Chapter Thirty
Ifound a job. It was shit, but it paid enough to keep the wolf from my door, and I let that money of Henley’s sit there in my account as a safety net. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to use it, but knowing it was there really helped.
I’d spoken to him a couple of times now, still not giving him my number, but keeping in touch.
It’d been nearly two weeks away from them at this point, and the lack of V beside me, the lack of my cut on my back, they still felt like holes in my soul that I couldn’t refill.
They felt like pits of blackness, always there, always reminding me that I was missing so much of myself. Would it always feel like this?
I was stacking shelves at a fucking hardware store, for fuck’s sake. It was shit. It was boring, it was minimum wage, but it was a job.
The reason I picked it was that they were allowing Nixie to stay in the locker room during the day, as long as she didn’t make a mess. I’d cordoned off an area for her, and made sure everyone knew they were all responsible for her safety. If she got out, or got hurt, someone would pay in pain.
It didn’t make me all that popular, and neither did the amount of times I ducked in there to check on her, but a few of the younger female employees adored her, so I’d often find them spending their breaks and spare minutes playing with her.
It was selfish to have brought her with me. I knew it. We all knew it. I had to make the best of it now though, and keep doing my best for her.
“Watch it, bruv. Nearly stepped on me,” someone said from behind me, and I moved out of the way of two bastards who looked eerily similar.
Both tall, broad and bearded, and watching me with a hint of possible recognition.
I definitely didn’t know them, but they had the hairs on the back of my neck sticking up within two seconds of being in their presence.
“Looking for something in particular?” I tried, knowing my ‘customer service voice’ was severely lacking, probably because I didn’t like the look of these fuckers.
“Nah, bruv. This doesn’t look like where you belong though, does it?”
I cast my eyes around me, and then looked at the smirking fucker again.
“You what?”
“You’re a long way from home, bruv. Don’t you think you’d be better off there?”
They weren’t wearing cuts, so I had a feeling they weren’t from a rival club, and I hadn’t even tried joining one around here. I wasn’t ready to wear another club’s colours. I didn’t deserve to.
“Not sure what you mean, mate, but feel free to browse for whatever hardware shit you’re looking for.”
“Sammy, I found the… oh! Is that him?”
A beautiful dark-haired woman scooted over to their side, a coil of dark twine in her hand. What the fuck? Things just got even more sinister, since one of them held a hammer, and the other held what looked like duct tape. A lot of it.
“Do I know you?” I addressed her, but that was stupid, because it immediately pissed the two blokes off. There was something about them that warned me they were dangerous.
“You should do, bruv. We know you. Here we are, up here on a little business trip, and who do we bump into, right?”
The other one picked up instantly, as if they were using the same brain.
“Poor little missing Phoenix boy, looking like he needs to go home, bruv.”
I slammed down the last tin of fence paint, and straightened up again, feeling like if they wanted a beef, I could do with a good fight.
They clearly knew who I was, and that was really fucked up, because I had no idea who they were.
All fuckers stop smirking eventually, right? Like when they’re unconscious.
“You’re starting to piss me off. You wanna fuck off, before I show you the door? It opens really fucking well when you slam a smug, fucking-”
“We’re not looking for trouble!” The women interrupted, waving her hands at me, but the men nudged her behind them.
“Aren’t we, baby? You normally like trouble.” The one guy dragged her up against him and started kissing her loudly and obnoxiously, and the other rolled his eyes.
“EXCUSE ME, we asked for HELP!” He practically yelled at me, and I sighed heavily.
“No, you just pissed around, and called each other ‘bruv’ a lot.”
“I SAID THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HERE IS APPALLING. I want to make a complaint!”
“Yeah, you’re not servicing us, bruv. I’m really offended.”
I knew they’d be trouble. Two hours later, I was jobless, and carrying Nixie home on my ride.
Home to another shitty hotel. Why the fuck did those two assholes just get into my shit and fuck it up?
Who the hell were they? They’d made formal complaints, making up all kinds of shit.
I was rude. I was abusive. I was sexually suggestive to their woman.
What the hell was their problem? Why pick a fight with me when I had no idea who they even were?
Back at the hotel, I tucked into yet another shit burger, and lay back on another shit bed. This wasn’t working. I needed something more permanent. Time to move to the next town along? Or maybe a small village, where I could try a change of pace.
