Chapter Twenty Eight
Fury left me alone in a biker bar, and nearly every man that had filled it followed him through that door at the back, swallowed up somewhere in the bowels of the building. The booth seat dipped, the small blonde woman sliding in beside me.
“Hi. I’m Suzy,” she said, smiling encouragingly. “It’s been a mad couple of days, hasn’t it? Heidi Fischer, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Your dad did my mam’s funeral. Good few years ago now. He was great. So kind.”
“Really? Doesn’t sound like him, kind I mean. I didn’t think he’d stepped foot in the business properly for over twenty years.”
“No, I guess he hasn’t. She died when I was sixteen. Be twenty-two years ago. Might have even been the last funeral he did. We couldn’t really afford much,” she said sadly. “But I’d had my heart set on a horse-drawn hearse, and we didn’t have the money for it. I bawled my eyes out in his office in front of him, as I listened to your father and my father discuss what we could get for the money we had. Our puny budget could only reach to one funeral car, the hearse. You know what he said?”
I shook my head, staring at her, at the tears that filled her blue eyes. Blue eyes like mine, only paler. A strand of hair fell across her face, blonde hair like mine, just straighter.
“He said he would hate for his own daughter to feel that way. He paid for the horse and carriage for my mam. And he paid for another car for us to get there too. I cried even more.”
A tear dribbled down her face and the back of my throat burned.
“He’s a good man. Heidi. Please tell him I said thank you, even if he doesn’t remember me.”
We sat silently for a few minutes, both of us staring ahead. There were a few more people in the bar now. Most of them wearing plain clothes, and some with plain leather waistcoats on, the only thing on them a badge that read ‘prospect’.
A woman walked by, almost passing us, but then turning back, as if something caught her attention. I’d seen her yesterday in the church, recognised the tattoos down her arms, across her chest and the long raven hair that skimmed the top of her arse.
She approached, stopping at the edge of the table, staring at me.
“Who’s this?” she asked Suzy.
“Fury’s girlfriend.”
I opened my mouth to complain. That wasn’t what I was. Wasn’t what we were. The woman looked me up and down, her lips almost pulling into a snarl.
“Not last long,” she said to Suzy. “Fury goes through girls like a dose of salts. He’ll be bored soon enough, then he’ll move on.”
I stared back, wondering whether to respond, but then she turned and walked away.
“Ignore Tori. She was Ste’s ol’ lady. None of us like her, only put up with her because she was the Prez’s girl.”
“Maybe you’re all free of her now?”
“Wish that we were. Kings’ rules, they always look after the ol’ ladies of dead members until the day that they die too. It’s sweet, just inconvenient sometimes.”
“That’s true,” another voice added to the conversation. An older voice, deeper, more rugged. “The Kings have looked after me every day after my fella died.” The woman had dark hair striped with grey, pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. “You two can help me in with the food. Thought the boys would need some good old-fashioned hangover food tonight.”
Suzy nudged me out of the booth, and I followed the older woman out of the pub and to the back of a taxi. She was portly, in a cuddly granny sort of way. She waddled in front of me on thick sturdy legs, a little limp now and then, like something hurt. And then we followed her back in, my arms outstretched with five silver trays balanced on top of each other precariously, my muscles tight with tension as I thought about every step, hoping I didn’t catch my toe or wobble, making our way back through the pub to the bar.
I slid the tower of platters carefully on to the bar top, just as the door beside me burst open.
“I’m going to fucking kill them all!” The tall man with the short dark hair bowled through.
I jolted, knocking the trays, the first one tipping over onto the floor, the heavy boot of the angry man crushing the sandwich into the carpet beneath his feet.
“Fuck’s sake, Demon. That’s a new fucking carpet.” Indie grumbled.
“You should have told me, Indie. I would have pulled her out of Trouble .”
“You think Ciara’s gonna let you do that?”
“She has no fucking choice. I can’t protect her there. Fuck’s sake. She’s there right now. Fuck!” he shouted angrily, pacing back and forth, pulling his hands over his head with laced fingers, a look of torment on his face.
“Calm down, Demon. We’ll ring Tez. We’ll get him to bring her over.”
Demon still didn’t settle, the pacing getting worse, like a raging caged bull on drugs. The older woman pulled me to the side.
“Better come out of the way, pet. Things look a bit heated.”
Fury followed out now, striding towards the irate man, putting his hands on either side of his head and forcing his face toward him. They were almost the same height, but Fury dwarfed him in build.
“We’ll take them all out, bud.” I heard Fury speak, or maybe I’d read his lips, and got it all wrong, because it sounded like a threat to whoever they were. And I didn’t like the sound of that. “But right now, I need you to calm down. Tez is bringing your ol’lady here, and then I want you to go home and fuck, until the pair of you can’t remember who the fuck you are. VP’s orders, got it?”
Demon nodded; his face still full of anger.
“Get Demon a drink,” Fury called to no one in particular and then he moved to me, to where I stood with the woman with the grey hair.
“Hi mam,” he said to the woman that looked just like him. The same deep, dark eyes and the towering height, even though she was smaller than he was. “I see you’ve met Heidi.”
The woman said nothing, but stepped round in front of me and gently grabbed my shoulders. She stared for a long while, her eyes scanning my face, dropping to my chest and then down my legs. And then back to my face again. Then she smiled a big wide grin, patted me on the shoulder and walked away.
“What was that all about?” I asked Fury who had been watching, his arms folded across his chest.
“That, doll, was my mam’s seal of approval.”
“I didn’t realise I needed it.” But the moment those words had left my mouth, I could see the effect on him, the look in his eyes, the tension around his mouth.
“Your step-brother problem,” Fury said suddenly. “We go back in and get the evidence. Then you can hand it over to the police. Sure, they’ll sort the rest out.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“Good. Come on.”
“Now?”
“Unless you want to stay for a biker party?”
I looked around at the leather that now filled the pub, swarming the sandwiches and the pots of curry and chilli set onto the bar top. The room was growing louder, voices, grunts and the deep chuckles of men. Big wide smiles as everyone tucked into the food and helped themselves to drinks from behind the bar. It was almost like watching a family gathering, something I’d only see on TV or in a movie. They were relaxed again, the raucous of earlier had died down, everyone back to being friends and even the angry Demon seemed to have stopped wanting to kill someone now that he knew his girl was on her way here, like she was the key to keeping the blackness inside him actually on the inside.
“Heidi?” Fury prompted.
“Yeah. Let’s go now.”