A Family Divided (Dividing Line #3)

by Heather Atkinson

  The sight of him was blocked out by the big black van, which screeched to a halt between them. The doors opened and a figure lunged out at her, trying to grab her. She dodged to the side but strong arms wrapped themselves around her from behind and lifted her bodily. Throwing back her head she felt it connect with something. There was a thud and a groan and she was dropped to the ground. But before she could get back up, more of the black-clad figures surrounded her and she was picked up and thrown into the van. The other figures jumped in after her, the door slid shut and they were off, the momentum of the van causing them all to slide about the metal floor. She fought furiously as they pinned her down and tried to bind and gag her. Kicking out, she caught the one holding the masking tape in the crotch and he released a squeal before falling to his knees.

  “Ryan,” she screamed again, a punch to the face silencing her. Then the tape was hastily slapped over her mouth and she was thrown onto her front and her hands bound behind her.

  “Rachel,” bellowed Ryan, trying to keep up with the van as it sped away. It exited the car park, turned right and disappeared into the night. Still he didn’t give up, trying to see which way it went but it simply vanished.

  “No,” he cried, sinking to his knees, sweat pouring off him.

  The others reached him a few seconds later and slowed to a stop, Mikey hardly out of breath while Alex, Declan and Jez doubled over, gasping.

  “Did you see who took her?” said Mikey.

  “No, they were wearing black masks.” Ryan leapt to his feet. “Who the fuck would do this?”

  “Take it easy, we’ll get her back,” said Alex.

  “Your pictures have been all over the local papers. Maybe this is a ransom?” said Declan.

  “Did you see a number plate?” said Alex.

  “There wasn’t one,” replied Ryan, feeling like he’d been hit by something big and hard all over again.

  “Fuck,” yelled Mikey.

  “They could have easily killed her back there but they didn’t. They want her alive,” said Alex. “It’s a start. No doubt we’re going to get a phone call very soon. Let’s go back to Mum’s and wait.”

  Ryan was incensed. “We can’t just sit back and do nothing.”

  “What do you suggest? We’ve no idea who took her, no licence plate, no ID’s, nothing.”

  Ryan let them lead him back to the car in a daze, wondering if this was all some horrible nightmare. He could still hear her screaming in his head, calling for him.

  CHAPTER 22

  Rachel had a horrible taste in her mouth, something fetid and metallic and her head throbbed. She concentrated on flexing her muscles, testing her limbs, checking if anything was broken but she could move everything, albeit only slightly because of the bonds tethering her wrists and ankles.

  “I think she’s waking up,” said a voice.

  Slowly her eyes flickered open and the faces bending over her were blurred. She blinked several times to clear her vision and found herself staring up into Jan Jordan’s hard face. Gathered around her were Nick and Chris - the pair she’d met at the meeting - and five other similar looking men, obviously all Jan’s sons and nephews ranged together.

  “Hello Rachel,” smiled Jan humourlessly. “I do apologise for all this but you really left us no choice.”

  Chris tore the tape from her mouth none too gently, disappointed when she didn’t cry out in pain. She was the one he’d tasered and he wanted payback.

  “What are you doing here?” said Rachel, her mouth feeling like it was full of fluff. She would have killed for a drink of water. “I thought you were in Liverpool?”

  “We were, briefly. I didn’t want it to come to this but Alex Maguire left us no choice.” Jan looked to Chris. “Untie her.”

  Rachel watched him steadily, heart beating hard as he pulled a knife from his pocket. Then he knelt before her and cut the tape binding her wrists and ankles. After rubbing them to restore the feeling, she slowly got to her feet and saw she was in a dingy but spacious cellar, a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling casting strange shadows on the walls. The men all regarded her murderously, except Nick, who was wearing his poker face.

  “Sit down,” said Jan genially, indicating two wooden chairs facing each other. Rachel took one and Jan the other. Glancing around the room, Rachel saw some sights that made her distinctly nervous; what appeared to be an operating table and a steel tray bearing various surgical implements as well as a barrel full of water. This didn’t look good.

