Daniel O'Malley sighed, his steely blue eyes fixed on the man sitting on the opposite side of the table to him. His hands rested on his stomach, interlocking fingers touching the crisp white linen of his immaculate shirt and silk tie.
Still he stared at the man, no words spoken, trying to retain his temper.
"I...I'm real sorry, Daniel," the man began, trying to break the awful, ominous silence. "I had no idea that Janice was one of your ladies!"
For another second or so, O'Malley sat in silence, staring, his face expressionless. And then the explosion came. With lightening speed that belonged to a man half his age, the thick-set Irishman leapt to his feet and drilled his fist into the other man's chest.
Sean Daley felt the blow before he saw it. His chair rocked back on its legs and, had it not been supported by two of O'Malley's designer-suited assistants behind him, he knew he would have found himself on the other side of the room still bound to the chair. He felt the air rush from his lungs as his chest contracted under the blow. He gasped for breath and felt the tears start to form in his eyes.
"You're a fucking liar, Daley!" O'Malley screamed into his face. "Everyone knows who my girls are, and everyone knows to leave them alone unless they get my permission and pay the price.
"Not only did you fuck her without asking me, but you marked her as well."
"I'm so sorry Mr. O'Malley, I just ..."
"Shut the fuck up!" Daniel yelled again. His face was so close to the other man, Daley could smell his toothpaste.
"You mark her...we mark you!"
Again, Daley felt the cold steel of the thin knife as it pressed against his cheek before he saw it. He cried out more in shock than in pain as he felt a warm trickle of his own blood running down his face.
"Please, Mr O'Malley, Daniel, please don't kill me!...Please, I'm begging..."
"Ah, shut up you fucking prick!" Daniel laughed, "You're not gonna die! You're just gonna have a nice reminder of you're mistake."
"Thank's Mr. O'Malley, thank you." Sean Daley breathed a sigh of relief. A scar down the side of his face wouldn't be too bad, he thought, in fact it might add a little bit to his machismo. He visibly relaxed still bound to the chair.
"Sorry, Daley," O'Malley flashed a wicked, thin-lipped grin at his foe. "We haven't finished with you yet!"
Looking over at the smaller of his suited accomplices he continued.
"Brendan. Go fetch this cunt's daughter. Let's make sure he never forgets that he tried to fuck with Daniel O'Malley!"
Brendan O'Shea looked up. He liked working for Daniel O'Malley - it was a good, well paid job - but he hated it when he was forced to correct the big man. You just never knew what he would do.
"Er...sorry, boss, but Daley don't have no daughter. No kids at all, in fact."
"Then go get his wife, man. Fuck sake's! Improvise, Brendan. Improvise!"
Francesca Daley saw the car pull up in front of her on the corner of Third and Pine. Something told her - some sort of intuition - that the vehicle had something to do with Sean, and therefore with her. She knew the sort of people that her useless husband was associated with and as soon as she saw the suited figure jump out from behind the wheel she realised that there was no point in trying to escape him.
In a way, Francesca was pleased for the short ride back home. She had spent a lot of her husband's money and the shopping bags had begun to weigh heavy. The stocky Irishman in the drivers seat had not spoken and, after a couple of futile attempts at small talk on her part, Fran had also lapsed into silence. It was a shame too, she thought. The man's lean, muscular body filled his suit in all the right places and he wasn't bad looking either. A sudden image of him naked and erect filled her mind and she moved awkwardly in her seat as she began to flush. She couldn't help the rueful smile that crept over her face; it would have been great to get Sean back for all the times he had cheated on her!
Francesca gasped as she walked into the room. She had been expecting to see her husband, but not with a long, thin cut down one cheek. He held a blood-soaked tissue to the side of his face. A large, expensively dressed man in his late forties sat opposite her husband, Fran recognised him immediately as Daniel O'Malley; a local villain and hard man.
Fran hardly had time to set down her shopping bags before she felt strong hands grip her arms from behind.
"Get her on the table!" Daniel cried, breaking the silence. "I want Daley to be close enough to smell the action!"
Francesca wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but this was still a shock to her. At first she was confused; unsure of the big man's meaning, but her mind caught up quickly: these men were going to have her, right here, right now! Her first reaction was one of shock and to defend herself; try and fight off their advances, but she soon realised that this would have been completely futile; there were three of them and she wouldn't have stood a chance. And then a completely different feeling overcame her. She remembered back to the car and the way she had imagined her strong, muscled escort. She realised she was flushing up again but this time the feeling was accompanied by a tingling, wanton sensation that swamped her entire body.