Chapter one
Greyson
The television drones on and on in the background as I eat my Christmas meal for one. The turkey tastes like rubber, accompanied by bullet-hard peas and sloppy potatoes. Merry effing Christmas to me. Not that I can expect much more from a microwave-ping meal.
As I lift a fork piled with the bland food to my mouth, my eyes scan the dilapidated room I sit in—my living room. Everything in here is gray—the sofas, the curtains, the carpet, and my mood. No wonder I’m depressed, this place has all the charm of a prison cell.
Not that I’m ever here; my work means most of my days are spent elsewhere. Even when I’m not protecting the Irish mafia don of London, my downtime is filled with private assignments. My apartment is somewhere I rarely come to, so why would I make it cozy?
My cell buzzes on the dusty glass coffee table my boots are resting on. Groaning, I place my plate on the cushion beside me and lean forward to retrieve it. Hunter Devane is calling. Hell, what does he want? I thought I would manage to get to New Year’s before he knew I was back on British soil.
“Boss, Merry Christmas,” I say as jovially as my mood will allow. “But I doubt you’re calling to exchange season’s greetings.”
“Merry Christmas and all that shit,” he mutters. “It’s another fucking day with another fucking problem that’s landed on my lap.”
“And I assume this problem has something to do with me?”
“It does now. Are you back in London?”
“Yes, I’m at home.”
“Thank fuck. You need to stop taking vacations. The place has been a shitshow without you.” His words are abrupt, and it’s obvious his mind is working at a bazillion miles an hour.
I let the comment of me being away pass; almost being dismembered limb from limb by a terrorist organization hardly constitutes a holiday, but I won’t be arguing with my boss today.
He did give me the time off to earn a pretty penny for the private contract, albeit grudgingly.
I’m a step nearer to that villa on the beach in Thailand I’ve always wanted.
The extra income ensures my dream is going to become reality.
Hunter always has a lot on his mind. The balls are constantly in the air as he juggles his many responsibilities.
Running the Irish mafia in a city like London means he has many masks to wear.
In the morning we finish the events of retribution from the night before, and by lunchtime, he’s suited and booted, shmoozing with the social elites.
He also has a concerning infatuation with his knife; I would go as far as to say that blade is the man’s best friend.
“Do you want to give me a clue? Or am I meant to guess what this phone call is about?” I say. “It is Christmas Day, after all. Do you not have family arrangements?”
“My family is the bloody reason I’m calling. Specifically, my niece, Tilly. The perpetual thorn in my side.”
“What has she done now?” My heart sinks when the troublesome twenty-something is mentioned again, not for the first time this year.
Tilly has a habit of defying every wish her ruthless family has.
If the mafia law says you do something this way, Tilly will go out of her way to do the complete opposite.
Back in June, I was called to break up an unauthorized party at a local reservoir.
The location was part of an estate on the city's outskirts owned by the Devane family.
Tilly had taken it upon herself to invite her college classmates along, provided them with gallons of alcohol and banging beats, then encouraged them to skinny dip.
By the time I arrived with my two colleagues, we had fifty naked young women to control, all of whom had a thing for men in power. It had been an interesting experience, but one I wouldn’t want to repeat. How I got out of there alive, I still don’t know.
By the time we herded up the drunks, who were staggering around the gardens or semi-drowning in the water, all of us were soaked to the bone and had lost at least one item of clothing.
At thirty-five years old, I am most definitely too old for hairbrained young women filled to the gunnels with vodka.
What would have been cute to twenty-two-year-old me is now simply irritating.
“She’s gone missing,” Hunter tells me, regaining my attention.
“As in kidnapped?” As the words leave my lips, I chuckle at the idea someone could grab Tilly Devane.
Looking at her, she seems inconspicuous, but her eyes tell me she’s as unhinged as her uncle.
I’ve also seen her throw a knife at a dartboard over her shoulder and hit the bullseye.
If I were a betting man, my money would be on her over a kidnapper every damn time.
“No, as in she’s a spoiled little princess who doesn’t like when Mummy and Daddy say no. So, instead of doing as she was told, she jumped in a pickup truck with friends and left London for Scotland.”
“And how does this concern me?” I ask, getting bored of him skirting around the point. “Scotland is a big place. Do you know where they went? Just because I’m Scottish doesn’t mean I know every inch of the country.”
