“The club helped?”
“Yeah. That’s how it works. It was my second stint. I’d only just gone down. Granda had died a few months previous. When the Will was read, Mam was pissed. He’d left her nothing. But he had nothing to fucking leave, apart from this place. Indie and Ste. They appointed a solicitor to act for me. I had no money. Istill don’t. But through them, through the club, they fought it for me. Probably would be homeless now if it wasn’t for them.”
“That sounds…nice,” she responded, tiredness in her voice.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“It’s not that, it’s just…”
“Your dad?”
“I guess. When we were together back then. He talked to me a lot about motorcycle clubs. What they get up to. Things they do. You were hanging around with the Northern Kings then, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. Me and Demon. Granda knew them all. We all did round here. Still do. But yeah, Demon was a good mate. I admired what he had. He wasn’t club then. Even though he’d almost been bred for it. Still had to prove himself even though he was the president’s son. But he had family. The club around him. Here, it was just me and my Grandad.”
“What happened to your mam?” Sophie asked, hugging my arm into her.
“OD’d when I was inside. Been in a year or two by then. Could never keep off the shit. I didn’t go to her funeral. Didn’t want to. I didn’t owe her anything. She’d never been family.”
I paused, stroking my hand over her stomach. Listening to the sound of her breathing. It grew shallower. Her tits moving up and down with her chest, the smell of something faintly fruity from the hair that brushed over my face.
Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply. This could all be gone in a second. Like it had all those years back. And that fear creptright up inside me, settling into my chest, squeezing round my ribs like a vice. I stroked a hand over her hip, feeling the bulge of one half of the hourglass figure she’d developed over that time, and my mind wandered off to what could be. What should have been.
I was just drifting off when I heard them. Motorbikes. Deep and rhythmic. My heart jolted from where it had been gradually slowing. The pace gathering into something urgent. The rumbles grew louder. Getting closer.
I was up before I’d even thought it through, the shift from warm to cold instant. Every sense snapped awake. Listening. Counting. One bike… two. Not hanging back. Not creeping. Coming straight in.
My jaw tightened, eyes flicking to the window, then back to her. Still asleep. Still soft.
Fuck. Could be ours. Could be them. I reached for a pair of shorts on the top of a pile of clothes on an armchair in the bay window, stepping into them quickly.
The engines cut suddenly, right outside. Too close. I moved to the windows, creeping against the wall, nudging the heavy curtain aside and peeking through into the badly lit street.
Chaos. And Carnage.
The front door opened with a soft click before I stepped outside, bare feet hitting the cold concrete. Chaos and Carnage stood by their bikes like they owned the street. Engines ticking as they cooled, heat still rolling off them into the night air.
“You’re hard to get hold of,” one of them muttered, pushing off his bike.
I dragged a hand down my face, the last of the calm burning off.
“You’d better have a fucking good reason for turning up here.”
“You didn’t answer your fucking phone, that’s what.”
Shit. It was in my jacket pocket on the lounge floor.
“Sorry, bud,” I backed down.
“Well dinnae leave us on the fucking doorstep. Shit’s cold out here.”
“Pussies,” I grumbled, stepping aside and letting the brothers dim into the house. “Sophie’s asleep. Don’t fucking wake her,” I growled as heavy boots stomped on the fake wood floor.
“How come. Did you fucking bore her to death?” one of them jibed, running a hand through floppy blond hair.
“Least I don’t have to take turns just to make her come. Now, why are you two fucking here?”
“Those bikes outside Sophie’s place. The Notorious. We caught up enough to see their patches.”
