Past and Future, page 1
Past and Future
Copyright © Karen Frances 2019
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, without the prior consent of the author. All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Cover Design by
Kari March, Kari March Designs
Editing by
Karen Sanders
Proofread by
The Word Fairy
Interior Design and Formatting by
Clydeside Publishing
Margaret and Pauline
This one is all yours.
Please no fighting ladies
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Books by
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Giovanni
I rush inside, my eyes darting around the stables until I see her. Maria, my beautiful sister is bound and gagged, unable to move, and her jeans have been lowered.
Fuck.
Please. He can’t have hurt her in the same way our mother was. I run toward her and pull off the tape that covers her mouth. The scream that falls from her lips breaks my heart.
“Get me loose.”
I nod and untie her hands and pull her jeans back up her body. She tries to push me away, but I hang on to her for a moment, grateful that she’s still alive.
All sorts of things were going through my head as we raced back from the city to the estate after Lou’s frantic call telling us that my sister had offered herself to that mad man to keep little Rebecca safe. He had a gun to a six-year-old’s head, threatening to do the unimaginable.
“Giovanni, let me go to him, please,” she begs me. I do after remembering the gun shots. Jack! Mark! Where is Pete?
I stand, momentarily in shock. She rushes toward Jack, dragging her leg behind her. Fuck, she’s injured. That bastard Pete has hurt her. How did I not see that? I was too focused on her being alive.
“No!” she squeals, kneeling beside Jack on the ground. “Jack, please. You have to be okay. I need you.” My eyes take in the scene and all I want to do is grab Maria’s hand and take her outside. Away from all the badness. If I close my eyes, I could try to pretend this was all just a dream. A sad and twisted nightmare. But it’s not. This is real. This is the dark, dangerous, and ugly world my sister has lived in for the past fourteen years.
Pete’s bloody body is lying only feet away from me. He’s finally out of my sister’s life once and for all and that’s down to Jack McKenzie. I see the gun lying only inches away from him. He killed Pete to keep her safe, putting his job on the line, and his own life.
“Giovanni, help him, please,” she screams and the sound echoes around me.
Jack’s hair is matted with blood which now covers Maria’s hand as she cradles the man she loves.
I step toward her, seeing the bruising on her body underneath her torn top. Bile rises in my throat and I’m trying real hard not to imagine what that sick bastard Pete Jamieson put my sister through before Jack and Mark got here.
Mark. Where is he?
I look again, and then I see his lifeless body by one of the stalls, blood on the ground.
No.
Not Mark.
“Giovanni!”
Coughing drags my attention from Mark’s body. Jack’s eyes open and even I can see the relief on his face as he sees Maria’s face. “Stay where you are,” I say leaning down, urging Jack to stay where he is until help gets here.
“Mark. Is he…?” Jack’s eyes drift across the stables and I hear my sister’s choked sob.
“No! Please, no,” she cries. “Help him.”
I leave them to walk the short distance to him and kneel down. I check for a pulse but his body is still.
I briefly close my eyes and say a prayer.
Maria screams.
I stand with Maria’s cries ringing loudly in my ears, knowing this is nothing compared to how Lou is going to sound when I tell her that her husband is dead.
“Giovanni, go.” Jack forces the words from his throat and I’m sure he already knows where my thoughts are.
I leave the stables with only one intention in my head. I need to see Lou.
The blue flashing lights and sirens blare. An unmarked car and three police cars.
The car comes to an abrupt stop before me, the door swinging open, and Craig rushes out. His gaze lands on me and he knows without asking that he’s too late to help someone. “Giovanni, where’s Maria?”
“She’s cradling Jack.” His eyes widen at my response and I’m forgetting that he hasn’t seen the scene inside the stables yet. “Sorry. He’ll be okay.”
“Is Pete dead?”
“Pete is dead, but so is Mark.”
He stares at me blankly and I don’t know what else I can say. In this moment, there’s only one person I need to speak to and I hate that I’m the one who is going to shatter her already broken heart.
“Where are you going? I’ll need a statement,” Craig says as I slowly walk away from him.
“You can have your statement, but I need to go and break the news to Lou.”
“Wait. I can do that as soon as I have the details...”
I stop and stare before shaking my head and walking toward the house. This news can’t come from a stranger. It has to be me.
Stopping before the office door, I take a deep breath and try to mentally prepare myself for the unpredictable.
