The tension, the pressure, the pain of having to go through this was defeating the purpose of being at a support group. As soon as it came to an end, Flora bolted from the building, while the others stayed behind for a coffee and a chat.

The thought of coffee and a chat sent fear racing through Flora, so she was happy to get out of there. She arrived at her car and started to rummage through her handbag. It was always the same. She never seemed to be able to fish out her keys quickly.

Every time Flora thought she was close to the fob, she was disappointed. Finally, her fingers touched the cold metal of keys, and she tried to get them out. Worryingly she started to hear men’s voices coming towards her. Flora looked up and saw a large group of drunk men getting ever closer.

This was one of her worst nightmares: night-time, a group of men where drink had been consumed, and she was about to be in the middle of them. She got her keys and was just about to press the button to open the car when she dropped them, and the loud group of men were upon her.

“Awrite, darlin’,” one of the men said, “where you rushing off to?”

* * *

“This has got to be answered.”

Laura Sharkey—Mack—sat on the corner of her cousin Nikki’s desk at the casino while Nikki briefed her people. Mack was wearing jeans and a short sleeved shirt.

Mack was not formal, not that she needed to be, while her cousin Nikki, the head of the Sharkey clan and business empire, was beautiful in her feminine designer power suits. Mack had no need to fit in with that corporate world. The streets were her playground.

Nikki continued, “No one sells drugs in a Sharkey territory, but to sell them outside my child’s secondary school, when he was warned time and again for his actions? Mack and I will go ourselves.”

“Are you sure, Nikki? You don’t need to get your hands dirty,” Eddie, one of her guards, said.

“It’s beyond that now. My little girl is at home crying her heart out because her best friend Charlotte is dead, and now he is going to wish he was dead.”

“I don’t understand how he got Charlotte to try drugs,” Mack said.

“We’ll find out.”

Most people underestimated Nikki Sharkey, mostly because of her feminine appearance, but while you were assuming she was no threat, Nicki would have a gun against your head, or despatch a punch across your face. She was an alpha personality from the tips of her high-heeled shoes to the ends of her beautifully styled hair.

Mack, on the other hand, was a butch whose idea of hell was wearing a suit, but they complemented each other, in every way. It’s what made them the perfect team.