Page 7 of Thick as Thieves
It all felt so mundane. Bland, cold, boring. Normally I don’t even think, detach my brain and focus on the sensations alone. Feed my body if not my mind.
So why tonight does it feel nowhere near enough? Because it’s dark and it’s cold here in this place, in my mind. There’s no light, no warmth, it feels so fucking empty.
I shake my head to clear my reverie and focus on Jonno. “Nice place you’ve got here, Jonno.” The man is crazier than ever. Not sure what it says about me the fact I'm stood here with him.
He smirks. “Keeps me entertained,” he says. “Jude always thought it was Kellen who was in charge of your little duo. He didn’t have you down as topping.” He winks at me. “But I did. And I now see I was right all those years ago.”
“Go fuck yourself, Jonno,” I say conversationally, looking him straight in the eye. “I don’t give a fuck what you think you know or don’t know.”
He throws his head back laughing. “Hey, no judgement from me. I can hardly throw any stones at anyone, not that I would want to anyway. Sex is sex mate. Whatever that looks like.”
I give him a withering glare. “Your issue is, you think you know everything about everyone. Cleverer than the average bear.” I point imperiously at him. “Well maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do.”
He’s a pain in the fucking arse. Always has been. Terrorising anyone that got in his way. But a hundred percent faithful to protecting Evie and his family. So I always gave him a pass.
“Why’s Evie so quiet? It’s not what I always expected of her. She wasn’t on your level of crazy, but she wasn’t far behind you.” I go for a change of subject. A well used distraction technique on Jonno. Evie.
“She’s been doing that for a while. It won’t last, but she seems happy with it at the moment. Jude thinks he’s got her where he wants her, doing his dirty work. Jackson thinks she needs protecting so is trying to hand pick her men. They are both so far off the mark it’s unbelievable, but she’s been lulling them in for years now, biding her time.”
“She was wild, free, why’s she living so quietly now?” I think about the beautiful untamed spirit that was Evie Greystone, and my whole body glows. She was magnificent.
“James, probably.”
Jonno offers to drop me off at Marcus’s hotel. As soon as we’re in the car, he starts up again.
“You’ve always loved him, when did you love her?” he asks me, staring intently into my face.
Notdo you, but whendidyou. I notice the difference and I know he will, and means it.
“When you first met her and she shoved him in the ditch? Or was it later, when she kissed the fuck out of you in that graveyard? You never did tell him about it, did you? Kept that for yourself.”
Jonno Greystone, the sly fuck, master tactician. I decide so the fuck what. I might as well put everything out there. It’ll never get me anywhere anyway. Well not where I would want to be, so fuck it.
“All of the above, Jonno.” I smirk at him.
But I look back now, and see it all. How the patterns of my life could have been different. So very different. But it’s no use looking back. I can only look forward. Hope things will get better now she’s back in my life in some way. She could have been in it sooner but for this bastard sat grinning at me in this car.
“You kept her hidden from us for eighteen-fucking-years, you cunt.” I’m suddenly so angry with him, and he just laughs.
He laughs, full-on. “You’ll be thanking me for that one day, Xander Barclay. Now get out, and let me get home and pretend I was dancing all night.” He opens the car door at the hotel.
Dancing alright, with the devil himself. The man is lethal. A few minutes later, I see a car go out of the underground garage and know it’s Evie going home. It’s early, don’t think Marcus will be up.
I walk onto the hotel floor to see Mick, who’s dressed and ready for anything, as usual.
“All alright, Mick? Did she leave in one piece?”
I can feel his agitation.
“No she did not. There will be hell to pay. She was a mess. Not a piece of skin he hadn’t bitten, and I mean some were full-on bite marks. What the fuck has gotten into him? I’ve never seen anyone look like that, ever. Not from his room, anyway. Maybe from yours, whips and all considered.” He’s shaking his head, looking like he’s trapped somewhere between laughter and pure panic.
“Did she seem upset?” I ask, guessing the answer before he says.
“No, far from it. Seemed okay about it, to be honest. Was joking a bit with both me and Tommy.”
“Well then,” I shrug.
As expected, Evie Greystone can handle Marcus Russell. If anyone thinks differently, they’re deluded and don’t know her.
