Page 49 of Avenging Devil: Part 1

His face is puzzled as if he’s being called from an unknown number and doesn’t know who the caller is. Then he frowns, suggesting the voice on the phone isn’t welcome.

“Yeah?” At first, he starts off gently. “I’m sorry, Cyn, I won’t be back.” Then as the call continues, his impatience begins to show, until he says very firmly, “Fuck, Cyn. I’ve got something to do. I can’t be there tonight, okay? You’ve got friends… Don’t give me that. Play pool with Pennywise or someone… No, Cyn, I won’t be home this evening. I’ve already fuckin’ told you that.” He ends the call while I’m still hearing strains of a tinny sounding voice on the line. He sighs heavily, and his jaw is clenched.

Has he got a woman, an old lady?A handsome man like him probably wouldn’t be lonely, but the way he spoke to her… I’m puzzled. His dismissive attitude is reminiscent of Duke. If it is his woman, he has no respect for her.

He pulls in air, expanding his cheeks, and then huffs it out. Then, in an abrupt mood change, he looks down and gives a small smile.

I have to ask. My voice full of censure I’m direct. “Was… was that your old lady?”

He cocks an eyebrow my way. “You know the lingo?” He seems to think on that for a moment. I don’t enlighten him on how I know or admit that technically, I’m still one myself. After a pause, as if he’s wondering how much to say, he explains, “Cyn’s my sister.”

Ah. As an only child, I can only guess at a sibling relationship. But the way he spoke to her still grates. “Are you close?”

He harrumphs. “About as distant as a half-brother and half-sister can be.” A shadow falls over his face, and he shakes his head. “Enough about me. Is there anything I can get you now that I’m up?”

Feeling bereft now he’s taken those comforting arms from me, I grab for a cushion and hold it instead. For a response, I move my head side to side.

Niran sits back on the couch, but this time doesn’t get close to me. His thighs are splayed wide, his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped between them. With his eyes focused on a dirty mark on the opposite wall, he starts, “If it helps, I think you’ve done the right thing.”

As at the moment I’m not certain I have, I’m surprised he’s expressed an opinion. “Why?”

“The baby didn’t have a chance, and you knew that, Saffie. Why put you both through hell for another few months when no other outcome could come of it.”

Deep down I know that, but it doesn’t prevent me from beginning to sob again. “I feel so guilty. It’s all my fault. I didn’t give him a good start in life.”

“Nah.” He now turns his eyes on me. “Listen to me. I was here, I watched you, you were doing the best that you could, but sometimes nature has to have its own way. Sometimes things aren’t meant to be. Take Mary and Grumbler. They’ve doing all they can to ensure their baby’s healthy, but at the end of the day, it might not be enough. It wasn’t anything you did, Saffie.”

But it was. It was the beating I had from Duke, the drugs I’d imbibed albeit unwillingly. It was the stress of taking my chance to leave. I turn away, knowing he won’t understand unless I explain, and not wanting to share such information about me.

Instead, I turn the tables on him. “Tell me about your sister.” Despite him being a biker, he’s never seemed anything but kind, but that phone call had showed him in a new light. Before I trust him with my sorrow, I want to know why.

He gives me a concerned glance, then shrugs. “My dad died, and my mom married again three years later when I was seventeen. She got pregnant straight away, and Cyn was born just before I joined the Marines. My stepdad and I didn’t see eye to eye, so except for a few short visits, I didn’t go home again. Cyn and her two younger sisters are virtually strangers as far as I’m concerned.” He pauses to rub his hands over his face. “She ran away, and for some fucked-up reason, she came to me.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty, going on twelve.” He shakes his head and his mouth quirks, but it’s not fondly. “The only thing on which I and her dad agree is that she couldn’t stay with an abusive asshole of an ex.”

My ears prick up. If Niran’s against abuse, he wouldn’t condone what happened to me. “Abusive?”

“Yeah. Her father ran him off when he blackened her eye. Cyn thought she’d been treated unfairly, so ran. Luckily, I suppose, she didn’t take off blindly, but came to find me.”

“Treated unfairly? By the ex you mean?”

He snorts. “No, in her mind it was by her fuckin’ family who kept her from him.”

I turn my head to the side,oh how I wish someone had saved me.

“Saffie.” Niran’s hand comes under my chin and turns me to face him. “I might sound rough about Cyn, but her arriving out of the blue took me by shock. Especially when I’ve been worried as fuck about you.”He worried about me?“She’s safe. My brothers won’t touch her, won’t give in to her games. They’ve given her a job… No, no sweetheart, I can see where your mind’s going. They’ve not put her to work on her back.” He snorts, as if considering that a joke, then rolls his eyes. “She’s a receptionist in our custom-bike workshop.”

“But she wanted you to go back. You say she’s safe, perhaps she doesn’t feel it.” I do know how blind men can be.

Again he snorts. “If anything, it’s my brothers who I should be worried about. Cyn’s fine, but she clings to me. It’s not a refuge she’s seeking in my company, but a sort of possessive vibe. She wants her big brother all to herself.”

I can kind of see why. If Niran were my brother, I’d want him for myself too. That thought means I must view him positively despite his affiliations which surprises me.

“Shouldn’t you go to her?”

He turns his earnest black-as-night eyes on me. “Nah, here’s where I want to be.”

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