“The Highlands,” he replies.
“Still a huge area.”
“Not my problem. I need you to find her and bring her back. What she doesn’t know is that there’s an order out on her. Once again, I pissed someone off, and they want Tilly as compensation.”
I groan; whenever I speak to him, he needs a mess mopped up.
“It’s not fucking funny. This is all I needed today. My sister would kill me if her daughter was sent back in pieces.”
“Did you have big Christmas plans that are being interrupted?”
I taunt him. Hunter is as lonely as I am.
He has a wife but doesn’t see her. His life is lived on the streets and in the bars of London.
His closest friends are a small group of high-profile men who spend their free time righting the wrongs of the underworld.
I find it ironic that for all of Hunter’s criminal activities, he dispenses justice to others whom he sees as being in the wrong.
“Probably as many plans as you have,” he shoots back.
“Are you able to do this? Find her, return her to London, and you’ll be rewarded handsomely like always. As much as the girl is a nuisance, I can’t let her be killed. She’s to get married next summer. I signed the agreement with her father a matter of days ago. It will be lucrative for all involved.
”
I file away the information about her future nuptials. That may be something I could use to my advantage. Without commenting, I acknowledge his statement with a grunt before directing the conversation back to what is, in my eyes, essential.
“How handsomely?” The pay is always good, but I love the buzz I get from hearing I’ll be paid obscene amounts for doing something I love. Hunting. Tracking. A little kidnapping as well as spending a little time with beautiful but off-limits women. I have a thing for ladies I shouldn’t lust after.
“Six figures and not the lower end,” Hunter tells me. “This will be an extra on top of your usual duties, which will resume when you return. No one is a better bodyguard than you, Greyson.”
“Stop massaging my ego and send me what details you have: names, descriptions, car details, and who Tilly’s travelling with. I’ll find her and bring her back to you. It will most likely take a few days, but she should be back before the new year.”
“She needs to be. We’re announcing her engagement at our New Year’s Eve ball. If she isn’t here, the deal may crumble.”
He pauses the way he does when considering how much information to impart.
My boss only tells you what you need to know.
I want to ask who she is betrothed to, but I know better than to ask.
“Tilly isn’t a sweet, soft girl,” he continues. “She’s tough, and she won’t want to come back here. Don’t think you will be able to walk in, link your arm through hers, then escort her back to safety. This girl hates her life and our family. The last place she wants to be is in London.”
“So, I’ll have to swing her over my shoulder then? A fireman’s carry?”
“She knows how to use a gun and a knife,” he continues, ignoring my comment. “Her bodyguard has a hole in his shoulder to prove she has good aim. Just be aware, she isn’t a damsel in distress.”
“I appreciate your concern, Boss. But I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ve met her before.”
“Well, you’ve been warned. I’ll send over the information now. Have a good day,” He disconnects the call without waiting for me to answer. I stand, move over to my desk, and open my laptop. A few minutes later, an email lands in my inbox with all the necessary information.
The day just got interesting. Perhaps Christmas isn’t looking so bad after all.
My plans of reconnecting with the family I didn’t know I had will have to wait.
I have work to attend to, and perhaps when I finally meet my father—the man who didn’t want me—I will have another story to regale him with about how I have become a success without him.
Tilly Devane is a twenty-two-year-old bubbly blonde. In the picture I received, she has sparkling blue eyes and is holding a cute kitten in her arms. It looks like a staged photo for social media, nothing like the sassy, drunken college student I pulled out of the reservoir this summer.
In the photo, she is wearing a simple white and pink checked shirt teamed with cut-off jeans and white trainers.
The only noticeable blemish I can see is a thin line, a scar, that crosses her cheek and runs along her cheekbone as if, in years gone by, it was sliced open. I don’t remember seeing that before.
Everything else about her screams girl next door.
With her head cocked to one side, she smiles demurely at the camera.
There is something about the way she twists her mouth into a smirk that tells me she is anything but sweet, and that the girl I have been tasked to retrieve has an iron seam beneath the pink check.
It’s an unpredictable quality that could make my job both interesting and challenging.
The email advises that yesterday, on Christmas Eve, Tilly requested her parents allow her to attend a party at a friend’s house in the city.
Even at more than twenty years old, she is still under her father’s command.