Page 17 of The Shape of my Scar (The Unbroken #1)

T hane was waiting outside the double doors when Trish finally strolled past the gates with her hands in her pockets, cigarette dangling from her mouth.

Her brown eyes slithered over him with barely veiled contempt. “Got something to handle. I’ll meet you in half an hour.”

Thane raised a brow, letting his eyes skim down her body and back up with lazy arrogance. “Thought we were attached at the hip now? I’ll tag along, keep you company.”

She didn’t stop walking. “Stay here if you prefer not to catch a bullet through that soft little head.”

Then she ghosted him.

Thane stood in the yard for five minutes, then ten. An hour passed. He pretended to smoke half a cigarette before he flickered the rest to the gravel and muttered, “Fuck this.”

Still no Trish

He found Malcolm in the office, feet up on the desk, phone in hand playing on his phone.

“If you’re gonna waste my time,” Thane said, his tone different from flirtatious casual from before, “let me know now. I’ll take my business elsewhere. Your little bitch has given me the slip.”

Malcolm gave him a look. “Relax. She’s temperamental, but she gets the job done.”

“Temperamental doesn’t get deals done. It is not going to be good for your business.”

Malcolm’s smile thinned as he dialled a number. “Give me five minutes.”

Thane listened as Malcom tore Trish a new arsehole.

And just like that, five minutes after the call, the message came through from a withheld number.

Docks. 4:30. South bay entrance. Ricky and Jac will bring you.

By the time Thane arrived at the docks, the sun had sunk low in the sky and the air stank of salt, rust, and old diesel.

Ricky had immediately split—thank Christ. The bloke was insufferable.

Thane had the pleasure of sitting in the backseat while he yapped away in the front.

His jet-black hair was slicked back with half a bottle of product, the smell of his too-tight leather jacket and body odour wafting to the backseat and a smile that made your skin itch.

He had stood too close while they frisked Thane yet again, all the while talking loudly to Jac.

They had a folder a few inches wide with a rap sheet a mile long on him at the base.

He also talked about Trish like she was a trophy he owned.

Jac, by contrast, was a shadow. Wiry, shaved head, with eyes like a snake—flat and the colour of onyx.

He didn’t speak much, but when he did, it was short, efficient, and unsettling.

There were no empty threats with this man.

You just knew he’d already considered how to kill you with what was in his pockets.

He disappeared as well, like Thane was an unwanted parcel.

A man by the entrance—probably just a low-level runner—gave Thane a stiff nod and unlocked the bay door. “She’s inside.”

The metal door creaked as Thane stepped in.

It was a stripped-down container office with steel walls, scuffed desk, cracked blinds, and that unsettling silence that always came before something unpleasant.

And Trish.

She stood behind the desk, braced against the surface with one hand, the other holding a thin glass straw to her nose. She snorted the line and held her breath before exhaling with a sigh, her eyes closed. When they opened again, they locked straight onto him.

The hostility was now replaced with a strange expression which bordered interest.

Thane stepped forward, that trademark grin already curling into place. “Want to share?”

The next week passed in a blur of surveillance.

Thane followed the day-to-day operations closely—shipment checklists, whispered conversations, cash pick-ups, and rotations of sealed vans. But still not a child in sight. The crew was wary of him. He would have to gain their trust.

Trish had become less hostile since that day in the container. She wasn’t exactly warm—nothing about her veered toward softness—but she no longer treated him like gum stuck to her shoe.

And she was still an attractive woman who eyed him when she thought he wasn’t looking.

It started with a look one afternoon. The two of them were in the back lot, going over future logistics.

Then there was silence, and he looked into her eyes to see a gleam of interest.

“You wanna fuck?” she asked, blunt as always.

Thane didn’t answer with words. He gave Ricky, who was lurking nearby with his habitual sullen glare, a slow, infuriating smile, and then followed Trish into a side room that smelled faintly of oil and old concrete.

