Chapter Eleven
She gasped suddenly. But it wasn’t in frustration, or tiredness, or because she’d nipped herself on something. It was filled with terror, a sound I’d heard all too often. Turning, I watched her from above. Her pretty mouth had dropped open, her eyes darting across the screen in front of her. Then she closed her lips and opened them again. Silent words, not quite able to escape. Her chin trembled, eyes opening even wider, so that I could see the blue even from over here.
“Heidi?” She jumped, springing out of her seat, her eyes searching for where the sound came from, and that same look of fear I’d seen on her face last night. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I…it’s nothing.” She slammed the lid of her laptop down, her eyes still unable to focus on anything as they flitted between points in the room.
She was panicking, her flight senses kicking off, and right now she didn’t know if she was going to follow them. Heidi prised the laptop open again, glancing at the screen and then at me, the colour in her cheeks fading right in front of my eyes.
I almost slid down the ladders, quickly hitting the floor and moving to her side, feeling her flinch as I got to her. But she didn’t close the screen down, just left the laptop open with an email on the screen.
‘[email protected]’. Yet it wasn’t the sender’s address that caught my eye, but the words typed into the message.
‘Fuck off home, bitch, or we’ll bury you here. We know where you’re staying. Get gone by the weekend.’
“Shit,” I said out loud. “When did you get this?”
“Just now,” she answered, her voice weak, the usual sting of her words now tame.
“Any idea who might have sent you this?”
Heidi looked up at me, her teeth raking her lip, shaking her head silently. And there she was, vulnerable as fuck, and insanely beautiful with it. Her blue eyes glistened, searing into my soul, my stomach jolting, the strategic side of my brain left hanging, as the other side that controlled the irrationality of my dick kicked into gear, which was the last thing anyone needed right now.
“What do I do, Fury?” she asked softly, my name a whisper on her lips. “Ring the police?”
“Could do. Though they won’t do much. They’ll log it and tell you to report any more. How serious do you think this is?”
“I dunno. It’s my first death threat.” There was a hint in her tone that the initial shock had cleared, some of her abruptness reappearing.
“Absolutely no idea what it’s about?”
She looked up at me again, thick dark lashes parting for me to see those beautiful blue eyes, loose blond hair gently moving from side to side as she shook her head. Fuck, she was killing me.
“Think. Who’ve you pissed off recently?”
Heidi grimaced, her teeth raking at her lip, feigning innocence.
“That little receptionist outside doesn’t like me. My half-brothers. No one who’d have the balls to fucking threaten me. Dave. Maybe Dave?”
“Telling someone that they should think about retirement isn’t gonna get you a death threat, doll.”
“He told you that?”
“I’ve known Dave for years.”
“He’s looked after your dead, yeah I get it.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively.
Maybe I could understand why someone wanted to kill her after all.
“He’s anything but a killer. No matter how pissed off he might be at you. And actually, he looked after my dad and my uncle when they died.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her face suddenly sullen. “I don’t do well in conditions like this.”
“None of us do, doll. None of us do.” I patted her shoulder. “Think though, babe. What have you done recently that might make someone want to scare you off? Last night. Now today.”
“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences, Heidi.”
“I dunno,” she said slowly, and I didn’t need to read her mind to know she wasn’t telling me the truth.
I dropped onto my haunches, spinning her chair so that she was facing me, adjusting so that I was no longer towering over the top of her.
“I can’t help you, doll, if you don’t tell me the truth.”
Heidi swung sideways, the chair stopping abruptly when I gripped the armrest, not letting her turn away.
“Get off me, Fury,” she said angrily, those blue eyes darkening.
“I can protect you.”
“Why? Why would you want to do that?”
“That’s just who I am. Couldn’t live with myself if something happened that I could prevent.”
“It’s just a stupid email. Someone trying to rattle my cage. I will not be scared away. By anyone.”
This time she looked at me pointedly, those blue eyes locking on mine. Here I was, on my knees at her side, navy trousers hugging her thighs, my body nestled in between them. I could just nudge those legs further apart, get closer. She held her gaze, a challenge. And now I couldn’t help myself. I pushed my hand forwards, cupping the back of her neck, my fingers parting, tangling in her hair, locking in place. For a split second, her eyes fluttered shut, her teeth raking across her bottom lip, the pointed arches of her top lip more prominent.
Then she opened her eyes again, staring at me, the sudden surprise morphing into anger and I thought she might just murder me herself there and then. But I could have a death like this, between the legs of this power-hungry stunner.
“Get. Off. Me,” she said through clenched teeth.
I dropped my hand.
“Look…” I started.
“Finish your side of this deal,” she said, her voice filled with poison. “And I’ll hold my end. Then never come back here again.”
