When Frank saw Lenny and Reggie waiting for him, he had every intention of putting up a fight. But when Terry took him down with a well-placed blow to the back of the head with a lump of lead piping, he realised it was all over for him. He was absolutely gutted. He remembered Eddie Richardson saying to him once that everyone is king, even if it is only for one fucking day. Never was a truer word spoken.

Chapter Seventy-Two

Jack was pleased, Lenny and Reggie were pleased, and Terry was ‘over the bastard moon’, as he kept telling them all repeatedly. It had been a hair-raising few weeks but now the future was set. It would be a nine-day wonder, like everything else in their world, and then things would gradually settle down and get back to normal.

They left Terry to make the final arrangements and, after a few drinks, Reggie drove them to Jack’s house to finish the evening off properly. Jack would be interested in the ‘nitty-gritty’, as he called it, and they would be only too happy to fill him in on the details. This was a big night in many respects, and the two men were aware that, for Jack, it was the paying of a debt long overdue.

Chapter Seventy-Three

Sharon had bathed the boys and put them to bed amidst loud protests of ‘another five minutes’. But she had looked particularly ferocious for some reason, and the boys had picked up on that fact, deciding eventually that bed might be the best place to be. After kissing them and threatening pain, torture and destruction if she heard a peep out of them, they had looked at her wide-eyed and nodded in agreement. They both guessed rightly it was something to do with Daddy.

Lenny had not been home for twenty-four hours and she’d not heard a word from him. This had happened before, but that was normally under much different circumstances. She was still reeling from what Liam had said to her the day before. It was at the forefront of her mind and she was unable to decide what she was supposed to do. In her heart she wondered if she would have the nerve, the guts, to tell Lenny what Liam had said. But she dismissed it. The thing was, once something was spoken out loud, there was no unsaying it. This was what worried her so much. If she questioned Lenny, what would be his reaction? But, if she didn’t question him, how could she live with the wondering?