She bent over the table without instruction.

He peeled her shorts and panties down with a practiced tug and used his boot to push it all the way down before he took her from behind, fast and rough.

She came within seconds, her wet walls clenching around him like she’d been starving for it.

And like an untried schoolboy, he followed her within seconds.

It carried the same thrill of putting a hand in a snake pit.

But it wasn’t the last time.

Over the next week, they fucked in a storage bay, a locked van, in a stairwell. Trish didn’t want conversation or foreplay, just control. She was sensual, yes, but never soft. She was always in charge and always watching like she knew a secret he didn’t. It made him wary.

Still, she remained tight-lipped about the operation, the inner workings, the records, the network behind it all. And most importantly, where the children were.

And that unsettled him more than he liked to admit. He felt like he was playing a game of chess with a master, and he was losing.

And then it all changed…

One afternoon during the second week, Thane passed Malcolm in the hallway. Smug as ever, phone in hand, he was chatting about inventory logistics, oblivious to him eavesdropping.

But five minutes later, he caught Trish in the side room with her back to him, her voice low and angry.

“I told you that’s not happening. I don’t give a fuck who he’s connected to—no names. Not over the phone. No.”

A pause.

“He’s not stupid. And I’m not walking into this blind.”

Another pause. Then she noticed him.

Her thumb cut the call.

“Delivery’s coming,” she said, changing the subject. “Get your shit together.”

Before he could press further, she added with a sensuous smile, “We’ve got half an hour.”

She stepped in close, unzipping him before he could even catch up.

Then she was on her knees, her mouth hot, determined.

Her short hair brushed his thighs, her hands firm on his hips as her full lips gently kissed the crown of his cock before enveloping it in the wet heat of her mouth and sucking it.

He threaded his fingers through the shorn sides of her head as she looked up at him while she deep-throated him.

The expression in her eyes wasn’t playful or warm.

It was something else…watchful.

Something was wrong.

He came with her name half-caught in his throat, and that strange smile still tugging at her lips as she swallowed him down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“What are you, huh?” he asked hoarsely, brushing a thumb along her jaw. “My good little girl?”

Trish rose, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes flickered.

“You will know soon enough,” she said cryptically.

Then it was gone. Whatever vulnerability had surfaced for a second—if it was ever real—vanished beneath her usual steel.

But Thane felt it settle in his gut like something sour.

She knew something. This was a distraction.

Then came the shout from outside. Raised voices and tyres crunching gravel.

He followed her out just in time to see the dark van pull up to the edge of the lot. Jac moved to open the sliding side door without a word, and a small girl stepped out.

She couldn’t have been older than eight. Her cheeks were streaked with dried tears, her hands clutched a threadbare ragdoll. She blinked at the afternoon light like she wasn’t sure where she was.

Then a pale hand reached down and touched her shoulder gently.

Thane’s gaze snapped to its owner.

A woman stood just behind the child—wavy blonde hair tucked beneath a frayed scarf, blue eyes too large in her thin face. She wore a faded cardigan, well-worn shoes, and a hollow expression carved deep into her features.

Trish approached, all smooth confidence. She crouched beside the girl and ruffled her hair like they were old friends. “This is Gillie,” she said softly. “Hiya, love. How are you doing, sweetheart?”

Gillie didn’t answer, just stared at the ragdoll’s feet.

Thane gritted his teeth, struggling not to react as Trish kept talking to the child like they were old friends.

He was vaguely aware of her telling Gillie about her adoptive parents coming to pick her up.

Sick crawled up his gut as he struggled not to give the game away; instead, his eyes drifted back to the blonde woman.

Something about her tugged at him. A memory, half-formed. A shape in the fog.

Trish glanced back and said, “And this is Theodora. She takes care of the children.”

Theodora.

The name clanged in his head like a distant bell.

The woman looked up then, right at him. And for just a second, something seemed to flicker behind her eyes.