Imelda was worried about her son. In the few weeks since his accident, as he insisted on calling it, he had become a different boy. Whoever had attacked him must have been someone from their world, and she was nonplussed that her husband didn’t seem to be too bothered about it. He should have been hunting the fucker down, making sure they never went near their boy again. A little voice was telling her that he knew more than he was letting on and she was wary of probing too deeply. She had a feeling that she would not like what she might find out – that whoever was responsible was close to her, and her son.

Delroy Junior was so serious now, spending all his time with his father; her husband was giving his son an education about the Life, teaching him how to be a part of it, how to survive. Because when you stripped away the glamour and the excitement that is what it came down to really: surviving. Not just physically, but ensuring you weren’t put away for the duration. Imelda had known many men who had gone away to prison still in their prime, only to return years later, older, but not really any wiser. It was such a waste; all that time locked away for years on end. But, if you didn’t get caught, the Life could be sweet.

She was worried about her Delroy trying so desperately to emulate his father. It seemed forced lately, as if he was playing a part.

Unlike her brothers and cousins, she wasn’t sure that her son had what it took to be part of the Life. She didn’t like it but she understood it, and that was half the battle. She’d only ever been part of it to keep an eye on Delroy, if she was truthful, but any taste she’d had for it had been destroyed by the circumstances of Jack’s death.

At his young age, her son had only seen the exciting part of the Life. But as he was exposed to the actual economics and what it entailed, Imelda could sense that he was nervous. She surmised that he had fucked up somehow and been reprimanded; in the Life it was usually brutal, the only way for a person to understand the enormity of what they had allegedly done.

She wished he was like Tania, and kept well out of it all. He had always been so sure that he wanted to be a part of the Life. Well, now he was a part of it and, as a Bailey, he would be brought straight into the main business.