Chapter Ten
I left the same time as everyone else that evening. The night already threatening, a sky full of clouds and rain that had not yet fallen, and that strange feeling of creeping blackness nipping at my face. It was nearly December, and the temperatures were declining, more noticeable here in the north. The fog rolling in off the river, making it colder still.
A taxi drew up to the curb, its engine purring as it waited for me to close up. Turning the key in the lock, I glanced through the glass doors, into the darkness of the reception and the shadows beyond, a sudden pang of fear, there and gone before I could do much else about it. But I wasn’t in there alone, and soon I’d at least have a security system to give me some safety, even if it was going to be installed by some leather wearing delinquent from a motorcycle club whose members had a nasty habit of coming to a sticky end.
I squeezed the laptop bag, the folder on the Kings safe inside, a niggling sensation of doubt and worry igniting at the back of my mind. Fury’s presence last night, and again today, the offer of cameras. It was all very convenient. As convenient as the manager who kept everything on paper, and a missing computer, and a black hole of money. None of it sat easy in my stomach. And now I had to head to my father’s, a man I barely knew other than some boardroom meetings and a few phone calls a year on special occasions. The need for a glass of wine was becoming stronger by the minute. The call of a cigarette loud.
The house was in the north of Newcastle, in a village bordered by green fields, with a driveway stupidly long. My German father was in his eighties. He should be in a bungalow or an apartment. But the mini mansion might as well have sat in the middle of a field, the lawns that surrounded it were as sprawling.
I waited outside the double oak doors, Julia taking an age to walk from one end of the huge property to another, but eventually the heavy lock ground in the frame and the door creaked open ominously.
My father was in his study, a fire burning in the old fireplace, crackling and popping as he sat under a blanket, surrounded by the men of the family, a mis-match of half-brothers watching me expectantly.
“Heidi,” my father’s voice, still heavy with his German accent, crackled like the fire. “Gut to see you. You have news?”
Typical Alfred, always thinking of his business and his money.
“How are you, Papa?”
“Gut, gut.”
“He’s not good,” Julia added from behind me. “He’s exhausted. And he needs to rest. You shouldn’t be having this conversation with him.”
“He asked me to come and update him, Julia. That’s what I’m doing. Then I’ll go.”
For a moment we stared at each other, the blonde woman not much older than me, with bright blue eyes, not unlike my own. Her hair was always perfect. Today it fell in thick waves, beautifully groomed and silky.
“Tell me, daughter. News?” He rasped, moving the blanket off his legs as Julia rushed to his side to stop him from getting to his feet.
“I’m still investigating. There was a break-in at the Walker office last night.”
“Shie?e.”
“They only took the old computer. Needed replacing, anyway. I’m having security cameras and alarms installed tomorrow in both offices.”
“What? Why?” the youngest of us all straightened up where he’d been leaning against the mantelpiece, obviously bored.
“Mark, honey,” my stepmother cooed, her voice lamenting, calming her only child like he was still a small boy.
The head of dark blond hair bobbed as he looked across from each of us, cool blue eyes settling on me, his face stilling.
“Nice to finally see you, Mark,” I greeted him, watching as he folded his arms across his chest.
“You could have waited at the train station for me. I sat there for forty minutes thinking your train hadn’t got in yet.”
“You were late, Mark. I had things to do. The taxi worked just fine.”
“So, what’s going on at the funeral homes, then?” Gordon asked from the chair he sat in on my father’s right, like he was ensuring we all knew he was the oldest son.
“They’re getting security systems fitted tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“After the Walker office was broken into last night it seemed a good idea. And means I can monitor some of the staff, too.”
The side of his neck ticked, a sudden note of tension. Tommy glancing over at his older brother, as if trying to work out what he was thinking.
“Don’t worry. It’s free. I’m not spending your inheritance.” I spoke to all of them, the vultures that sat around the ageing man, waiting for him to draw his last breath so they could get their sweaty, grabby little hands on all his money.
“Heidi,” my father warned from my side, and I shrugged in response.
“And what did you have to do to get it free, huh?” Mark challenged, the hint of a smirk straining at the side of his mouth.
“Mark!” His mother scolded, and he shrugged, a loaded glare in my direction.
“It’s called a business deal. Someone needed a cheaper funeral rate. I needed cameras and alarms. Deal done.”
“Ok, ok. So, no clues to the money yet?” My father rasped away impatiently.
“Not yet, Papa. But I’ll work it out.” In the corner of my eye, I caught the uncomfortable shuffle of feet as Mark shifted his weight from one to the other.
“You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?”
“Not tonight, Papa. I’ve loads of work to do.”
And a bottle of wine to get home to. The thought of sitting and making small talk with the woman who hated me, and the half-brothers who didn’t want a woman to share in their inheritance, was not my idea of a nice relaxing family dinner. But I didn’t miss the disappointment in the old man’s eyes, and I couldn’t ignore the pang of guilt in my stomach.
“Thomas,” I said, looking towards the older man. “You can show me out.”
He opened his mouth a fraction, enough that I could tell he wanted to fire some sort of arsey retort, but then thought better of it in front of our father.
Tommy wandered at my side and when I heard the drawing room doors click into place, I stopped and turned to him.
“What do the Northern Kings have on you?”
His face paled, shock stunting his system suddenly, taking his ability to breathe away.
“I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said after a long pause.
“Yes, you do. Why else do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost? Tell me. Because I need to know whether I’m going to find out it’s you fleecing the company. I’m sure Gordon would be happy that you’re stealing his inheritance, seeing as it’s all he fucking thinks about.” I shrugged, waiting a moment for him to respond.
