Sleeping with Lance’s wife, he’d enjoyed outwitting one of the country’s most valued assets in the SAS. Yet once Lance had fucked off out of the Army and out of Rebecca’s life, he was able to plan for the future – his future. He realized that Rebecca was good for business – an MP he could manipulate to reduce the police budget and to enable him to run a drugs business more efficiently. All he had to do was bite the bullet and shag the ugly bitch every so often. He had to hand it to Lance, though. He was a perceptive bastard.

Although he suspected Kendall had never voiced to Lance his own carnal desires for her, she knew he liked her, and she was very aware that her scornful looks and piss-taking smirks had riled him up. His obsession for her was probably why she’d wanted to leave home, but he couldn’t bear it. After all, he was used to getting what he wanted.

Alastair looked over at Lance, who appeared to have expanded like one of those building foams in a matter of minutes. The man’s shoulders seemed huge, and his chest was like a gorilla’s. Maybe a sudden whoosh of fear was making himself see things out of perspective. This was new; he’d never felt fear in his whole life. Everything was always on an even keel; a rush of adrenaline was alien to him. He looked at his father, who was showing every emotion under the sun. Again, it was unnatural to him. His father had once told him that he was the epitome of a psychopath, and somewhere in the same sentence, he’d said he was proud. Yet looking at Dez reeling in such agony did something to him. He thought maybe it was because of the fact that he hadn’t inflicted the pain. For when he watched his victims writhing around, he got such a kick out of it.

Stephan’s head bobbed up and down as he shook all over. What disturbed him the most was this whole set-up. The partition wall half-opened, with men making an appearance as if Zara was a host on This Is Your Life, was scary to say the least. His eyes looked to his left, to see if there was anyone else about to turn up. Had she rounded up all their enemies to put on some display to make it clear that she was the boss – that she was the bitch from hell, who won every turf war?