As Vincent walked into the pub with his arm around Gabby’s shoulders, Cherie ran to him, and he picked her up and threw her into the air. She hugged him tightly, her slim little arms locked on to his neck, and he kissed her hair, savouring the clean smell of her, and the feel of her slight little body in his grasp. For the first time ever he felt that he had a family, a real family.

As he looked across the room he saw his father and brothers standing up toasting him, raising their glasses with everyone else and, passing his daughter to her mother, he walked straight over to the table that held his family.

‘Welcome home, son.’ Paddy O’Casey extended his hand to Vincent, but his brothers all hung back, shy now that he was finally home, and aware of how far he had come up in the world. They knew they had not been as good to his little girl as they should have been, and they were nervous.

Vincent sensed all this in a heartbeat and, ignoring his father’s proffered hand, he grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and, in front of everyone, physically dragged him across the small dance floor and out into the car park. There he proceeded to hammer his father with his fists until he was pulled off by Bertie Warner and Derek Greene.

Looking at his father lying in the dirt he said quietly, ‘You robbed me, you treacherous old cunt. You took money that should have been for my Gabby and my baby. If I ever clap eyes on any of you I’ll fucking kill you, you got that? And that goes for you lot as well,’ he said to his brothers, who had followed him out to the car park.

The men nodded their heads, humiliated and ashamed.

Turning to Derek and Bertie, Vincent then said jovially, ‘Come on, lads, we’ve got a party to go to!’

The two men followed him inside, acutely aware that a young boy might have been sent down, but a very dangerous man had returned in his place.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty

‘You must be mad, Gabby!’ Cynthia was beside herself with anger and it showed. That her daughter could be pregnant again so quickly was a source of irritation to her.

‘Thanks for the congratulations, Mum, really appreciate it.’

Cynthia stopped herself from retaliating, instead saying levelly, ‘You’re only young, why tie yourself down again?’ But she didn’t mean a word of it; her daughter’s happiness was eating away at her, and the fact that Vincent was making a great name for himself was galling.

‘My Vincent and me want another baby – he’s missed so much of Cherie’s life, and we want to be a family, a proper family.’