Five
Kai
“Would you say I’m a dictating tyrant?” I asked my friend and second-in-command, Nico.
He smirked, raising his eyes from his phone, before shrugging, “Not to your face.”
Nico could be such a dick. Rolling my eyes, I moved on.
“Did you ever see my father act—inappropriately around Ava?”
At last, I had said it, purposefully forced that unpalatable wheel into motion. After Ava’s comments at dinner, I now couldn’t let that shit lie. And that was the crux of the matter, right there. What if it wasn’t shit?
It was quiet in my study apart from the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. I was a collector and owned various models, both traditional and modern. The noises they made were calming to me. And I needed calm at that moment.
The collar of my shirt suddenly felt too tight even though I’d lost the tie and had undone several buttons. The material had started chafing my neck during dinner. In my youth, I hated formal dress and now tailored suits were my signature look. I partly blamed Ava for strutting into the dining room in her jeans and tiny top. She’d made me feel like a stuffy old motherfucker.
I’d removed my jacket and started to fiddle with my cuffs as I waited for Nico to look up from the document he was reading.
Today shithead!
My office was at the back of the house, overlooking the gardens. The windows were bulletproof and I considered the space my sanctuary.
When I arrived, Nico was already perched in front of my desk. The faint scent of cigarettes revealed that my second had been smoking in my office, something I found aggravating. I hated the smell of nicotine after spending so many months surrounded by it during my time in the States.
After receiving Nico’s text to report that they’d located Quinn, I left the dining room immediately. Ava and I still had things to discuss but she looked tired and I knew it would be better to leave it until another day. Give her space and time to settle, before I explained what was expected of her.
“Nico, did you hear what I said?” I grunted, snapping closed my laptop and blasting him with my disdain. I didn’t like to be kept waiting.
Rolling my sleeves up, I glared at him across the desk.
My second seemed to take forever to answer as that wave of annoyance continued to roll across my bones. I was used to people jumping to it when I spoke.
Nico lowered the file he clutched and peered at me over the top; his expression quizzical. He took a beat longer to digest my question before saying, “What do you mean?”
Shoving my elbows on the desk, I glared across at him, “Did I fucking stutter?”
Nico sighed and placed the folder down before leaning back in his seat, “Define inappropriate,” he replied with a wave of one hand.
I slammed the palm of my hand on the surface of my desk, “What the fuck Nic, you know what inappropriate means!”
The grooves on his forehead at my outburst deepened. I rarely lost my shit with him.
Nico shrugged lazily, “Not that I remember. Why?”
And that was the million-dollar question, right there. Not why in the context Nico meant but why did I care?
Because you're now doubting yourself that Ava was lying about your father being a gross predator who preys on little girls.
Little girls? There was nothing little about Ava now; she was exactly what I had called her, a beautiful woman. When I’d first seen the images of her last year when Cillian had found her in Milan, I’d thought I was hallucinating. It had been a week before her nineteenth birthday. She’d looked so grown up, nothing like the child or reckless teenager I had known. I had intended to surprise her on her birthday but she’d disappeared again. She was still in Milan but on the opposite side of the city. It had taken several more months to track her to her new apartment (where Hamish had lost her again) before finally finding her living in Quinn’s apartment.
As she had appeared at dinner, I realised she looked even more grown up, fucking stunning. And of course, she would do, she would be twenty soon.
I’d be lying if I said my body hadn’t taken note of that. Masculine enthusiasm wasn’t foreign to me; I enjoyed women, usually regularly but I had never seen Ava like that, until now. Something had shifted and I knew she’d noticed that too. I wondered if it was automatic, due to my plan for her. That plan was to take Ava Cawthorne as my wife.
I thought back to those early days.
As Ava had said at dinner, before they got together my father had known Ava’s mother Susannah for several years. She had been the new wife of an associate of his, Alasdair Wilkinson, a man who was loosely part of our organisation.
I remember the day Suki married Alasdair as I had been pressured into attending their high society wedding. I hadn’t belonged there; it had been a tiresome and nauseating event—until her.
