by Eve R. Hart
“You love him,” I said, taunting her in a joking manner.
She cleared her throat and I giggled.
“Yeah,” she said. “And I already told him so.”
My eyes went wide with shock. While Noah seemed to be one to wear his emotions and heart on his sleeve, Nadya was the complete opposite. Cool to the point of being cold. I imagined that it would have taken years for her to open up to someone like that. But I guessed the big lug had a way of finding a into her armor. Or maybe she had just realized that she couldn’t fight it no matter how hard she tried. Whatever the reasoning was, I was happy for her.
“Don’t act all weird about it,” she said and I heard the laughter in her tone. “And don’t expect me to talk about it.”
“Oh, I would never.” I smiled even though she couldn’t see it.
“I don’t want to ask, but I feel like our worlds are going to mingle even more. Maybe they already have,” she said. I knew there were questions there and she was curious about the answers. Even if I didn’t tell her now, she’d eventually figure it out.
“Yeah. I grew up with Allison. The one that was being held by Savage. He took her seven years ago and ever since then I’ve been trying to find her again. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think she might be well on her way to being, what do they call them, an old lady?” I laughed.
I’d heard the term a few times and understood its meaning. Thinking of Nadya taking on the title made me double over with laughter.
“Yeah, I get that feeling too. And just so we’re clear, no way in hell is anyone going to call me someone’s old lady. Pretty sure Noah knows better than to even try.” There was a flatness to her tone, not an ounce of joking there. “I don’t know him very well, but I can tell that Axe would do anything to keep your girl safe. I see a deep-bedded darkness there. One that I see he wants to have control of. He won’t let it ruin him, or her.”
I nodded, the tears leaking out of my eyes and down my cheeks. I got what she was saying. She was good at reading people in the blink of an eye, and so I took her words to heart. I believed them and had faith in them. And I think I’d even seen it for myself that Axe would never do anything to bring her down, to harm her. He may of had demons lingering in the darkness but he was a man that would spend his life trying to make Allison happy and safe.
“So, does this mean I’ll be seeing you soon?” she asked.
I hesitated.
But I couldn’t begin to figure out why.
“Yeah,” I answered not sounding not at all convincing.
I couldn’t believe how weird I was being. And maybe I wasn’t ready to dig inside of myself and find the reasons for that. It felt wrong that I wasn’t ready to face Allison. That I didn’t want to see Nadya being all in love in person.
“It’s a lot to process,” she said like she was inside my head. “Don’t feel guilty if you need time. I’ll talk to you soon.”
With that, she disconnected. She was right. It was a lot to process. My world had been changed overnight. Hell, my world had been blown up, some of those pieces so small that I couldn’t even find them to start the process of putting it back together. I didn’t like this feeling and more so, I didn’t like that I had no clue how to move on.
-18-
For The First Time, I Hate My Job
Clean
Okay, so my mind spun as I walked down the block to the small, family-owned market on the corner. My brain was on auto-pilot. And it must have thought I needed to stock up because my hands reached to grab a cart rather than a basket like I normally did.
Then I stood there like a lost idiot. I had meant to grab some eggs, toast, and maybe even bacon. Just enough things to make breakfast with. However, I didn’t think it was a bad idea to get a few extra stuff to hold us over for a day, that way we wouldn’t have to go out later if we didn’t want to. And I had a good feeling that she would have been happy with that. My eyes scanned the store and I had no clue what direction to head. Not because I didn’t know where anything was, but because I had no idea what the hell to get. I didn’t know the first thing about what she liked to eat. Wait, that was a lie. I knew she liked those cookies she told me about. Oatmeal Surprise, she had called them. I had to be honest, they sounded amazing and if I knew the first thing about baking, I would have bought the shit that she needed to make them.
So I knew she liked one kind of cookie. That didn’t help me out a single fucking bit.
I shook my head and mumbled to myself about getting it together. I didn’t want to be gone long and I was pretty sure I’d wasted a good few minutes just standing there.
Fruit. That wasn’t a bad idea, right? I grabbed some apples and bananas. Then picked up some strawberries at the last minute. And fresh veggies were good for you. Sure, I liked a decent salad, even if I didn’t eat one all that often. In to the cart went lettuce, spinach, carrots, and a couple of cucumbers. I also picked up a cute little basket of tiny tomatoes. They were all different colors and even if I weren’t a fan of tomatoes, I couldn’t say no to how beautiful they looked.
I snatched up a loaf of fresh white bread. I knew for a fact that it was amazing and baked right there in the back of the store. I smiled, feeling that it was still a little warm.
I dashed up and down the aisles. Pasta, rice, cans of beans, oatmeal, cereal, pancake mix, taco shells, milk, and cheese. All of that ended up in my cart and more. Along with the eggs and bacon which I remembered to grab at the last minute.
I paid and wondered how the hell I was supposed to get all of this stuff back to the building. With a sigh and a shake of my head, I loaded up my arms with the reusable bags that I also ended up buying. It was a good thing I had strong arms, but I wouldn’t deny that by the time I made it to my front door, I felt like they were going to fall off.
