Playing Dead
Annie Carter is back…
She was a madam in a brothel and a gangster’s moll, but now her protection is gone and her enemies are closing in.
1971, London gang boss Annie Carter Barolli is living the New York high life with the feared mafia godfather Constantine Barolli. Then family tragedy strikes, leaving only Annie, Constantine’s sister Gina and his three children alive, and now they’re in terrible danger. And what’s worse – it signals a major shift in mafia power.
Annie returns to London with her daughter Layla, pursued by a hit man. Someone wants her dead and the only way she can stay alive is to find out who’s paying for the contract and to strike first.
Then, the reappearance of an old East End face sparks a shocking suspicion – the possibility that Max Carter, Annie’s first and greatest love, didn’t die two years ago, as she had been led to believe.
Has he truly just been playing dead?
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JESSIE KEANE
Playing Dead
Dedication
To Cliff, with all my love.
Contents
America
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Majorca
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Long Island
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
London
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
New York
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Jessie Keane
Copyright
America
Prologue
Montauk, Long Island, USA
August 1971
Annie Carter-Barolli knew that there are some things you remember forever. Like your child’s first cry. Or your wedding day – or days, in her case: she’d been married twice. Or like the moment you stare death in the face and it’s not scary like you expected it to be, not a face of bones, not a reaper. Instead it’s bright red ribbon on a big square parcel of sunny sky-blue, and your husband is picking it out from the front of the huge pile of presents. He is turning towards you holding it, smiling at you and saying, Hey, wonder what’s in this one?
That moment stays with you. You want to rewind, replay, edit; take the hurt away. Splice the whole thing back together and make it come out another way. But you can’t. Once the jack-in-the-box is out, he’s out; there’s no going back.
Annie was standing out on the big terraced deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It was a hot August night but the breeze from the sea was cooling and sweet against her skin. Inside the house, Constantine’s oceanfront house out here in the millionaire’s playground of Montauk, there was the music of a mariachi band, and laughter.
Most times, this place was like a fortress, guarded day and night by his men. Sometimes police cruisers drifted by the gates at the front of the Montauk estate and the cops took pictures, exchanged hard-eyed stares with the men on guard, and moved on.
But today was a happy day; it was the day of her stepson Lucco’s wedding. The celebrations were likely to go on long into the night. Already she was tired. Layla, her little girl from her first marriage to Max Carter, was asleep upstairs at the back of the house, tucked in by her nanny Gerda. Annie clasped her hands over the bump of her pregnancy. Soon, there would be another child, Constantine’s child, a new brother or sister for Layla. She was five months gone now and the morning sickness had – thank God – subsided at last. But the new baby was hungry, draining her energy levels, robbing her of sleep.
‘Honey?’
She turned. It was him – Constantine of the sharp suits and the silver hair. Feared and revered Mafia godfather. Her husband, her lover, her friend. He had come to find her, knowing she loved it out here, that she liked to stand here sometimes, alone, and watch the sea at night.
Hey, wonder what’s in this one?
The pulsating roar and suck of the tide, the music, and his smile. Some things you really do remember forever. He lifted the parcel – it seemed to her that it was heavy, that maybe he felt a little resistance as he did so.
The actual explosion was too sudden and shocking to take in. A huge flash of light, a deafening, mind-numbing whumph, then smoke and a pushing out, a propulsion of hot air that made her ears pop as if she was on a mile-high flight, and brought with it the acrid smell of black powder.
She felt herself hit the balcony rail, but only distantly; her hearing was gone, everything was happening in some strange, detached, dreamlike state. Shrapnel sprayed. She felt a sting, distant pain in her arm, and then she was on the beach, lying on the sand, staring half-wittedly at a shell, her vision cutting in and out like a faulty light switch.
She could hear her own heart, that was all, beating very fast. The shell was ridged, pink, beautiful. A marvel of nature. Her brain felt scrambled. There were other things in the sand too, she could see that. Things charred and blackened, and she didn’t want to look at any of that so she kept looking at the shell. She would not look at the black things. The sand was soft and her ears felt sticky. She felt more than tired; exhausted, ready to sleep.
But someone was touching her shoulder; someone was turning her onto her back on the sand. She looked up at a million bright stars with blank wonder. Then a face loomed over her, blocking out the stars. It was Alberto, Constantine’s twenty-four-year-old son, her stepson. She loved Alberto, he was a total delight. Unlike Lucco, unlike Cara, Constantine’s other children. Now Alberto’s face was twisted in anguish. There were smears of soot on his chin. He was touching her cheek, checking that she was breathing. He was mouthing words but she couldn’t hear them.
