A Family Divided (Dividing Line #3)

by Heather Atkinson

  Beth popped her head round the door. “Are you coming back outside?”

  “In a minute,” he replied, not wanting to have to be around Rachel and Ryan.

  “Please don’t talk business today of all days, this is about our family.”

  “I’m not, I’m just having a rest from the sun. It’s bloody hot out there.”

  “Good because you’ve been stuck in here for ages talking business.”

  “I said I’ll be out in a minute, will you stop nagging me?”

  Beth bit down the retort, not wanting anyone to know that her marriage was failing. She couldn’t bear the shame of it. Not even Rachel knew that Alex hardly spent any time at home and when she did see him they rowed.

  “I’m not nagging Alex, I just want to spend time with my husband. Is that too much to ask?”

  He sighed. “I suppose not.”

  She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his broad back. “Let’s just have fun today and forget about everything else.”

  “Okay,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Rachel and Ryan were destroying his marriage too because he couldn’t stop wondering if Beth knew about their affair and kept it from him, helped cuckold his brother and make a mockery of the Maguire name. He watched Mikey playing football with Alfie, his number two and closest rival. If anything happened to himself, Mikey would be the one to take over. He was very close to Rachel too and for that reason he couldn’t trust him either. Alex felt the world around him shrinking, isolating him from everyone.

  “What are you thinking?” said Beth. “You feel so tense.”

  “Nothing,” he replied, finding it a struggle to touch her, wondering if she knew the truth about Ryan and Rachel.

  “Aaron’s finally asleep,” said Rachel, closing the bedroom door quietly behind her.

  Ryan watched from the bed as she removed her jewellery and carefully put it away. He continued to watch as she stripped off her summer dress, revealing black bra and panties and, of course, her trademark stockings. Ryan still couldn’t quite believe that Rachel was his, even after six years of marriage and two sons. He’d been elated when she’d taken his surname, he had assumed she’d become Maguire-Law but she’d said it was a fresh start and she wanted to distance herself from her old criminal past. Rachel Maguire was notorious, but Rachel Law was legitimate.

  “Lost interest in your book?” she said, indicating the thick volume of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good And Evil that had fallen onto the bedclothes. She wondered if he was having a crisis of conscience but didn’t ask.

  “There’s something much more interesting to look at.” He raised an eyebrow. “Why have you stopped?” Ryan threw the book onto the bedside cabinet and turned on his side to watch as she removed her bra and cast it aside. “And the panties.” Tantalisingly slowly she slid them down her legs and kicked them off, her eyes turning jet black, as they always did when she was aroused, or angry. “Ah ah,” he said, waving his finger back and forth. “Leave the stockings on.”

  Rachel sashayed over to the bed and yanked back the covers to reveal an equally naked Ryan in all his glory. She took a moment to admire him, running her fingertips over his rippling stomach, causing him to release a sigh of pleasure. He still worked out religiously and even though his fortieth birthday was three years behind him, he was in phenomenal shape.

  “Did I tell you I’m ovulating?” she said, straddling him.

  “You say the most romantic things and no, you didn’t.”

  Rachel dipped her head and let her long dark hair run lightly up and down his chest and stomach. Ryan’s slate grey eyes slid closed and he groaned, enjoying her caresses. Her fingers and lips joined in and built up the pleasure inside him to such a degree he couldn’t take it any longer. His eyes flew open, the passion and want in them taking her breath away.

  “Hold on tight beautiful,” he said.

  Holding her to him he leapt up off the bed and pushed her up against the wall before thrusting inside her.

  “Oh God Ryan,” she cried, holding on tightly as he drove into her.

  She clung onto him as he continued to move, the pleasure hitting her hard and fast.

  “No you don’t not yet,” he said when he felt her getting close.

  “Yes, now” she groaned.

  “No,” he said, tipping her back onto the bed. “When I say.”

  Her eyes flashed with defiance, she hated being told what to do and he knew it. In response she started to drag her nails down his back, which always got him going, so he took her hands and pressed them back onto the bed.

  “Naughty,” he scolded.

  She struggled against him furiously, enjoying the game, but he refused to move again until he was ready, which was when Rachel was on the verge of exploding and explode she did, with a loud resounding cry. Only then did he let go of his restraint. When Ryan made love to Rachel, for him the rest of the world ceased to exist.

  “We made our baby then,” said Rachel as she happily settled onto his chest, her eyes already starting to close.

  “How do you know?” he said, pressing his face into her hair and breathing her in.

  “I just do.”

  He rolled her onto her back and kissed her abdomen. “We’d better stock up on the barbecue sauce then.” When she was pregnant with both boys she’d had a terrible craving for it, poured it over everything, even cereal. Once Ryan had walked in on her drinking it straight from the bottle, making noises he’d thought only he could elicit from her.

  “But this is definitely the last one. Four kids is enough for anyone,” she said.

  “Okay, last one. Then you can be sterilised.”

  She frowned up at him. “I was thinking you could have the snip.”

  Ryan looked appalled. “You mean down there?”

  “Well I don’t mean your big toe.”

  “What if it hurts?”

