“We were coming for coffee, saw you sitting here so thought we’d join you,” Brick states, giving me a look like I just asked a ridiculous question.
I wrinkle my brows, flicking my eyes between the two of them.
“So, you guys don’t want anything?”
“Nah, Flex. We don’t want anything; we just wanted to stop and say hi. We’re just in the area waiting for Peter Nelson, rumour has it he’s back in town, and as you know we would like a little chat with him.”
I scoff, almost choking on my iced coffee. Knuckles raises an eyebrow at me while Brick just chuckles. I don’t say any more. I know they don’t want to just chat with the guy, and quite frankly knowing what he did to those older people and what he did tothe grandmother of one of the brothers he deserves whatever they give him.
I should be appalled at the thought of what they are going to do, but I’m not, and I’m not sure what that says about me.
Knuckles clears his throat; I look up to find him and Brick both watching me. “You look tired, Flex. Everything ok?”
I give him a weak smile. “Yeah. It’s just been a busy couple of weeks. You know how it is.”
He takes a sip of his coffee his eyes sparkle as I see him smirk behind his cup.
“A certain biker keeping you up at night maybe?”
I huff then roll my eyes; this isn’t the first time that they’ve mentioned Wrath, trying to get a rise out of me. I won’t lie, he’s been on my mind more times than he probably should have been, but I’ll never admit that to these guys.
“Actually, I’ve been training my replacement at the paper, and packing up my flat.” They both eye me curiously, and I take a breath before continuing. “I have a new job, in London. I move in two days.”
The air shifts, and there’s a look that passes between them. They look amused. I’m about to ask what when Brick leans forward placing his hand on my arm.
“You need any help moving? We can come with, bring a couple of prospects to do the heavy lifting.” I watch him for a beat trying to get a read on him, but he seems genuine.
I smile and then shake my head. “Thank you, but I’ve got it covered.” I down the last of my drink then grab my things and stand. “I gotta go, I have a few last-minute things to do before I head off. I hope you boys find that son-of-a-bitch, teach him a decent lesson.” I throw them a smile and turn to leave.
“Hey, Flex.” I turn back as Knuckles calls out to me. “You need anything you call us yeah, take care.”
“See ya round baby,” Brick calls out, and I hear them both let out a laugh as I walk through the door into the summer afternoon.
As I pull up outside the apartment building, I find myself regretting two things, the first being that I didn’t take the guys up on their offer to help me move. I may not have a lot of furniture but I do still have a decent amount of stuff and I’m living on the fourth floor. Fingers crossed the lift is working.
The second thing that I regret is choosing this neighbourhood. It hadn’t seemed that bad when I first came down to look and I’d figured I wouldn’t be staying long so it would be ok for a short time, but now that I’m here late on a Friday night I’m on edge.
The streets are darker than I expected, with half the streetlights out, and there are a lot of groups hanging about. I’m not a nervous person generally but as I look around, I notice them all watching me, waiting to see what I’m doing.
I take a few deep breaths, giving myself a minute to pull myself together. I turn off the engine, pulling out the key and undoing my seatbelt when I look up and see a car pull up in front of me. The occupant turns off the engine and opens the door. I breathe a sigh of relief and let a large smile cross my face as my father walks toward the van.I jump out of the van and he wraps me in a hug before I can say anything.
“Hey kiddo. Thought you could use a hand moving in,” he tells me as I pull away from his hold. I smile and nod grateful that he’s here.
“Thanks Dad, I was regretting my choice of doing this alone for a minute there.” He laughs then takes the keys from me, rounding the back of the van to start unloading my things.
It took us three hours to unload the van and get everything up here. Thankfully the lift was working despite the fact that it’s so run down that at one point I thought we were going to get stuck. I made a mental note not to use the lift when I’m alone. I don’t fancy being trapped in there, I’m not sure anyone would help me if I was.
The tenants in the building are curious, most of them watching us come and go, but not bothering to talk to us. Except for an older guy who says he’s on the fifth floor. He helped us carry the last couple of boxes up and told me that most of the people living there wouldn’t bother me, but there was a gang who run the building who might try and stamp their authority. I’m not sure who was more anxious knowing that, me or my Dad. I did my best to play it cool in front of him, but I’m not sure he bought my tough girl act.
I smile at a couple of guys standing at the end of my floor when I leave my flat the next morning. They give me a chin lift but nothing more as I turn to make my way down the stairs. I step out into the morning sun, dropping my sunglasses to cover my eyes and I make my way to my Dad’s hotel to meet him for a coffee before he heads back to Newcastle later today.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Moving brothers around into new positions and having the older guys drop back a bit has been good for the club the last couple of weeks, we already feel stronger, more in sync. And knowing that at least two members of Poisoned Devils has been spotted in the city four times now means the move came at the right time. We’ve had prospects and brothers out there looking, putting out messages letting people know we want to talk to Poisoned Devils. We’ve even put up a reward for any information the leads us to them, but so far nobody has bitten.
Another night on the street and I’m exhausted, it was good being out there with Nitro though, it should have been Ice out there with me, but he was sent on a last-minute run to Manchester with Tank and a prospect. They only got back forty minutes before we hit the streets last night, so staying up and riding the streets was not an option for Ice.