“Teresa, it’s me. Can you unlock the door?” I hear the scurry of feet and my heart sinks because that will be the children. The door opens and Teresa starts talking, questioning me in Italian. I don’t answer her. Already, my gaze is on Lou who is behind her, holding her girls.
“Teresa, please take the children upstairs away from all the police. Keep them occupied,” I say and step into the room. Lou’s body shakes as she looks at me, but she still manages to kiss her babies, urging them to go with Teresa and reassuring them everything will be okay.
I wish it was that easy.
From this moment on, her life changes, and I’m going to be the bad guy for bringing her this news.
Teresa takes Rebecca’s hand and carries Daisy in her arms. Her smile as she passes me is one filled with sadness. I close the door and slowly step toward Lou.
“Gio, please tell me she’s okay?” she says with tears filling her eyes.
I nod slowly and she rushes toward me, throwing her arms around my shoulders, her body melting against mine. “Thank you for getting to her in time.”
I close my eyes and inhale, because as much as I feel her relief, I know that’s about to be short-lived. I open my eyes and hold her. “Lou, I have something to tell you. It’s Mark.”
Her body stiffens in my arms and she takes a step back. “Lou, I’m so sorry. He’s dead. Pete shot him.”
She stares at me.
I try to pull her back into my arms, but she pushes against me. “You’re lying. We have the girls to look after together!” she shouts at me punching her fists against my chest, and I let her because, in this moment, I have no words that can offer her any sort of comfort.
“I’m so sorry, Lou.”
“No! I hate you.” She sinks to the ground and I do the same, holding her in my arms as she breaks down. I’m sure her screams can be heard throughout the house. “Why Mark? He’s a good man and father. He can’t leave us. The girls need him. We have so much we want to do together.”
I wish I could give her answers, or at least take away all her pain. I should’ve been the one to enter the stables first.
It should’ve been me.
I should be the one who’s dead.
No one would really miss me if I were gone.
Chapter One
Lou
“I’m so sorry for your loss. Mark was a good man,” says the man standing before me, his eyes full of pity as he offers me a hug. I recognise him as one of Tony’s men, but his name has slipped my mind. Much like everything else today, yesterday, and every day since Mark’s death. I have absolutely zero concentration at the moment.
I’m on auto-pilot.
I’ve been unable to think for the past two weeks, since the moment Giovanni told me Mark was gone and I lashed out. I’ve hardly been able to look at him since that moment and that’s not fair. Do I blame him, hold him responsible in some way? Of course not, but at the same time, yes. I’m so confused about everythi
Nothing in my life makes any sense and that terrifies me.
Everyone has been very kind and sympathetic, offering me words of comfort as they greet me. But I don’t want their sympathy or their words; neither will bring Mark back to us. Back to where he belongs, with his family. With his babies.
It’s been strange seeing so many faces here today. All these people have come to pay their respects. Most are men who worked for Tony, dealing drugs, using and abusing their positions within society. Gangsters who shouldn’t be here. Some of them remind me of Mark; good men who got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Others remind me of the violent and corrupt world that I’ve, that we’ve all, played a part in in recent years.
Today is a painful reminder that no one gets to leave the criminal world of their own choice. A life—an innocent life—has to be taken, and my children’s life as they know it has been turned upside down.
There are so many things I’d change if I could go back in time. So many mistakes I’ve made that I’d correct.
I feel Maria’s gaze on me as I stand motionless, staring into the hole in the ground that my husband has just been lowered into. She wants to help me, help us, but how can she? I’m not her responsibility.
It wasn’t that long ago she was standing here in my position, although I’m sure her feelings must have been so different to how I feel. She was relieved that my brother couldn’t inflict any more pain and suffering on not only her, but others.
Maria is standing at my side, holding my daughters’ hands. They both look so lost as their gaze falls to the hole in the ground; their dad’s final resting place. They don’t understand the enormity of what’s going on. All they know is that daddy won’t be coming home, and that fills my soul with deep regrets. Their cries have been painful to hear and there is a part of me that thinks maybe I shouldn’t have brought them with me. I know a funeral isn’t a place for children, but this is their dad and he isn’t coming home. I had to bring them. They had to see, and hopefully, in time, it would help them to understand.
I’m clutching a single red rose tight against my chest. When I throw this rose down upon the coffin, I know it will be time to walk away and I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to take those steps on my own. We had our whole life to look forward to. A fresh future was waiting for us. For all four of us together. We might even have added to our family. Mark would’ve loved a son.
Now? Now I don’t see anything but darkness.
