First jail sentence in the Sharkey family in thirty years. Laura (Mack) Sharkey, niece of the infamous Thomas Sharkey, was sentenced to two years in jail today, for grievous bodily harm on a Mr. Kevin Drury, a known drug dealer. The Sharkey family were allegedly involved in the criminal underbelly of Glasgow since the early 1900s but have since become respected members of the west of Scotland business community.

Ms. Sharkey lured Mr. Drury to an isolated place and took revenge for his selling drugs outside a Glasgow private school, which ended in the death of a young girl.

“Oh my God. That must be the friend of Isla’s that passed away.”

It must have been a horrible, distressing incident, and knowing how much Mack adored her little cousin, she must have been pushed to her limit. Then she cast her mind back to today and the injury that one of her neighbours left with.

Mack said he had swung for her, but had he? Or had Mack simply lost her temper? It didn’t square with the kind and gentle way in which Mack treated her. As she looked at the pages and pages of older information on the Sharkey family, Flora knew she should be overwhelmed and scared of Mack’s reputation, but she couldn’t be afraid of her.

Maybe she was just being naive, as she often was. Then her phone beeped with a text.

How is everything tonight?

It’s quiet. For the first time in a year.

It wasn’t till she typed and sent the text out that she really thought about how Mack had changed her life. The boys upstairs had bullied and harassed her, and without Mack’s help they would still be up there laughing at her and making her home life a misery.

Was it selfish to think that way? Her grandpa always said to her that she needed to stand up to bullies, but of course Flora never had the confidence or ability to do that.

Mack was making Flora’s world safer, bit by bit, over the weeks, and in fact had been like a guardian angel to her at the times when she needed her most.

A text interrupted her thoughts. Are we still okay?

What do you mean? Flora typed back.

With what I told you about my prison sentence?

Oh, that. Flora’s stomach twisted. The newspaper articles hadn’t made clear to her if the violence could have justified.

She typed out, We need to talk about it.

Flora just prayed it wasn’t a story that would ruin their friendship. She got a message back asking if Mack could call her.