SCARLET
The guys said I could borrow one of the SUVs since they were technically safer…and slower, I pointed out. But that didn’t seem like fun when they had so many different sports cars and motorcycles to choose from. And since they were all busy with planning the memorial for Mel, no one came down to see me off.
“So many options,” I said to myself as I walked through the private garage filled with way too many vehicles for three men. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” I counted out loud as I ran my fingers over key hooks. “Catch a tiger by its toe…”
Trailing off, I found the keys I was looking for. I liked my bikes to have speed, but I was also a sucker for the classics. And I had grown up riding on the back of my grandfather’s Harley from the time I was old enough to hold my damn head up.
I grabbed a helmet off the wall and made my way over to the matte black Harley Davidson Iron 883. I braided my hair to the side and secured the helmet. The purr of the engine as I revved it was almost enough to turn me on.
I checked that both guns I had on me, one strapped underneath my shirt and one inside my boot, were secured and then took off through the garage and out into the still-wet streets of London.
It would only take me about twenty minutes to get to the deli, but I wanted to be early. I wanted to make sure we could get our old table and that I could be sitting on the side that faced the rest of the restaurant.
I felt my phone buzz at a stoplight and leaned to the side to dig it out of my back pocket.
Really? The Iron? You couldn’t have at least taken something that would’ve put some sort of barrier between you and the asphalt?
I smiled down at the text from Elliot and sent off a quick wink before shoving it back in my pocket and taking off down the road. When I pulled up to the deli, I was lucky enough to find a parking spot relatively close. And as I looked around, I couldn’t see any cars that looked like one of the family’s.
But as I walked inside, I realized he was there already…and he definitely wasn’t alone. He was sitting next to a guy with dirty-blond hair that was pulled into a bun at the nape of his neck, and he had muscles for days. They were hunched towards each other, their hands moving frantically with their words, clearly arguing over something.
Even though they were arguing, I could still tell that they were familiar with each other. Their thighs were touching, and every few words, Motshan would try to grab his hands.
I made my way over to them, my hand twitching to grab the gun that sat heavily against my torso. When I got close enough, Motshan noticed me first, turning to give me his full attention while it took his friend a minute to process.
“Singur înseamna cu siguran?a ceva diferit pentru mine decât pentru tine, frate.” Alone certainly means something different to me than it does to you, brother.
“Tocmai pleca,” he said to me before turning to his friend. “Right, Niamh? You were just leaving?”
I turned my attention to Niamh, and our eyes met, each of us refusing to look away and lose this little mini-war that had started between us.
“Niamh,” Motshan said again, causing Niamh to break eye contact and look over.
“Hah,” I said out loud. “I won.”
Motshan looked at me and rolled his eyes.
“Not everything is a competition, Scarlet.”
Niamh stood and adjusted his very expensive-looking suit before turning his attention back to me. He cleared the few steps between us and stopped with just inches of air to separate us. I wasn’t tall by any means, and he definitely wasn’t the first man to use his height against me to make me feel inferior. Little did he know that had stopped working a long time ago.
I tilted my head back to look up into his face and smirked.
“Nice to meet you, Niamh,” I said, my fingers still twitching to get at one of my guns or maybe the knife I had in my back pocket. The rational side of my brain told me if he was a friend of Motshan’s, that he would probably end up being a friend of mine and that the murdery voices in my head needed to take a chill pill. It had just been so long since I got to kill someone…
“If you hurt him…” he said, trailing off to let his gaze slide past me and out into the street. “Or if any of your whipped little puppies that I’m sure followed you try anything, I will have so much fun slowly killing all of you.”
“Wow,” I said, widening my eyes for effect. “You’re one violent little thing, aren’t you? I’m shaking in my boots—really, I am!”
He rolled his eyes and stormed past me, nearly slamming the door right off its hinges on his way out. I watched him stomp off like a child for a moment before turning back to Motshan.
“Well, I certainly approve of him,” I said as I dragged a chair around the table to the side so that my back wouldn’t be facing the rest of the restaurant, including the unobscured windows and front door.
“He doesn’t trust you.”
“Would’ve never guessed,” I deadpanned. “I came alone, by the way. The guys are all at home, preoccupied with something else while they wait for me. I didn’t bring any sort of guard either.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t send someone to follow you,” he said, his eyes scanning the crowd around us. “Or that one of them didn’t decide to follow you themselves.”
“They didn’t,” I told him, untying my braid and running my fingers through the tangled waves. “Now, are we going to actually discuss what’s going on, or are we going to argue over whether or not I’m actually alone all day?”
He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He looked exhausted. His clothes were wrinkled, like he had been wearing them for days, and his eyes had bluish-purple bags under them.
“I’m sorry about what happened, Scar,” he said as he leaned his elbows onto the table. “It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. Our father must’ve gotten antsy or, more likely, got annoyed that he wasn’t running the show.”
I nodded and looked around the little deli. It smelled just like I remembered, like fresh bread and whatever orange-scented cleaner they used to mop the checkered floors at night. It was crowded today, everyone eating and chatting away with their friends and family.