Lawless Read Online Free PDF Page A

job.
    ‘It’s going OK, is it?’ Ruby persisted. ‘At the store?’
    Daisy gave a smile. ‘Oh yes. Great.’
    Ruby studied her daughter’s face; she suspected that Daisy was lying, probably to spare her feelings, to avoid worrying her when she had enough on her plate as it was.
    I’m so lucky that I’ve found Daisy again. That she’s here with me , she thought. All the pain she had been through over the years, all the anguish, was softened by Daisy’s presence. Her relationship with Daisy, after almost three decades apart, had fallen almost easily into a comfortable, loving mode. But her relationship with Kit was never going to be so simple.
    Ruby heaved a sudden sigh.
    ‘What?’ asked Daisy, watching her mother curiously.
    ‘I was thinking about your brother,’ said Ruby.
    ‘Well, he won’t be at the funeral, that’s for sure. He hated Tito!’ Daisy snorted. ‘And you don’t have to go either. Not if you really don’t want to.’
    But Ruby knew that was not true. She did have to be there. Because of Bella, Tito’s mother. And because of the phone call.
    Blood will flow.
    What could Bella have meant by that? Was it a threat? Or a warning? Ruby shuddered to think of that voice on the phone, trembling yet full of determination.
    She had no choice. She had to find out what Bella was talking about.

7
    ‘Honey, wake up! Wake up !’ squealed a voice in Kit’s ear.
    ‘Wha . . . ?’ he groaned, deep in a dream where a woman jangling with gold smiled at him with flirtatious sea-green eyes.
    An alarm was going off. Someone was shaking his shoulder.
    Ah shit no. Lemme sleep. Let me go back to her . . .
    ‘Wake UP!’ shouted the female voice, shaking him harder.
    Kit opened his eyes. A shadowed face was leaning over him, hair tickling his face. For a moment he thought it was her. But then he realized it wasn’t. Felt the numb deadness crush him again. ‘What the fuck . . . ?’ he mumbled.
    ‘It’s ten o’clock. You said not to let you sleep past ten, remember?’ said the girl, sounding annoyed.
    Kit came properly awake. No, this wasn’t Gilda. It was . . . damn. Couldn’t remember her name. His head ached, he’d drunk too much last night and fallen into bed with her, one of the hostesses maybe? One of the dancers? Who knew? Who cared? He’d been in a club, drinking. Which club, he didn’t know. His mouth was parched and sour, his eyes gritty.
    Ten . . . Why had he asked her to wake him at ten? He couldn’t even remember doing that, and he knew that was bad. This whole drinking thing was bad.
    The alarm was still blaring away. He reached out, thumped the switch to off. Silence fell, except for the steady background hum of traffic out on the main road. And then it came back to him, all of it. Today was the day of the funeral. Today was the day that Tito Danieri got planted.
    ‘Coffee,’ she said, and slapped a mug down beside the alarm clock.
    Kit pulled himself into a sitting position, rubbed his hands over his face. He looked at them, briefly. Both his palms bore pale ugly scars, but they were as much a part of him now as his teeth or his hair. He was used to them. Then he looked around the bedroom. It was flooded with light, fabulous and airy just like every other room in his house, which was a tall and fiendishly expensive Georgian place a stone’s throw from Belgravia. No more poky bedsits for him: he’d made it. Or rather, Michael had made it, and then had made him. Once he would have been so thrilled with all this. His own house , after growing up in rat-hole council orphanages and then making his own way out on the streets. Now, he barely even cared.
    He reached for the coffee.
    ‘So what are your plans for today?’ asked the girl, sitting there naked on the edge of the bed. She was pretty, blonde, but he still couldn’t remember who the hell she was.
    I have to stop this , he told himself. The drinking. The women. Maybe after today, I’ll be able to. Who knows?
    ‘Going out,’ he