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ONE
ESTHER
‘I don’t care what you say, there isn’t a chance in hell that I’m marrying him!’ My voice shook with anger as I squared up to my father for the first time in my life. I’d be lying if my knees hadn’t quaked beneath my false bravado.
‘Calm down,’ my father, Malcolm, said, my anger nothing but an annoying mosquito for him to brush off. ‘You don’t have a choice.’
My brothers loitered around the edge of the room, all finding ways to avoid my eyes. ‘None of you are going to stand up for me? Logan? Ewen? Not even you Mac?’
Fear rattled my chest as they continued to ignore my pleas for help. Shit, my dad must have briefed them long before he broke the news to me.
‘He killed Mum. His guys killed Malcolm jr. How can you expect me to become his wife? It’s fucking sick.’ Mac flinched, yet still none of them came to my aid. ‘It’s sick!’
‘I will not lose any more children to his bullets. You’ve always known you’d marry for the good of the family.’ Dad ran a hand over his stubbled chin and looked as rotten as I felt. He didn’t want this either.
‘I thought you meant some rich mafia kid my age. Harold is older than you. You’d lose me to save them?’ It hurt. Pain gripped my stomach and set my intestines roiling like a pit of snakes.
‘I’m trying to save you all. Would you prefer it to be Maeve?’
Tears pricked my eyes as I stared my father down. What a fucking question. Me or my younger sister? I didn’t want either of us to end up beneath that sick bastard. ‘No.’
‘I haven’t got a choice. We need his ties. We’ve fought long enough and someone has to bury the hatchet to stop the killing.’ My father sighed as he leaned back heavily on his ornate mahogany desk.
‘Why does it have to be me? What about what I want?’ I’d never truly fit in my mafia princess mould. Sure, I enjoyed the trappings of our wealth, the indoor pool, the holidays, being able to have whatever I wanted, but the pressure of the lifestyle had never suited me. I didn’t know if others felt the same or mostly just ignored it, but I hated it. If it hadn’t been for my family, I would have started fresh somewhere a million miles from gloomy old Glasgow and our crime-ridden lifestyle. We lived in a gilded cage atop a steaming pile of dung as far as I was concerned. What about love? Freedom? Happiness? I was to have none of it and I’d swap every penny, every designer dress and even our family mansion to be happy. No-one cared.
‘You are my eldest daughter, and it’s you he wants.’ Dad’s voice snagged in his throat, decades old hatred still there despite the so-called agreement.
‘And what if I say no?’
‘You don’t have that choice.’
‘You can’t force me to sign a marriage certificate or to say vows.’
‘I’m sure that won’t be a problem for Harold. He knows enough people in the system to have anything he wants approved. It’s not all bad Esther. With the wedding will come a new era of peace between us and the Thompsons. And you will be the wife of the most powerful man in Scotland. Think of the opportunities it will open up to you. You’ll want for nothing.’
‘If I survive that long. You know what happened to his wife, not to mention the string of women he’s abused over the years. You can’t paint this like some fairy-tale to smooth over your guilt. He will hurt me, he will rape me, he might kill me. And what then? Will Maeve be next?’
Dad shuddered at my words while my brothers shifted uncomfortably. No-one denied it as we all knew it was the truth. He’d beaten his wife so badly and torn her apart mentally for years. She’d run and left her two children with him. They were grown now, similar ages to us, but had spent the last decade or so without her. She had loved them with her entire soul, yet even that wasn’t enough to stop her fleeing Harold’s wrath.
And I’d be next.
Dad steeled himself, pulling up to his full height and glaring at me. Getting angry was usually his response to not having a good answer. ‘The deal is done, Esther. You will marry him, and that’s the end of it.’
Just like that. He left the room in a storm of rage as I crumpled on one of the dark green chesterfield sofas. The tears flowed fully as hope scattered around me. My whole life was fucked. Torn apart before I’d ever even done anything. Twenty-eight years old and I’d loved no one, never had a job, never gone out on my own without someone trailing behind me for protection. A little bird going from one cage to another much more terrible cage.
Logan slipped down beside me and pulled me gruffly into his arms as Mac and Ewen joined us. They thrust tissues into one fist as a cup of water filled the other.
‘Why didn’t you help me?’ I accused, my vision blurry beneath the sea of tears.
‘We tried Esther. We’ve been trying for days. He’s not moving on it.’ Logan wiped away one of my tears as he pulled back to meet my eyes.
Mac’s whole body thrummed with anger, ever the hot-headed sibling. ‘I should find him and put a bullet in his head.’
‘You should,’ I said.
‘No. You can’t.’ Logan had become far more serious since our eldest brother had gone down in a blaze of bullets, and he’d had to step up as the one who’d take over the McGowan syndicate. The responsibility weighed heavy on him, having to shoulder a role that was never meant for him. ‘It would only result in your death or an even greater war between us. Things are too unstable. I don’t like it, but we need to try to make peace before the entire of Scotland’s crime organisations implode. This is only the very tip of the card tower. Beneath it lays a finely balanced series of deals and agreements that limit the bloodshed. If we go in swinging, everything will fall.’
‘Why me?’
