A surge of adrenaline brought Frank back up to his feet, and he slammed his hands into the man’s chest and propelled him toward the door, yelling, ‘GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!’

Unfazed, Karel looked pointedly down at his friend’s hand, and said, ‘I’d calm down if I was you, old man.’

Frank hesitated and followed his gaze. Shocked to see that Nick was holding a gun, he raised his hands and backed slowly away, smashing his knee against the corner of the coffee table before falling heavily back onto his chair.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

Karel looked at Irena and raised an eyebrow.

‘Do you want to tell him, or shall I?’

‘Tell me what?’ Frank croaked.

‘He still don’t get it,’ Nick sneered, slotting the gun into the waistband of his jeans.

‘Yes, I do,’ said Frank. ‘You’re the ones who held her prisoner and beat her senseless when she refused to sleep with the men you lined up to abuse her. She told me everything.’

‘Don’t tell me you actually fell for that shit?’ Nick snorted.

Sweat was seeping from Frank’s pores, and he felt it run down the side of his face when Karel mimicked Irena, saying: ‘Oh, Frankie, help me. The bad man has brought me into the country and forced me into prostitution.’

Unable to believe she was playing a voluntary role in whatever this was, Frank looked to her for answers, but she wouldn’t – or couldn’t – meet his eye.

‘Aw, jeez, look at the muggy twat’s face,’ Nick jeered. ‘She must have done a proper job on him.’

Karel grasped Irena’s chin in his hand and turned her face toward him.

‘How far did you go?’ he asked, his voice deceptively soft.

‘I already tell you I did not do anything with him,’ she replied, coolly returning his gaze. ‘He want to, but I tell him I am good Catholic girl and must wait till I am marry.’

‘You’d better not be lying,’ he said, putting his arm around her waist and pulling her toward him.

Shocked when the man gave her a decidedly unbrotherly kiss, Frank gaped at them in disbelief.

‘Ahhh, look at the lovebirds making up for lost time,’ Nick crooned. ‘Makes you feel all mushy, don’t it, Frankie boy?’

Desperate to get these people out of his house, Frank remembered the money he’d withdrawn from the bank during one of his shopping trips a few weeks earlier. He’d intended to give it to Irena to pay her way to London and afford her a couple of nights in a hotel while she looked for work, but then they had decided to give their relationship a go, so she hadn’t needed it.

‘If it’s money you’re after, there’s five hundred in an envelope in my bedroom,’ he said. ‘Just take it and go.’