As the twins left, Patrick sank into his chair, his head in his hands. Grace put a hand on his shoulder. In her own panic, she’d overlooked the implications of this for him. His grandsons had just started a war with a raging sociopath. They were all in it together now.

‘What’s our next move?’ he asked as he looked up at her.

Always looking to her to tell him what to do. The weight of being the one who always had to make the decisions sat heavily on her shoulders.

She shook her head. ‘Right now, Pat, I don’t know. But I’ll take care of this somehow. I promise. Until then, we all need to be extra vigilant.’

‘Shall I tell Michael?’

Grace swallowed. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Let me take care of that.’ It was a conversation she wasn’t particularly looking forward to. Michael Carter was a bad-tempered sod. Fortunately, he was in Spain on some business for her, that would give her time to think before she saw him next. Grace always kept him on a very short leash. Perhaps now she’d have to consider letting him loose.

Chapter Forty-Three

Grace heard his voice before she saw him. He came bounding up the stairs of the pub to her office.

‘Grace, are you up here?’ he bellowed.

She groaned inwardly. She’d been waiting for this conversation and really wasn’t in the mood for it now.

‘Michael.’ She smiled at him as he strode into her office.

‘What the hell, Grace?’ he shouted. ‘I’m gone for five minutes and I find out my boys have tried to take out your ex-husband.’

‘Look—’ she started, but he interrupted her.

‘But not only that, they failed miserably and now my dad tells me you’ve got them hidden in the middle of nowhere. What the fuck is going on?’

‘If you stop ranting for a minute, I’ll tell you exactly what’s going on,’ she snapped.

‘Explain away,’ he said sarcastically as he took a seat on the chair opposite her.

‘For a start, lose the attitude. You were the one who begged me to give your boys a job after they got caught up with that prick, Jimmy Dillon, and had a run-in with Nathan. And your fuckwit sons took it upon themselves to try and take Nathan out. Just like that. No discussion with me, or even your dad. They thought it would be as easy as walking up to him and pulling a trigger. Well you know as well as I do that fucker has more lives than an alley cat. They killed poor old Kenny Lennox instead. They have fucked up big time, Michael, and now I’m the one trying to clean up the giant pile of steaming shite they’ve left in their wake.’