Page 39 of Avenging Devil: Part 1

“Why not?” comes a shrill shout, breaking into my thoughts. “You’re younger than me.”

I swing around, hearing Cyn’s voice, seeing her at the bar confronting Kid, who for once is on this side and not serving.

“What’s going on?” I snap, stepping up.

“He’s drinking,” she glares at Kid, “and he,” she turns that death stare on Connor, “won’t serve me.”

“Kid’s twenty-two,” I explain, sending a look of apology toward the prospect. “You’re only twenty and too young to drink.”

“In an MC?” she asks, incredulously.

She’s right, here in our home, we couldn’t give a shit about citizen rules, but a drunk Cyn is something I don’t have a yearning to see.

“In an MC,” I confirm, my eyes conveying my message to Connor. “Make sure everyone knows it.”

“Sure.” Connor grins and mock-salutes.

“Huh!” Cyn states angrily. “I should have stayed home.”

“You can fly out tomorrow if you want.”Please say yes. I’ve too much on my plate.There’s another woman I’d prefer to worry about.

For an answer, she pouts, then seeing I’m not going to be moved, flicks her hair over her shoulder, looks around, and goes to watch Pennywise and Salem playing pool. I don’t fail to notice the exaggerated swing of her hips as she crosses the room.

Give me strength.

The next couple of days I give her time to settle in, two days in which I start to learn about my sister. She’s overly confident, talks to anyone, and is so oblivious to nuances going on around her, I reckon I’d have to remind her to look both ways before crossing a street.

She seems thrilled to be living with an MC, something that apparently she’ll get street cred for. Too happy, it seems to me, as if she’s been dropped into a fantasy.

She’s airheaded and tends to think only of herself. Too often, I’m following her and apologising when she asks pointedly about the meaning of road names, if she can see brothers’ weapons—yeah, double entendre intended—and begs for rides on the back of their bikes.

Alex, luckily, she seems to respect, as well as Patsy and Mary, being polite and minding her language. The club girls? Well, she seems to side with them. I grow worried she’d like to become one of their number.

When I’d seen Cindy, Tits and Pearl gathered in a group around her, I’d rushed up, but stopped dead and hid my grin when I heard them handing her ass to her, metaphorically, of course. Seems like she was looking for sympathy at having had her boyfriend chased away and was told in no uncertain terms not one of them would have put up with abuse. I’d backed off, thinking there was something she could learn from them, as long as she didn’t emulate their style of clothes or express a yearning to join their ranks.

To top all joy of joys, she takes to being a receptionist like a fucking duck to water. It’s all because of thehotbikers, she informs me.

After that particular conversation, I’d approached Salem, and stated in a hiss, “I thought you were going to make her life hell.”

He chuckles and shrugs. “What can I say? She’s actually good on the phone. Customers seem to like her.”

“Only because she’s an outright flirt,” I retort. “Can’t you stick her with boring paperwork?”

He slaps my back. “Tried that, Brother. Actually, she’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s been ordering parts and keeping records in order. Came up with a new filing system to boot.”

She’s never going to fucking leave at this rate.

If I were a man who liked to get my dick wet on the regular, I’d be severely compromised by her presence, as every evening she monopolises my time when the others have gotten fed up with her, wanting me to play pool or stand at the games machine while she plies it with tokens.

Wishing I was elsewhere, I try to enjoy getting to know my little sister, but it’s hard. The schools she went to aren’t the same as those I remember, and her friends aren’t mine. Having money courtesy of Grover, she’d grown up in a different lifestyle. While at her age I was in the hell of the sand pit facing enemy gunfire, she was choosing which series to binge next on Netflix.

Truth is, we share nothing in common except for a mother. My main issue is that she’s already showing signs of getting too comfortable here.

I don’t mind my style being cramped for a while, but long-term? Hell no. My life is more than being a big brother.

Though Cyn occupies far too much of my time, my thoughts keep returning to Saffie, wondering how she is and what she’s doing, and whether she’s come to a decision. I hate thinking about her in that apartment block, even if she didn’t have the problems she has.

She doesn’t call, and as the days pass, I realise it’s been longer since she chased me away than the time I’d actually spent with her.

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