  “You’re going to use me as leverage to get what you want?” said Rachel, trying to ignore the torture chamber at the far side of the room.

  “Yes. I don’t like doing this, especially not to another woman, but Alex has left me no choice,” replied Jan.

  “He won’t give in to blackmail.”

  “He will when I start cutting pieces off you and sending them to him.”

  She swallowed hard. “No he won’t. You kill me and he’ll come at you with everything he’s got, which is considerable. You’ll be crushed, there’s only eight of you.”

  “Actually there’s considerably more than that. We have backing, powerful backing. He takes on us he takes on Liverpool and Newcastle too.”

  Rachel regarded her thoughtfully with her head cocked on one side. “This is about Frankie McVay, isn’t it?” She noticed Jan swallow hard at the mention of his name.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He has business that takes him down south, and we all know how much he hates going down south. Then you lot suddenly come up here shouting the odds, demanding things that aren’t yours and Manchester is one of his main distribution lines. You think you can seize it and Frankie will come into line with whatever you want. With Liverpool and Newcastle behind you, you’ll have the whole country sewn up. Well let me tell you, that’s too much for anyone. Greed will only set you up for a fall and Alex and Frankie will kill you.”

  Jan lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke into her face. “We’ll see.”

  A thought occurred to Rachel that blew all caution from her mind. “Were you responsible for the car crash that made me lose my baby? Was that an abduction attempt gone wrong?”

  “Chris was driving,” Jan said, nodding in her nephew’s direction while blowing a stream of smoke from her nose, reminding Rachel of a dragon. “He had orders to sideswipe the front of your car but he hit the accelerator too hard and ploughed into the side of you. I admit it did go wrong.”

  Rachel’s face was as hard as stone. “You killed my son.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Did you know I was pregnant before you sent your dogs after me?”

  Jan said nothing, a smile playing on her lips.

  “Did you know?” yelled Rachel.

  Jan blew another stream of smoke into her face. “Yes.”

  Rachel snapped and launched herself at Jan, knocking her to the floor.

  “Bitch, I’ll fucking kill you,” screamed Rachel, punching her hard in the face.

  It took three men to drag her off and Jan staggered to her feet, blood trickling from her lip.

  “Hold her still for Christ’s sake,” she told her men as Rachel struggled against them.

  Arms like iron held Rachel still as Jan drew back her fist and punched her. Rachel hardly felt it. In comparison to what she’d had in the past it was nothing.

  “You call that a punch? Pathetic,” spat Rachel. “You fight like a girl. This is how you fight like a man.”

  She head butted Chris, who was stood before her grinning, and he dropped for the second time that day.

  “You Goddamn bitch,” he mumbled, picking himself back up.

  “Strap her to the table, I want her husband to hear what she’s going through when I make the call,” said Jan, dabbing at her bleeding lip.

  “About time,” said Chris gleefully.

  They dragged Rachel to the table and strapped her to it, face up. Jan produced Rachel’s mobile phone that she’d take
n from her. As she started to dial a cloth was held over Rachel’s face and water poured over it.

  Ryan, Alex, Declan, Jez and Mikey returned to Martina’s house completely dejected. Battler and Bruiser were already there, Alex having sent them over to guard the women and children.

  Martina greeted them at the front door. “Well?”

  “We were too late, they took her,” said Alex.

  “Oh Jesus. Who did?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Get yourselves inside. Cathy and Beth have taken the kids upstairs to play, they don’t know anything about this.”

  “Thank God,” said Alex as they all walked inside, Battler peering outside to make sure no one had followed them before closing the door and locking it.

  When Ryan’s phone rang he frantically fumbled for it. “It’s Rachel’s number.”

  “Put it on speakerphone,” said Alex.

  He placed the phone on the coffee table and they all gathered round it as he pressed the answer key. The first thing they were greeted with were spluttering, choking noises followed by a scream.