I attempted to dig out my keys without setting the bags down, which was a dumb move. It wasn’t working at all, and the eggs kept swinging around and smacking me on the ass. I hoped that none of them ended up broken.
I let out a grunt and tried again.
“Derrick?” her sweet voice called through the still closed door.
“Yeah, it’s me, sweetness. Can you open up? My hands are a little full.”
“I heard you all the way in the bedroom. I would have thought you were fighting a bear with all that grunting,” she said then quickly noticed that my hands were indeed full. “What is all of this?” She laughed as she reached out and tried to take some of the bags off my hands.
“Just step aside, Luce. I got it,” I said flashing her a smile.
“I thought you were going to get eggs,” she said moving back and holding open the door.
“I did get eggs,” I said with a shrug, one that might have been a little lost because my shoulders were struggling to lift even a little bit right now. “And some other stuff.”
“I’d say so.”
Then she helped me unpack everything and I put it away.
“I’m not really sure what all you plan on making with this stuff. It’s kind of random,” she said with a giggle.
“Yeah,” I said, the corners of my mouth tipping down a little at the lack of focus I’d had. “I don’t have the first clue on what you might like and so I think I ended up grabbing whatever I saw.”
“I can make it work,” she said, looking at me as though she was trying to hold back a laugh.
Yeah, something about her made me nervous and insane on the inside. She made my stomach tremble and my brain shut down. Though it made me look a little like an idiot, I had to admit that I liked the feeling. And I didn’t want it to go away. Which, what I was really saying, was that I didn’t want her to go away.
I didn’t say anything else as I got to work. Eggs were simple enough and I knew better than to overcook them.
We ate in silence and I could tell that there was something up with her. Maybe with me as well. It wasn’t awkward, it was more along the lines of we both were wondering things but too scared
to voice them.
“Talk to me,” I said not liking the closed off communication.
I may not have liked people. And I may not have had many friends growing up. But I was smart enough to know that hiding things and keeping your questions and feelings locked inside always did more harm than good. I wanted to do this…whatever this was, and I wanted to make sure I did it right.
On the plus side, I didn’t have to worry about freaking her out with what I did for work. She already knew and in a way, it felt like the big stuff was out there already.
“There is a lot going on up in here,” she said and touched the side of her head. “I talked to Nadya while you were gone.”
I looked her in the eyes to let her know that I was listening, even if I didn’t have the first clue who Nadya was. I assumed one of her friends. And I had a feeling like she didn’t have many.
“Oh, Nadya is…oh how should I put this. A contract killer. She was there in the warehouse. Tall woman. Thick hair. Standing with the big guy, Tank. I will try to make this as short as possible,” she said then took in a deep breath. “I met her kind of on an accident. Something we don’t really talk about. But there had been a job that she’d taken a few years ago and we sort of crossed paths. Somehow we just ended up sticking with one another and I ended up helping her out sometimes. But that’s not the point. I guess Nadya is the closest thing to a friend that I have now.”
I nodded, remembering the woman from the warehouse very well. She was kind of hard to miss, and not because she was one of only three women in that room. She stood tall amongst the men of the club. I could see that she didn’t give a damn what any of them thought about her being there. Also, I got the sense that she was deadly and had probably taken out her fair share of the bodies I’d seen there that night. Now that Lucy had filled me in on who and what she was, it made a little more sense.
“So, Nadya ended up taking a contract from Savage. I didn’t know it at the time because we tried not to talk about work stuff. Tank ended up being her target. That was when things kind of got…crazy. He thought his little boy was dead but he wasn’t. Oh, this is so involved, I should just tell you everything so you know what’s going on.”
Then she did. Telling me about the person she had hired to go undercover. The one that was still standing wearing The Devil’s Kings cut. Now that part made sense to me.
Man, there was a lot to this. While she’d been like an invisible force right in the middle, I had been skirting around the outside all this time. I knew what was going on and I had ties to these people but wasn’t really in the know with them. Still, I had picked up things here and there over the years. I knew they had a major problem. And that problem had been Savage.
And while I was there, but not really, she was almost the opposite. In the way that she knew what the hell was going on but didn’t know these people at all. She’d never met them. What she did know, she’d learned from afar, behind closed doors, watching it all play out on a computer screen. She had all the angles and the background noise. She knew the little ways that everything connected.
To be honest, it made my head hurt.
So I learned that Burke had somehow saved Tank’s son when the club had thought he died in an explosion that had been set up by Savage. I was glad the little kid wasn’t dead, that was for sure. She moved the story along as fast as possible and by the end. I was able to put all the pieces together.
Only I wasn’t sure if it was better when I was in the dark.
Because there was a lot. Little plays and angles that she’d kept track of over the years. Things she’d put into motion and in place without anyone knowing. It all came full circle in the end and she’d ended up helping to save her friend.
