‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Dom asked as he came out of the lounge.

‘I need you to drive me somewhere. It’s important,’ Joey said, his voice as cold as ice.

‘No way. I’ve had enough of driving you about today to last me a lifetime,’ Dom replied sarcastically.

Grabbing his boyfriend by the neck, Joey slammed him up against the wall. ‘You either drive me or we’re finished for ever, and I mean that.’

Dominic stared at the coldness in his partner’s eyes. He didn’t even recognise the man he’d been in love with for the past twelve years. Knowing he only had a split second to decide whether to stand by his man or lose Joey for good, Dominic made his choice.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ he shouted, as he grabbed his leather jacket.

As the front door slammed behind her brother and his boyfriend, Frankie guessed the truth and let out the most piercing scream her voice could reach.

Copyright

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

When Babs ran out of the room to tend to Frankie, Georgie turned to her brother. ‘I’ve got a plan. I think we should start being nicer to Mum, because if we do that, it will make it easier for us to escape.’

‘I don’t like her, though. Can’t we just ring Dad? He’ll come and get us.’

‘I don’t know Dad’s number off by heart, or Grandad’s. Do you?’

Harry shook his head. ‘Don’t you know Nan’s number or Ryan’s?’

‘No. They’re all stored in my phone. Try and remember some of the numbers, Harry. Don’t you know your own?’

‘No, don’t you know yours?’ Harry asked.

‘I knew my old number, but not the new one,’ Georgie replied.

‘How we gonna escape if we can’t ring anyone? I wanna go home,’ Harry whinged.

Seeing that her brother was about to cry again, Georgie hugged him. ‘We will go home, I promise you that. Dad and Grandad will definitely find us, but in the meantime let’s try and be a bit nicer to everyone, because that way they’ll leave us alone a bit more. If we need to escape, we don’t want them watching us all the time and if they think we’re unhappy, they will.’

‘But say Eddie hurts Dad and Grandad. They won’t be able to come and get us if they’re ill,’ Harry wept.

Georgie had the same fear, but being the eldest, put on a carefree attitude for her brother’s sake. ‘Dad and Grandad are far too clever to let anything bad happen to ’em. Now, just be strong for me, Harry, until I can sort something out. We won’t have to stay ’ere long, I promise you that, but while we’re stuck ’ere we might as well get to know Frankie a bit better. She is our mum, after all.’