The breakfast dishes were still on the kitchen table as Gisborne lashed out with his whip, shattering the ink-blue vase on top of the refrigerator. Ardagh had been collecting pennies in it for years and now they showered the floor, while shards of blue porcelain flew dangerously.
‘Scum like you doesn’t touch my daughter,’ Gisborne roared, as his boot blasted the recycling bin, spewing milk cartons and flattened cardboard across the floor.
‘Robin was hanging off a window ledge,’ Little John pleaded, from his seat at the end of the dining table. ‘If Clare had hit him with that ball it could have knocked him down and killed him.’
‘So what?’ Gisborne asked, as he wound the whip back around his hand. ‘World’s a better place with one less member of your family in it.’
Gisborne picked a jagged shard of blue vase from the floor and closed on Little John with the sharp end. The teen was only wearing the tartan shorts he’d slept in, and his sweaty skin stuck to the chair as he tilted it back.
‘This is gonna be a big scar,’ Gisborne teased sadistically, as the sharp end touched a spot below Little John’s earlobe. ‘A warning to anyone who thinks about touching my family.’
‘She got a tiny graze from some gravel on the courtyard,’ Little John said, trying not to tremble because it made the shard push deeper into his cheek.
Gisborne looked around as his daughter arrived in the kitchen doorway, breathing heavily.
‘Where’s the brat?’ Gisborne asked.
Clare’s voice was high, like she was properly scared. ‘I searched all over. Cupboards, bathrooms, under beds. Robin must have doubled back on me.’
Little John felt relieved, but Gisborne didn’t tolerate failure, even from his own daughter.
‘He’s a scrap of a kid,’ he shouted, pounding on the table and making Clare jump.
She stepped closer and gave a pleading look. ‘Daddy, I tried really hard.’
Gisborne booted the recycling bin again, then wagged his finger furiously in Clare’s face.
‘If you want to be Daddy’s princess and do your hair and wear pretty dresses, you have my blessing,’ Gisborne said sharply. ‘But if you want to learn the business, you will perform like any other associate and suffer the consequences if you don’t. Is that clear?’
Little John almost felt sorry for Clare as he watched Gisborne signal towards his heavy whip.
Would he hit his own daughter?
‘Understood, Daddy … I mean, sir,’ Clare said, nodding obediently as she backed out and headed for the stairs.
She hoped she’d missed a door. Or maybe there was a loose bath panel someone Robin’s size could squeeze behind …
Gisborne grabbed the shard off the kitchen table.
‘Now, where were we?’
Little John was so scared he thought he might pass out, but his fear of what Gisborne might do if he fought back remained greater than his fear of getting slashed.
At least until the blue glass pricked his skin and drew blood …
The spike of pain flipped Little John into a primitive fight-or-flight response. He swung a huge arm, knocking Gisborne sideways. The gangster was surprised by Little John’s speed, but quickly regained balance and went for his whip.
‘You don’t wanna take your punishment?’ Gisborne roared, as he lashed out with the whip. ‘Then your life just got a hundred times worse.’
The first lash sent a snapping sound through the kitchen and Little John yelped as the whip shredded his T-shirt and left a deep red welt beneath.
Little John stumbled sideways over to the kitchen drainer, grabbing a wooden tray to shield himself, as Gisborne pulled back for another shot. But as Gisborne swung he felt the whip’s handle tear out of his hand.
There was a sharp, hollow thud, and when he looked to see where the whip had gone, he saw its thick leather handle pinned to the door of a kitchen cabinet by an aluminium arrow.
‘Hands high, Gisborne,’ Robin said, his next shot already loaded and a silver arrow pulled back ready to shoot.