Ralph did offer to stay and take care of the farm, but I told him to go to his big family gathering five miles away. It’ll be good for me to go back to the farm. My best thinking time is early in the morning when I am astride one of my horses and galloping across the open fields. I feel good that I have taken Izzy and Christopher away from Tony.

By now he would know they are gone. My family are safe for the time being, but I need a plan quickly. One doesn’t rest on their laurels when they’re dealing with a psychopath.

I know my enemy. I’ve done my research. He’s a nasty, vile, disgusting excuse for a human being who is already linked to at least a half-dozen murders. Those I know about are only the ones the police are actually aware of. There might be dozens of others. People who didn’t know when to leave well enough alone, who tried to testify against him in court, or who wouldn’t back down when he threatened them.

Izzy’s face floats in the front of my mind’s eye. Beautiful, fragile, injured. He’ll never hurt her again, not as long as there’s breath left in my body. I think of my son with wonder. I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated him yet. Even the thought is amazing. My mind drifts to the future. I can already see myself teaching him to ride. Giving him a real childhood in the country with horses, and dirt, and values. It’ll be a sweet life.

I’ll make it a sweet life.

The first step of my plan has to be drawing up a will and making Izzy completely self-sufficient should anything happen to me. I immediately call my lawyer’s office and leave a message for him to call me in the morning.

I only stopped once to get some sandwiches, but by the time I get back to Suffolk it is after midnight. I open the front door and I’m in such a hurry to start work I don’t even bother to switch on any lights or switch on the heating. I go straight to the back of the house where my office is. As I’m firing up my laptop I hear gravel in the driveway crunching. A car is coming from the direction of the stables and halting in front of the house.

For a second I freeze. I’m not expecting anybody. I’m in the country and never in the whole time I have lived here has anybody visited at this time of the night. As impossible as it seems it has to be Tony’s men. How could he have found me so quickly? Then I remember the teenagers. The way they watched us. It would be so easy for a man who has access to law enforcement databases to trace my car. When I hear car doors shut quietly, I snap out of my disbelief. There is more than one of them. Three. My hand moves towards the switch on my desk table. I snap it off.

Then, I’m out of my chair and streaking across the room. I grab the bat that usually lies collecting dust on the counter and go out to the living room. Not making a sound, I move towards the doorway.

I hear their voices. They’re already outside the front door. I position myself to the right of the door when I hear a rough voice say, “Just kick the fucking door in already!”

“Forget that door. It’s solid. Come around here,” another voice says closer to the French doors at the side of the house. In a flash, I run over to the French doors.

Bang!

The door flies open. I raise the bat over my shoulder and wait. As one of the men passes through I swing it as hard as I can at head height. The sound of wood cracking against a skull echoes through the high-ceilinged entryway. A brutish looking thug drops like a sack of potatoes in the open doorway.

“What the fuck?” Two other men stumble over the body but manage to stay on their feet. They don’t know yet, but they’re in trouble—deep trouble. One of them holds a knife and the other holds a machete. In a split second my brain has made a note of the fact that the knife and machete are dripping with blood.

Whose blood?

I need to get them before they get me. Instinct and the desire to survive take over. The machete is my biggest threat, so I turn to him first.

His crooked smile widens as he raises his arms, and the moonlight filtering in through the open doorway glints off the metal. He is a big guy. Strong, but clumsy. Instead of trying to attack his arms, I go low. A good blow across his kneecaps makes him howl in pain. I’m fairly sure I heard a bone shatter. At least one of his knees crushed from the blow.

“Fuck! You fucking broke my knees,” he screams, curling into a ball.

Now the knife and the gorilla holding it. He glances at his mate, then back at me. There is fear in his eyes. He hadn’t expected me to be so effective with just a bat. With a roar he lunges at me with the knife pointed at my stomach. A quick sidestep and a back kick knocks him off-balance. He mutters a curse before I whip a brisk blow straight to his balls.

He bellows, his eyes bulging, but no sound comes out of his mouth. I watch the veins of his neck pop as he drops like a stone. The knife skitters across the floor as he cups his privates, shrieking silently in agony while his friend with the busted knee is screaming abuse at me.

I make quick work of kicking their weapons out of their reach. Better to be safe than sorry. The car sitting outside is a Range Rover. I go out and have a look—the keys are still in the ignition for a fast getaway. I start the engine, then go back in the house.

“Come on you lot,” I grunt, dragging them one by one to the car.

They’re in too much pain to fight me as I push them inside—the one I hit across the side of the head is still totally out of it. I throw him across the back seat and slam the door shut.

The other two look like they’re in such pain, they’d rather be dead. I can only imagine, especially the one whose balls I turned to jelly. He deserved a lot worse than that, coming at me with a knife. I lean on the car and tap the driver’s window until Jelly Balls rolls it down. “Make no mistake,” I snarl, glaring at them. “If you come back here, I’ll kill you next time. Tell Tony he got off easy.”

Mr. Broken Kneecaps looks up at me, his face twisted with pain. “I wouldn’t be so smug if I were you. You have no idea what you are dealing with. Tony will never stop until you return his woman.”

“He’ll burn in hell before that happens,” I growl.

The car speeds off, tires crunching over the gravel. When they are about twenty yards he hangs his head out of the window and shouts, “Left a surprise for you at the stables.”