Boo. That little girl who had hidden herself from a group of bullies, her tights ripped and her knees skimmed. I remembered how they’d called her trash. Little monsters in the making, hoping to one day follow in their parent's footsteps.
I hated people who preyed on the weak.
The only men I had taken out during my career in the mafia had it coming. They were criminals, bad men. I had never killed an innocent man in cold blood and never would. It was against my code. I’d tortured a few but when the truth was out I more than made up for any wrongdoings. Collateral damage went with the territory, unfortunately.
Leaning back in my chair, I pulled the folder towards me and lifted it, allowing the contents to spill onto the desk.
The file was on Quinn and all his known associates. From the looks of things he was loosely connected to one of the London Gangs but he’d been inactive for years.
Nico’s chair creaked and I slowly shook my head as he went to light up again. His calmness was a blatant contrast to the silent storm brewing inside of me.
“Google this address, will you?” I requested, shoving a bit of paper towards him with my finger.
My second rolled his eyes, shoved his pack of smokes back into his pocket and withdrew his phone.
“Who’s is it?”
“It’s the place Quinn used to live when he was younger but there are little to no details about his parents in there.” We’d been batting the file backwards and forwards for the last hour.
Shifting my gaze back towards the documents and photographs, I looked closely at the picture of Quinn as a child. He was dressed in a suit with an expression that suggested he hated being trussed up.
I used to be the same and memories of the day I first met Ava, came flashing back. I too had been trussed up that day, suited and booted to fuck.
At the wedding, I hadn’t realised Boo, aka little Ava was the bride’s daughter. Suki had been a woman who was far too touchy-feely with my father, considering she’d promised herself to another man only hours before. I should have expected what happened to pan out when they eventually got together years later.
It had only taken a few months after that wedding before a full-blown affair started between Gerard and Suki behind Wilkinson’s back. And all that time she had been the mother of Boo, aka Ava.
Ava Cawthorne.
During his affair with Suki, things had become a shit show with my father’s organisation. Due to being wrapped up in the shenanigans of hiding their relationship, my father took his finger off the pulse and some of our business went bad. Coincidently, Alasdair Wilkinson went missing allowing my Da to go public about his feelings for Suki. Gerard eventually moved Susannah and her daughter into the family estate whilst vehemently denying he had anything to do with her husband's disappearance.
It was only when I came back to London to help my father clear up his fuck ups that I met Ava again at thirteen. I was twenty-one and in the process of setting up my own business; Titan Events and Promotions.
I knew she was the little girl I had met at that wedding but I never reminded her of that day and she didn’t appear to recognise me.
At thirteen, Ava had been an awkward, skinny, shy girl who followed me around like a fucking puppy. I’d humoured her at first, feeling sorry for her but by doing so I’d given her mixed messages. I wasn’t the hero; I was a villain through and through. I was also in the process of trying to launch my own legitimate business. Distractions of any kind had not been welcome. I had never been one to play well with others but with Ava, we’d just clicked.
Our relationship over those short few years became more complicated; she had been there all the time; in my face and as clingy as fuck. Eventually, when Alasdair was legally declared dead (even without a body), my father made it official and proposed to Suki and I had to put some distance between us all.
The day they married I took myself out of the picture again. My promotions business was then up and running, a legitimate one, I could put through the books. My father encouraged my independence but made me promise that I would be there when I needed him and of course, I agreed to that.
But I had no time for a stepsister who seemed to put me on a pedestal as if I was her Messiah, so I pushed her away. I could no longer be the accommodating, shoulder to cry on.
In a nutshell, I was a nasty bastard.
Ava then went off the rails. She ran away from school, saying how everyone there treated her like she was part of a criminal family and of course she was. When she was home, she’d throw parties with kids from outside our organisation; something that was forbidden. You didn’t invite normal people into your home as too many questions were asked. She also got arrested for shoplifting and again, I was the one to pick up the pieces.