People leave the graveside and I know most of those who gathered here will be welcomed back to Giovanni’s restaurant for the wake, but I can’t bring myself to move away. I stay focused on the ground before me.
“How could you leave us?” I whisper, gripping the rose tighter until I feel the thorns dig into my skin. I welcome the pain. It’s no less than I deserve. “The girls need you. I need you.” A tear falls and I look around, watching everyone leave and make their way back to their cars.
“I’ll give you a minute,” Maria says, taking my daughters with her as she walks toward Jack. They want to stay with me, but I need a minute to myself.
“This is really it. You’ve really gone. I wish I could change so many things. So much has been left unsaid between us, and for that, I’ll always be sorry.” My voice cracks and my knees give out. I collapse to the ground, my tears falling.
Everything hits me all at once. I’ll never see his face again. Never see the warmth of his love for our daughters. He’ll never see them grow up and watch them make their own paths in the world. My body rocks back and forth and my tears fall uncontrollably for my husband lying in the coffin in the ground.
Life is cruel.
Life is unfair.
The pain in my heart is undeniable.
“Lou.” His voice sounds fragile as he picks me up from the ground. Giovanni takes my hand in his. “Are you ready? The girls are waiting for you.”
“I’m not sure,” I say, avoiding looking at him. All he wants to do is help, but I don’t feel right accepting it.
He wraps his arm around my shoulder. “Lou, you’re going to be okay. The girls will give you all the strength you need to get through this.”
I finally look at him and wish more than anything I could believe what he’s saying. “I’m not sure I want to go to the restaurant.”
“Lou, I understand that, but there are many people who will wish to pay their respects to you. So, I urge you to go, even if only for an hour. After that, if you still want to leave, I can take you back to the estate.”
I nod my head slightly because I know he’s right, but seeing people isn’t high on my agenda. I just want to be left alone with my own thoughts.
“Goodbye, Mark,” I say, finally releasing the rose. I wait for a few seconds until I hear it hit the coffin below before I walk away with Giovanni holding me upright. I glance down at my hand and see small trickles of blood from where the thorns were digging into my skin.
“We’ll get your hand cleaned up,” says Giovanni.
I nod as we walk toward all the family I have left; my girls and Maria. Rebecca and Daisy have both stopped crying and are watching me. I need to gather what strength I have left in me to get through the rest of the day, for them. If they don’t see my strength, that will make them sadder than they are already. I don’t want to burden them with my fears.
Fears for them.
Fears for myself.
Fears for the future.
I need to push these aside if only for the sake of my beautiful children.
Rebecca studies me. She’s a smart wee girl who sees and knows too much for her young age. I smile and shrug out of Giovanni’s hold and take her hand.
“Mummy, are you okay?” she asks, her voice soft and full of concern.
“I’m fine, but like you, I’m sad because Daddy has gone.”
“Auntie Maria says Daddy will always be watching over us, protecting us.”
Of course Maria would tell my children something to make them smile. Something to help ease their pain.
I crouch down and wrap my arms around her. “Daddy will always be looking over you and Daisy.” I lift my head and my eyes meet Maria’s glazed, tear-filled eyes. Jack takes her free hand, kissing it, and smiles at her warmly. He’s been her strength these last two weeks and I know the two of them are destined to have a life together filled with love and happiness.
Even though there’s a cloud hanging over me today, I can still see the love the two of them share. It’s the type of love most can only dream of ever having.
Hopes and dreams. I used to have those.
“It’s time to go,” Giovanni says.
I climb into the back of the black car. Maria and the girls get in. She sorts out their seat-belts while I sit staring out the window, looking at nothing in particular. Rebecca takes my hand and squeezes it as tight as she can in hers. “Mummy, the three of us will be fine.”
I turn back to my daughter and smile. “We will because we have each other and Auntie Maria,” I say with a sad smile.
I turn back to the window and I can hear the three of them chatting, but their conversation is lost on me.
All I see is Mark’s bright face before me. It’s the day we met, when everything in our lives was simple. Before Tony stuck his claws into him and dragged him into our world, changing his life and mine.
Right now, in this moment, years of bitterness fill my soul, sucking the very life out of me and I don’t know what to do to stop it. If my brother wasn’t dead, I would kill him myself because I blame him, but I also blame me for not standing up for myself.
May God forgive me, but Tony Fraser was an evil, evil man, and Pete Jamieson there are no words that can describe the evilness of him. Two evil bastards taken from the world. I hope they both enjoy their time rotting in hell because I have no doubts that’s where they’ve ended up.
