The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

said Dolly. ‘You don’t have to stay with him. You know that. Your room’s still standing empty. You could come and stay with us. If you want to.’

      And so that was what she did. In a state of stunned disbelief she walked out of the apartment and out of Max’s life. Donny dropped her back at Limehouse. He still looked unhappy. But then, so did she.

      ‘I’ll have to tell him where I took you,’ said Donny.

      ‘I know.’

      ‘He’s going to be seriously pissed off.’

      ‘I know that too.’

      ‘When you see him, tell him it had nothing to do with me, will you?’

      Annie’s eyes met Donny’s in the driver’s mirror. He looked fearful. Everyone around Max looked fearful sooner or later, she was coming to realize that.

      ‘I won’t see him,’ she said.

      ‘Oh yeah?’ Donny’s laugh was hollow. ‘Trust me – you’ll see him.’

      Max came to find her next morning. Chris let him into the front parlour and shouted for Annie. Sweet Jesus, how was she supposed to cope with this? Annie wondered. She composed herself with an effort and came downstairs.

      She felt a mess. She hadn’t slept. Darren and Ellie and Aretha had spent all last evening tiptoeing around her, not asking the questions they were dying to. It was obvious that Dolly had told them to button it. Annie was grateful for that. She had gone to bed early, wanting to be alone, and lay awake for most of the night, thinking about Max. Thinking of Celia too, screaming with fear and agony as they hacked her hand off in cold blood, just because Eddie Carter died on her premises. Thinking of the times she had shared with Max in the apartment, falling into bed together laughing and then becoming serious as they made love.

      She was unable to reconcile the two images – the wonderful lover and the heartless bastard who had mutilated her aunt. Now he was here. She went into the front room and closed the door behind her and looked at him. It hurt to look at him, like a thousand stab wounds.

      Max looked right back at her. Then he said: ‘No one walks out on me.’

      Annie swallowed. ‘I just did.’

      Max threw a scrap of paper on to the floor.

      ‘And what the fuck does this mean?’ he asked with venom. ‘“I’m sorry but it’s over”! What sort of fucking note is that?’

      ‘What sort of fucking note do you want, Max?’ she shot back.

      Max lifted a finger. ‘I don’t want any lip, Annie. I want an answer, that’s all.’

      ‘I’ve told you. It’s over.’ Fuck, he looked furious. Annie thought of Celia’s hand, dropping on to a sawdust-covered floor like a piece of dead meat. She tried to keep her voice steady, but her heart seemed to be lodged in her throat.

      ‘It’s over,’ she said again.

      Max was silent for a long time. Then he walked across to where she stood and leaned in close.

      ‘Is this about Kieron fucking Delaney?’ he asked.

      Annie stared in surprise. ‘What?’

      Max grabbed her chin. ‘Is it?’

      ‘No it fucking isn’t!’

      ‘What then? What’s happened over the past day or so to make you change? I saw you at the apartment before your mum’s funeral, you were fine. I saw you waiting outside the church in the car with that blonde tart and Donny at the wheel. I didn’t see you inside the church. When we came out, the car was gone and you with it. So what happened?’

      Annie couldn’t breathe. He was too close. She kept seeing that image. The hand, dropping away, Celia screaming with pain. She was going to faint, or vomit, she didn’t know which.

      She had even thought of confronting him with it, telling him about Celia and what had happened to her, saying ‘Look you bastard, I know you did it.’

      But she knew he would only deny it like he’d done before, and she didn’t feel strong enough to argue the toss with him now. She was too tired, too sickened. This time he wasn’t going to get the chance to win her round. He could rot for all she cared, he was dead to her now.

      ‘Donny must have told you what happened,’ said Annie. Oh Christ – and what if he had? What if Donny had ignored her warning and spilled the beans, told Max that Celia was there at the church?

      ‘He said he dropped you back at the flat and that you seemed a bit upset. That you’d changed your mind about attending the funeral. You told him to go home, that you wouldn’t want to go out again. What did you do, wait until the coast was clear and then nip off to see that Delaney piss-artist instead?’

      ‘For God’s sake, no!’ Fuck, she couldn’t let him even start to think that Kieron was at the root of all this. She had thought all this through, she knew what she had to say now. ‘Max – I saw you with Ruthie at the funeral. And I suddenly saw that what I was doing was wrong. Wicked. She’s my sister. I can’t go on betraying her.’

      Which was partly true. Who the hell had she been kidding, thinking she could go on with this behind Ruthie’s back? She couldn’t do it any more, wouldn’t do it any more. And then seeing that Celia had been cut for something that wasn’t her fault – well, that was knowledge she could never live with, not when Max had ordered it done.

      He drew in closer still.

      ‘Like it or not, you’re mine,’ he said.

      Annie steeled herself. ‘I told you before, Max. I don’t belong to anyone. Only to myself.’

      He released her chin with a flick of his fingers. He was nodding. ‘It’s that fucker Delaney.’

      ‘No. It’s Ruthie. I can’t go on doing this to Ruthie.’

      Max turned away. ‘Yeah. Sure.’

      ‘It’s the truth,’ said Annie, heart racing.

      ‘We were good together.’

      Now Annie knew she’d been kidding herself. She looked into his eyes and saw only deception and cruelty there. Max Carter wasn’t the romantic hero she’d always believed him to be. Max Carter was a vicious, low-life thug, he always had been and he always would be. He would kill any fucker who crossed him, she knew that much. So would he really draw the line at wreaking vengeance for a crime against his family?

      Annie stiffened her spine.

      ‘We might have been good together once,’ she said coldly. ‘But that’s over. It couldn’t go on. I see that now.’

      Suddenly he turned back to her, grabbed her, kissed her hard.

      Annie held herself rigid. He was hurting her. Punishing her. She tasted blood on her lip. She kept still, forced herself not to respond to him the way she always responded.

      ‘You’re mine,’ he said again against her mouth.

      ‘No,’ said Annie.

      ‘This is only over when I say so.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘We’ll see.’

      The following morning, the nude portrait of her that Kieron had painted was thrown on to the pavement in front of the parlour. A car roared away. Chris came out and cautiously picked up the painting. The canvas was slashed right through.

       38

      Annie was sitting at the kitchen table next morning when Darren walked in. She was staring at the ruined canvas, propped against the wall in tatters. Darren looked at it, then at her.

      ‘Well,