‘Please, please, don’t kill me. I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just wanted to frighten her, teach her a lesson. I love her,’ he begs pathetically.

I frown. ‘You don’t love her. You can’t. You’re a rat. She’s a woman. Rats don’t love human beings.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m rat. You’re right. I don’t love her,’ he agrees immediately, shaking his head wildly, snot running from his nose and into his mouth.

‘So we both understand this clearly. Whose woman is Ella?’

‘Your brother’s,’ he utters immediately

I inhale the stench of his urine. A dark stain is spreading over his crotch. I raise my eyes back to his blubbering face and feel nothing. Not even hatred. He could be a discarded bottle top on the floor of one of my clubs. A bit of waste. A nuisance. I have to pay someone to clean it up, dispose of it.

‘Good. I’m glad we agree. Now. You made a mistake when you took my brother’s woman, because that involves me and a whole world of trouble for you,’ I tell him.

Sheer panic leeches into his face. It’s been a long, long time since I brought a man to such fear. It’s irritating that I have to do this. I don’t want to be like this. But men like him force me to return to this unpleasant business.

My voice is emotionless and flat. ‘My brother isn’t a killer. Sure, you got his blood boiling, but a kicking within an inch of your life is as far as it would have gone. Me, I can kill in cold blood. I could kill you right now without breaking into a sweat. As painless as swatting a fly.’

His head jerks.

I continue as if we are having a polite conversation. ‘There are so many ways I could end it for you. Slit an artery and watch you bleed out on this floor. My favorite, actually. Or stab you repeatedly, slicing through every vital organ. A bit messy, but it has its uses. Or many non-fatal cuts to make you suffer a long, slow painful death. So far no one has pissed me off enough to make me resort to this method yet.’

He shudders visibly.

‘I would probably be doing the world a favor to kill you, but looks like you’re the luckiest man alive tonight. We arrived here before you had a chance to really fuck it up for yourself. So I’m going to make this one exception. I’m going to let you live. I am going to walk out of here and you are going back to wherever you presently call home. Once you get there you have twenty-four hours to put your affairs into order and leave London. For-fucking-ever!’

I nod slowly.

‘I don’t care where you go or how you get there. Take a flight, take a boat, take a train, but in twenty-fours if you are still anywhere within 100 miles of my brother, his woman, her family or me, you will have a sea burial. There are two men outside. They will follow you home. Don’t mind them. They won’t harm you. Their job is to escort you home safely.’

I stop and pause. ‘Do you understand me?’

He nods so violently his head bangs against the wall.

He reaches out a hand towards my leg, ‘Thank—.’

My voice is like a whiplash. For the first time I actually feel enough raw fury to end his life. ‘Don’t even fucking go there,’ I tell him.

He shrinks and begins coughing and spluttering.

‘Good.’ I stand and look down at him for a few seconds longer, and then I turn away and open the door. I take the stone steps two at a time and see the car with my back-up pair, Eddy and Mace inside. Eddie lifts his hand. I nod. As I step onto the pavement my phone rings. It’s Lily.

‘Hey, baby,’ I say into the phone. And there is nothing but love in my voice.

TWENTY-NINE

Dom opens the passenger door to a blue Mercedes-Benz sedan and I slide in. I want to ask whose car it is, but I don’t. I feel too numb and cold to actually care. Some part of me is still in that disgusting flat, still with Rob. Yes, I was so afraid of him.

I turn to Dom urgently.

‘What will Jake do to Rob?’

‘I hope he kills that miserable fucking coward,’ he rages.

‘I don’t want him to be killed,’ I whisper.

He turns on me. ‘Why do you care so much? Fucking hell, Ella, he had a knife to your throat and he’d already torn your skirt.’ He clenches his jaw. ‘God knows what he would have done if we’d not come when we did!’

‘I don’t want his blood on my conscience, Dom. Please,’ I say with a sob.

His face softens. He grabs my forearms and pulls me toward him. ‘Listen. Jake is honorable in the old-fashioned way. In the gypsy way. But he’ll arrange it so that pathetic pussy never comes near you again.’

I start to cry softly. ‘Just take me home, please.’

‘Hey. Don’t cry, baby. You’re safe now,’ he cajoles, and pulls me tight against his chest, careful not to hurt my throbbing jaw.

‘Just take me home,’ I whisper tearfully into the hollow of his throat.

He takes me home and parks outside the entrance.

‘You’ll get a ticket,’ I warn automatically.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, and, getting out of the car, helps me out. Together we walk up the three flights of stairs. When we get upstairs, I realize that I have no keys. I look up at him. My head is spinning, my jaw is throbbing and I can’t think properly.

‘I don’t have my keys,’ I wail as if it’s the end of the world.

‘It’s OK, Ella. I have mine,’ he says gently.

He lets me in. I stand in the hallway of my little home. The first thing I see is the phone book on the floor. I can’t understand why it is there. I look around me. Everything is the same, and yet everything is different. It has been invaded by a man who hates me. The thought makes me feel almost ill. I press my lips together to stop from breaking into tears again.

‘I need to take a shower,’ I say in a trembling voice, and start walking toward the bathroom. Dom catches me and tugs me back so I’m pressed up against his body.

He takes my chin in his hand.

‘I feel so dirty,’ I say.

‘You’re not dirty, Ella. We got to you before anything really bad could happen.’

I frown. ‘How did you find me so quickly?’

He curls his hand around my wrist and lifts it up to my eye level.

‘What?’ I ask, confused.

‘This is a chipped bracelet.’

‘What?’ I say, confused.

‘Told you I was a paranoid motherfucker.’

‘You gave me a bracelet with a tracking chip and you never told me about it?’ I ask incredulously.

‘Yeah,’ he says, totally unfazed.

I pull slightly away from him. ‘And you’ve been tracking me all this time?’

‘Not really. The chip is in there, but while you were safe there was no need to track you.’

‘I can’t believe you gave me a chipped bracelet, like I’m your pet or something.’

‘You’re my woman. I protect what’s mine,’ he says forcefully.

I shake my head in disbelief. I want to be angry, but I’m all emotioned out. I look at the bracelet that he gave me two weeks ago. Gold with little square pieces of sapphire set into it. It’s a bloody tracking device. Still, I can’t complain, it certainly came in handy today.

‘I know about Vivien,’ I say softly. My heart feels as if it’s a heavy rock.

‘I know. Jake told me.’

I sniff and look at the pulse beating steadily in his throat. ‘I saw a picture of her,’ I say, trying to be casual, and failing miserably.

He puts his finger under my chin and lifts it until I’m forced to look into his gorgeous eyes. They are filled with soft lights, the pupils so large they are almost the size of his irises. ‘Yeah, you look like her. And yeah, I admit, in the beginning I confused my lust for you with a love lost tragically. I thought you’d make the pain go away for a while. I thought I was temporarily re-creating an old magic. I didn’t know you were a thief. That you’d steal my heart, weave yourself into my soul, and make me fall deeper in love with you than I’ve ever done with anyone else.’