Cynthia fell sideways on to the white leather sofa. She could hear a gurgling noise that was almost comical. The blood was still spraying out everywhere like a crimson mist, and she was glad, glad the lying, two-faced, murdering whore was finally shutting her big, filthy mouth up. She hoped she was in as much pain and terror as her little boy had been when he was fighting for his last breath, expecting to be saved by this woman who had started the fire in the first place so she could get what she wanted.

Gabby hit her mother again and again, each blow easing the knot inside her, each blow easing the hate she had inside her for this woman who had been the bane of her whole life.

She looked down at the bloodied form and, for the first time in years, she felt almost at peace. Her mother’s face was unrecognisable, a deep red gash that was pumping out blood at an alarming rate.

Gabby looked at the woman she had hated nearly all her life. Then she sat down on the ladder-backed chair her mother was convinced was an antique, put her face into her bloodied hands and cried.

Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Nine

‘Fucking hell, Vince, when your lot go they don’t muck about, I’ll give them that!’ Bertie Warner’s voice held a tinge of admiration in it. ‘Maybe I should give her a job on the firm!’ Bertie laughed at his own joke.

Vincent looked around the room, and shook his head in amazement that his Gabby was capable of this kind of violence. But then, after what she had told him, he understood it to an extent. All her life Cynthia had done everything possible to destroy those around her, and it seemed that now, finally, one of those people had retaliated and in a spectacular fashion.

Gabby was still sitting on the ladder-backed chair. Her face and hair and clothes were sprayed with blood, but the strangest thing was, for the first time in years, she actually looked at peace.

‘She did it, Vince, she fucking killed our baby. She torched our home so she could keep our kids with her. Keep them in her power. Everyone had to be in her power, had to do what she wanted; she would never be happy with anything else.’