On the night of her sixteenth birthday party, Ava came to my room to try and seduce me. She was waiting for me in my bed and after a more than firm resounding no, she’d shoved her clothes on and started making accusations that my father had touched her. She was shit-faced and I had taken it as another attempt to get my attention. Telling lies was not a new thing for Ava. I remembered how angry she’d made me but I hadn’t put my hands on her; I would never hurt a woman no matter how much she pushed. That didn’t mean that her bad behaviour went unpunished.
If someone was in the wrong, I tore them a new one with my temper.
And I had. I could still remember how I felt after Ava ran from my bedroom in floods of tears; broken almost.
Ava Cawthorne was the only person alive who had ever made me feel guilty for raising my voice.
Our relationship had then become even more toxic and I was sure that she was making stuff up to separate our parents in a poor attempt to claw back attention from her mother.
If I had a heart, I would say how tragic it was considering how our relationship started. As she said at dinner, we were friends once. I remembered Ava looking at me like I hung the moon and yet earlier that day, she’d attempted to shoot me again .
Even now, I didn’t know if Ava knew I was the boy at her mother’s wedding to Wilkinson; the one who comforted her and saved her from the bullies. It never came up and to be honest, it was better that way. I didn’t see much of myself in that boy anymore and since Ava put my father in prison, forcing me to rule the roost, even less so.
My father’s incarceration had also given me a sentence. I had been pushed into a corner and had to take over everything ; otherwise, other men less worthy of the crown would have swooped in.
That day at the vault when I realised that it was Ava who had compiled incriminating evidence to send Gerard down, I was shocked. Her motive must have been serious stuff.
The way she alluded to Gerard having done something to her had resurfaced. I had taken that as Ava being backed into a corner; she’d been found out, had gone against our family, and would have said anything to get herself out of the shit. But I wasn’t so sure now.
The fact that she was still sticking to her story two years later worried me. Especially when she thought my father was dead. What would be the point in continuing the lie? Unless it wasn’t a lie?
Fuck!
Gerard Kinlan could be a cruel bastard and I had once believed that he would never involve himself in the exploitation of women and children. That’s why we never did business with people who ventured into those dark waters. The man raised me that fucking way and so how would he ever allow himself to do something so wrong to the child of his wife. A woman he was so deeply in love with.
Gerard Kinlan’s prime focus had always been on business; even when my mother was alive. But with Suki, he had almost let it turn to shit; the man had been obsessed with her. And considering he’d always been focused on money and power in the past, it just didn’t make sense to me. Gerard put Suki on a pedestal higher than the organisation.
Gerard Kinlan was born in Dublin and had expanded his father’s local gang after his Da was murdered by rivals in the street right in front of him. Within a decade he had built up an internationally recognised successful criminal organisation. The Criminal Asset Bureau called it The Kinlan Cartel.
During those early days, the organisation’s sole focus had been on trafficking drugs and during his early twenties, Gerard had moved to Italy to be close to the Wholesale European Cocaine Market. To ensure he remained a powerhouse in Ireland, he had left behind an underboss and a team of soldiers.
From Italy, The Kinlan Cartel became the main supplier of quality-cut cocaine to Ireland and parts of the UK.
Eventually, Operation Bloom, a task force run by the Italian Criminal Police closed in on my father and he was arrested, sentenced, and incarcerated in the San Vittore Prison in Italy.
During his three-year incarceration, my father learned to speak Spanish and Italian, an achievement which would help with his plans to sell product to those two countries in the future. Upon his release, Gerard was forced out of Italy but defected to the UK to avoid the possibility of being extradited to face further charges in Italy.
This was where my father set up what would be known as the London syndicate of the Irish mafia in the West End of London. The Kinlan Cartel operated independently of the other gangs in London who had been there before Gerry appeared on the scene.
Although messy initially, territorial meetings were held and an understanding was reached. Any breach of those terms by any party would result in a gang war. No organisation liked to go to war, they were messy and unnecessary.
