price, like most things in this life, it could be abused. He didn’t trust anything that had the power to reach millions of people at a stroke. It seemed to him that computers bred laziness and apathy. People were too quick to trust in something that they couldn’t build themselves, that they had to rely on other people to maintain for them, and at great cost as well. It was a recipe for disaster. He particularly worried about leaving a trail that could be discovered without the person involved even leaving their office. No, he wasn’t prepared to join the cyber rats.