Page 14 of Stag

All I could do was shake my head, and that’s when her eyes suddenly narrowed, and she lunged across the bed, snatching my phone.

“Is it that biker guy? Is he harassing you, or something? I’ll call the fucking police again. He’s a menace!”

I think for a moment I was just struck completely still and dumb by her words. Obviously I didn’t hear them, but I read them on her lips, which grew more and more agitated and rapid as her words became filled with anger.

“No.” I reached for my phone, balancing my coffee on my leg, and she glared at the screen as if she could rage the biker from it, even though I’d never even properly met him. She suddenly turned and threw the phone across the room, hitting the wall with a silent thud as it disappeared from sight. Oh my god!

I leapt up from the bed, forgetting the coffee which poured over my legs and hand.

“OH GOD!”

Marissa started to panic, dragging me to the bathroom and getting me in a cool shower, while I let my mind whir over what had just happened. I shoved her away as I pulled the shower curtain closed.

“I can do it!” I yelled, the words surging from my chest with fury. How dare she? How dare she smash my phone like that? It wasn’t just about cutting me off from potential biker man messages, which was impossible anyway, but it was like stealing part of my world from me. It was my lifeline. It was the only way I could keep contact with many people I knew, because I couldn’t exactly answer a landline phone, and we didn’t have a specialised deaf user phone, because mobile phones do it all now, right?

She’d cut me off. That’s what she’d done. Frozen me out. Silenced me even more. Silenced my world.

Chapter Six

That was one hairy fucking night. After the big guy grabbed my throat, I tried slamming him in the head with my helmet, which resulted in it being thrown across the concrete, and was therefore fucked.

“You asshole! How am I supposed to ride now?” I tried kicking him, and he just laughed, the others joining in. It was fucking embarrassing.

I slammed a fist into his face, and he rocked back a little with the force, but his fingers only loosened a touch.

“Fucking stalker prick. Gonna break every bone you got.”

“Don’t touch his other bone, bruv. God knows where it’s been.”

“Yeah, his hand, his mouth, probably. Certainly not in any pussy.”

Jesus. What was with these guys?

“Look, do you want another enforcer or what? I’ve got places to be.”

Marco the asshole released my throat and backed up, tucking his hands under his arms as he folded them.

“I don’t think he’s got the balls, boss.” It was weird how he addressed two bosses as ‘boss’, but maybe it was just quicker that way. Bosses. Boss. Yeah, it’d be weird the other way.

“You couldn’t even fight Marco off, bruv. How do we know you’ve got what it takes?”

“You’re not stealthy either. I saw you sneaking up on them from a mile away,” the knife guy said. Apparently his name was Danno. I was remembering all kinds of shit from the few meetings we’d had with them. I hadn’t bothered prioritising remembering them, but now it was a little hard not to.

“I didn’t know who I was sneaking up on, okay? I saw some creepy bastard, and it’s near my… a friend’s house, so I wanted to check it wasn’t something that’d put her at risk.”

The Bennetts exchanged a grin, and backed up a few steps to murmur to each other. Danno and Marco just stood there smirking, and the guy on the ground spat blood out and scrambled to his feet.

“I should probably get going. You guys are busy.” Marco shot him a glare and he froze, sitting back down. “Or I could just take a load off while you do your thing. It’s all good.”

Danno snorted. “It’s gonna be good when I get my knives into you.”

“Sounds kinky, man.”

I laughed with them, and it was like those movie moments where the main character laughs along with the popular kids, and they all fall silent and glare. How dare I find his joke funny, right?

“Okay, bruv. Here’s what’s gonna happen. You have to audition, because we need to know you’re tough enough for this shit. If you pass that test, you’ll be hired on a trial basis, with a contract and everything. You speak about our shit, you die. You fuck with us, you die. Am I missing anything, bruv?” He glanced at his brother, who picked up immediately like it was all fucking rehearsed.

“There’s no backing out now, bruv. You don’t wanna look like a wuss, right? You’re kinda like an inside man for us now, because we want Phoenix working for us, and you can make that happen. You can let us know when shit’s going down, so we can offer our assistance, you know, all friendly like.”