Flip A Coin: Utterly Betrayed, #1

By Hanleigh Bradley

If fate was a two-sided coin, I chose tails so Emily could win heads.

When Mob Boss, Olivia Dixon's twin sister Emily suddenly goes missing, Olivia is hellbent on not just rescuing her but destroying the people responsible, no matter who that ends up being.

A guilt-ridden Olivia is convinced that they've got the wrong sister. After all, Emily's life is pretty tame by comparison. Instead of working with knives and guns, she teaches five-year-old kids how to spell.

In a last ditch attempt to find her, Olivia takes her sister's place; at work, with friends and perhaps more importantly even in Emily's husband's bed.

She's not your average girl. Olivia is a female mob boss in Flip A Coin, a mafia romance from USA Today Bestselling Author, Hanleigh Bradley.

"Flip A Coin is a suspenseful novel with several twists, and I quickly became engrossed in the story." - Behind Closed Doors Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hanleigh Bradley
• Release date: Nov 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393834779

Hanleigh Bradley

British Author Hanleigh Bradley writes Contemporary Romance about British twenty somethings in London.

Book preview

1

Fate's A B*tch

‘I was just on the phone with her,’ I say. ‘What do you mean she’s missing?’

I barely hear my uncle as he tells me that my twin sister is not only missing; she’s possibly dead. It’s hard to process the information because it doesn’t make sense. Only thirty minutes ago, she was telling me that her life was practically perfect, fucking rosy as shit, or what not.

It’s illogical.

If anything, he should be telling my sister this news. Not me. It’s me that should be rotting at the bottom of a river somewhere. In fact, I’ve nearly been thrown into the Thames twice already and I’m only twenty-five.

Twenty-five and running the biggest organised crime mafia in Europe.

I’m not your average twenty-something but Emily is. She lives a perfectly normal life, far away from our family business. It doesn’t make sense. She’s married. I didn’t go to the wedding, hellbent on keeping her world as far away from mine as possible.

That was always the deal.

The ultimatum that coincided with my agreement. I’ll learn the family business if Emily can go to school in the States. When Dad had his heart attack… I’ll take over the business if they keep Emily out of it.

That was always the demand that followed my concessions. I offered my imprisonment for Emily’s freedom.

We might be the same age, but I’ve always been her big sister in all but age. It was me who protected her from bullies in primary school. Me who shielded her eyes, the first time we saw someone murdered.

And yet somewhere along the way, I failed and now the kid sister I always protect is missing.

I try to rationalise the information and decide what to do. I need to be proactive. I need to do something. Anything. But there’s nothing I can do from here.

I don’t even know where Emily lives. In a desperate attempt to stop myself ever trying to visit her, I practically cut her off, except for our monthly phone calls. All in the name of saving her from this shit.

‘Where is she living these days?’ I ask my uncle, the one I tasked with her protection.

‘London,’ he replies in a voice that suggests he knows I’ll be angry.

‘What?’

It’s not the fact that she’s been a hair’s distance away that bothers me, but rather that we’re identical fucking twins and there’s a huge chance I’m the reason they’ve taken her.

On the bright side, at least I don’t need to take a plane to get there.

‘Text the address,’ I demand.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asks, even though he knows he shouldn’t. It’s not his place to question me.

I don’t answer immediately. Truth is, I have no fucking clue what I will do. Only that I must do something.

‘Her husband is distraught,’ he continues, ‘and he doesn’t even know Emily has a sister, let alone a mob boss for a twin.’

‘Fuck that,’ I reply. Like I care that he is hurting. He’s not the only one. ‘The address. NOW.’

Those around me are startled by the sudden rise in my voice. It’s not often I lose my composure. Taking a deep, calming breath, I say to God knows who to ready my car. They’re obviously surprised. This meeting shouldn’t be postponed; it’s time sensitive.

But I don’t give a fuck.

Turning to Jax, my second, I tell him to take charge. He hides his surprise better than the others. Then again, nothing gets past him. We’ve been friends our whole lives, thrust together by our mobster parents. Tradition decided our roles long before either of us were even walking.

Except that’s not strictly true. His was determined for him. I chose mine. If fate was a two-sided coin, I chose tails so Emily could win heads.

Like all things in life though, you can’t fool fate, the evil bitch that’s hellbent on fucking us all over.

Without another word, I leave the conference room, regardless of the deal I’ve been working on for months or the contract sitting on the table waiting to be signed. It doesn’t matter that this is the deal that will make it possible for us to go legit. Nothing matters. Not if Emily is in danger.

I’d do much worse things than sell arms, or drugs even, to save my sister.

Artie, my driver and bodyguard, is waiting for me in the lobby, twirling the car key on his finger. As I approach, he nods his head respectfully and straightens so that he’s not leaning on the marble pillar behind him.

‘Where to?’ he asks nonchalantly. Anyone else would get a wallop around the back of the head for that tone, not Art though. He’s taken a bullet for me and it’s amazing what sort of affinity that can create.

Flinging my phone into his hand, I stride towards the glass doors that lead out to the street and my waiting Merc.

2

It's All on Me

I don’t know what I expect when we pull up in front of Emily’s house. A white picket fence and a tree swing in the front garden perhaps, but certainly not this. The house is sleek, perfect lines and symmetry. It doesn’t match my sister one bit. It’s a modern monstrosity. Or at least that’s what she’d say if she were here.

Emily’s always been on the more traditional side. She’s the light to my darkness. The quiet to my noise. The peace to my chaos.