“Miss Fischer…oh…I…I’m sorry,” a light voice stuttered from the doorway.
“It’s fine Polly.”
“Poppy.”
“Shit,” she swore so lightly, just under her breath, but I was so close I caught those words. “Sorry. What is it, Poppy?”
“Your next appointment is here to see you.”
“Show them to one of the family rooms. I’ll be right with them. Fury is busy here.”
She shot me a glance. I should stand up; make like I was fixing something on her floor. But I didn’t care to help her out of this situation, and I was more than happy for this morsel of gossip to travel the office.
Heidi scowled at me again, pushing to her feet and now my face was just in line with the top of her thighs, my mouth right at cunt height. I grinned up at her as she glared down at me angrily. She was incredible whichever way she was. Mad, frightened, unsure, turned on. I’d seen it all and, fuck me, I was hooked like a druggy to his fix, one I hadn’t even had yet.
*****
“What are we waiting for?” one of the identical twins grumbled from the back seat of my truck.
“He should be home by now,” Magnet mumbled, not really answering the question.
“Maybe he’s snuffed it,” the carbon copy of the other shrugged in my rear-view mirror.
“We’re gonna have to go in, Fury. Carnage is right.”
“How the fuck can you tell these apart?” I complained, my eyes darting between the two. Never in the years I’d known them could I tell which one was which. I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right, but I never did.
“Cade smells different to Caleb,” Magnet shrugged.
“Really?” I sniffed the air in the car, only smelling aftershave and soap, and the air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror, filling the truck with a new car scent.
Outside the rain smattered the windscreen, its rhythm swapping between a gentle pitter patter to the urgent footfalls of mice in stilettos escaping a predator, as the gusts of wind intermittently drove it from behind.
“No, Fury.” Magnet shook his head, a laugh made up of part-disbelief and half amusement. “I just fucking guess.”
“You get it right every time.”
“They don’t call me magnet for nothing, big fella.”
We sat in silence for another twenty minutes, with no sign of Beanz either inside the house or returning to it. There were no lights twinkling in the dark, no hint of life. He should have been home now, finishing work and lounging on his couch. But for the second night, our brothers had been camping outside his house, and he still hadn’t showed.
“He’s either dead, or he knows he’s in the shit and he’s avoiding us,” Caleb stated from behind me.
It wasn’t unlike Beanz to do a disappearing act when the shit hit the fan, or flatly ignore us. But this had been weeks now and there was no sign of him. No calls. No sightings. We’d left it for a while, but now even we were getting worried, and I was getting pissed.
“Right. Chaos, you go round the back with Magnet. Me and Carnage will take the front.”
“Why are you splitting us up?” The carbon copy sat to the left complained.
“What are you? Fucking eight? And if you really need to know, it’s the only way I’ll know which fucker’s which.”
The twins grinned at each other, communicating telepathically or in some other such twin shit.
“And if you even think about swapping places, I’ll bury the pair of you in the same grave.”
Car doors opened, everyone stepping out, and I kept a close eye on dumb and dumber to make sure they didn’t switch places. Caleb kept pace close behind, following me up the path of crumbling concrete, grass pushing up through every crack, and half covering the decorative stones that should have replaced the lawn. Squatting in front of the door, I pushed the flap of the letterbox open, shining a small beam of light into the darkened house from my mobile. The light caught on something just at the foot of the door.
“What can you see?” Caleb grumbled from behind me.
“Pile of unopened post, I think. Doesn’t look like he’s been in here in days.”
“What do we do now?”
“Time to go in, I’d say.”
“You kicking this door in or am I?” the blond-haired, overly groomed biker asked.
“Not this one, numpty. Too many people to see and call the coppers.”
I typed a message into my phone and waited. There was a soft bang, and a screech, and then silence. The pair of us glanced around, but not a curtain twitched, nor a slither of light shone through a crack in the blinds in the houses opposite. Footsteps on laminate floors grew louder, until a chain rattled and metal ground against metal, the front door staggering open moments later.
“Cade, draw those curtains,” I instructed.
The house looked like he had left in a hurry, dishes piled in the sink, food remnants stuck to them like cement. A half-drunk cup of coffee sat on the bench, a film of mould floating on the top. But nothing was broken, no sign of smashed glass or anything knocked over.
“Reckon something spooked him?” Magnet asked, picking a bowl up off the bench and then scrunching his face up before dropping it down onto the fake granite work top.
“Looks like it. Cade, I want you and Caleb to go to the factory he works at tomorrow, find out who knows where he is and who last saw him. Magnet. Go check the garage. I want to know whether his bike is there.”
“And if it is?”
“Then it’s now club property.”
My mobile vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it free, the notification coming across the screen.
‘Security breach. Walker office.’