When I buzz her gate, I try to form excuses that might keep her away from me, but I know there’s not a chance of that happening.
I open my glovebox for my safety net, tucking a gun she doesn’t know about into the back of my shorts, then pulling on my hat and flipping it backwards.
I quickly shoot a text to my assistant Barry, telling him that plans are still going ahead in America, to set up a meeting point and that I’ll be out of reach for the rest of the night.
I hide the messenger app I created for me and my team in a secured file, so Bernie won’t find it if she decides to go through my phone.
It started when I tried to kill Barry in England, only to find out he was innocent. He was my age and had a ten-grand bounty on his head. I helped him fake his death, and he became loyal, offered to work with me to help others like him. Over time, we created our own group to try rescue people trapped in the firm grip of the underworld.
All of them are free to leave my company, but none of them will. Not only do I pay them well, but they also get to travel, experience the adrenaline rush of fighting and saving, and they’re part of the family I somehow created. A group of ghosts – dead to the underworld but very much alive.
And I’m their leader.
A huff, a shake of my head and I head in.
Standing in the foyer, I watch Bernadette strut towards me with a glass of wine, her dyed-red hair bouncing, fake tits nearly falling out of her tight black dress. Her heels click on the white marble, and the sound vibrates through my body, nearly enough to make me visibly shiver. It aggravates so much that I can’t look her in the eye.
The woman is a blackmailing monster. Probably the worst kind I’ve had the displeasure of meeting. Bernadette’s nails drag along my chest as she passes by me, and I follow her into the office.
She pulls out a folder and slams it down on her desk between us.
“Bryan Tiernan,” she says, flipping it open to an image of his broken face, “filed two charges against you this morning. Assault and arson. I had to pay him off and tell him not to speak a word of it again. Care to explain why you’re attacking random people in their homes then setting it alight?”
I stay silent. Tap my fingers on the armrests. I should’ve killed him like I killed the last guy she slept with.
No one fucks Stacey and gets away with it. I can’t have her, but nobody else will.
“I can’t keep covering for you when you go off course. I tell you who your targets are. I don’t need to make sure things like this aren’t happening.” She points at the paperwork, teeth bared. “You weren’t trained like this. You had no reason to break into his house and hold him at gunpoint, and you certainly had no reason to beat him until he was nearly unrecognisable. This could have easily been an attempted murder case. What if one of my colleagues got the report instead of me?”
I shrug.
That pisses her off enough to grit out, “Why. Did. You. Do. It?”
I lean back in the chair, resting my ankle on my knee. “I had my reasons.”
She raises a perfectly plucked brow. “Care to explain them?”
“Nope.” I’m unhinged – that’s the only explanation. “It’s none of your business.”
She snarls, leaning forward. “Careful, Kade. I can easily hand over your file and have you locked up for the rest of your life. They’ll stick you in a facility like your father.”
When I stare at her, attempting to tamp down my anger, she smirks and closes the file. Not the first time she’s said something along those lines, and she has enough power to do just that. She does run an entire empire in the underworld and holds a senior rank in Police Scotland.
I have nowhere to run.
“However, you are going away for a while, and as much as you’ll be doing work for me in America, I’ll miss you dearly.” She walks around the desk; pulls herself onto it in front of me. “Archie will be home in an hour. Will we wait for him to join us, or will I show you our new pet now?”
My eye twitches. “New pet?” I don’t like the sound of that. “Meaning?”
Bernadette grins, kicking off her heels and settling her feet right between my legs. Her dress rides up her thighs, showing me that she’s bare beneath. No underwear. No boundaries. No fucking shame.
I fight a grimace and look away.
“You’ll like her.” She hops off the desk. “Follow me.”
On the third floor, she chuckles and turns to me. “Remember when we had Rachel join us? Well, she’s even prettier. And more adventurous.”
I might just shoot myself in the head right now. The gun is burning into my back, begging to be used.
But if I kill her or myself, my entire family will be obliterated – Bernadette’s annoying tripwire if I ever turn on them.
If I refuse to do certain work, Luciella gets threatened. If I refuse to fuck someone, then Dad doesn’t see my mother for weeks.
No one in my family knows the reasons behind their bad luck. I’m apparently a university student, living his life in Stirling.
But that’s far from the truth.
One day, I’ll get away from her; I’ll escape this life.
When she opens the door to reveal a blonde fingering herself on a four-poster bed, moaning and writhing on the velvet sheets, Bernadette tells me to unzip her dress, and I pray this will be a quick night.
But then she pushes the needle into my neck and any chance of that goes out the fucking window.
8
KADE
FLASHBACK 1
THREE YEARS AGO
Three tents are pitched. One for me and my friends. One for Luciella and hers. And far away from the group of eighteen-year-olds – bar Base and Dez being twenty – are Mum and Ewan.
She is here.
Not that I’d ever have the balls to talk to her nicely.
Ever since we were fifteen, I’ve gone out of my way to piss her off.
Points for maturity.
Me and Base sit on the log in front of the fire, him passing me the joint when Mum and Luciella aren’t looking, while the girls attempt to make their own fire.
I train my eyes on a certain dark-haired specimen while my friend talks about his weekend in Moscow. Stacey laughs at something Tylar said.
She’s not even funny.
“Fuck being in a relationship,” Base says as he looks at people kissing. “It’s hard to find loyalty.”
I snort, looking away when her eyes find mine. “You have the biggest choice out of us all since you fuck both men and women.”
He passes me the joint, blowing out smoke. “There’s a difference. I’m sexually attracted to both, but emotionally and romantically, I could only ever date a woman. Does that make sense?”
“It does.” Base took ages to come out and say he was bisexual, worried we’d view him differently, but we all got drunk and celebrated instead.
“It doesn’t mean I have a bigger choice. Like, no offence, mate, but I wouldn’t go near you. You’re too tall and I reckon you’d be dominant. I’d fuck Dez though, but don’t tell him I said that.”
I chuckle. “I won’t.”
For the next five minutes, Base texts on his phone while I people-watch. The guys have coolers filled with beer outside the twelve-man tent, and some of them are chatting with the girls.