Triplet Babies for the Scottish Mafia Boss by Rosalie Rose

2

Malcom

Rosehill once belonged to an immigrant Englishwoman of noble means. Over the centuries, it’s been a home, an orphanage, a sick house, a famine house, and then again a villa.

When I bought it at twenty-five, now near a decade ago, it was a ruin locally affronted as haunted. I liked the idea of living with ghosts. Of the supernatural guarding the walls against any who came knocking.

But in the years since I bought the place, no one has come to know it’s mine. It’s far from the big cities and even the rural towns, with the closest strip of shops and homes being nearly forty kilometers away. It’s the perfect place to live in secret, a hitman among civil people. It’s the perfect place to begin the next chapter of my life.

And somehow, she fits right into it.

Pete, my right-hand man, and Callie, the live-in housemaid, have made her comfortable. She’ll wake soon, though, and I want to be there when she does.

To justify—no, to explain—why. Why I chose her. Why I’ve taken her. Why she’s here, and will be—likely for the rest of her life.

“Sir.” Pete appears, dressed in fine but discreet black, as per usual. He worked for my father, a hitman before me, and his familiar, aged face is still a comfort. His gray beard is trimmed nicely, and his pale, water-colored eyes are as sure and steady as a ship on calm waters. “She’s stirring.”

I nod once, appraising the dark curtain of night still hanging over the dawn. The hills here are dew-wet and shadowed, and there isn’t another soul for miles. But from here I can still see the dark spires of Blicktenner, our only neighbor, a haunted castle ruin that howls in a storm. It sobers me, the cold stark sight of it. I turn in to face the girl I’ve kidnapped.

Rosehill has been empty while I’ve travelled. My jobs took me to Ireland, England, even overseas. My work has been in high demand. But the mafia my father once called his family has hit dire straits, and I knew if I wanted any part in its future, I had to return to Scotland. So Callie pulled the sheets off the furniture and lit the fires.

There’s a remaining stillness though, to the great villa. Even with Callie and Jen, the other maid, and me and Pete and now—her. I try not to let it get to me as I briskly take the stone stairs. Callie and Jen nod to me as I pass the kitchen, forever loyal and silent servants. What do they think, I wonder? Of the girl upstairs?

I try to ignore the rising sense of guilt, building like bile behind my ribs. Not for the first time, I resent myself and my skillset. I am a killer. But more so, I am a criminal. One who has learned to be invisible, to slide knives into vulnerable places. It was all too easy to make Emma’s kidnapping look innocuous. She’s recovering from a public separation, and I’ve been watching her, waiting for the moment to strike. It was the first night she’d gone out in months. And after encountering her ex, would it be so mad to imagine she’d fled town? Gone to travel, to find herself and escape her past?

I am cruel for framing the crime this way. But I am also cautious. For both of our safety, and for the success of this mission, I had to make sure no one will look for Emma Rosen. And because of the way I staged her house, leaving a brief note behind claiming she needed a moment of solitude and freedom—no one will.

What isn’t searched for can’t be found. And so I know already, by my own hand, that Emma is mine.

By the time I reach her rooms, on the third floor and overlooking the steel plane of the sea, she’s stirring.

The sight of her makes my breath catch. Long, soft, light brown waves cascading over her shoulders; alabaster skin, thick lashes, a smattering of pale freckles. Her lips are parted, the sheets caught around her bare legs. The sight of them carves a pit of hunger into me, and I grip the doorframe, commanding myself to be composed. Even as her soft brown eyes open—and fill with terror.

“No!” Emma cries. She leaps from the bed, but the chloroform is still in her system. She stumbles chaotically.

I rush toward her, sweeping her up in my arms before she can collapse on the cold flagstones. “Easy,” I say, even as she struggles in my arms. I gently deposit her back on the bed. Her tight red dress has hitched, and my eyes catch on the milky expanse of her bare thigh.

She catches me looking, yanking the duvet up to cover herself. I can’t stand the blank terror in her face. “No. No, this can’t be happening. Where am I? Where is my phone? My purse—”

“Emma,” I say, surprised at the tenderness her name evokes in me. I straighten to my full height, knowing that even though I don’t want to scare her any more than I already have, I need to exert my authority. “You’re safe.”

“Safe!” she cries, and then, finally, she looks at me. Really looks—and sees me. “Malcom.”

My breath hitches when she speaks my name. It’s been so incredibly long, but it takes me back to those days. When she was at university in Glasgow, and I was working. It was pure chance that we met, her a student—me a hardened hitman. She never knew what I really did. I convinced her I was in construction. I knew eventually my work would take me away from her—and it did. We happened hard and fast, and the relationship lasted only about six months. A part of me knew I could have stayed forever. There was something about her that always, from the moment we first locked eyes in a crowded café, felt like home to me. Did I feel like home to her?

Do I now? Can I again?

I left her although I never wanted to. My life and occupation, unbeknownst to Emma, endangered her often. Yes, I would have stayed if I could have. I knew from the beginning, though, that I couldn’t. And so, citing my bad influence over her, and how she deserved better—and she did—I left, and didn’t look back.

But not before we…no. It wasn’t love. It could never be love. A life like mine, as my father knew and taught me, doesn’t allow room for love. Only duty.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” I say, making my tone hard and cool. “There wasn’t time to explain.”

“Explain?” she whispers, her eyes huge with fear. “Explain what, Malcom? What am I doing here?”