  “Don’t tell me Ryan Law’s scared?”

  “No, just wary.”

  “You expect me to have an operation after four pregnancies and births?”

  “I suppose that wouldn’t be very fair.”

  “No it wouldn’t. It’s a simple operation.”

  “And I’ll be knocked out too.”

  “No you won’t.”

  His eyes widened with horror.

  “You’ll be wide awake,” she said with relish. “So you can enjoy every second.”

  “My God it’s Medieval.”

  “You might be lucky and find a surgeon willing to perform it under a GA but they’re very few and far between.”

  “I’ll bung them some cash.”

  “You’re intending to bribe your surgeon?”

  “If it means I’m unconscious when they start cutting, yes.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “Yes,” he eventually replied, not looking too happy about it.

  She smiled and kissed him. “Thank you.”

  “You’re fortunate I love you so much.”

  “I love you too.”

  He melted inside. He’d do anything for her.

  CHAPTER 3

  Col Sugar, one of Alex’s most trusted men, was standing by his side, watching as the truck pulled to a halt in the warehouse.

  The driver jumped out of the cab and walked round the back.

  “Any problems?” Alex asked him.

  “None. The palms you greased at Customs made sure I got through without being searched.”

  “Good. How many?”

  “Six. Some right tasty numbers,” leered the fat sweaty middle aged man.

  “You’d better have kept your fingers off the goods,” said Alex, throwing him a menacing look.

  “Course I did, I’m not daft, but I’d be willing to pay for some of them myself.”

  “You’ll get your chance,” smiled Alex.

  The man lowered the tailgate and half a dozen pairs of dazed, scared eyes stared back at them.

  “Hello Ladies,” sm
iled Alex. “Welcome to Manchester.”

  It was clear from the blank looks they gave him that they didn’t speak English. Good, that was how he liked it, it made it easier to terrify them into submission. They were all Eastern European, blond, dark, even a redhead, a nice variety for his punters, all of the women under the impression they’d been brought here to work either as nannies or models. In truth they were destined for his new and exclusive club, catering to the wealthiest men in the city and their most depraved needs.

  Alex turned to Col as the driver ushered the women off the back of the truck like the cattle they were. “Take them to the club, get them checked over. Patti will be waiting.” Patti was an ex-prostitute herself with years of experience as a madam and knew just how to keep the women in line.

  One of the women - a tall blond who couldn’t have been more than twenty - threw him her best smile, sensing he was the man in charge and taking a liking to his good looks, but Alex wasn’t interested. She might be beautiful now but in a few months she’d be a screwed up mess, addicted to the heroin unknowingly supplied by Jez Law. Alex had arranged for a contact of his to act as the buyer, so Jez wouldn’t link Alex to anything. He sniggered inwardly at the memory of Jez’s strutting after sealing that lucrative deal, not realising he was selling to Alex himself to keep these women in line. They’d be provided with a safe supply and clean needles, so they wouldn’t catch anything nasty and pass it onto their customers. They would also be trained to inject between their toes, because there was nothing more unsexy than track marks. When the drug took hold and started to ravage their looks, then they’d be moved down south to the Slatterys to use in their own prostitution ring, whose punters weren’t as picky as his. Neither Mikey or Frankie McVay knew anything about this. Alex had already approached Vic Slattery and they’d done this deal between them, behind their associates’ backs. He realised he was playing with fire but there was no way they could find out. All the deals were done between middle men on behalf of Alex and Vic, with no way to trace it back to them. It was a very lucrative deal.

  The women were loaded into the back of two transit vans driven by the most trustworthy of Col’s brothers. The younger two had been left out of this because of their inability to keep their traps shut. This was a very secret operation, other than Alex only the three Sugar brothers, the driver, Patti and Vic Slattery were in on it. Not even his contacts at Customs knew what they were turning a blind eye to. Secrecy was paramount. Jez was the king of prostitution in the city but he didn’t deal in anything dodgy, no kids or animals and he certainly didn’t traffick humans. He’d go ballistic if he found out his territory was being encroached on. A few years ago Alex wouldn’t have taken Jez seriously, but since Ryan had taken a step back he was now a real contender and very dangerous.

  Alex’s club was a nice place, made out like a gentleman’s club with leather wing backed chairs, antique furniture and books but in the belly of the building were a set of rooms decorated in a variety of imaginative ways to reflect every possible sexual fantasy. Membership was very exclusive and only offered to those Alex had a hold over, who could be trusted not to blab about it; judges, senior police officers, lawyers, architects, councillors, politicians, the best of the best who could pay through the nose for any fantasy they desired. Alex was raking it in, but he had to be careful.

  Alex knew this wasn’t what his dad had wanted for the family, he wouldn’t have touched this business with a barge pole and neither would Danny but it was incredibly profitable and so bloody easy. But he’d realised long ago that sentiment had been their downfall. In a way his Uncle Terry had been right. They couldn’t let personal feelings interfere with business. Terry had wanted to deal in heroin and prostitution but his dad had put his foot down and that blinkeredness had got him killed. If Danny hadn’t listened to his wife so much he’d still be alive too. Alex was determined not to make the same mistakes as them.