Gerard’s criminal landscape soon strengthened, expanding his organisation into Spain and Italy. Then he met the woman who would become my mother in London, a West End actress. They fell in love, married, and then she eventually gave birth to a child, me.
My mother died in a tour bus accident on the outskirts of London when I was nine. The matter had been thoroughly investigated, grumbles from a mafia family in Italy about my father’s business dealings on their turf; a suggested cause of the crash.
I still didn’t know if my mother’s death was murder or an accident. The Italians at the time did not accept responsibility. Women were well respected in the Costa Nostra, (Italian mafia) and family came before business. Her death was eventually registered as an accident and never avenged.
As I said before, family was everything to the Italian mafia and the fact that I didn’t have one was making me a professional pariah.
I started to sift through the papers and photographs from the file as Nico took a call on his phone.
Closing the file on Quinn I plucked another off the pile. It contained details of Dante Messina’s organisation; the man I needed to keep sweet.
Around a decade ago, my father entered a business relationship with Messina’s Cartel. They resided in Bari, Italy, a dockside location perfect for moving product, and were ambitious. Although young for a don, Messina had a team of soldiers to support him (Made Men) a wife and a child at the time.
The union allowed the Kinlan’s and Messina’s people to infiltrate parts of the USA outside of Vegas as partners. Las Vegas was a patch that was already heavily dominated by the Mexican Cartel. A bunch of bloodthirsty animals that made my father’s and Messina’s outfits look like churchgoers.
When I had left Blackwood Academy and my father sent me to train with our allies from Italy in the States, he had been clear that we did not do business with the Mexicans.
“Messina has received news about your engagement. I made sure the message wasn’t made directly. An off-the-cuff comment so he believes it to be a genuine match and not an attempt by you to impress him.”
“Good.”
I would conform to what the Italians wanted of me to stay in their good graces and force them to take me seriously. And Ava was key to that as she would act as my bride; giving me a year of her life. I had worked out that it would take around a year to get what I wanted from the Italians before I went my own way. Then I would let Ava go. She could then have the life that she had always strived for. One which was nowhere near organised crime. Christ, it was a life I too wanted for myself one day. To go legit, fully. But all in good time.
Nico had kicked off when I’d told him about my intentions towards Ava. He’d pointed out that I could have any woman I wanted to play that role and he was right. But with other women came feelings and then attachments. And that was something I could do without.
Ava now hated me that much was clear which meant our arrangement could be purely business without any unnecessary emotions clogging shit up.
I pushed back into my chair. Ava had just arrived and I needed time to prepare her. If I rushed, it would only blow up in my face. She needed to be ready.
“Contact Dante’s second. Set up a meeting to discuss our last shipment from the USA. I may drop in a joyful comment about my engagement. To strengthen the whisperings about my intention to take a wife.”
Nico nodded his understanding and moved away to make the call.
Messina was only five years my senior and he had already lost a wife and child. He had been a family man when he’d been promoted through the ranks and his position had led to the deaths of those closest to him. It was a risk you took, that’s why I had decided that I would never fall in love. Love made you weak in my world but as I said, in the eyes of the Italian, family was everything .
Did I blame Messina for putting me in a position of shackling myself to a woman (if only for a year), no, not really. My father’s associates who had become mine when he’d been incarcerated didn’t know me, not really. Those few men I had worked with during my time in the States were no longer part of their organisation so there was no one to vouch for my loyalty or expertise.
They had little to no faith in me. I was young and unattached, not serious about business. I had no family apart from my soldiers. A ‘vapid existence’ I had been told. Under normal circumstances, I would have forced the man who said those words to do so to my face with my Glock at their temple, but my hands were tied. Fools rush in!
Irrespective that I had built up my own business when I’d first returned from America, I still didn’t cut the mustard for them. So, I would become the Mr to Ava’s Mrs.
But that’s not all I was. I was myself a Made Man without my father’s connections.
