Page 1 of Shattered Union

Prologue

Denis

With pouty red lips and eyes filled with lust, Zoe’s finger trails up my shirt. “Denis,” she purrs.

I snap my hand around her wrist and squeeze. The fear enters her eyes, and her pout turns into a snarl. “Take your fucking hands off of me,” I growl at her. “I’ve warned you about this shit.”

Her gaze flickers to the driver, Michael, who’s up front. She hates when I rebuff her in public, but I’ve gotten past the point and I can no longer pretend that she’s my doting wife. “Denis,” she says quietly, hoping she’ll get me to change my mind.

Michael’s jaw ticks. He knows how much I hate the bitch and he’s offered more than once to take her off my hands. I can’t. Not just yet. She’s a sneaky fucking cunt and the sooner I have what I want, the sooner she’ll be out of all of our lives.

I haven’t fucked her in almost a decade. I’d rather bleach my fucking eyes out than sink my dick inside her.

“Two seconds,” I warn her. She’s got two fucking seconds to take her hand off me or I’m going to break it.

She pulls back and huffs. Her arms cross over her fake tits and just above the bump she has. The bump that’s nesting her unborn child. A child who isn’t mine. This’ll make the fourth child which this bitch will use as a pawn. Children who do not share my blood. Yet, she’s never once said otherwise. She’s stupidly smart, being able to play not only me but the major players in Ireland is a tough feat and means that she has brains. But fuck, she’s thick as fuck by going toe to toe with me, especially by threatening my son. I hate her with every breath I take.

“Remember,” she hisses at me. Her voice is quiet but powerful, that’s Zoe, she’s always loved the power that comes with being the Boss’s wife. “If you don’t want your precious son to go to prison, then you had better act like an adoring husband.”

And there it is. The reason I haven’t snapped this bitch’s neck. She has evidence of Danny, my eldest son, killing a fucking judge. Instead of being a mam and getting rid of the evidence, she’s kept it and has been using it as a bargaining chip for the past eight years.

I’ve got the best investigators working on locating the thumb drive that contains the video footage and yet, not one of them has come up with the goods.

“And, Zoe,” I sneer at her. “If you want to continue living in luxury, you’ll remember who the fuck I am.” I glance out the window as the rain pelts down against the car. “Mike, drop her off here. I’ve got business to attend to.”

I hear her sharp intake of breath, but after the discussion we’ve just had, she knows not to push me further. Michael’s lips tilt at the corners. He fucking loves when I’ve reached my limit with her because I become ruthless.

Michael pulls the car to a slow stop, he doesn’t get out of the vehicle, just has the blinker on as we wait for her to exit the car.

“Denis, please,” she pleads with me.

Before, I used to love making her beg for my forgiveness, that was until she got pregnant by someone else. Now, I can’t stand to be around her. “Out,” I snap. “Get the fuck out of the car.”

The door opens and the harsh Dublin breeze whips around her, making the bleached blonde hair of hers blow with the wind as the rain falls down on her, soaking through the white blouse she’s wearing.

“Drive,” I instruct Michael. He doesn’t make a sound, just effortlessly pulls back into the heavy Dublin traffic.

Twenty-two years I’ve been married to that bitch and I feel every inch of the forty years I am. I tried to love her, but Zoe doesn’t understand the concept. All she saw was the money and power that came with my name. The status she’d have if she caught my eye.

I was a foolish seventeen-year-old who only thought with his dick. She’s beautiful, and always has been if you like easy women. She’s superficial and shallow. She trapped me by getting pregnant on purpose. She had the condom, one in which she pierced before I fucked her. If I had my way, I would have left it after that one encounter. She wasn’t any good, just like in life, Zoe’s selfish in bed.

Being the man that I am, family is everything. So when she came to me and told me I was going to be a da, I married her, giving her the security she needed and giving my child a home. Unlike what I had growing up.

A year later, our second son came along. Malcolm came out screaming. Then a year later, she gave me my baby girl. I was a fucking fortunate man. While I tried to love my wife, I couldn’t stand her, and she made it quite clear from the get-go that she had no intentions of being an actual mother. She’d leave the kids with the nanny I hired, while she went out and did whatever the hell she wanted. She’d be gone days on end, without even a thought as to how her children were.

Chloe came into the world almost seven years after her sister, and that’s when I doubted Zoe and how loyal she was in our marriage. But I left it alone; I didn’t want it to be true. I love my kids; they’re everything to me. I’d fucking kill for them and I have done on more than one occasion. But when Mary was born just over a year ago, I knew the bitch was sleeping elsewhere. Not that I was giving it to her. Now she’s pregnant again, and I finally did DNA tests on my children and found out neither Chloe nor Malcolm are mine.

For that alone, she’s going to die. First, I need to find where the fuck the thumb drive is.

Tyres whirl against the slick wet road as Michael’s foot lands heavily on the brake. I’m thrown forward at the impact and he comes to a skidding halt. “Fuck,” he snarls and jumps out of the car, leaving the door open.

“Jesus,” I hear a raspy voice yell. “Maybe if you slowed the hell down, you wouldn’t almost run over kids.”

“Look, love,” Michael begins, and I smile as I open the car door. Michael’s got a way with the ladies, they flock to him no matter where we go.

“Love?” the woman snarls. “Listen you,amadán,it’s pissing down with rain, it’s freezing and there’s two children crying. How about you learn how to drive like a normal person instead of thinking you’re Lewis Hamilton, then we can all get along with our day?”[Idiot]

I climb out of the car and I feel as though someone’s gut punched me. My knees fucking shake as I look at the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her gaze on Michael, those blueish-silvery eyes of hers glaring at him. The colour of her hair is a cross between grey and silver which highlights her magnificent eyes. She’s wearing a black skirt tight across her thighs and I’m urging her to turn around to see what her arse looks like. On her feet are black ankle boots with at least a four-inch heel. She’s got a cropped jacket on which stops just above her stomach.

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