“Why are you doing this?” Andrew asked Frankie from the floor. “I mean really? You’re going to spend your whole life in jail, and for what? Because you don’t like the look of my face?”
Frankie’s upper lip twitched. “Shut up! I ain’t ever going down again. I’ll die first.”
“So why then? If you never want to go to prison again, why cause trouble the moment you’re released?”
“What the fuck else I gonna do? Work at a bank?”
Andrew shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? You could have done a million different things – but instead you choose to murder my wife?”
“Mum?” Bex’s eyes went wide. “No, she’s not dead. She can’t be.”
Andrew hadn’t meant for his daughter to find out like that and cursed himself for not thinking. Now that she knew, he was unable to console her. Frankie had once again managed to prevent him from looking after his family.
“I’m sorry,” Andrew told her. “I didn’t find out until after I left you.”
Bex mewled like a wounded animal and buried her face in her hands. Andrew turned his stare back to Frankie. “Do you enjoy this? Ruining lives? Causing pain to innocent people?”
“Who says you’re innocent?”
Andrew was ready to give up. There was no part of Frankie that had any remorse or understanding. There might have been something there, deep beneath the surface, which could be scratched at, but Andrew had no idea what it was.
“My daughter is innocent,” Andrew stated. “What has she ever done?”
“She belongs to you.”
“And what have I done, exactly? Is this all because I didn’t buy you a packet of fags?”
Frankie was breathing quickly and his twitch was becoming even more erratic. “You needed to learn a lesson.”
“What lesson? You know nothing about me?”
“I needed to teach you some respect.”
“Why is it so important that some guy you never met respects you? Are you that insecure?”
Frankie thrust the gun forward at Andrew and for a moment it looked like he would pull the trigger again. Andrew didn’t flinch, though – not for a scumbag like Frankie. When the gun didn’t go off, it became clear that Andrew was scratching at something – something beneath Frankie’s calloused exterior that was heavily guarded.
Andrew smirked, enjoying the sight of Frankie’s squirming. “But this was never about me, was it? This is about your own bullshit. So what is it, Frankie? Daddy abuse you?”
“Fuck you! I never even knew my Dad.”
Andrew was getting close. He could sense it. “Hardly surprising having met your mother. Maybe it was the young offender’s home, then? Did one of the bigger boy’s make you his bitch?”
Frankie pulled the trigger. Andrew’s vision went white like someone had lit a firework inside his skull. The pain came hot and heavy, accompanied by thick waves of nausea and mind-rattling dizziness.
I’ve been shot. Holy shit, I’ve been shot.
The pain was so gigantic and all-consuming that Andrew couldn’t even tell where he’d been hit. It was only when his vision returned, and he saw the blood pouring from his knee, that he knew. The agony was so massive that Andrew knew straight away that he’d never walk the same again.
If this psychopath doesn’t kill me altogether.
Bex was screaming again, crying out for her father and begging for Frankie to leave them all alone.
“I told you not to fuck with me,” Frankie shouted at Andrew on the floor. “I told you, didn’t I?”
Andrew slid along on the floor like a wounded slug, leaving behind a trail of hot, sticky blood. He dragged himself towards Dalton who was staring at him wide-eyed, no doubt wondering how the hell she had gotten herself into this situation. Andrew knew how she felt.
Frankie marched forward and kicked Andrew’s wounded knee. The pain bloomed again like a nuclear explosion, chasing away his vision in a cloud of agony.
“Please,” Andrew cried out. “Haven’t you done enough? Please, just leave us alone. I’m begging you”