“What do you want to know?”
Hailey sighed.
“Look, part of being a gentleman is it’s a two-way street. I said I’d give you what you want if you treated me like a gentleman, but that’s not like placing an order. It’s not something you just do. You have to mean it. And right now, you’re just sitting there, going through the motions. I can make a documentary or a report off the one interview we have, and it’ll be the same shit you’ve always had. Biased, fear-mongering reporting. But if you want something real—and if you want me to enjoy your company and therefore give you what you want—you need to actually want to be here.”
Hot damn!
I had never had a woman speak to me like that. I think Tamara had once, in a rage of anger when I came home drunk, told me to stay downstairs, but she’d never called out my behavior like that. I didn’t think the spunky little girl here had it in her.
Clearly, I’d underestimated the little journalist.
“Fair enough,” I said. “But be warned in return, I’m not just going to openly answer every question you ask me. I’m a very private person, and I have good reason for that. The way my life has gone and the shit I’ve learned, life isn’t a fairy tale world where everyone gets their happily ever after. There’s a few winners and a whole lot of losers; a few people who die happy and a whole lot who go to the grave full of regrets. The way I make sure I don’t wind up like those fuckers is by not letting other people take advantage of me. So long as you got that, I’m happy to talk.”
Hailey almost looked…like she took pity on me? That was fucking embarrassing. I didn’t think I’d said anything especially sad. There were two things I strove never to get from others in this life—financial and life help or pity. Goddamn if Hailey was giving me at least one of them.
“All right,” she said, but there was clearly more she wasn’t asking. “What’s your name?”
“Satan.”
“Your real—”
“You’ll find out if things go well,” I said, a remark I immediately regretted. But all the same, it would be nice if I got close enough to someone that they could call me Sam Briggs instead of Satan.They’d find the human in me.
If he’s still there.
“Understood,” Hailey said. “And where are you from?”
“Here. My father was in the Air Force, mother moved with him. Dad was big into bikes, but not nearly to the extent I was.”
“Gotcha. I wouldn’t have guessed that about your father.”
She’s getting me to open up without me even wanting to. Damn, she’s good about her job.
“And were you in the military?”
“Yes. It’s not a time that I’m going to talk about much. But it was a valuable time.”
“Understood. Any family?”
I bit my lip. I breathed heavily through my nostrils. I really didn’t want to answer this question, but I knew I kind of had to if I was going to get what I wanted.
Which, truth be told, was becoming harder to define by the moment. It had started as just wanting to fuck this girl’s brains out. Now…
“I have a son. You actually saw him at the club. He’s…the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I drew in a breath. I didn’t get to talk about Sonny like this very often.
“At the clubhouse, I do my best to just treat him like any of the other club members. Everyone there knows that he’s my son, but everyone also knows if he fucks up, I come down on him with the same fury I would anyone else. But outside of that…I haven’t done a lot of shit right in this world. Raising a son into someone who is a man, who can fend for himself, who can do what he does…it’s a fucking gift.”
I sighed.
“So yes, I have one kid.”
“And are you divorced or—”
“Don’t.”
I less said the word and more growled it.
