As he ran back down to the kitchen, she wondered if she could keep that promise. She remembered the night that the Cornel brothers had arrived at her door, remembered Jessie’s shock and horror at the night’s events. She could see herself telling her daughter to lock herself in her bedroom, and not to be frightened of anything. She had found an inner strength that night to protect her home, her sanctuary, from the threat of the outside world. Jessie had seen her with the gun that night, and it had terrified her. Jessie had understood the danger they were in. It had changed her daughter – she had been forced to grow up that night.

Now her only child was being held captive, and that was harder for Josephine to comprehend than anything else in her life so far. That her daughter’s dire predicament had still not been enough to make her use a telephone, was something she was finding very hard to forgive herself for. But it was actually her Michael’s reaction that she was really worried about. She feared he wouldn’t be forgiving her any time soon.

A part of her hoped that this unknown man would come here and give her the chance to take him out. It might be her only opportunity to redeem herself.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-One

Chapter One Hundred
and Thirty-One

Timothy Branch was watching Michael Flynn as the man tried to take in the news of his mother’s death; the woman had been slaughtered on her doorstep. It was unbelievable – no one could have predicted anything like this. Who would have thought that a man like Michael Flynn could ever have been game-played by a fucking toe rag like Steven Golding? Golding was a fucking no-mark. But, somehow, he had managed to get the better of Michael Flynn. He had not only taken the man’s daughter, he had also stabbed the man’s mother to death in her own home.