Chapter Four – Chuck
”Boss?”
I groaned as I lifted my head from the pillow, glaring at the door opposite me, as someone thumped against it.
”What is it?” I groaned. Brown, one of the Dogs, pushed the door open and jerked his head downstairs.
”There’s some girl here to see you.”
”What do you mean, some girl?”
He shrugged.
”Said it’s something about an interview.”
”Fuck,” I muttered, sinking back down into the pillow and wincing. I had hoped that she would give me a chance to work off some of this hangover before she turned up, but I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy to get rid of her. She didn’t seem like the type who would let something go when she had finally managed to get her hands on it.
”Should I tell her to go?” Brown asked, crossing his arms across his chest. I shook my head.
”No, no point,” I replied. ”Tell her I’ll be down in ten minutes. And make me a coffee. I’m going to need it.”
Brown nodded and left me to pull myself together – I climbed into a quick shower, blasting off the remnants of the past night, and then headed down to the main part of the compound to meet with Abbey. She grinned at me brightly as soon as she laid eyes on me, and Brown pushed a well-needed cup of coffee into my hands.
”Good morning!” she chirped brightly. I winced and lifted my hand.
”Hey, keep it down,” I muttered. ”You really think we should do the interview now? While I’m feeling like this?”
”I think you’re going to try and get out of it if I don’t do it now,” she replied, cocking her head to the side pointedly. ”So, yeah. Let’s do it now, huh?”
She had a point. I likely shouldn’t have agreed to this the day before, but there was something about being the focus of her attention that I enjoyed more than I cared to admit. It had been a hell of a long time since I’d let a woman get anywhere close to me, for good reason, and at least she already knew what she would have been getting into if she did. I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t the man I was when I was around her, and that had to count for something.
”Can I have a coffee too? Thanks,” she told Brown as he passed by us – he stared at me for a moment, like he could hardly believe this girl was ordering him around like this, but I jerked my head to tell him to do as she asked. The sooner we got this done, the sooner we would be shot of her, and I could get back to reality like I wanted to.
Brown returned with her coffee, and she flashed him a warm smile before accepting it and guiding me to one of the small tables that lined the social room of the compound – it was quiet right now, most of the guys sleeping off whatever I had gotten them to do the night before. A few of them stayed right here in the compound, but most inhabited apartments surrounding us, getting a little break from the work where they were able to.
”So, I just wanted to say how grateful I am that you agreed to do this interview with me today,” she told me, gushing slightly. ”You have no idea how hard it’s been to find a story in Atwood, and I-”
”Don’t make me change my mind,” I warned her. She parted her lips, like she wanted to protest, but then, she thought better of it, turning her attention back to the notebook she had just pulled from her pocket.
”Okay, so let’s get down to it,” she replied, pulling her phone out and clicking on a recording device on it. ”You’re...how old, by the way?”
”Forty-two.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
”Damn!” she exclaimed. ”I... I didn’t realize...”
”How ancient I was?” I finished for her. She stared at me, eyebrow cocked.
”That’s not what I said,” she protested.
”That’s what you were thinking, though.”
”Anyway,” she continued. ”How did you get involved with the Dogs in the first place? Was it family, or did you join on your own terms?”
I sighed. I didn’t like going into all of this, but she struck me as the kind of girl who would be able to see right through me if I started spinning her a line.
”I joined when I was nineteen,” I replied. ”Needed some money to pay for my family after my parents died.”
”Oh, sorry to hear that,” she murmured, jotting something down in her notebook. ”And how did that work? What were you doing when you first started working for them...?”
I eyed her, incredulous. Did she really think I was going to start spilling our secrets to her? Before I could reply, though, Brown headed past us to the tattoo shop outside, pulling the door shut with a bang – and she nearly shot out of her seat in surprise.
”Sorry, sorry,” she muttered. The blood seemed to have drained from her face at the sound of that noise, and I frowned at her, confused.
”Something wrong?”
”Nothing’s wrong,” she replied, maybe a little more sharply than she needed to. It was the first time I had seen her show anything other than total brightness, and to be honest, seeing her like this intrigued me. She had always put up such a good front when I had been around her, but the moment she’d been thrown off-guard, it had dropped, revealing something else underneath.
”Anyway, we were talking about what you did when you first started working for the...the Dark Dogs, is it?”
