Title Page

About the Book

Playing grown-ups, the future is theirs for the taking.

Sharon Conway and Lenny Scott are childhood sweethearts. Everyone says they are too young, but nothing can keep them apart. Sharon doesn’t question Lenny’s business dealings and it isn’t long before his reputation as a hard man destined for the top means they are living the good life with their sons.

It leaves a stain on her heart for ever.

But one night Lenny doesn’t come home. It isn’t the first time he has gone AWOL. But it is his last. He is found murdered – beaten to death in an act of brutality that shocks even the police. And Sharon never knows why.

Old wounds will surface.

Now, twenty years later, Sharon has found out the truth. Such a crime cannot go unpunished. Revenge is long overdue. The time has come to . . . GET EVEN.

About Martina Cole

Martina Cole is the acknowledged queen of crime drama. Her most recent novel, THE GOOD LIFE, was a No. 1 bestseller in hardback and is one in a long line of No. 1 bestselling and phenomenally successful novels she has to her name.

Several of Martina’s novels have been adapted for the screen, most recently THE TAKE and THE RUNAWAY, which were shown on Sky One to remarkable reviews. In addition, TWO WOMEN and THE GRAFT have been adapted for the stage; both were highly acclaimed when performed at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, which also staged DANGEROUS LADY in 2012, celebrating twenty years since Martina’s debut novel was published.

Martina Cole is a phenomenon. She continues to smash sales records with each of her books, which have sold in excess of fourteen million copies in total. In 2011 Martina surpassed the £50 million sales mark since records began and was the first British female novelist for adult audiences to achieve this.

Martina’s hard-hitting, uncompromising and haunting writing is in a genre all its own – no one writes like Martina.

Praise for Martina Cole:

‘A blinding good read’ Ray Winstone

‘Intensely readable’ Guardian

‘An extraordinarily powerful piece of family drama’ Daily Mirror

‘Gritty novel from an author who knows intimately the world she writes about’ Express

‘Her gripping plots pack a mean emotional punch’ Mail on Sunday

‘Cole has the amazing talent of making characters appear larger than life’ Sun

By Martina Cole and available from Headline

Dangerous Lady

The Ladykiller

Goodnight Lady

The Jump

The Runaway

Two Women

Broken

Faceless

Maura’s Game

The Know

The Graft

The Take

Close

Faces

The Business

Hard Girls

The Family

The Faithless

The Life

Revenge

The Good Life

Get Even

Dedication

For the Fredster and baby Chris,
my beautiful daughter and grandson.

And for my Clarkie boy!
My big grandson and Nanny’s boy.

Prologue

God be merciful to me a sinner.

Luke 18:13