Chapter 32 Convict The drive to Edinburgh took us through dark countryside and lonely roads. Arran had to take a call for the first stretch but was done by the time the route spat us out in the suburbs. We skirted the city and followed the signs for Leith. Arran tapped the steering wheel. "I spent time pulling my memories together to help you get back yours. A lot of it I'd blocked out. It wasn't the best time for me." I wanted to ask why, but I kept my mouth closed. I needed everything he could give me, and if I spoke, I might break the spell. "Do you know where you're from?" Slowly, I shook my head. This evening, I carried a blade. We both did. I toyed with mine. "Here, but you moved around with most of your time in foster care in England, hence the lack of a strong accent, but you were born in and came back to Leith more than anywhere else." He turned onto Salamander Street, and I peered out at the mixture of modern blocks of flats and old stone industrial buildings with deep yards on the other side of the road. A memory flickered. Of being a kid and sneaking under the gates at night, or climbing walls. Probably up to no good. "It's changed," I mumbled. "The whole area is booming. Gentrification," he said like a dirty word. Arran eyed me. "Is it coming back?" "A little." A car swung out of a junction without pause. Arran laid on the horn, and the driver of the blue BMW gave an answering angry blare before shooting off. "We met here as teenagers, but you shared candid stories of your upbringing. I think because I was so obviously fucked up, you did it to show me there was life on the other side of everything breaking apart." I couldn't smile. "Trauma bonding." "Something like that. What you told me isn't great, so you have the choice over hearing it all, or a basic version so you don't have to relive it." "For fuck's sake. All of it." Arran inclined his head, and after a couple more turns, parked up on a junction with Ocean Drive. We climbed from the car. Wind whipped us, carrying with it the salt of the sea and trying to steal his words. He pointed to a block of flats on the corner of the street. "The Glasshouse pub was here. I didn't know it had been razed and built on. Fuck developers for taking this memory from us both." I heaved a breath. "Can't stab a planning committee, but I'd give it a go." He dragged his gaze off the ugly block and back to me. "The first night you came, you were dropped off by your probation officer. You were seventeen and had done a stretch in a youth offending centre, then for the last couple of months, they'd housed you in an adult jail in order to deter you from offending again. Such a fucking joke. I was sat in my car and saw the guy arrive with you. He told you with your track record, you'd never get a job. Your best bet was to earn money with your fists. You had nothing. Not even a bag of clothes." "Shit. At seventeen, I bet I thought I'd live forever. Just didn't think I'd suck so badly at it. Did I have a home to go to?" I regretted the words, even as I asked them. Arran's shoulders rose and fell on a sigh. "No, though your mother was still alive at that point." "She's dead?" He winced. I did, too. "I don't remember her, so don't apologise. I just...hoped. Did you ever meet her?" "Once. You did as the probation officer suggested and fought your way into a pocketful of cash for the night, then came back for more. I was made of anger and resentment, but you took pity on me and made a point of talking to me when most others turned their backs. After a while, we became friends, and one day, you asked me to go somewhere with you. You didn't say why, but it was to see your mother." I shoved my icy hands into my pockets. There was no good reason for me needing moral support to visit the one person who should've loved me. "On the way, you told me how you were an only child, born to a mother who'd never had the help she needed, and coped by relying on abusing various substances." Another recollection battered me. Of opening a bedroom door and finding a woman sprawled on the carpet with blood on her arm and a crust of saliva and vomit around her mouth. Of relief that she wasn't dead. "She was unhappy, so whatever you're remembering, bear in mind you were never the cause. Just another victim, like she was." Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the ꜰindηovel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. "Do you know her name?" "Dorothea." RIP, Ma. Dead before I even knew her name. "What happened to her?" "Earlier in life? I'm not sure. If you knew, you never said. But she overdosed when you were away on another stint in jail. You found out on release, and it sent you spiralling for a while. Landed you back in jail three weeks later." I hadn't been with her in the end. I turned my face to the sea breeze and started walking, if only to have movement to calm my brain. Arran kept pace. He let me process my thoughts without interruption. When my heart stopped thumping so hard, I braced myself against an iron railing that overlooked the docks, waves rippling on the harbour wall below. Boats were moored next to warehouses and industrial sites, lorry parking, and a rail connection waiting to take the goods inland. Then I yelled. Loud, once, and done. I hung my head until I was ready to move on. "So we met here and beat up people for cash and feelings management. How did we get to you running the skeleton crew and owning a warehouse?" "Do you remember much of my history?" I shook my head. Arran shoved the hair from his eyes and watched the water. "My father was Lord Kendrick and a police chief here in Scotland. A corrupt son of a bitch who murdered my mother in front of me. Many people hated me for being his son and didn't give a fuck