Frankie’s tone was suddenly more demanding than pleading. “What about her?”

“You raped her, didn’t you, Francis?”

“Fuck off! Did I fuck! Is that what she’s saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Logan replied.

“That’s fuckin’ bullshit! I never touched her. If that’s what she’s saying, she’s a lying wee slag. I could have her fuckin’ charged for that. Defamation of fuckin’ character.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Logan told him. “I think your reputation’s already about as low as it can get. A few sexual assault allegations are just the icing on the cake.” He drew in a long breath through his nose, held it, then let it out slowly. “She had a baby, you know? Jazmin.”

Frankie’s head turned sharply, forcing Hoon to adjust his footing. “What? Bollocks. You’re lying.”

“A girl,” Logan said. “A couple of weeks back. Yours, we think. DNA tests will confirm, of course.”

There was a scowl on Frankie’s face, but the veneer was so thin it was almost see-through. “So? What does that prove?”

“Well, it proves you had sex with her,” Logan said. “I’d have thought you’d have understood how that worked at your age.”

“I never said I didn’t,” Frankie retorted.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “You said, and I quote, ‘I never touched her.’ Impressive trick to get her pregnant without any physical contact. What did you do, throw it at her from a distance?”

“I meant I never fuckin’ raped her. She was well up for it,” Frankie spat back. Either he was becoming accustomed to hanging over the edge, or his rising temper was making him forget his fear. Whatever the reason, his assortment of nervous tics were subsiding, and that attitude he’d had on him in the park yesterday was racing back to the surface. “Fuckin’ gagging for it, she was. For a bit of the big Frankie cock. They’re all gagging for it, that lot. I could walk onto any one of the sets for those pornos and have my pick of the minge.”

Hoon snorted. “‘Sets.’ Check out Francis Ford fucking Fuckula here with all his fancy movie terminology. The lassies were all getting pumped in the back of taxis or pokey wee hotel rooms, no’ on the fucking Warner Brothers studio lot.”

“Aye, that’s still the fuckin’ set, though,” Frankie insisted. “And they were all still mad up for a shagging. They love the cock, that lot.”