Chapter Thirty Three
Jake leaned forwards across the table, lowering his voice and dipping his head so I could neither overhear nor make out the words on his lips. He spoke quickly, never glancing at me, but whatever he said to Heidi made her face turn pale. When he pulled back, she didn’t move, her eyes fixed on him, just staring.
Anger rushed at me. Anger and dread. And I strode forward, Indie’s arms skimming off my bicep where he’d reached out to grab me, missing me completely.
“What’s wrong, Heidi?” I asked. “What has he just said?”
“It’s nothing. It’s fine Fury.” She answered. But she didn’t look towards me, only straight ahead, her eyes not focussing on Jacob either.
“You have everything you need?” I grunted, and he nodded in response. “Then you’d better get out of here before I can’t or won’t hold this lot back any longer.”
Jake got to his feet, moving out of the booth but stopping again alongside Heidi.
“Think on what I’ve said, Ms Fischer.” Heidi glanced up at him, her face tight, watching him walk out.
Magnet and Reap followed him a few feet back, quietly escorting him off bike club premises. But whatever he’d said to Heidi had rattled her and now she was looking as distant as I’d ever seen her.
“Heidi, what’s wrong?” I asked, slipping into the booth beside her.
“Nothing. I’m tired Fury. Too many late nights, not enough sleep. I’m going to go back up.”
“Ok, doll. I’ll be up soon.”
“Don’t worry about it, Fury. I can take a nap by myself. Sure I’ll survive.” Her tone was cold, dismissive.
“What was that all about?” Indie asked when I perched an arse cheek on the stool next to him.
“Not sure. Something Jake said.”
“Always is, Fury. Always is.”
I sighed, nodding at Magnet, who was behind the bar helping himself to the remnants of an optic hanging on the wall.
“Pass me one of those,” I instructed.
I stayed downstairs for a couple of hours, giving Heidi space to nap in peace. The brothers that had stayed the night gradually filtered out until there were only me and Indie left.
“How’s Emmie doing, mate?” I asked, swigging a mouthful of the fourth glass of whisky.
“She’s ok. The funeral rattled her. The fucking Aces watched her the entire time we were there. She’s at her mam’s. Out the way of bikers for a couple of days.”
“You think she’ll be safe there?”
“Why wouldn’t she? We don’t go after family, only MC members. All the clubs know that, even the Aces. Even they’re behaving like real club members.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Hardly a Japanese bike between them now. Where do you reckon they got all those Harleys from?” I pushed the whisky filled tumbler to my lips.
“They’ll be stealing them. Word is motorcycle theft has been on the up these last few months. Pretty sure we all know why.”
“We probably should lock ours away now.”
“You reckon someone would be daft enough to steal from us?” Indie asked.
“Not daft. But maybe desperate. I know what I’d do to make my prospects prove themselves.”
“You’d make them pinch another brother’s bike?” Indie turned to look at me, his grey eyebrows pulling into a frown.
“Not from another brother per se, though. Another club. Want to rattle a club and prove your Billy Big Balls? What a better way of doing it. Steal a Harley from an MC and then ride around on it under their noses.”
I threw the rest of the liquor down my throat, the liquid burning the back of my tongue and cleaning cells off the back of my throat. I gasped, gulping hard.
“I’m going to go up and see if Heidi’s ok.” I patted Indie’s shoulder, leaving him alone, perched over the empty glass tumbler he clutched between his hands on the bar top.
She stood gazing out of the window when I got there, not in bed like I’d expected. The rattle of the door in the frame disturbed her, but only enough she gave me a cursory glance over her shoulder. Then her head snapped back to what she was looking out onto. And from what I could see from here that wasn’t very much.
I went to the window, moving in behind her and wrapping my arms around her body. She was just that bit smaller without her heels, enough that I could dip down and rest my chin in the space between her neck and her shoulder. Her fingers fumbled across my hand, tracing the veins that popped out the back. And for a moment we stared out into the gloom, watching the night and a sea fret roll up the River Tyne and out across the land.
Heidi stiffened suddenly. Her fingers stopped moving where they had been stroking over my skin. Her body moved as she sucked in a big breath. Something was coming.
“Fury.” And here it was. I could sense the tension in her. “I’m going home.”
“Back to the hotel?” But I knew what she meant by home, and I glanced at the case that was propped upright on the floor.
She shook her head. “London. I’m going back to London.”
“But what about Gordon? And the company?”
“Your brother’s right.” I would beat the fucker, maybe worse, because whatever he had said to her across the table as he left had pushed her to this. “I’ll be safer at home, in my apartment. He has all the information I have to investigate Gordon. I have no other leads and it’s pretty obvious who has been taking the money.”
“Or you could just stay here. And I’ll keep you safe.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be in even more danger if I stay with you, Fury. Besides, what we’ve had. It was nice. Fun. But that’s all it was. A quick fling. Good for both of us. I’ll be going back satisfied and you can keep going through women like you do your boxers.”
“Nah. I don’t wear boxers. Remember?”
Heidi patted my hand. “See. Told you you’d get over it.”
But she hadn’t and I wouldn’t.
From the road, two lights bobbed, growing bigger and bigger as they got closer and closer.
“My taxi is here.” Heidi unwrapped herself from my arms and walked to her case.
She was going, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing at all. How could I stop her? We barely knew each other. She was just a fuck. Nothing else. But even uttering those words in my mind made my stomach drop, nausea flooding the space it had once been.
I should have stopped her, locked her in the room, tied her up, begged her. I should have done lots of things. Everything. But I didn’t. I watched her leave. I watched her drag the case out of the room, heard her bump it down the stairs, and then a few minutes later I watched two red lights drive back up the road. And just like that, I let her go. That was real love, wasn’t it? I was in love with her. And if you loved someone, sometimes you had to let them go. And now she was gone.