That moron Paisley, a trainee who had joined the firm at the same time as her, had been goading her for ages. He’d started in again last night, his whip-like tongue worse than usual because of the drink. And for the first time ever – yes, probably also because of the drink – she had risen to the bait.
‘Caught your finger in the till, did you?’ he’d asked her, his face red from too many mojitos.
Layla stared down at her left hand. She had only three fingers and one thumb on that hand. The smallest digit was missing. And Paisley thought that was very funny. Paisley knew, everyone knew, that her family background was… well, not exactly law-abiding. Hence the crack about the till.
She had promised herself she would never lose her temper. Never sink to that fool’s level. But she was sensitive about her missing finger. Something had snapped in her brain, and she had leaned in to Paisley, ignoring his foul breath, and hissed: ‘Why don’t you shut up, you fool?’
It wasn’t much of an outburst. Her mother would have said: ‘One more word out of you, shithead, and you’ll find your dick caught in a mincer. You got that?’
But all the same Layla had registered the shock in his eyes. It was there and gone in an instant, before he recovered his usual smirk.
She was, after all, quiet diligent Layla Carter.
As a rule, she never bit back. She did her job. She was punctilious, polite, efficient. She had to be all that and more, because of who she was, where she came from. She wasn’t her mother. She wasn’t Annie Carter.
Layla checked her watch again. Nearly eight o’clock. She turned and set off for the house at a fast walk that became a steady jog. Tonight, her mother would return from New York, where she’d been checking in on the club management in Times Square – and no doubt checking in on Alberto, too.
Alberto.
Layla felt her heart flip painfully at the thought of him. She could see his face in her mind as clearly as if he were right there in front of her. Her first real memory of Alberto was when she was five years old. He’d hoisted her aloft and into his arms, tossing her into the air, grinning up at her.
Her stepbrother, Alberto Barolli.
And yet, as the years passed, she had become more and more aware that he wasn’t related to her – or at least, not by blood, which was all that mattered. Constantine Barolli, the great Mafia don, had been a widower when he met Annie. His wife Maria had died in a hit, leaving him with three children – Lucco, Alberto and Cara – and no wife.
Enter Annie Carter.