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Alex shook his head. He couldn’t just pack up and go, no matter how much the idea appealed to him. Sarah had no idea what he really was. How leaving was not an option. He shrugged, there was nothing he could say.
The mobile phone in his pocket vibrated. He pulled the phone out and glanced at the caller. Every muscle tensed in his face as he saw the name of The Devils President flash across the screen. Sarah moved back into her seat, releasing him as the phone stopped buzzing and then started again immediately.
‘I gotta take this.’ Alex pushed back his chair and headed out the door behind them. The night air was warm and stale, the heat radiating off the pavement in contrast to the airconditioned space he just left.
‘You took your time.’ The voice on the end of the line was matter of fact.
‘What do you need, Zep?’
‘That issue we discussed. It needs to be resolved.’
His gut tightened. So much for his night with Sarah.
‘Jesse will pick you up. Text him your location.’
‘Righto.’
He ended the call and quickly texted the name of the street two blocks up. He opened the taxi app and tapped out the request. Two minutes later, a white cab pulled in next to where he stood.
‘Just a second mate, your passenger’s inside.’ Alex spoke into the open window.
He went back inside but gave Sarah no chance to speak.
‘I gotta go. There’s a taxi outside waiting to take you home.’
‘What? Why aren’t you—’
‘I gotta go, Sarah.’ He moved back to the exit, forcing her to get up and follow.
He knew he was being an asshole but she couldn’t be anywhere close when Jesse arrived. The guy was a wannabe enforcer, desperate to make his mark with Zep and would use any leverage he had to make himself look like a hero.
Alex held the door of the cab open.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Sarah, standing back from the waiting cab.
‘Get in the car, I don’t have time to explain.’
Confusion flashed across her face.
Alex stepped towards her, taking her by the wrist and bundling her into the back of the cab. He closed the door and didn’t look back as he walked away. How that woman could love someone like him was a mystery. What was more concerning was how much he wanted her to love him.
Why couldn’t she have been like all the others? A distraction. A play thing. Something easily discarded and rarely thought of again. This was dangerous. He thought he’d closed that part of himself off years ago. The part of him that yearned for kindness, to be thought of, loved. He assumed that in ignoring it, the part of him that wanted those things would die. Drowned in the blood of other men.
Sarah was water and sunshine, slipping through the dark reaches of his soul. Germinating what he thought was dead until she became more. She was oxygen. He couldn’t live without her. Recently, he thought he’d achieved duality, balancing the two halves of himself. The biker and the lover, side by side, but never meeting. Now it seemed his two selves were coming close to colliding, and that couldn’t happen.
The crowded sidewalkparted to give him smooth passage, as it always did. He was tall, built and looked like he would hurt you if you pissed him off. People tended to get out of his way. His bike was at Sarah’s but he didn’t need it. He reached the meeting point in a matter of minutes.
The black pickup was parked illegally in a loading zone, the tinted windows prevented anyone from seeing the occupants. Alex opened the passenger door and got in. He nodded to Jesse, who hit the accelerator without bothering to give way. Oncoming traffic slammed on brakes, narrowly avoiding catastrophe.
Jesse glanced at Alex out of the corner of his eye. ‘Guess you’ll want to get changed.’ It was a statement, not a question.
Alex wasn’t often out of denim and leather. It was convenient in his business, and he wasn’t one for shopping. Lately, he’d broadened his wardrobe to include what he considered civilian clothing, like the shorts and t-shirt he was wearing now. He didn’t invite further speculation by responding to Jesse.
They arrived at the clubhouse and Alex disappeared into his small bedroom. His room was sparse - a double bed, a battered chest of drawers and a single built-in wardrobe. A tattered poster of a scantily clad woman bending over in the fridge, her red panties peeking through her buttocks under a caption that read ‘Why do guys always keep their beer on the bottom shelf’ sat on the wall above the bed. A gift from Connor who’d been concerned at the lack of tits and legs on his walls. The off-white paint and the threadbare, faded aqua carpet had not been updated since he moved in. The wardrobe was where Alex kept his leather, weapons and a petty cash tin full of money. The door was chained and padlocked. Everything else was folded neatly into the drawers with a few toiletries sitting on top.
He dressed for the job. Jeans, t-shirt, cut, boots, spear-pointed paring knife, Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol.
A few minutes later he was back in the pickup, speeding towards Balmain. They were set to meet John ‘Jizzy’ Isobel. He’d been handling communication between The Devils and his brother’s international drug importation business for the last ten months. Jizzy, however, had proven to be unreliable on every front. The Devils smelt dog; maybe he was talking to the cops. Regardless, Zep wanted to eliminate the possibility before it became a reality. He’d reached out to Brian Isobel as a courtesy, but Jizzy’s older brother hadn’t spoken for him. He had as much, if not more, to lose as The Devils.