  “Rachel,” yelled Ryan.

  “You hear that? It’s the sound of your wife drowning,” drawled a female voice.

  “Jan Jordan? You fucking slag, you’re dead,” Alex hissed at the phone.

  “I wouldn’t be talking like that, not if you want to see Rachel alive again.”

  “Leave her alone, she’s fuck all to do with this,” said Ryan, voice tight with anger and fear.

  “To show you I’m not all bad, I’ll let you speak to her.”

  There was silence followed by Rachel’s voice saying, “Ryan, call Frankie,” then more trickling of water and a muffled cry.

  “Rachel,” bellowed Ryan, slamming his fist down on the table, making the phone jump.

  Jan came back on the line. “Give us what we want and we’ll let her go. If you don’t then we’ll really go to work on her. Chris has got a nice collection of surgical implements he’s dying to try out.”

  “You evil old hag, you touch her and I will fucking kill you,” said Ryan.

  Alex put a restraining hand on his arm. “What do you want?”

  “Things have changed Alex. You should have taken my first offer. Now I want you in exchange for Rachel, plain and simple. Come alone and I release her unharmed. If you don’t then Chris will open her up while she’s still awake and start removing her internal organs. Your choice. I’ll call you back in one hour when I hope you’ll have a decision.” Then the line went dead.

  “Oh my God,” whispered Martina, tears in her eyes.

  “You have to go to them,” Ryan told Alex.

  “If he goes they’ll kill him and Rachel,” said Martina, unable to face the prospect of losing her one remaining son. “You can’t serve him up like that.”

  “If he doesn’t then they’ll gut Rachel alive. I told you not to involve her and now look what’s happened, all because she wanted to help. You fucker.”

  Ryan punched Alex in the face and Alex shoved him in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards. When Ryan went for him again Battler and Bruiser got between the pair of them.

  “This isn’t helping anybody,” said Mikey. “We need to work together to get her back.”

  “We’ll get her back if Alex goes to them, but he’s too fucking cowardly. Instead he gets women to do his dirty work for him,” snarled Ryan.

  “They won’t let Rachel go in exchange for Alex and you know it. Obviously they think she’s still a power in the family and they want to take out both leaders at once in the hope they’ll be able to take everything over.” Mikey frowned thoughtfully. “Rachel said to call Frankie. Maybe this is something to do with him?”

  “I don’t want to involve him,” said Alex.

  “Tough shit, he’s already involved,” said Ryan. “Call him or I fucking will.”

  Alex held up his hands. “Alright.”

  Ryan stood nose to nose with Alex. “Once we’ve got Rachel back me and her are done with the lot of you. Everything bad that’s happened to her is down to your family and I’ve had enough. Fucking Maguires,” he muttered before kicking open the kitchen door and stomping outside into the back garden.

  “Give him time to calm down,” said Jez, looking embarrassed.

  “The sad thing is, he’s right,” said Martina quietly.

  “I’ll call Frankie,” said Alex, casting a glare at Ryan’s retreating back.

  Nick watched Rachel being water boarded from the corner of the room with a frown. He didn’t like violence on women but only he seemed to hold this opinion. While his mother chain-smoked in the corner of the room his brother and cousins egged on Chris, who was clearly enjoying torturing her. When he saw his younger cousin Stuart slide his hand inside her skirt Nick slapped it away.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  “This isn’t who we are,” said Nick. “Dad would have a fit if he could see this.”

  “She’s not an ordinary woman, she’s one of us.”

  “This is cowardly and beneath us.”

  “Tell it to your mum, she’s the one ordering us to do it.”

  “You touch Rachel like that again and I’ll knock you out. Chris, that’s enough.”

  “I’m just getting warmed up.”

  “I said that’s enough. We don’t want to kill her.”

  “Not yet anyway, eh boys?” he grinned. “We can have a lot of fun with this one.”

  Once Nick was satisfied they weren’t going to attack Rachel, he approached his mother.

  “What are we doing Mum?”

