‘Do your worst,’ Frank hissed, bucking his hips to try and dislodge the man. ‘My kids are out of reach, so you can’t do a damn thing to them. It’s just you and me, so why don’t you put the knife down and take me on man to man?’

Nick gave a throaty chuckle and pressed down harder on the blade, drawing blood.

‘Oops,’ he drawled, wiping it off with his fingertip and smearing it on Frank’s cheek. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do.’

‘Do it again,’ Frank challenged. ‘Cut my fucking head off and nail it to the gate post, if you want, but I’ll never take orders from you!’

Karel strode into the room and tutted when he saw Nick sitting astride Frank on the bed.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he snapped. ‘I told you to fetch him down, not shag him.’

‘And I will,’ said Nick, still staring at Frank. ‘Soon as he realizes who’s boss.’

‘Well, it isn’t you, that’s for sure,’ spat Frank. ‘You’re nothing more than his sidekick.’

The dart hit its target, and Frank laughed when he saw anger flare in Nick’s eyes.

‘Go on then, dickhead, do it!’ he goaded when the man raised the knife into the air.

‘Get off him,’ Karel ordered, his tone bored now.

‘Nah, man,’ Nick argued. ‘I ain’t having the cunt think he can talk to me like that.’

‘I said get off him,’ Karel repeated. ‘I’ve got something to show him.’

Nick hesitated for a moment. Then, grin returning, he jumped off the bed.

Sensing that something bad was about to happen, Frank eyed the men warily as he sat up.

‘What’s going on?’

‘If I didn’t need you, I’d have killed you by now,’ Karel said, as casually as if they were mates having a friendly chat. ‘But you know that, don’t you? And that’s why you’ve suddenly developed balls. But let’s see if we can’t change that, eh?’

An icy hand clutched Frank’s heart when the man brought a photograph up on the screen of his phone and showed it to him.

‘No . . .’ he croaked, staring in horror at the image of Evan gagged and tied to a chair in a dimly lit room, his head at an angle, his face battered almost beyond recognition.

‘You’ve only got yourself to blame,’ Karel said, putting the phone away again. ‘If you’d got rid of him like I told you to that day, he’d have been OK. But you had to go and make him suspicious, so now he’s paying the price.’

‘But I didn’t say anything,’ Frank argued, his voice as weak as he physically felt. ‘You were there – you heard everything.’