I was the owner of Titan Events and Promotions and ran one of the largest casinos in Greater London. I had irons in many fires which mainly included setting up gambling syndicates and off-the-record investments in boxing and horse racing (fixing matches and shit like that) and I trafficked product. The legit stuff I had created, the criminal side of things I inherited from my father.
After Gerard went down, I closed several of his businesses, took the fines on the chin for those that I could not protect and combined his cocaine with my supply of sporting enhancement drugs.
All of which turned a healthy profit which I cleaned through my legitimate business. I could launder money faster than any of the other gangs in London. In my view, I had more than fucking proved myself! I was also gradually cleaning shit up, reducing the illegal stuff to one day become fully legal.
Yet, the Italians still doubted me. And why? Because I was a bachelor and under thirty with no wife and kids?
More issues had arisen when I’d allowed my accountant Michael Langston to fuck me up the arse. He’d been cooking the books under my very nose; something which had gone unnoticed. The fact that the money he had taken belonged to my Italian associates, was another reason their trust in my abilities had dwindled.
Needless to say; I’d put a bullet in Langston’s head with Messina on Livestream to prove I took care of men who fucked us over.
And now I knew I needed to create an image; one they would accept, that I was a family man; settled and not a flight risk.
Ava Cawthorne would become Ava Kinlan within a few short months.
You do realise that during her current state of mind, she wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth?
But I had an offer to put on the table. I knew how much Ava wanted out. To be free of the mafia and I would allow that but first, she had a debt to pay. And if my offer wasn’t enough, well; that’s where her little friend, Anton Quinn came in.
If he was involved in my father’s downfall which I suspected he was, I would have to kill him, if not only to send a message to those who would do us damage.
But if Ava didn’t accept my proposal and terms, I could always use his life as a bargaining chip. Underhand I know but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
“Fuck me.” I jammed a hand through my hair, I needed coffee—black, strong, and fast.
Shelving my craving, I opened my top drawer, seeing the gun I had taken off Ava in Milan at the top. Moving it to one side, I slid a picture of Ava out from underneath. It had been taken of her in her school uniform and it reminded me of that night she shot me. In all truth, when I’d found out my seventeen-year-old stepsister was responsible for taking down one of Ireland’s toughest gangsters I had been proud. That tremor of awareness I had started to feel when I looked at her then had doubled. Ava had been a woman at sixteen; a fucking headache most days, but she was beautiful, brave, and confident. It had been hard to restrain myself the night I found her in my bed, but walking away had been the right thing to do. The age gap between us then had been so wide.
And now, over the last two years it had closed and I didn’t know how to deal with that.
Fuck. Would Ava accept my offer or would I have to threaten Quinn? What if he was innocent and my hunch was wrong?
Dinner hadn’t gone to plan. Ava had given me little to work with.
I needed to decide my next move carefully. Quinn had been found, and my contacts in Milan were due to hand-deliver him to me. If I went in all guns blazing, I’d come away with nothing I was sure. I’d also end up alienating Ava even more. She had feelings for her friend. A thought I didn’t welcome, irrespective of my PI reporting that the guy spent most of his time in gay clubs.
Hopefully, Ava would come around without me having to threaten someone she cared so much about. I also had her mother, another bargaining chip if she failed to see things my way. Although any threats there would be a bluff, I would never harm a hair on that woman’s head.
I thought back to how Ava had affected me at dinner and her awareness of me as a man. She’d tried to hide it but I knew she was still attracted to me.
The unexpected chemistry between us could only work in my favour. It would make what I had planned much more straightforward.
The gremlin that sat on my shoulder chanted; you could make her fall in love with you. But I pushed that thought away, by doing that I may unearth my own heart, something I just couldn’t allow.
If I pitched it right, maybe she’d help me without putting her under duress. As payback for the last two years?
I smiled at that thought, my ex-stepsister was as stubborn as they came.
I usually enjoyed fighting with Ava but having her back in my life, so close and sleeping under my roof, I realised that I wanted the opposite of that.
Maybe we could bury the hatchet and she’d agree to my terms without me having to exert pressure.
And knowing Ava, hell would freeze over first.