Someone knocked on my hotel room door, and I sighed heavily, getting up to tell room service to fuck off, because the sign on my door was clear, and always there so they’d stay out of my shit.
“Look, I don’t need my room cleaned, or…” I trailed off as I faced two men I hadn’t seen in a few weeks. Henley and Has-Been. What the fuck?
“Gonna invite us in, brother?”
I backed up, so thrown by their appearance that I didn’t even think to argue. They both cast their eyes around the room, and Has-Been immediately approached the bed and sat by Nixie, who clearly remembered him, climbing up into his lap for snuggles.
“Nice place,” Henley murmured, dragging a finger over the surface closest to him, and grimacing.
“I like it,” I protested, but we both knew it was bullshit.
“You coming home yet? You’re gonna miss the demolition party.”
I’d really wanted to be there for that. I’d looked forward to it, but that was before I lost everything. Now it’d feel hollow without her.
“I’m sure it’ll go great without me.”
Neither of them disagreed.
“Pricks. How did you find me?”
Henley and Has-Been exchanged grins.
“Find you? Nobody had to find you, man. We always knew where you were.”
“Bullshit. I’ve been off the grid for nearly two weeks,” I scoffed, and then fell silent, as Has-Been rattled off the names of the four hotels I’d been lounging in as I moved around. The fuck?
I turned to glare at Henley, who raised his hands in surrender.
“Nothing to do with me, I swear. I didn’t know anything, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have outed your whereabouts. I’m trustworthy, just like I promised.”
“As am I, nutfucker,” Has hissed at me, while I pondered the weird word choice there, “not that you bothered trying to trust me at all.”
“So how?” Clarity was starting to settle in, and things were suddenly making sense.
“Wait, those fuckers who got me fired. They were working with you?”
Has-Been grimaced. “Not working with us, as such. But they thought taking away your lifeline would help us encourage you back home. Me personally, I was gonna charm you, and Henley here, well, he really likes to beg.”
“Bite me.” I finally realised he was wearing a cut, but not a full club one. A prospect one.
“Prospect?”
His shoulders sagged. “Fuck. I know. I hate it, but apparently they want me to do ‘a period of menial tasks to prove my loyalty’, or some shit. Like I wasn’t fully patched in elsewhere. Trust me, I’ve been arguing this point for months.”
Has laughed. “They have him doing gate duty, and a little bar work. I mean, seriously, he’s getting off easy, right?”
Yeah, he really fucking was. I’d lost track of how many times I’d cleaned up piss or vomit during my prospect year.
I shook my head, getting back on track as I dragged the only chair out and set it by Henley, who was clearly avoiding the bed. I leaned against the wall as he made himself comfortable, which apparently took several adjustments in position, a groan or two, and various facial expressions.
“So those fuckers earlier?”
“The Bennetts? Yeah those assholes think that ‘little favours’ they do for us mean we owe them bigger ones later. Nobody asked them to get involved.” Bennetts. I had no idea why that sounded familiar, but whatever.
“So if they didn’t find me, how? How the hell did I manage to fuck this up too?”
Has lifted Nixie up and kissed her head, nuzzling her face, so I turned to Henley instead, since he wasn’t currently smooching a puppy,
“Apparently ‘there’s fuck all that we don’t know’, according to Grease and Ice. They’ve been tracking your burner since day one.”
My burner? The one fucking thing nobody knew about?
“No fucking way. Nobody knew about that phone. It’s off the fucking grid!” I stalked across the room and grabbed it, flicking through the menu options, like I thought I’d find a tracking app or something, but of course there was nothing that stood out as being untoward.
“Brother, you powered it up in the clubhouse grounds at some point, and that’s all it took.
Apparently unregistered mobile phones flag up on their system and they monitor them.
Who knew? Apparently it’s all spy shit these days.
” Has turned back to my pup. “And you look like you’ve grown, little girly.
Yes you have! Look at how fucking cute you are. ”
“Don’t swear at her, she’s only little.”
They both laughed, and fuck me, I missed that. I missed both of them. I missed just hanging and shooting the shit like this.
“So seriously, man. You’re coming home, right?” I met those bright blue fucking eyes as Has tried nudging me again.
“I don’t have one, so that’d be pretty fucking hard.”
“That’s bullshit. Try again.”
“I’m settled here. It’s nice.”
Henley snorted, gesturing to the dingy room, which kinda smelled like old laundry, even with the window open the inch it would open.