She scanned the ledger before her; as she expertly tallied up the different columns, it was clear that the Baileys were earning far more than ever before. As a cash business, they still did everything important by hand; all the money was still accounted for in old-fashioned ledgers. This was the era of software, yet her family still insisted on doing it the old way. Only the taxable incomes were put on to the computers. She realised they were probably right, and she actually enjoyed doing it; there was something very calming about numbers and working them out. Imelda prided herself on keeping the books she dealt with neat and tidy. It was soothing to see the lines of figures – they made sense, they could be resolved. Being so close to the money in this way made you far more aware of it, and where it was going. She was good at it, and she knew that.

She sat back and sipped her drink – a vodka and tonic, with ice and a slice.

Imelda had relaxed as much as she could in the past few years. She still worried about her son, but she had come to accept she couldn’t do anything about it. He was long gone from her; he was a part of the family, and that was all he really wanted. He was another Bailey boy – the Life was ingrained in him, and she had to accept it.

She finally understood her mother’s choices and, like her mother, she had decided to put her son’s life into her husband’s hands. She now realised the futility of trying to change him. The only thing she could do was hope and pray that nothing happened to him. He was his father’s son, and his mother’s darkest fear.

She truly believed that if she had known how it would all turn out, she would have grabbed her son, and taken him as far away as possible from her family and the Life. But it was too late to change anything now. Like her mum, she was involved in the Life, her husband and son had made sure of that, and she could never walk away and leave them. The only thing she could do now was hope against hope that her son never had to pay the price for his family’s mistakes.

Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-One

Liam was shattered, but pleased with his day’s work. As his cousins came into the club, he grinned – they were like his brothers now, and he was glad about that. He enjoyed their company, and he was so much happier now he didn’t have to deal with his brother and clean up after him. Petey’s death had caused more than a few ripples in their world, but no one had really mourned him – except for his mum, of course, but that was to be expected.