The Take by Martina Cole

'Fucking hell, he'd go bonkers. He has his faults but he does love them kids.'
    Maggie looked at him incredulously. Freddie could afford to love the kids, he hardly ever saw them. Whatever her sister was or wasn't, she had looked after them all from day one to the best of her ability.
    'Are you having a laugh or what? Loves them kids? He is never home. He don't even know them.'
    Jimmy sighed as if it was all too much trouble for him, and he looked so much like Freddie then that she felt a chill go through her.
    'Take it from me, he loves them girls. He just wants a boy, that's all.'
    He said it with such aplomb he could have been talking about himself, and this was not lost on Maggie. She had had a glimpse into the future and at the moment it did not augur well as far as she was concerned. Jimmy was spending too much time with Freddie, but that could be rectified.
    Maggie tossed her long blond hair as she snorted in derision. 'Who's he think he is, Henry the Eighth? He wants a son?'
    This was lost on Jimmy who had no knowledge of history unless it involved the lineage of someone he knew about.
    'What are we going to do?'
    Jimmy shrugged. He had tracked her down for no other reason than he fancied a quick tumble with her before he picked Freddie up from the Becks' pub. He loved her, but sometimes he just wanted a bit of the other with no aggravation. With her sister and his cousin, though, that was nigh on an impossibility. He adored her, he could not imagine life without her in it, but every now and again he just wanted a faceless fuck, and like all men of his ilk he saw it as his due. So, taking a deep breath he answered her as he knew she wanted him to. 'Fucked if I know, babe.'
    He was putting the ball back in her court, because the way things were she was going to call the shots. He was supposed to be at the pub by now but he had waited for Maggie instead and it had been a waste of time.
    Now he was gutted, and he was sick to death of Freddie and all he entailed as well.

    Paul and Liselle looked at the two men warily.
    Siddy looked ferocious, but it was Freddie their money was on. Plus, Freddie had Ozzy's best interests at heart. And for all Siddy's family connections no one in their right mind would attempt to have Ozzy over. Even Siddy's brothers would take a step back if they knew what he had been mouthing off about, and knowing Freddie they would hear about it sooner rather than later.
    He would need to justify any violence and back up any claims of Siddy being disloyal to Ozzy. That is where they would come in and they were willing to do just that. Ozzy might be banged up but his finger was still firmly on the pulse of all his enterprises.
    'Go home for fuck's sake, Siddy.'
    Once more Freddie was mugging him off and Siddy knew it. Even through his drink and his drugs he knew he had entered a lion's den of aggravation and there was nothing he could do about it, he was too far gone. If he walked away now he lost all respect from his peers, and yet if he stayed and fronted it out he would also lose respect because he had caused it, he had created the situation in the first place.
    It was the ultimate insult, but Freddie said it so nicely that anyone who wasn't in the know would not understand the seriousness of it.
    Siddy was losing all reason now because of the way Freddie was talking to him. He could hear the disrespect in his voice, see the arrogance in his stance and almost smell his own humiliation. He was drunk, he was stoned and he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
    Out of the corner of his eye he could see Paul watching him warily, knew he had his hand on the shotgun under the counter and also knew that he would shoot him without a second's thought before he would shoot Freddie Jackson.
    Freddie was flavour of the month with everyone lately, even Siddy's own family. He had taken over so much it was only now, with the situation in hand, that he finally understood he had been played like a