Andrew shook his head. “You’re just a sad little boy that probably got abused in prison. We should all feel sorry for you, really – but you made a huge mistake when you took it out on my family. I’m ready to die to protect them. Are you really ready to die to stop me?”
Davie entered the conversation, standing between them both. Jordan was still screaming in pain and rushed into the kitchen to tend to the ripped-open wound on his face. His brother Dom lay on the floor, rubbing his shoulder. Michelle was still unconscious. Davie put a hand up to Andrew and Frankie, like a referee at an out-of-hand boxing match. “Let’s just keep things calm, okay? If you stay where you are, Andrew, we’ll all get out of your house right now.”
“Like fuck we will,” said Frankie, still holding Rebecca at knifepoint.
Davie turned to his brother. “This has gone tits-up, man. We need to leave.”
Frankie stared at his younger brother and eventually let out a sigh. “You’re right. This is an epic fail, isn’t it?”
Davie nodded. “Let’s not make it suck any worse.”
Frankie nodded. “Okay. Dom, get up off the floor and fetch your brother out the kitchen. Then the both of you get Michelle and carry her useless ass out of here.” Then Frankie looked at Andrew, narrowed his eyes. “You come after me, gangster, and I’ll put you down permanently. Then someone will come and sort your family out for good measure. Same thing will happen if you go to the police. You get me?”
Andrew said nothing. He didn’t need to involve himself in worthless banter with a degenerate like Frankie – he could see through it all now. The police would get a call the moment he left, and if anyone came after Andrew’s family afterwards, they would regret it.
“Let my daughter go!”
It wasn’t Andrew who spoke. It was Pen. She’d stood up from the sofa and was clutching the scissors – the ones used to scalp her – in her hands. No one had seen her grab them, but in the earlier ruckus she would have had every chance to take them unnoticed.
“Let her go,” Pen repeated, pointing the scissors at Frankie’s face to further her point.
Frankie sniggered. “Or else what, you bald bitch?”
“Let her go, now!”
Andrew called out to his wife and tried to calm her down. The situation was nearly over and she didn’t need to do this. “Honey, come over to me. Everything is going to be okay in just a minute.”
But she wasn’t listening.
“Listen to your husband, sweetheart. You ain’t going to be doing nuffin.” Frankie spat across the room and hit her chest. “Now fuck off!”
Pen rushed at Frankie with the scissors, face contorted in a witch-like grimace of utter hatred and malevolence. Frankie spun to meet her head on, holding Bex in front of him as a shield. Their bodies collided and the scissors disappeared.
Andrew’s heart froze, along with every other muscle of his body. The next several seconds passed like an eternity as Frankie and his family fumbled about in a flailing scuffle.
Frankie pushed Bex against her mother and stepped away from them both. Andrew saw the blood immediately. Then he saw the scissors jutting out from his daughter’s stomach as she fell to the floor in shock. Pen looked down at Bex and let out an inhuman wail. She lunged at Frankie again, aiming her sharp fingernails at his remorseless eyes.
Frankie struck out with his knife. Pen stumbled right into it. There was no sound as the blade entered the soft tissue of her throat and for a moment Andrew wasn’t sure if the injury was as real as it looked. When blood spurted, high enough to coat the ceiling, the reality of the situation became undeniably real.
“Stupid bitch,” said Frankie, looking down at Pen as she slumped to the carpet. “Dom, Jordan, pick up Michelle. We’re leaving.”
Andrew dropped to his knees, oblivious to the fleeing youths who had made his life hell before destroying it completely. The only thing that existed in his life right now was Penelope and Rebecca, and both of them were dying on the living room floor.
Chapter Nineteen