Page 25 of Indie
“One of my guys from the bike club,” I added quickly, but the words didn’t soothe her and she stood there frozen to the spot, like a terrified bunny caught in headlights. “My motorcycle club. It’s just Tony Cannelloni. I had him watch you when I couldn’t.”
“You sent a guy to watch me?” She choked out eventually.
“Yes. I promised you he wouldn’t get near you. But when they called me to the hospital, I needed to put someone else on you.”
“And when you say motorcycle club…”
“It’s not what you think,” I interrupted, cutting off the words about to escape from her mouth. And that was the first lie I told her. “We’re a group of men who share a love of bikes.
“An MC?”
“Yes. But we’re not like you think.” Or we wouldn’t be. Not when I got the chance to clean the club up, and it looked like that opportunity would come around soon. “We love to ride bikes and get together at weekends. We have rules and regulations. Things we should and shouldn’t do. And ways to behave and ways not to behave. But that doesn’t make us something bad.”
Not always. We often did bad things, but for the right reasons. No one would ever understand that until they were in the moment with a choice to make. But I didn’t need to tell her all that, not unless I wanted to frighten her away from me even more. When the war was over, and we established territories once again, maybe I could move it away from where my father had taken it to. And maybe one day we could be a regular club with no more fighting, and just enjoy our love for bikes. Be a brotherhood without having to lay our lives and our livelihoods on the line.
Yet, even though I said those words to myself, even though I tried to convince myself it was all possible, somewhere deep down, even I didn’t believe it.
“I couldn’t watch you twenty-four hours a day, Spuggy. So, I made sure someone I trusted watched you.”
Again, a half-truth. The prospects had never really proved themselves to me, but if they failed, they would never be patched in, and so I knew Tony Cannelloni would not fail me.
Emmie sighed from beside me.
“No amount of watching me and my house will stop him coming. And he nearly never comes alone. He’s always with someone. One man will never stop him.”
But I wasn’t one man. I was the Vice President of the Northern Kings MC, one of the oldest and most feared MCs in the north east of England. I shook my head, chasing away my own thoughts, thoughts that were growing darker and darker.
“That’s because he’s a coward, Emmie. Any man who beats a woman, any man who feels the need to travel in pairs to abuse his wife…”
“Ex-wife.”
“I thought you were still married.”
Emmie bit her lip and then flinched.
“Any man who abuses his ex is a coward. A bully. But when you out bully the bully, they run away with their tail between their legs.”
Her eyes filled with tears, the Mediterranean green now looking like polished glass.
“No matter what I’ve done, Indie. No matter how I’ve tried to stop him. It’s never worked. When I’ve gone to the police, or tried to defend myself, nothing. He always comes back. He always will. He’ll never leave me alone. He doesn’t want me, but he won’t let anyone else have me.”
I reached out for her again, pushing my hand around the back of her head, my fingers entangling into the hair that fell loose around her shoulders. I’d never seen it like that. It was always tied up in that messy bun on top of her head, with thoseapricot strands that fell around her face, providing the most incredible frame for incredible features.
And now it was my turn to sigh. To feel that sense of foreboding, dull anxiety niggly at my nerve ends. Wondering whether she could feel what I could feel? Whether she was drawn to me like I was to her? How could she? She was at least 10 years younger than me. That dusting of freckles across her nose, those Mediterranean eyes, every part of her a siren call to my brain, bewitching me with some sort of sorcery. And I knew that no matter what I did, there was no way I was going to shake it off.
“Emmie, pass me your phone,” she jumped again, my words suddenly filling the quiet space between us.
She was just like a little bird, my sparrow, my spuggy. Ready to fly away at the first signs of danger, twitching, on edge constantly, knowing that a predator was just around the corner. She looked up at me questioningly.
“Let me give you my number,” I urged, watching a shadow of doubt cross her face.
Slowly, she pulled her phone from her back pocket, squeezing her thumb against the side until the display lit up, and then handed it to me. Moving across the screen, I hit the numbers and then deleted about the same amount I’d typed in, my fingers clumsy against the petite display. And then I handed it back to her.
“Anytime you need me, Emmie. Ring me. Day or night. If you need anything, anything at all, I want you to ring me.”
Her eyes searched mine, presumably looking for sincerity, and I hoped she found it. Because if there was something I was sure of, in amongst these last few weeks of instability anduncertainty, it was the need to protect her. And that urge was overwhelming and preoccupying. And suddenly I wanted to kiss her right then, to taste those precious lips, and that innocent smile. I needed to get gone before I went too far.
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