  The blond gave him another smile as she climbed into the back of the van but Alex felt not a flicker of sympathy for her, knowing in a few months she’d be as used up as the women she was replacing. But he had to own she was a beauty. No doubt she’d make him a ton of money.

  “Oversee them will you Col? I don’t want to leave the missus alone too long with the baby,” he said. Alex liked to project the image of the doting family man but, in truth, his interest had been waning lately, especially since Holly’s birth. Beth had gone from a sparky livewire to a drudge who constantly moaned at him for coming in late. She never had before, realising it was in the nature of his work but something had changed. He blamed Rachel for that too. Although she’d never mentioned it he knew Beth had picked up on his animosity towards her best friend and it was putting a wedge between them. Not only had Rachel and Ryan destroyed his brother but they were destroying his marriage too. If Beth knew most of the money to buy their new house had come from this club she would leave him and that he could never allow.

  When the gang of Serbs who’d been top in the human trafficking in the city had got wind of what he was up to they’d threatened to kidnap, rape and murder Beth. Their mistake had been warning him first so he’d taken them out before they’d had the chance, capturing their leader, using a knife to do to him what he’d threatened to do to his wife, chopping him up into tiny pieces and sending him back to his men. Then he’d wiped out the lot of them. Now no one stood in his way. Mikey had helped do all that, under the impression it had been because of drugs. If he found out Alex was involved in human trafficking he’d fight him and Mikey had become very powerful in his own right, he had his own backers. Now there was talk of Declan and his brothers moving over here to join the family and if he didn’t play things right Alex’s position could be threatened by his own second-in-command. If push came to shove, he’d take Mikey out before he became too big a threat. Not even blood was enough to prevent Alex from aggressively defending his position.

  After Adela had taken the children to school and nursery, Ryan and Rachel set off to run the weekly check of their businesses. They went from one to the other, inspecting the general running, sorting out any problems. The spa, the first business they’d opened together, ran itself beautifully and made them a hell of a lot of money. The conference centre - a set of converted stables - was constantly booked, the pool and gym were busy and the treatments were booked up for months. They’d even hosted a few celebrity weddings. Plus their Michelin-starred chef had ensured the restaurant attached to the spa had become the place to eat in the city. They also had two small hotels, a property management business, several pubs and clubs, even a shopping centre, everything running like clockwork.

  They stopped for lunch at one of their city centre restaurants, which likewise was running itself perfectly well without them. Ryan noticed Rachel picking over her food.

  “What’s wrong?” he said.

  She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “None of our businesses need us anymore. We need a new challenge.”

  “I thought you were enjoying being a lady of leisure?”

  “I was but Aaron’s at nursery now, he doesn’t need us as much either. We’ve got spare time.”

  “There won’t be much of that when we have another baby.”

  “But I need something to do in the meantime.”

  “You want another business?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “What sort of thing did you have in mind?”

  “I’d like a great big fuck off hotel,” she smiled.

  “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  “That’s the best way I can think of describing it. We’ve got a couple of modest ones but I want one that screams, this is us.”

  “Well, that would do it,” he said, the side of his mouth lifting up into a smile. “Did you have anywhere in mind?”

  “No, it’s just a matter of waiting for the right place to turn up but it’s got to be more than just a hotel. It’ll have its own shop, spa, restaurant, bistro, pool, maybe even a golf course.”


  “You don’t do things by halves, do you?”

  “I want it to be huge.”

  “And it will be. We’ll look out for the right place.” He looked up as someone entered the restaurant and glowered.

  “What is it?” said Rachel, turning in her seat to see.

  “Strang,” he hissed.

  Stephen Strang was their main rival in business, a powerful man with as much money and influence as themselves. When Bruce Spencer had inherited his father’s business empire - Ryan and Alex personally hastening Richard Spencer’s demise - Stephen had bought the lot off him. Now they frequently battled with him in the auction rooms for the best properties. He was tall and silver haired with wire rimmed glasses but very slender. Despite how expensive and well-made his suits were, they never appeared to fit him properly. Rachel was sure he was envious of Ryan, who could make a potato sack look stylish.

  Stephen gave them his trademark smile, displaying his freakily white teeth.

  “Mr and Mrs Law, what a pleasure. I do so admire your chef, he makes the best soufflés.”

  “As always you’re very welcome Stephen,” replied Ryan coolly. He gestured to one of the waitresses, a stick thin brunette who had a knee-trembling crush on him. Rachel felt sorry for her because he barely noticed her, which only seemed to fuel her crush.

  “Yes Mr Law?” she said hopefully.

  “Seat Mr Strang at our best table and give him a bottle of our finest champagne on the house,” he replied smoothly, his eyes never leaving Stephen.

  “Yes Sir,” she said, actually giving him a little curtsey, making Rachel smile.

  The girl tried to usher Strang to a table by the window, but he refused to budge.

  “I hear The Crown Casino is coming up to buy soon,” he said. “It’s an excellent business opportunity.”

  “If it’s so excellent, why are you sharing it with us?” said a suspicious Rachel.