Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 90006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Clyde, William, Tate and I all watch as Leith rolls out a newspaper.
“Didn’t know they still made those. Like seeing a fucking dinosaur,” Tate mutters under his breath. I snicker along with the rest of them, but Leith only rolls his eyes.
“I don’t need someone watching what I click on online,” Leith says. “Jesus knows they watch damn near every fucking thing we do. Makes sense that no one can trace the paper, though. And aye, they’re hard to come by, but turns out it helps having a sister whose best friend works at a bookstore, hmm?”
Tate gives him a look I can’t quite decipher. “Aye, brother. Fairly good point, that.”
“Cairstina sure likes it.” Cairstina, Leith’s wife, is an avid reader. The girls’ mate Fran’s got a job at the bookstore in Inverness centre now, and she keeps the girls well stocked with new reads.
Leith rolls out the paper, smoothes it down, and the smell of paper and ink fills the small room. It brings me back to my childhood, and I remember sitting right here in this chair, while my father read the paper. I’d bring him his afternoon tea, or a message from Mum. He rarely looked up. Rarely acknowledged me.
It’s not a pleasant memory.
“Here,” Leith says. He circles an article with a black marker, scowling at the paper. “Aitkens strikes again.” He shakes his head from side to side and looks at me. “It’s time, Mac. What were you saying about the Aitkens?”
I know exactly what he means, though I’m not sure anyone else in the room does.
Just over a year ago, our rivals, the Aitkens Clan, attacked our Clan. They didn’t have the fucking bollox to attack us outright. They’d lose that battle. Instead, they went after our sister. We were told by Jimmy Aitkens that our father had promised our youngest sister Paisley to them in an arranged marriage when she was just a wee bairn, but our father vehemently denies it. And when asked to prove the promise, Banner Aitkens, the Clan Captain, flailed.
The Aitkens were responsible for attacking my family. For hurting my sister.
They’ll pay for what they’ve done.
Ever since then, we’ve planned retribution. It isn’t the way of the Scottish to immediately seek revenge, though I wanted to go after them the very night we found out what they did. We waited. We want them to think that we’ve forgotten what happened. But we haven’t.
It hasn’t been easy for me to delay the vengeance I wanted. That all of us craved. But we’ve kept ourselves busy bringing money into the Cowen Clan coffers, securing deals and trades, and Clyde has upped his racketeering game to record levels.
“We’ve never been in a financially better spot,” Leith says to all, as he addresses the room. “It’s time for us to put into motion the plan Mac proposed last year.”
“And what might that be?” William, our bookkeeper and the older one in our Clan, asks.
Leith jerks his head at me. “Tell them.”
I sit up, eager to discuss what I want to do. “We decided last year the best way to get revenge on Aitkens is through his daughter, but Leith asked me to hold off, so I did. This time, we’ll play meet fire with fire.”
“How?” Tate asks, his keen eyes holding mine.
“Actually, it should be a lot easier than we thought.”
Leith smiles grimly at me, nodding to encourage me.
“Aitkens’ youngest daughter has been kept out of the spotlight, to a fault. She knows nothing about the work her father does, nothing about his rivals.”
“How do you know this?” Tate asks.
“I’ve been following her for the past fucking year.”
“Brilliant,” Leith mutters.
I snort and nod my head. “Aye. So this time, we get the upper hand. She won’t know me from Adam if I introduce myself to her. She works in a little private shop just outside of Inverness, and I can make my way in with her easily. I know what she likes. I know what she doesn’t.” I smile. “And I have a way with women.”
“Jesus,” Tate mutters with a snort. “Why has her father allowed her to own a store in the centre?”
“Not really sure he knows. She does have a security detail, and they follow her everywhere. Looks like she uses the store as a front.”
Tate nods slowly, clearly not impressed.
“So that’s yer plan?”
I smile, eager to tell them the details.
“I’ll seduce her. Make her think she loves me.”
Clyde snorts. “How the bloody hell will you do that? Drug her?”
Without hesitation, I shrug. “Aye. Naturally. If necessary.”
The room quiets.
“Mac’s planned this for long enough, I’m certain he knows every detail of what he’s planning,” Leith says with absolute confidence.
Slowly, the men around me nod as I explain.
“She’s a bonnie lass. But she’s been protected. Kept away from the world of the mob. She won’t know who I am.”