Page 72 of Savage Justice

I know better, her reaction was honest, and genuine. I should have taken it more slowly, but I was rattled by my conversation with Marlowe. Too eager to mark her as mine.

No excuse, but that’s how it was.

I need to get a grip.

“Next time,” I begin.

“You can buy proper handcuffs online,” she tells me. “I’ve seen websites…”

I prop myself up on one elbow. “I know that. Are you saying…?”

“Fluffy ones. And Velcro cuffs. Borys had some, but he always wanted to be the one tied up. It did nothing for me, but that, with you…”

“You liked it?”

She nods. “I wasn’t sure at first, but then… Wow!”

I manage to dismiss the unsettling image of Borys prancing about in his Velcro cuffs and instead settle for kissing her. “We’ll go internet shopping. Soon.”

“Mmm,” is her response, followed by a soft snore.

She’s asleep.

CHAPTER 18

Molly

Cristina is confident that there will be a space for Lucy at Glencruitten and offers to phone the headteacher today. I agree, but not before checking the place out online. It’s a classy establishment catering for children from six years old, some residential, but many day pupils like the Caraksay contingent. The helicopter school run goes at eight every morning and returns by four, all ably managed by Magda, the pilot-cum-nanny.

We discuss it at breakfast the following morning, and Lucy is delighted at the prospect of going to school with Tomasz and Jacob. There will be two other children attending with them, a fourteen-year-old girl called Natalyja, and Yuryl, a boy of about eight. They are the younger siblings of Arina, who I gather is the girlfriend of one of Ethan’s elite crew. Their parents are dead, and the family was displaced from Belarus by sex traffickers. The Savages put a stop to that vile enterprise and rescued the younger children. Whilst Rome and Arina mainly live at Caernbro Ghyll, the children have settled on Caraksay in the care of the families there. It seems to work, and given the trauma they’ve endured in their short lives, no one is keen to upset the applecart.

“They are settled and happy,” Cristina tells me in her faintly accented English. “I look out for them, and Ethan, of course. Oh, and there is Faith…”

“Faith?”

“Aaron’s mother-in-law. She has a cottage down by the cliffs. Natalie and Yuryl live with her. All the kids adore Faith. And there’s also Magda. I don’t know how we’d manage without her.”

“This family just goes on and on…”

“I suppose so. And now we have you, Lucy, and Noah…” She jiggles my baby on her lap. “It’s lovely to have a tiny baby here again.”

“It’s kind of you to let us stay.”

She simply smiles at me. “How is the painting coming along?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll be going up there in a minute, when Magda gets back from the school run and can look after these two.”

“You can leave them with me, you know. I was planning to take Seb to the pool for an hour or so. They can come with us and splash around a bit.”

“Can you manage all three of them?”

“Yes, I think so. Lucy can swim, and so can Seb, after a fashion. I’ll get one of the men to be poolside as well, just in case.”

“I’ll come,” Beth chimes in from the direction of the toaster. “I could do with checking out that filtration system anyway.”

“Beth is a plumber,” Cristina tells me, as though that explains all her odd little idiosyncrasies. “She likes to fix things.”

“I heard that.” Beth shoves a quarter of a slice of toast in her mouth. “Someone round here has to be practical. Let me play with the baby, you’ve had your turn.”

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