Biographical / crime. Penny Wood was born in York, England, the only daughter of Jonathan and Eliana Wood, Penny looks back to her formative years and tells how her mother committed suicide when she was only nine years old. Following this, her father overwrought by the death delivers her to King's Cross Station and there he abandons her. Alone she wanders the unlit streets adjacent to King's Cross Station where she is taken in by a streetwalker called Delores, who pities her. Delores' clients take an unhealthy liking to the attractive nine-year-old and so she is forced to pass her on to Tom, a council worker who lets her squat in his garage. On seeing her condition, she is taken in by Melissa, Smithy's fiancee, who in turn leaves her with Sonya, the mother of a Cosa Nostra heavy based at the Oristano Hotel. Whilst visiting Smithy, her father (Maggot) is attacked and Penny inadvertently shoots her father's attacker (Waller) with his firearm, and later she witnesses more killings, only to learn that her brave father has been sent down for life. Her miserable existence couldn't get much worse; or could it? She is sent to a children's home where she is abused at an adult party organized by a group of well-connected and wealthy men, and she and her escapees go on the run and squat in Barry Crump's house, after he tried to abduct her. Her education is orchestrated from within her father's prison cell and from Melissa, whose only aim is Penny's continued survival. The men from the party want her silenced and though there are many attempts on her life, she survives only to meet up with her abuser in the latter pages. She rises from being a homeless scavenger to being the matriarch at the head of an Italian Cosa Nostra family based in Sardinia.