Page 80 of How to Kill Your Rival

Alive is not a thing I can do.

Seven days.

Seven days to find Fraser before they kill him.

Maggie lies slumped on the bed, tears streaming as James comes into the room looking as flustered as I feel.

I pass him the note and watch his face while he reads it. To most people, he’d appear as the picture of calm, but I can see the vein on his temple pulsing. The tic in his jaw as he fights the clench.

‘What the fuck is this?’ he asks.

‘I should have known,’ I say, ‘but there’s no way they could know.’

‘Know what?’

Pulling my shoulders back, I bite my lower lip. I hoped I’d never have to tell another soul about what we did. Not for guilt’s sake. I couldn’t give a monkey’s that I’d killed Eddie, the thundercunt that he is, but to protect my family.

‘Tell me,’ James says. Those grey eyes narrow.

‘At Priscilla and Dad’s wedding, Eddie had been, well, an absolute dickhead, to be honest. You know he’s always had a thing for Maggie? You must have noticed the way he glared at her and Roman for those few days. Maggie wanted Roman, and Eddie wanted to control the Hamiltons. He wanted to use her to step into my dad’s role. He cornered them in the stairwell. He had a knife to Roman’s throat. Maggie was bleeding.’

James listens.

‘My blade was quicker. He deserved worse than he got. It was self-defence. Or sister defence, I suppose. The pigs handled the rest. Everyone assumed he’d moved on to his next job, but he never left the estate. And the Stewarts either know that and are forcing me to admit to it, which would mean someone else saw it. Or they are making an educated guess. Or I suppose they think we have resources that they don’t and might be able to locate him.’ I sigh as Maggie sniffles from the bed. She’d believed that the Eddie chapter was over. ‘Either option isn’t great because Eddie can’t be produced. Not even as a corpse.’

Silence.

James rubs his temples.

‘And now they’ve taken a son for their son. And threatened Maggie.’

There’s something in James’ face that I don’t expect to see: hurt.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he says.

‘Because it was handled.’

‘Evidently not. Secrets like this never stay buried.’ He sits on the edge of Fraser’s bed beside Maggie. ‘You didn’t trust me?’

‘No. Not then.’

James looks at me with those stormy eyes, and I feel a sliver of guilt. Just a tiny bit.

‘But I do now.’

‘Do we think they are behind the contract disruption?’ he asks.

‘It doesn’t feel the same. I still think some of the families – like the Kavanaghs – are aiming to undermine my position. But it wouldn’t surprise me if the Stewarts were stirring the pot because of their suspicions.’

‘You did what you had to do,’ James says.

‘She saved us,’ Maggie adds, sitting and wiping her eyes.

‘And we’ll save Fraser, too,’ he says.

‘And then I’ll kill the fuckers for taking him,’ I add.

‘Get all your shit, and we’ll meet in the kitchen and start tracking where the cunts are holding him.’