Page 1 of Parker
Prologue
The ink wasn’t even dry on our divorce agreement, and he’d moved her in.
Our six years of marriage disposed of like trash.
My shaking hand signed away our life together. Completely devastated, never thinking it would come to this, tears flowed freely down my cheeks. I never saw myself as a divorcee, always believing our marriage could survive anything. The fairy-tale ending that everyone craved would be mine. I imagined we would grow old together in a beachfront cottage overlooking the sea.
Our wedding day is ingrained in my memory like it was yesterday. It was the happiest day of my life. Our friends’ cheerful faces filled the room as I walked down the red-carpeted aisle. They smiled broadly as I passed, offering their congratulations before the ceremony had even begun. Pots of white lilies were dispersed around the room, and an intricatemetal archway defined where the ceremony would take place. Everything was exactly as it was planned to be.
Perfect.
“This is so romantic,” my best friend, Sophie, had squealed when I told her my news. “I can’t believe you’re getting married.”
“I know it’s quick,” I replied shyly. “But it feels so right. And with everything that happened… surely, I deserve a happy ending.”
“You do, Nicky,” she said and wrapped me tightly in her arms. “After everything, you deserve the best ending.”
Our families didn’t attend our big day—they didn’t agree with our union. Our relationship was young, but it worked. Since we’d met four months earlier, we hadn’t left each other’s side. Almost every night we shared a bed, and I couldn’t imagine having an empty space in mine again.
Neither of us was young—for both of us, time was passing fast, and I’d lost so much of it. After being locked away like a caged animal for years, only to be allowed out when the judge permitted my freedom, I planned to live the rest of my life to the fullest.
“It will all end in tears,” my mother had said. “He’s not the one for you. You’ve only just got your life back.”
“It’s too quick to be making a commitment like this,” his mother warned him. “Why are you rushing to tie each other down? She’s a convict. You can’t delete a criminal record. It will tarnish both your lives forever. It will bring shame on our family.”
We ignored them.
We loved each other.
It was none of their business. They didn’t understand how we felt. They had never been in love the way we were.
If we were together, we could take on the world.
Chapter one
Glasgow, Scotland
March 2019
Nicky
It’s a gloomy day in Glasgow, and the dark skies above mirror my mood. I don’t suppose many people are ecstatic the day their divorce is finalized, but I hadn’t expected to feel like a hollowed-out version of myself, either. I feel as though someone has scooped me clean from the inside, leaving me walking on legs made of glass, ready to shatter on the smallest impact.
I leave the courthouse around midday and head straight to the nearest bar. Not for a drink. Not at first. Just… for the silence. The shadow. The space to sit and pretend my whole life hasn’t just come undone. Somewhere I know no one, and no one will know me.
Oblivion is easier to chase than grief, and I take the easy way out. Precariously, I descend the stairs, taking each one at asnail’s pace to ensure I don’t slip on the green slime covering the old stone where the sunshine never reaches.
No one appears to have renovated the place for thirty years. I step into the bar onto an old carpet, threadbare in spots, the wood paneling scarred from decades of use. But something is comforting in the decay. The dim lighting and red velvet chairs wrap the space in a kind of quiet that feels safe. Forgotten places welcome forgotten people. I feel at home.
I climb onto a high stool, cross my legs, and wait. No bartender. No music. Just the low hum of a refrigeration unit and the buzz in my head.
Ten minutes pass, and nothing.
To hell with this, I think, sliding down from my perch. I wander behind the bar while scanning the room for cameras, then I help myself. The click of the optic and splash of liquor in the glass is calming for my anxious brain. It starts with one drink, just one to take the edge off. Just one to get through this hour, this day, this life. And it ends with ten.
The place stays empty, just me and the echo of my thoughts. Normal people are at work. Normal people don’t slide into the arms of insensibility before three o’clock on a weekday afternoon. But my life is anything but normal, and I need any relief I can get.
When the bartender finally emerges from the back room and finds me behind his bar, drink in hand, he doesn’t shout. He swings. The baseball bat cracks against my back before I even sense him move.
