“No. But some of the other clubs might.”
“The distance will help,” I added. “It’s not ideal.”
“And Tori?” Magnet asked, the table falling into silence.
Indie nipped at his nose. “I don’t fucking want her back here. But we need eyes on her somehow.”
“Could another member have her at theirs?” Magnet asked.
The table moved. Heads shaking. Shoulders moving as some erupted into deep chuckles.
“She’d fucking love that. She’d finally bag herself another patch,” Chaos answered.
“Hey, here’s a thought. There’s two of you. You’ve got a spare between you. I vote you take her,” Fury laughed.
“No fucking way.”
“Aye, aye. Alright. We could assign her to the prospects. They can work together to look after her and earn their fucking patches. The first one to shag her is out,” Indie smiled, probably for the first time in weeks.
The room laughed again and then almost simultaneously raised their hands.
“Well, at least that’s Tori fucking under some sort of control,” I grumbled.
“What about the Hand, Indie?” Baz asked, the atmosphere changing quicker than a switch.
“I’m working on it,” Indie answered.
“We really need to know what you’re working on, Indie. Doesn’t come much more club business than that.”
Indie was quiet for a moment, his gaze moving round the table, watching every one of us. When he spoke again, his tone was measured. Careful.
“This is where I need you all to really trust me. I can’t tell you what I’m working on. I don’t know yet whether it is going to work. But when I need you to know, I’ll tell you. For now, though, I just need your trust.”
Brothers at that table glanced at each other, and for a moment, no one moved or said anything. Then, slowly, there was a nod. And then another. I watched Indie’s shoulders slump. The tiniest of movements, his face betraying nothing. He glanced at me, his eyes meeting mine and then drifting away.
And I had no fucking clue what he was up to either.
Chapter Seventeen
The pub across the street from the hospital was full. Half locals, half healthcare workers. An eclectic mix of tunes droned out from an aged juke box near the bar. Beside it, a lone man sat, pushing in coin after coin between sips of a pint. Voices filled the spaces between songs until the air was a tangle of noise. Too many voices, too much noise. I inhaled slowly.
“What do you think, Sophie?” someone asked. The sound of my name jolting my attention.
“Sorry, what was that?” I confessed.
“Those new shift patterns they’re bringing in.”
“Oh. I didn’t know they were.”
Course I didn’t know. Because I never engaged with people. I’d spent the last ten years moving around, changing addresses, ending relationships because no one ever felt right. And I stopped making friends because there was no point when I left them all behind every time.
I glanced around again, at the people next to me that I worked with. I didn’t know a single thing about them, other than a name, and I got that wrong more often than I got it right.
A little way off, a table of locals erupted into laughter. A loud roar that stopped conversations momentarily, with others looking up from half-drunk pints and glasses of wine before resuming their conversations. An intense game of dominoes was being played out two tables away. Onlookers watched like the stakes were high.
And then, suddenly all conversations stopped. Just for a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. I saw the cause by the bar. Leather jacket. Patches on the front. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, but it caught under the lights in an amazing dark russet, and even half hidden under the dark auburn beard, the tattoos danced down his neck, disappearing into the leather of his jacket. Everyone stared. Men uncertain of whether to feel threatened or in awe, and women not sure whether he was an Adonis or the devil.
“Err, I think he’s looking at you,” Kirsten nudged my arm like I hadn’t noticed the huge man in leather stepping into the pub.