about the life I'd led or how much I'd despised and suffered under him as well. Along with you and Shade, I practically lived at the fight club and developed a reputation for talking with my fists, wearing that like a protective shield. I was targeted, not only for who I was, but for what I started to realise I needed to be. My mother was a sex worker, too. She was murdered in cold blood by the bastard who thought himself so much better than her when the opposite was true." My jaw unhinged. "We used to beat up kerb crawlers. We'd wait and lay into them after they'd paid their money." Arran's lips curved almost to a smile. "I was out of control, but you were right there, supporting me regardless. It became my vow to bring terror to men who hurt women. But then the sex workers got angry at us for driving away their trade. It made me realise they needed a safe place and I could provide that. My father left me an inheritance. Forming a crew was a natural step, and we had to get out of Leith, so Deadwater felt like a good solution. Right on the border. The tidal river to wash away the bodies we handled along the way. You weren't around when I found the warehouse, but you spent months helping with the renovations before being recalled to prison for yet another bullshit reason." "Sounds like I've spent more time in jail than out." "Want to know the strangest thing? Until the warehouse was established, you didn't seem to care. You told me that jail was not that different to the foster care homes you'd mostly been raised in, except you were guaranteed your own bed and three meals a day. I'd argue that you were institutionalised." I didn't know the word, but I got the gist. "Guess I didn't have much to live for." "That's different now. This time, you'll stay out. You're on parole. Did you know that?" I nodded, not bothering to ask how he knew. Arran's gaze held mine. "I've spent time working on the cops so every fucker knows your name and won't touch you if they find you. I can't promise that it's enough, but it's a start." Small pieces of memories slid together like a puzzle. Facing off against a teenager with dark-blond hair and bloodied knuckles. Brawling and landing punches which made us laugh. Sitting in a tattoo chair... I lurched for him. Wrenched up his t-shirt to reveal his side and a tattoo of a skull wearing a bandanna. Same as the one that had been on my arm. Arran let me look then shoved me away. "We were skeleton crew before we even had the name." My heart sank, but I tore up my sleeve to brandish my disfigured arm, waiting for the disgust in his face. "Not anymore. Mine was burned away on the night of the fire. Guess I deserved that." Anger came swift to his features. "No you didn't." I had no reason for my instant fury with Arran. He was my friend. The one person who had consistently been there for me. Until he hadn't. I battled with the hurt that came from his rejection. He grabbed me by the shoulders and held me steady in front of him. Meaning flashed in his eyes. "I've said it already, but I'm so fucking sorry for what I did to you. I can't change the past but I can ask for forgiveness, and I can make life as easy for you as possible now." I couldn't speak. He hugged me, too hard, then thumped me on the back and pushed me away. Neither of us spoke for a long minute. Only continued our walk down the edge of the water, slowly frosting over in the freezing North Sea wind. As soon as I could manage it, I gave him the truth. "I think Mila will leave me when our time is up. We made a deal that she'd honour the rules of the game in exchange for me helping with her family problems." I was a thug, I thought with my fists, but I didn't want to be a liar right now. Arran swallowed but inclined his head. "Have you told her you love her?" "No." "But you do." He didn't ask it as a question. "It isn't a rule, but some contestants make a point of saying it from day one. Some from the moment they make their claim. It's powerful. Having someone love you is," he searched for the words, "fucking everything." I knocked down the surges of emotion that wouldn't stop coming. From his revelations, from his promises, from thoughts of Mila. "That's the only thing I want besides my place in the skeleton crew. Her. I need her." "I know exactly how you feel." I watched the black sea, my head thick with stories and half-formed memories. My need to have Mila in the forefront of my life, even as I was miles away from her. It was then that I realised what I was looking at. I stopped dead and stared at the ship across the water, a huge vessel painted red and white with cargo containers on the back. Across the side read 'MARCHANT HAULAGE' then the ship's name, EDEN, further along. "That's one of Mila's family's ships." Arran said something, but it was lost to my mind summoning a more recent occurrence. I knew that boat. I'd seen it before. Maybe within the past few months. I focused hard, but the recollection slipped and fractured. Fuck my broken brain. I didn't know if that was real or if I was hallucinating from the night I'd researched her while she'd slept in my cam girls' room. From my pocket, I found my phone and went to search the same thing I had that night, checking if this ship appeared as a picture. A notification pinged on my screen at the same moment. My tracker, set up according to Shade's instructions. Mila was moving through the city, fast. My gut dropped like I'd been punched. "Mila's left the warehouse." Arran swore and brought out his own phone. "Genevieve, too." I slapped him on the shoulder, urging him to go. Right as a crack rang out and the Marchant ship exploded in a rain of fire, bright in the pitch-black night. Her name, her family, her fucking inheritance. Going up in flames.