Copyright

Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

HarperElement

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperElement 2016

FIRST EDITION

© Megan Henley 2016

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Front cover photograph © Rekha Garton/Arcangel Images (posed by model)

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

Megan Henley and Linda Watson Brown assert the

moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008144333

Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780008171063

Version: 2016-03-08

Dedication

For Wugsa and Weeves: you are all that matter x

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

1 Teenage kicks

2 ‘Are you OK?’

3 Friends

4 Mad

5 In too deep

Moving memoirs eNewsletter

About the publisher

Prologue

The message was clear. Horribly, terrifyingly clear.

You need to get out, Megan. Take the kids and run. They’re watching you. If you don’t listen to Vic, his dad will kill you and the girls. You know they’ve been after you for a while, but he can’t stop them anymore. He has tried his best – he has fought for you and done things no man should ever have to even consider – he’s put himself on the line time and time again. But the time has come. Trust me – Val x

Valerie had been on my side for so long. She was always there when I needed to chat online, always there with a supportive message, or – like now – words of warning. I was living in the middle of a nightmare. My partner, Vic, had taken on the anger of his entire family by continuing to have a relationship with me, and now it was coming to a head.

His whole family was violent, with his father the worst of the bunch. He had been brought up among Romany gypsies, his parents at the top of the hierarchy, always willing to do what they needed to stay in that position, never shy of dishing out violence and hatred when they saw fit. They were unpredictable and lawless. They wanted me dead, they wanted my babies dead. They had their own rules and no one could talk them out of what they planned to do to us.

Vic had broken away from it all and they despised him for it. He had been punished and threatened, stalked and beaten. He wanted nothing to do with it all, but he kept being drawn back in by family loyalty one way or another. He had lost too many friends and too many years.

But worse than anything, he was with me – a gorja, a non-gypsy, a woman who was the lowest of the low. We had a child together, we wanted a life, a future free of the intimidation and terror that came from being a gypsy king’s son who had turned his back on the privilege and horror that came with that role. It looked like we would never have it; it looked like this could be the end.

I knew, from all of the stories Vic had told me, that the gang now looking for me and my two little girls wouldn’t hesitate to murder us, just as they had shown no hesitation when killing so many others. They operated outside the rules which governed normal society, beyond the reach of the law – no one would touch them – and they were on a mission to get us. They were contract killers, mercenaries, who wouldn’t flinch from carrying out his father’s orders. I was nothing to them or to the gypsy king, my daughter wasn’t seen as his blood – we were scum, and he wanted us eradicated.

Vic had been away from the house for some time. He’d thought his absence would distract his dad, that if he was away we would be safer, but I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t sleep, even though I’d been assured that protection was in place. I knew that I was being followed everywhere I went and that the house was being watched the whole time, but the lines were blurred.

I wasn’t sure who the good guys were any more.

In fact, I knew that the good guys did their share of killing anyway, so who could I trust?

Valerie.

I could trust her. She had been there for me from the start, she only had my best interests and the interests of my two little girls at heart. She was an honest, strong woman who knew Vic’s story and knew that this time, more than ever before, he simply had to win.

I started to pack, throwing a few things into bags, concentrating on what the kids would need, wondering where I could go with the dogs and cats in tow as well. Vic had been warning me for so long now that the girls were in danger, that they would be used to send a message. The rest of my family wasn’t safe either. I was aware that if I went to my mum’s I could be leading the killers to her. Where could I go?

There was nowhere.

I stopped. I was shaking but I also knew that I couldn’t really leave, despite Valerie’s words. Vic had told me to stay – and there was a good reason behind him wanting me to do that. We couldn’t go on like this. There had been so many threats, so many warnings.

It was us or them.

I could hardly believe that my life had come to this. I was an intelligent, successful woman when I met him, the mother of a beautiful daughter. I had a good education behind me and a thriving business ahead. How had I become part of this world? A world that spoke of murder as if it was nothing, of revenge killings and contracts and mutilation and torture? I’d do anything to protect my girls, but I felt powerless. Everything was out of my control and Vic was the only one who could save us.

My mind was going at a million miles an hour, my heart was pounding. I just wanted to make sure we were all safe, I had to believe that we could be. I couldn’t waste time wondering how I’d got to this point, how awful it was, and how many threats were out there.

We just had to survive.

I couldn’t bear to think of the alternative.

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