Time To Play by KA Richardson (best book club books of all time TXT) 📗

‘No,’ said Danny curtly, leaving the room and clicking the door shut. His partner was a dick, a complete and utter jerk. Danny had to practically lift Gaz’s jaw off the floor every time they picked girls up, and every time he wanted to punch his lights out. The girls didn’t deserve the lives they were brought into the country to lead. But what could he do about it? He owed the bosses, and they knew everything about him.

The last time he’d tried to leave the fold, they’d kidnapped his girlfriend. She’d been seven months pregnant at the time. They’d threatened to cut the baby out of her and put her to work in a house just like this one if he ever tried to leave again.

So he stayed. Because he had to.

Sighing again, he hung his head and made his way back outside to the van.

Wear Street, Sunderland – 3 November

Back in the attic, Rocko finally looked up from his computer. ‘You staying?’ he asked Gaz who nodded silently. ‘Good, then wake the bitch up.’

He watched as Gaz moved to the side of the chair and flattened his palm. It connected with the side of Nita’s face with a resounding slap, causing her to gasp in shock. As she saw the two men in the room, she opened her mouth to scream. Moving like lightening, Rocko put a hand over her face, squeezing hard.

‘One sound from you, bitch, and I will cut your tongue out.’

There was no way Nita could understand his words, they were in English, but he saw the fearful acceptance in her eyes. Rocko eyed Gaz thoughtfully. One of the two delivery men would go far in the organisation, and Rocko knew it would be Gaz. It was obvious he got off on the pain, and they needed loyal people.

Deciding it wouldn’t hurt to get started, Rocko said, ‘Hold her arm out for me. She needs her first dose of brown sugar.’ He checked the tension and deftly tied a piece of elastic round the top of her arm. ‘First we get her high, then she’ll start to learn the trade for which she has been employed.’ He pushed the needle into the vein in Nita’s arm, and loosened the elastic. Stepping back, he watched as her pupils dilated and her mind floated elsewhere.

‘Fill your boots,’ he said to Gaz, nodding towards Nita’s spaced-out body. ‘Nothing too kinky, and don’t mark her.’ Leaving Gaz in the attic, Rocko left the room. He wasn’t in the mood anyway; fucking the new girls was often best left to other staff. And he had several he knew would get the job done. He partook occasionally, but only with the extra special ones. The ones that still had the spark of fight left in them. And they only came along once in a blue moon.

He left the building by the back door, climbed into the red Shogun and left the alley with a squeal of rubber.

Chapter Four

Connor’s Parents’ House, Sunderland – 3 November

‘C

ome on, Mum. It’s time to get dressed, then we’ll get you into your chair by the window and you can watch for the postman. You like that, don’t you?’ Connor spoke softly to his mum who was laid on the bed facing the window.

His dad had called him in a panic saying she wouldn’t get up and she was having an episode. He’d cried on the phone, breaking Connor’s heart. And Connor, ever the dutiful son, had gone round to his parents’ house to help.

He sighed as he watched his mother turn her head towards him, suspicion in her eyes as she snapped, ‘Who are you? I’m not getting up and dressed in front of some stinking man I don’t even know, I’ll call my son, he’s a policeman you know. Now get out!’

Her shrill voice turned to a scream as she launched herself off the bed and went for his face with her nails outstretched.

‘Mum, please. Stop. It’s me, it’s Connor.’

He gripped her wrists less gently than he would have liked, knowing her to be stronger than her slim frame suggested.

Eventually she stilled and her eyes cleared, gazing at him. ‘There’s my boy,’ she whispered, giving him a watery smile, ‘So grown up. Where’s your dress up box? Let’s see my handsome man in his police uniform.’

Connor swallowed at the lump in his throat. His mum would jump from one memory to the next in the blink of an eye. Just once, he wished she’d jump back into the present.

Without further incident, he managed to get her dressed and seated in her favourite armchair, which was inside the bay window of the front room. His feet heavy, he wandered into the kitchen to see his dad.

‘Sorry, son, some days it’s all I can do not to walk out of that door. She hit me. She always has to hit me.’

His father sounded so desperately sad as he rubbed his hand subconsciously over the bruise to his cheek.

‘Maybe it’s time to think about a home again, I mean she’s not getting any better, Dad, and—’

‘No. Whatever she did, she’s still my wife. In sickness and in health. That’s what I promised. She’ll be fine tomorrow.’

Connor shook his head in frustration. ‘No, she won’t. She’ll never be fine, Dad. There are homes where people are trained to take care of people as ill as she is, nice ones where she’d be looked after and—’

‘I said NO!’ shouted his dad. ‘And that’s the end of it. I will not put my wife in a damn home to rot away with people who don’t know her. Besides, Fred is coming round soon. She’s always better when Fred’s here.’

Sadness threatened to overwhelm Connor. He hated seeing his mum this way and hated how his dad refused