I almost laughed, hearing the name of our gang come out of her mouth. It sounded foreign on her lips.
”The Dark Dogs,” I confirmed for her. ”I was running for them.”
”Running?” she replied with a frown. ”Like...like running track?”
I grinned, and then shook my head.
”Not really. Running product. Let’s just say that.”
”Oh – oh,” she replied, her eyes widening as she made sense of what I was saying. ”Yeah, I think I get that. So, you got involved to make money when you were a teenager, but how did you end up running this place a couple of decades later?”
I told her a little about my history with the club, about Damien, working as his second-in-command for all those years, and how I eventually took over for him when he’d passed a few years ago. I talked about stepping into his shoes, how they seemed impossible to fill at first, but eventually, I settled into the knowledge that I could actually handle this and do right by his memory. Losing him had been like losing a father all over again, but I had held it together, knowing I had to be that figure for other people in the Dogs, knowing I couldn’t let my weakness shine through after everything that had happened.
I noticed, though, the way her eyes darted around the room a few times – like she was looking out for something, on edge for something she couldn’t quite put into words. I had to admit, it reminded me of someone.
Of Anna.
In those last few months, she had been the same way, unable to relax even when she must have known she was safe. Unable to let go of the certainty that something was going to happen to her, something terrible was going to go down whenever she let herself relax. Abbey was perched on the very edge of her seat, like she was ready to bolt for the door at any instant.
A car backfired outside, and she nearly leapt out of her seat again. I stopped her in her tracks before she could go on to the next question, not wanting her to brush me off quite so easily.
”What’s going on with you?” I demanded. She shook her head.
”It’s nothing, really-”
”I agreed to give you this interview,” I pointed out to her. ”The least you can do is tell me what’s going on with you, too.”
She fell silent for a moment, fiddling with her pen like she was trying to find a way out of this conversation before it went any further. But then, finally, she spoke.
”I’ve just been having a hard time with an ex, that’s all.”
I bristled. I’d heard that before.
”What kind of a hard time?”
She shook her head again.
”It’s nothing,” she replied.
”It’s not nothing,” I argued. ”Or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
I could tell she didn’t want to talk about this. But, after how hard she had gone after me for this interview, the least she could do was tell me what was on her mind, right?
”Look, it’s just that I had this ex back where I used to live who...gave me some trouble after we split,” she explained quickly, not quite looking me in the eyes. ”He didn’t do well hearing no. And he stuck around even after I tried to call things off with him.”
I narrowed my eyes.
”And he’s here now?”
”I’ve got no reason to think so,” she replied. ”I’m just paranoid.”
”Something happened recently?”
She paused for a moment, and, in that second, I was certain she was going to tell me everything – that she was going to spill the truth of everything that had been going on with her, everything she had been trying to keep to herself all this time.
But then, she shook her head.
”No, nothing.”
I sighed, leaning back in my seat, not breaking her gaze for an instant. This was all too familiar. The way she was playing it down, acting as though there was no real problem when I could tell there was. She didn’t want to talk about it, not with me, but that didn’t mean that I was going to let her walk out of here with nothing to show for it.
”You need help?” I asked her bluntly. She frowned.
”Help like what?”
”Help from us.”
”What help could you give me?” she asked, almost laughing as she spoke the words like they seemed ridiculous to her. I bristled slightly.
”Guards,” I replied. ”Someone to keep watch on you. Make sure you weren’t being followed or watched.”
Her eyes flashed with some emotion, and she nibbled on her lower lip – I couldn’t help but let my gaze be drawn down to it, the fullness of her mouth as she pondered my offer. But then she shook her head.
”I told you, I’m fine,” she replied, guising her voice with a fake brightness. ”You don’t need to worry about me. I can handle myself.”
”If you’re sure...”
”I’m sure,” she replied, a little more firmly than she needed to. As though she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince me. ”Anyway, where were we...?”
She hit me with a few more questions, but I could tell her focus right now was trying to deflect from whatever worry was going on inside her head in that moment – she didn’t want me freaking out on her or getting involved with what was going on in her life.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to keep an eye out for her. I knew how hard it could be to shake a guy like that once he got his claws into a girl he wanted – and how little the cops would do to keep her safe.
She might not want our help, but she also might need it more than she knew.