“I got into some gambling debt. And owed this pimp some money. I couldn’t have gone to dad to ask him to bail me out. He’d have stripped me from the will. You know as well as I what that will has written in it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“So, what did you do?”
“I got someone to loan me the money to pay off the gambling debt and warn the pimp to wind his neck in.”
“And that someone was the Northern Kings bike club?”
“MC, Heidi. Northern Kings MC,” he corrected in a hiss as if the Kings could overhear us right now.
“Whatever. So what? You owe them favours?”
“Occasionally I make donations to their charities. They’ve never asked much in return yet. And I paid back every penny, and then some, from the money I borrowed from them.”
*****
“Fury’s here to see you, Miss Fischer,” the little brunette poked her head tentatively through the gap in the door.
“Thanks Polly, send him in.”
“Poppy,” she corrected.
“Poppy, sorry.” Shit.
It was a name that should stick in my head. But it didn’t, merging in amongst the confusion of grey matter infused with wine.
His footsteps seemed loud on the thin industrial carpet, heavy soled boots and determined steps. He wasn’t dressed in his jeans and leather jacket today. Today he was dressed to work; black and grey canvass trousers, adorned with pockets of every conceivable size, a utility belt wrapped round his waist, slung low like a cowboy ready to take a shot. He’d nudged the door open wider with a shoulder, a bag weighing each hand down, the tension of his arms clear through the grey hoodie he wore.
I’d only glanced upwards, a quick look away from the laptop that seemed dwarfed on the desk now the computer had vanished. But when I looked back at him, he seemed to tower over the top of me, the dark-hair piled on top of his head in a man-bun making him taller still.
“It’s gonna take a few hours to set this all up, doll.”
Now I glared up at him, at the familiarity in his tone, the use of terms of endearment as if I was something other than a client. And he grinned down at me, knowing full well that he’d pissed me off by calling me doll. I wanted to respond with something, but for the very first time, I was all out of retorts. And he knew that, too.
“If you can do it quicker, that’d be very much appreciated.”
“Not a request that I get often.”
The chuckle was there in his voice, amused by the innuendo. I rolled my eyes, trying to distract myself with the spreadsheet of accounts that I had been scrutinising all morning, the tedious job of entering all Dave’s written accounts into some sort of electronic order, not interesting enough evidently as now I was distracted by the man who’d just stripped his hoodie off.
Fury’s arms bulged out of the sleeves of a t-shirt two sizes too tight for him, tanned skin, and the throb of veins over his biceps as he pulled equipment out of the bags in front of him.
“Could you unpack your gear somewhere else?”
“Am I distracting you, doll?”
There it was again. That word that made me want to hit him with something heavy, and that smirk, his insanely groomed beard making it clearer. And those dimples. Hiding, almost unnoticeable by the dark hair that covered the lower part of his cheek and jaw, but I could see the indent. And thick, fleshy, plump lips, like he’d had fillers. Fuck’s sake.
“Yes. Yes, you are. I need to concentrate. You couldn’t do this room last, could you?”
I tried to keep my voice steady, professional, unphased. Whether he bought it, I didn’t know, but he wasn’t moving on till he’d delivered one further infuriating jibe.
“No problem baby doll,” the smirk had morphed to a complete grin. The bastard knew he was winding me up. I wanted to kick him, throw something at him. And I had no idea why he could aggravate me as much as this.
Fury took his sweet fucking time getting out of my office, slowly packing his things, leaving some random shaped boxes in a corner and wandering off. I watched him go. Watched the way his trousers clung to his arse, the tan utility belt hanging down one side of his hip, the dark trousers stretched over meaty thighs. Fuck’s sake.
The numbers on my spreadsheet blurred into one, a jumble of black and the bright white of the background, and now my stomach tightened, a pulse developing in areas it had no business being, and a flush of heat to my cheeks, the same lick of fire deep in my stomach.
For the rest of the day, I stole glances at him as he moved throughout the building. Up ladders, pulling cables through the ceilings overhead, fitting cameras and sensors, and listening to him grumble as he cursed the state of the wiring in the building. The little brown-haired receptionist watched him as closely as I did, her eyes roaming over those same body parts, watching the flex of the muscles in his arms, the tension in his forearms as he screwed at something overhead.
Eventually, he returned to my office, plonking his stuff noisily on the floor and I glared, the heavy thump pulling me from the work in front of me.
“You ready for me now, Miss Fischer? ” he accentuated my name annoyingly, and I bit back the urge to roll my eyes or flip him the finger, although the pull was strong.
“Don’t think I ever would be,” I sighed.
“No one ever is, doll.”
Fucking doll. I’d ram one up his arse if he wasn’t fucking careful. I took a breath. One more office to install these cameras in and then it’d all be over, and I wouldn’t ever have to set eyes on the arrogant mass of man who was now walking up ladders just over the doorway. His arse tightened through those trousers with each step, the t-shirt that was far too tight stretched across what could only be the muscles in his back. But the black of the fabric didn’t seem to stop at his neck, black tendrils and shadows climbing higher, creeping up his neck towards his hairline. A tattoo. The only hint of ink I’d seen so far, but there it was on his back, and now I wondered what was underneath.
An email notification popped up in front of my screen, pulling my eyes back to the laptop and away from the biker who was climbing up my wall. ‘FAO Heidi Fischer’ the subject line read. Clicking on it, it opened. Big bold words. I gasped, the danger in those words hitting me like a sledgehammer, my stomach recoiling instantly.