Page 8 of Dark Biker Protector

"Anyway," she continued. "How did you get involved with the Dogs in the first place? Was it family, or did you join on your own terms?"

I sighed. I didn’t like going into all of this, but she struck me as the kind of girl who would be able to see right through me if I started spinning her a line.

"I joined when I was nineteen," I replied. "Needed some money to pay for my family after my parents died."

"Oh, sorry to hear that," she murmured, jotting something down in her notebook. "And how did that work? What were you doing when you first started working for them...?"

I eyed her, incredulous. Did she really think I was going to start spilling our secrets to her? Before I could reply, though, Brown headed past us to the tattoo shop outside, pulling the door shut with a bang – and she nearly shot out of her seat in surprise.

"Sorry, sorry," she muttered. The blood seemed to have drained from her face at the sound of that noise, and I frowned at her, confused.

"Something wrong?"

"Nothing’s wrong," she replied, maybe a little more sharply than she needed to. It was the first time I had seen her show anything other than total brightness, and to be honest, seeing her like this intrigued me. She had always put up such a good front when I had been around her, but the moment she’d been thrown off-guard, it had dropped, revealing something else underneath.

"Anyway, we were talking about what you did when you first started working for the...the Dark Dogs, is it?”

I almost laughed, hearing the name of our gang come out of her mouth. It sounded foreign on her lips.

"The Dark Dogs," I confirmed for her. "I was running for them."

"Running?" she replied with a frown. "Like...like running track?"

I grinned, and then shook my head.

"Not really. Running product. Let’s just say that."

"Oh – oh," she replied, her eyes widening as she made sense of what I was saying. "Yeah, I think I get that. So, you got involved to make money when you were a teenager, but how did you end up running this place a couple of decades later?"

I told her a little about my history with the club, about Damien, working as his second-in-command for all those years, and how I eventually took over for him when he’d passed a few years ago. I talked about stepping into his shoes, how they seemed impossible to fill at first, but eventually, I settled into the knowledge that I could actually handle this and do right by his memory. Losing him had been like losing a father all over again, but I had held it together, knowing I had to be that figure for other people in the Dogs, knowing I couldn’t let my weakness shine through after everything that had happened.

I noticed, though, the way her eyes darted around the room a few times – like she was looking out for something, on edge for something she couldn’t quite put into words. I had to admit, it reminded me of someone.

Of Anna.

In those last few months, she had been the same way, unable to relax even when she must have known she was safe. Unable to let go of the certainty that something was going to happen to her, something terrible was going to go down whenever she let herself relax. Abbey was perched on the very edge of her seat, like she was ready to bolt for the door at any instant.

A car backfired outside, and she nearly leapt out of her seat again. I stopped her in her tracks before she could go on to the next question, not wanting her to brush me off quite so easily.

"What’s going on with you?" I demanded. She shook her head.

"It’s nothing, really-"

"I agreed to give you this interview," I pointed out to her. "The least you can do is tell me what’s going on with you, too."

She fell silent for a moment, fiddling with her pen like she was trying to find a way out of this conversation before it went any further. But then, finally, she spoke.

"I’ve just been having a hard time with an ex, that’s all."

I bristled. I’d heard that before.

"What kind of a hard time?"

She shook her head again.

"It’s nothing," she replied.

"It’s not nothing," I argued. "Or you wouldn’t have brought it up."

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