“You’ve been doing a shit-ton the last seven years,” I stated like she didn’t already know it. “I think you deserve a little break. But I can imagine that’s hard to even think about after so long.”
“It is,” she said with a little nod. “It’s like…like I have been so focused for seven years and now I’m…lost.”
“No, sweetness,” I said pulling her stool closer to mine and wrapping my arms around her. “Not lost, I won’t ever let you be lost. Look at it as a new beginning. Now you can think about you and what you want.”
“I don’t think I want to give up everything,” she admitted as she fisted the front of my shirt like she needed to hold onto me for some reason. “I can’t stop thinking about all the people out there like Allison. All the missing and taken kids. I want to help save them.”
“Okay, and you can do that. No one’s telling you that you have to give it all up. But now you can take a little step back. Do things in between. Live for you.”
“What about you?” she asked and raised a brow at me. “Do you ‘live for you’ in between jobs?”
She had me there. In a way I did. I didn’t hate my life though looking back on it, it was kind of a lonely one.
“Maybe not fully, but I think I’m going to start now.”
“Never too old right,” she added with a wink.
“Oh, wow. Now you say I’m old,” I joked back. “What happened to ‘age is just a number?’ Hm?”
“Well, I mean…I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” she said as I tried to move back.
“Maybe we can figure it out together,” I said and held my breath.
“I’d like that.” She smiled up at me and damn if it didn’t melt my heart.
“Me too,” I said and then met her lips in a sweet kiss.
“So…this is a thing, right?” she asked a little hesitantly.
I smiled, the longer she was around me the more of her true personality started to come out. I loved it and hoped it meant that she felt at ease around me.
“It’s a thing,” I said with a nod as I tried to hold back a chuckle. Not because I was laughing at her. It was the way she was so adorable and cute.
“Okay, good,” she said and then bit her lip.
I was about to say something when my phone beeped with the worst timing ever. I held back my frustration as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed the number to call into my messaging service.
I ended the call after listening to the message and let out a sad sigh without realizing it. It looked like I was headed south a bit. If all went well, I could be back by tomorrow morning.
“Duty calls,” she said sending a timid smile my way.
“Yes, it does.”
I hesitated. Like big time. Like my feet were stuck in place while my eyes stayed locked with hers.
“Hey, I get it. Believe me, I do. It’s okay.” She forced a smile and though I believed she meant what she said, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness coming off of her.
“Would you…like to come along?” I asked not really sure what I was going to do with her while I worked.
I couldn’t pull off telling people she was my assistant. These people knew me and I had worked alone for so many years. Plus there was the trust factor and bringing someone new in without any kind of warning or time for them to do a background check was super unprofessional in my line of work. That part aside, I also didn’t really think that it was a good idea for her to watch me do what I did. I got that she kind of already had at least a few times, but it was a whole different thing seeing it in person. When watching it on screen, you didn’t have all the smells surrounding you.
“Oh, God, no,” she responded, wide-eyed. “I think I will hang back here, if that’s alright with you.”
“You’ll stay?” I asked because I still wasn’t completely sure she wouldn’t bolt without me around.
“Yes.” She smiled sweetly then leaned over to plant a light kiss on my lips. “I will be here when you get back.”
“Okay. Good. Shouldn’t take me long. I’ll be back tomorrow.” I tried to cover the excited thrill that zapped through me. I hoped it came off more smooth that I imagined it actually had.
I stood and went into the bedroom. I changed as quickly as pos
sible and grabbed the bag that I knew was all ready to go. After making sure that I had my keys and phone in my pocket, I headed back through the condo to the front door. I had a storage shed a few blocks away that was stocked with supplies. I was low and so I knew I’d have to swing by there really quickly.
I found Lucy waiting for me by the door with a bottle of water in her hand. She held it out with a smile and I took it and placed a soft kiss on her cheek.
“Oh,” she said suddenly. “I need a computer.”
“I can’t help you there. I go to the library when I need to look something up.” At her horrified expression, I laughed. “There’s a store that might be able to help you out three blocks south. Can’t miss it. There’s a safe under the bed.” I rattled off the combination without the briefest of pause. Maybe I should have been more cautious, but I knew in my heart that I could trust her. It didn’t matter that what I had in there was chump change to what I had over all. It was about getting closer, letting go, and having faith in the feelings.
“Um, thanks,” she said looking a little shell-shocked. “I’ll…uh, yeah. I’ll see how I feel later. And thank you, but I got it covered.”
I was sure she did but I didn’t ask.
I dropped my bag and walked over to her. With gentle hands, I cupped her jaw.
“If you want to wait, I will take you wherever you want to go when I get back. I won’t be long.” I reiterated that fact so she’d know I’d be returning soon enough.
“Thank you,” she said and seemed to relax at my touch.
“Oh,” I said digging through my bag remembering that I had something for her. Something that at the time I had made it, never knew if I’d ever have the chance to give it to her. It was little. And silly. But even then, it meant something to me. I’d made it for her and I didn’t want to wait another moment to show it to her now that I’d remembered. “I made this for you.”