“What made you think you had the right to go anywhere near her?” I asked, punching him again.

“You don’t touch her, you don’t even think about her, or I will fucking end you!”

“Do you know what she sees in you? Absolutely nothing. I gave her a lesson she didn’t like, and she ran straight into the arms of the first boy she came across. You knew, from the minute you saw her, she was out of your league, and you’ve done nothing but try and drag her down to your level ever since.”

I hit him in the ribs, winding him enough to shut him up. I hit him for being right. I never was good enough for Sunshine, and maybe I was on borrowed time, but he was wrong about her not seeing anything in me. Her love for me was imprinted in every single cell of my body. I’d give anything to keep her safe and happy. I’d leave this life knowing what it feels like to belong to another person. To belong to her.

“What is this sick, fucking obsession you have with her?” Kieran asked, finally breaking his silence.

“You know nothing about my family,” he snarled.

“Well, she certainly ain’t your fucking daughter, so what is she to you?” Kieran shouted. He was losing his shit as much as I was. Em was my girl but she was near enough his sister.

“She’s mine!” Frank screamed. “She’s been mine since she was nine years old. I waited all this time, and now she’s coming back where she belongs.”

“What did you just say?” I asked him.

“Don’t look at me like that! I never fucking touched her. Marrying her whiney, miserable bitch of a mother was the only way to keep Emily close, make sure she was safe.”

“But you beat her black and fucking blue. You raped her!” I yelled at him.

“I kept her good and pure. Without my lessons, she would have run wild. Everything I did, I did for her. And I didn’t rape her. She wanted it! She wanted it so bad. Every day she did things to show me how much she wanted me to touch her. Always trying to tempt me, and I held out. I resisted her until she was almost eighteen. After that, she’d be an adult. I could have gotten rid of her mother, and it would have just been the two of us. Everything would have been fine. It was fine until you got your grubby little paws on her.”

“You’re a filthy fucking pedophile!” Kier shouted at him.

“I never touched her when she was a kid!” he defended himself.

“The fact that you even looked at a nine-year-old that way, that you made plans to involve yourself in her life, whether you touched her or not that makes you a pedophile,” Kieran threw back at him.

But Frank just smiled, and I knew then why Em had been so scared. Frank would just keep going and going until he had Em again. This fixation would never end. Leaving him there, I went into a couple rooms before I found the kitchen. After rummaging through a few drawers, I found what I was looking for. The kitchen knife in my hand was probably clumsier and less sophisticated than the one he’d used on Em, but I bet the pain would still feel the same. I imagined Em as a little girl standing in this kitchen, never feeling safe. Always afraid. I’d tear this fucking world apart to take that pain away from her but I couldn’t, and it was all this sick fuck’s fault.

He laughed as I walked back into the room with it in my hand. “You haven’t got the balls to stab me,” he taunted.

“You just keep talking,” I told him.

“And even if you did, I’d die a happy man knowing that you won’t get her anyway. You’re too fuckin’ stupid to get away with murder. Emily is mine. You’re going to rot in prison with your own kind, and she’ll be with me and under me long before you even get to trial. By the time you get out I might even have a kid in her belly—” He didn’t get to finish that sentence before I had the knife to his throat.

“Con, no!” Kieran called out. “We’ll take her and go back to Ireland or to train in America. Anywhere away from here and him.”

If I’d carried on punching Frank, I’d probably have killed him by now. My mistake was in getting the knife. It wasn’t comfortable in my hand. I was weapon enough. I’d never needed anything else.

“No. Fucking. Balls,” he taunted me when I paused.

“O’Connell, don’t. Please, baby, that’s enough. Come home now.” I swear to God I could hear Em’s voice as loud and as clear as if she was right here with me. For a second, just one second, I caught the faint smell of vanilla. It was enough to make me think of what she’d say if she was here now. I wanted to end his life so fucking badly. Not because I wanted the stain of his passing on my soul, but to give Em peace. Maybe the first peace she’d had since she was nine years old.

But I’d be taking away her future. Our future. Our home, our children, all those plans we made together would all be gone the minute I slit his throat. I didn’t want that for her or me. Our future was more important than her past.

If she was here right now, she’d hold my face, look at me with those beautiful eyes, and tell me she didn’t want this. I’d fought so hard to get here, to win her heart when all the odds were stacked against us. I wasn’t blowing it now. She needed a better man, so I’d be a better man.

“We ain’t going to Ireland or to America. We’re staying in Canning Town, and I suggest you keep your arse this side of the bridge and a long way from London. I’m assuming though, that at some point, you’ll decide that stupidity overrules reason, and you’ll come looking for her again. When that happens, we’ll be waiting, and Em won’t be alone. You won’t be reporting our little ‘visit’ to the police because if you do, we’ll be reporting your altercation at the university. I’m sure the university campus will have footage of you on camera. We’ll get a restraining order against you and then document you breaking it time and time again until the courts start taking this a little more seriously. How long before this shit bleeds into your job and you lose that? Then what? Your house, your car? How long you wanna keep playing this game for?”

“You have no fucking clue who you’re dealing with! A few quid to the right police contact and that security footage goes the same way as the rape kit.”

“How could you possibly have anything to do with the rape kit?” Kieran asked.

“The kid who arrested me was a newbie. They’re all gung-ho, but know hardly anything about evidence collection or procedure. All I needed to do was have a word with a few good friends at the station, grease a few palms, and one of them calls him and asks him to be messenger for the rape kit. Stupid kid thinks he’s helping out, and as soon as he touches that box, the case is dead.”