I lift one shoulder. “I got in a bit of a scuffle today,” I say, keeping it light, because she’s not ready to hear the truth.
Her brows draw together. “With who?”
“Some bad people.”
“There was more than one? Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No.”
I go to move around her, but she grabs hold of my elbow. “Did it have anything to do with the raid on the Steel Reapers clubhouse?”
I let out a long breath and scrub my hand down my face. “Don’t ask questions you’re not going to like the answer to.”
Her grip tightens, not painfully, just insistent. “I’m already not liking the answers you’re giving.”
I meet her eyes, and for a moment, neither of us moves. The kitchen feels too small, like the walls are leaning in to listen.
“You were there.”
“For the raid? No.”
“Then who did you get into a fight with?”
“It wasn’t exactly a fight.”
“Did it involve the Steel Reapers?”
“Yes.”
“Mick?”
“No.”
“Razor?”
“I have no idea who that is.”
“He was one of the guys who came to my work looking for Mick.”
I shake my arm out of her hold and keep moving towards the table. She doesn’t need to know what I’ve done.
“It was him, wasn’t it? And the other guy?”
“If someone threatens you, Emily, then I’ll deal with it.”
It isn’t an omission, not really, but it’s not a lie either. It’s enough of the truth that she can stitch the missing pieces together on her own.
I wait for her to say something else, but she doesn’t. She simply follows me back to the dining room, calmly places her mug of tea on the table, and leaves.
I take a seat, trying to act unbothered, but I am. The chair feels too hard beneath me, the room too still. The silence she left behind sits heavier than any words she could’ve thrown my way.
She only has assumptions to go on, but I imagine she’s disgusted with me.
“Fuck,” I mumble under my breath as I pick up my fork, but the last thing I feel like doing now is eating. That heavy, sinking feeling in my stomach won’t let up. I stare at the plate without really seeing it.
She left so calmly.Too calmly.
Did she finally see enough to realise who I am? I’m not a good man. I’m no better than the cocksucker she ran from, but one thing she may not realise is I’d never lay a finger onher. She is safe here. She is safe with me. She always will be. I’ve never hurt a woman, no matter how angry I’ve been.