Perhaps I expected a cottage with a beautiful rose garden or something equally sentimental. I didn’t expect her house to scream money. Not when she’d refused every penny any of the family had ever offered her.

There are several cars pulled up outside, and my Uncle Jack is standing on the driveway smoking a cigarette. He quickly squashes it under his metal capped boot when he spots me making my way towards him.

‘Still not quit?’ I ask when I reach his side, not particularly caring for the answer. It’s idle bullshit.

He shrugs his shoulders.

‘As if it’s that easy,’ he tells me in a voice scratchy from years of too much tar. He quickly changes the topic as he falls into step beside me, approaching the house. ‘Everyone is here,’ he informs me. ‘We arrived just in time to stop him calling the police.’

I don’t know if I should be relieved. The police’s involvement would be disastrous and yet I sort of wish that we were a normal family. Normal people who don’t hesitate to call the fucking cops in an emergency, instead of reaching for a weapon.

Even better. Normal, everyday sort of people who don’t get their fucking loved ones kidnapped.

Even thinking it makes my eyes sting. Kidnapped. I don’t want to imagine what sort of shit my sister is facing right now. And yet I’ve seen far too much, not to have every possible scenario running on repeat through my mind.

Because I’m not your average person and no matter how much I might want to deny it neither is Emily. How could she be? She’s my sister after all.

Jack leads me into the house, surprising me with just how at ease he is here. He lets himself in like it’s nothing. His only job for the last ten years has been protecting Emily, so I guess it makes sense that he’d have visited her house countless times, but I feel a sudden twinge of jealousy that I can’t do the same.

He pushes open a door and steps aside to let me enter what appears to be a kitchen, from what I can see of the work surfaces behind the crowd of people gathered. I’m hit by a sudden onslaught of angry voices, voices that all go silent as soon as they notice me.

The only sound, a sudden intake of breath from the only man I don’t recognise. Presumably the husband.

Luke, a young kid, far too young to be involved with the mob, jumps to his feet and offers me his seat at the breakfast bar. Thanking him with a smile and a squeeze to his shoulder, I accept it. He doesn’t belong here, never has. He’s barely eighteen and yet every offer I’ve made him to leave has been denied. I even offered to pay his tuition fees for University, but he was bloody obstinate that this was where he wanted to be. Like most of us, he was born into it, his father and grandfather before him, trailing his path. It’s for kids like Luke, that I’m so desperate for us to go legit. I don’t want to have their blood on my hands.

‘Tell me everything,’ I demand of the room at large, avoiding the eye of Emily’s husband.

I want to know as little about him as possible. His world, Emily’s world, and mine can’t mix. I sense his eyes on me though. It feels as if they’re boring into my skull. I glance his way, even though I know I shouldn’t, perhaps in morbid fascination with the life I worked so hard to give Emily.

He’s staring. When I look his way directly, he still doesn’t look away.

I don’t even know how to address him. Emily never told me his name. Our conversations never ran on the long side; I’d check she was safe and happy, and she’d tell me some silly little titbit from her week and then I’d hang up, leaving her to live her hopefully perfect life. It was what Emily wanted, to be left alone. She’d said it enough times, and I can hardly say I blame her.

‘Is someone going to say something?’ I ask, taking my eyes away from my sister’s husband.

I do my best to ignore everything about him, including the dark, coppery hair that falls in his eyes on one side or the way those eyes are staring daggers at me. I guess I’m not the only one blaming me. I ignore the way his arms appear as he folds them across his chest, all bulging veins and firm muscles.

Got to give it to my sister. She has good taste.

They are all too quiet and that’s definitely a bad omen. Artie comes up behind me, whispering in my ear that the meeting I just deserted went well. I should care but I don’t, not while Emily is in danger.

My eyes land on one of the guys. Raising my eyebrows, I tell him without words that I’m waiting.

He coughs before stuttering out that they don’t know much. I almost cut him off there. How useless can you get?

‘Miss Emily went shopping yesterday,’ he continues, ‘but she didn’t come back.’

I turn to Artie, my patience practically non-existent.

‘Call Jax,’ I say brusquely. ‘I want Emily’s last known GPS co-ordinates and access to her call history and text messages.’

For most people it would be impossible, but Jax is a genius or at least I think he is. He’s done some crazy hacking shit for me in the past and so I know getting my sister’s phone records will be as easy as a walk in the park. In fact, if the situation wasn’t dire, he’d call me up and tell me the job was too small for someone of his expertise.

I don’t wait for Artie to respond before turning to my Uncle Jack.

‘Who was on her detail?’

Jack looks awkward for a moment and it’s obvious what he is going to say.

‘Emily saw them and sent them away,’ he tells me after a pause. He’s on the verge of apologising. Uncle Jack sees this as his personal failure; he had one job, and he failed. Except, this isn’t on him. This is all on me.

‘Who was it?’

‘Luke and Drew.’

‘Guys, go back, trace your steps,’ I say it all a lot calmer than I feel, ‘and get me all the CCTV footage you can of what Emily did before and after she sent you away. Everything you can get. I want every fucking moment of her morning documented on video.’

They murmur their agreement before making their way towards the door and I turn back to my Uncle.

‘Do we know if she was wearing the necklace?’

He shakes his head and I frown.

‘Where does she keep her jewellery?’ I ask, turning my head in Emily’s husband’s general direction, still refusing to look at

Reviews for Flip A Coin

[Daniella · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely loved it! I can't wait for the next one!