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I turned my attention to the man on the screen.
“Cooper. He wanted out of The Brotherhood; life has been… difficult recently. But now that he is, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He enjoys the lifestyle, but he doesn’t want the pressure of being the only tech guy around. You’re a bigger organisation than we were, so I was wondering if you’d have a place for him?”
I held my breath as the man surveyed me for a long moment.
“The kid who saved my life?” Charon asked.
I nodded.
“What kind of stupid fucking question is that? Of course I’ll have him. And I’m a damn sight better to work for than that prick Lorenzo.”
The two men nodded enthusiastically. Charon wasliked,not feared, and it worked. I was impressed, and a little shocked. The guy seemed to be terrifying.
“There’s space for you too,” he added, “And Megan. If you both wanted it?”
I looked at Toby and he gave me a small shrug. But this was another thing that we had discussed. I wasn’t changing my mind on it no matter what he could offer. We wanted a future where the three of us were far away from this life. How typical of Toby though, to not try to force me to stick to it.
“That’s a nice offer, but we want out, for good.” I said firmly.
“Good, didn’t want you anyway.” Charon joked and Toby grinned.
I tore my gaze away from the screen and looked at Yvette and found her smiling at us, she had the same smile as Toby, it was annoyingly contagious.
“What are your plans then?” she asked us, and I let Toby fill her in.
He explained that we were going to move, he was going to set up his own gym, Meg was going to keep working as an accountant, but would teach a free woman’s self-defence class each week, and I was going to open another shop and keep going until I built a name for myself. We were going to live a normal life. So long as we could actually tolerate each other full time. Only time would tell with that part, but I had high hopes, it wasn’t like any of us knew how to do the relationship thing anyway, so we were going to work it all out together.
“Don’t go too far please,” Yvette said when he finished gushing about how excited he was to start this new chapter. “And the three of you better come home all the time for dinner.”
“We will.” I said.
“So, the three of you are together?” Charon asked, his brows pulled tightly together as though he couldn’t make any sense of our situation. “How does that work?”
“I’ll explain later love.” Yvette said softly.
“I’m not against it, I’m happy for you all.” he said quickly. “I just don’t understand it. I’d never share you, Evie.”
“Like another man would ever be able to put up with me.” she said with a small laugh.
“True, you’re hard work.” he said, and she gasped dramatically.
Toby had told me that his mum and Nutmeg had gotten on like a house on fire when they’d met, and I could now see why. I was happy that they had her, I only wished that my mum was here too. Not that she would have made much effort with my girl. She was a kind woman, but she was closed off. Not like Yvette.
“Do you two want to come for lunch?” she asked once she had said her goodbyes to her husband and disconnected the video call. “Like I said, I have a nice pig in the oven, there will be plenty to go around.”
Toby gave me a questioning look and I nodded. For some reason I wanted to spend just a little more time with this woman. And maybe see if she could warm up to me in the same way she did with everyone else.
The two men stood up and made their way out of the back room and she stood up to follow.
“Come on then. When we get home set up the big table, some of the boys are coming over.” she said over her shoulder, then paused in the archway. “What shall I do with that Martin guy?”
“Michael,” I corrected her, and she batted a hand at me playfully. “I don’t care. Whatever the hell you want.”
He hadn’t stayed to fight for anyone. He was nothing to me.
“Ah, I’ll just leave him down there a bit longer then.” she said with a cheeky laugh then grabbed my arm and tugged me along with her out of the bar.
37
