Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Eight

Kathy Donovan was lying in bed with her father’s good friend Barton. Both were well aware that there would be murders – literally – if this ever came out.

Barton, who loved youth and enjoyed the chase, was in a quandary. He had taken this girl and then he had made the mistake of letting it go too far; now she was in love with him. He didn’t know how to tell her that good sex did not constitute love in any way. She wasn’t like the usual girls he took into his bed; she was the daughter of his close friend and known fucking lunatic Ray Donovan. This was going to explode in his face at some point and, as hard as he was, Barton knew he was no match for Ray – especially not the Ray who would see his friend’s death as a natural consequence of him having taken his daughter’s virginity. Not that she’d needed much persuading.

He sighed in exasperation. She was snuggled into him and, as he looked down at her perfect skin and her beautiful blue eyes, he wondered how the fuck he was going to out her from his life with as little fuss as possible. She was all woman on the outside, but inside she was still a little kid. Sometimes her incessant chattering made him want to lamp her one; she talked utter shite and she assumed he was as interested in celebrities and fucking bands as she was. Once again he asked himself, what the fuck had possessed him? But he knew what had happened. He thrived on the dangerous and the illicit – it was what excited him, and this young woman, with a killer body, had the added attraction of being his best friend’s daughter. The daughter, no less, of one of the most feared men in London.

Now she was in love with him, and he had to try and extricate himself as best he could. But she was a clinger and, like most girls in love for the first time, she would turn on him if he didn’t handle it properly.