  “We’re getting our family back on top, where we belong.”

  “Not like this,” he said, gesturing to Rachel gasping for breath on the table while the men sniggered, pointed and made disgusting comments.

  “Don’t feel sorry for her, she’s ordered that done to people herself. She knew what she was getting into when she took power in a man’s world. Would it be so bad if it was Alex Maguire strapped to that table?”

  “No because that lot wouldn’t be threatening to rape him.”

  “If that’s what it takes to get what we want then so be it. The Laws wield as much power as the Maguires and one of them is her husband. I’m sure if we sent him a video of her being violated Ryan would bring Alex to us.”

  Nick was appalled. “I can’t believe you’re talking like this. What do you think Dad would make of it?”

  “Your dad lost his nerve, that’s why he got killed.”

  “He had honour. What will all the other families say when they learn what we’ve done to a woman and not any woman but Rachel Law, who is highly respected? Do Liverpool and Newcastle even know what you’re doing?”

  “I’m doing this for them, to get them full control of the north.”

  “You’ll bring Frankie McVay down on us.”

  “That ginger wanker needs putting in his place. Who does he think he is, throwing his weight about down on our patch. He was the one who supported the Slatterys against us, the people who killed your dad and brother.”

  Nick bit his tongue. He’d never been convinced they’d been responsible for murdering his family. His dad was shrewd and walked out to meet someone he trusted with just his eldest son for back-up. He would never have trusted the Slatterys. “You still sure it was them who killed him?”

  Jan’s face was flinty, lips disappearing into a grim line. “What makes you think it’s not?”

  “My gut and its never let me down yet.”

  He was distracted by a shout from Rachel. “Get the fuck off me.”

  Nick turned to see Chris and his other cousin Kurt unbuttoning her blouse.

  “Hey, stop that you little bastards,” he yelled.

  Nick shoved Chris aside and punched Kurt in the face. When he dropped to the floor he kicked him twice in the ribs for good measure, making him squeal.

  “Leave her alone. We do not do this to women, this is not who the Jordans are.”

 
; Robbie, his remaining brother, was standing to one side looking distinctly uncomfortable with the situation and Nick prayed he had an ally in this madness. Since his dad and brother had died his family had turned into a pack of rabid dogs, Jan bringing out the worst in them. They’d lost the organisation and code his dad had made them live by. Now they did what the hell they wanted and Nick was sick of it. It was going to get them all killed. He was determined they weren’t going to drag him or Robbie down with them. He pulled the knife from Chris’s pocket and cut Rachel’s bonds.

  “Thank you,” she replied warily, for a moment fearing he was going to do more with the knife but he just slipped it into his pocket. Slowly she sat up, her chest and throat aching and fastened up the buttons of her blouse with shaking hands.

  “Wait, can I see that?” she said, nodding at the knife.

  “Why?” he said suspiciously.

  “Recognise it do you Rachel?” smiled Chris.

  Frowning, Nick pulled the knife out of his pocket and held it up for her to see, careful to keep it well out of her reach.

  “It was you,” she said to Nick.

  “What was?” he replied, puzzled.

  “The Slasher at Martina’s Bar.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Not him, me,” said Chris, looking very pleased with himself.

  “You pretended to be the attacker, you caused chaos in my club. Why?”

  “To get the measure of you and because it was fun,” smirked Chris. “You thought I was The Slasher, didn’t you?”

  “No, because The Slasher used a Stanley knife, nothing like that and he attacked on a Saturday not a Friday, dickhead.”

  “That big gob of yours is going to get you into trouble,” he snarled.

  “Don’t even think about it,” said Nick, pressing a hand into his chest and pushing him back when he advanced on Rachel. “Mum, did you know about this?”

  “I ordered it. We followed you about for a while Rachel and you didn’t even know we were there.”

  “Why?” she exclaimed.

  “I wanted to know more about your life.”

  “Did you go anywhere near my kids?” she said. Nick was startled and a little fascinated by how black her eyes had gone.