I hesitate, but there’s no use in stalling. I clasp my hands in front of me and stare coldly out the window. “I lied to you, when we were together all of those years ago. About what I do. What I am.”

“OK…” Her voice trembles. I feel her eyes on me, but I can’t bear to meet them.

“I’m a hitman.”

Her gasp is quiet, shallow, just a sharp intake of breath. When she says nothing, I press on.

“I’m affiliated with the Scottish mafia—but I’ve never been initiated. I prefer to work alone.” I clear my throat. “But my father was extremely close with the current head of the mafia. And…” This part hurts, but I smooth my voice, remove myself from the situation. “He’s dying.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“The head of the Scottish mafia is dying, and he needs to name a successor.” I let my eyes slide to her. Her brow is furrowed, fingertips against her lips. “But he can’t name a successor who doesn’t have an heir.”

Her eyes widen, and meet mine. I clench my jaw. Everything in me wants to step back, to set her free, to end this before it’s begun. But what choice do I have? Duty.

“We were once lovers,” I say, my voice steely and carefully devoid of emotion. “More than lovers. We were allies. Friends. We trusted one another, deeply. And I can’t imagine I alone pictured a future where we remained together.” It pains me to admit this, but I’ll say what I must in the service of warming her to this terrible plot. “And I’ve…”

She searches my face, saying nothing.

“You are the only woman who meets the standards of what a mafia wife must be.” I straighten my spine and stare ahead. “Do you understand, Emma, what I’m saying?”

“You’ve kidnapped me to be your wife and…bear your child?” Her voice trembles. “Malcom. This is insane. Don’t you see this is insane?”

“If I had more time, I would have let this unfold naturally. As it once did. But time is of the essence. Sampson is dying. And if I don’t produce an heir, he can’t in good conscience name me his successor.”

“You’re insane,” she whispers.

It hurts. A small knife between the ribs. But I maintain my composure. I knew to expect this. Emma, soft and warm as she is, has never been immune to speaking her mind. She’s smart, and upright. I’d expect nothing less than this rejection. But it cannot matter. “If I don’t take over,” I tell her, “someone else will. Not just someone. But a terrible, dangerous man. I can’t let that happen.”

“You,” Emma says, her voice suddenly cold and sharp, “are the terrible, dangerous man. I won’t agree to this.”

I don’t want to say it, but I know that I must. “You don’t have to.”

Emma’s eyes widen. “You tore me out of my life. Now you’ll marry me—take me—against my will?” She leaps up suddenly and slams her hands against my chest. “What is wrong with you? You’re insane! You’re a monster!”

She beats my chest with her fists, but I barely feel it. She’s small, and despite her rage, she’s practically ineffectual. Tears stream down her cheeks, and against my will, against my composure, it breaks something in me.

I catch her wrists and pull her against me. “You loved me once.”

“I loved a different man,” she says, the words almost a gasp. “And clearly love has nothing to do with this.”

She’s soft in my arms, helpless. A surge of animal protectiveness rises inside of me—but I’m the one she needs protection from.

I can’t live two lives, I tell myself, as I did so many years ago, when she and I were together. I can’t be two men. I must be the man that survives.

So I make myself cold, pulling her hard against me, forcing her to look me in the eye. “You will bear a child for me,” I tell her, struck by the hard, determined will and fearlessness in her beautiful face. “You will serve me as a wife. And I will protect you, and any children we have, forever. But I do not have time to fight you. I don’t have time to search for another woman. You loved me once, and perhaps you will love me again. But in the end, Emma, love is not required for this arrangement.”

Her chin trembles, but there is only fury in her eyes. “I’ll fight you,” she whispers. “Every moment of every day that I’m here, I will fight you. I’ll escape. I’ll find a way.”

She doesn’t pull from me. She instead leans even nearer, looking straight up into my face with a shocking resolve that I would never have expected from such a soft, quiet, warm woman. She’s made of far stronger stuff than I could ever have known.

“You’re a smart woman,” I say softly. “Surely you know that you will never escape. And someday, you’ll lose the will to fight. We are in as remote a place as Scotland knows. My staff are sworn to me. You are mine now, Emma Rosen. As you once were.”

Her eyes widen slightly.

“And I will wait for your consent,” I say, adding this in a low growl, and drawing her close so our noses are nearly touching. “But I will not wait long.”

I release her then, and to my surprise, she neither fights nor attempts to run. I turn for the door.

“This isn’t you,” she whispers.

I halt, the words seeming to physically stop me. “You don’t know me anymore,” I reply after a moment. “You never truly did.”

When she doesn’t respond, I look back at her. She stands with shoulders squared and hands in tight fists.

“You will be provided for,” I inform her coolly. “Anything you wish for, you will have granted. But you can’t leave the property—not until you’ve conceived and I’ve been named successor. People will be looking for you—bad people. Dangerous people. Here, at least, you’re safe.”

She smiles then, an enraged, bitter smile I didn’t think her capable of. “Safe,” she whispers. “From every monster but the one standing in front of me.”

The hurt and fear in her eyes, the hate—it hooks me right in the ribs. But I’m not here to fall in love. I’m not here for happiness. Duty. I incline my head. “Be that as it may,” I say. “This is your home now, Emma. This is your life. Don’t fight it.”

I turn without another word and leave. I turn the key, locking her in. The sound of it echoes coldly down the empty halls.