Page 88 of Devil's Dilemma

“If what you’re saying is true, you’re right, I can’t begin to imagine it,” she says at last. “But if what you say is the truth…” She swallows. “I don’t know,” her voice drops to a whisper. “It was his job… Maybe he had to…”

“Job?” I rasp back, interrupting. “I was part of his job?”

But it’s the explanation I’ve been wanting, even though never dreaming I was nothing more than someone he was using. Of course he walked away without a backward glance, I never meant anything to him. I look at her, ignoring her tear-streaked face, and analyse what I’m seeing. She’s pretty with high cheekbones, generous lips and her body? Well, she’s slim and has certainly regained her pre-pregnancy weight. Unlike me, who, I suspect, will never lose it. Why would he want me, when he had her?

“This hurts me too.”

Four words, but spoken with such anguish, through my own distress I suddenly spare some measure of compassion for her. I’m the living, breathing evidence of her husband’s betrayal. Could she forgive him? I can’t, and if I was in her shoes, couldn’t.

“He’s married. I feel sorry for you, but he was mine first.” Her mouth twists as she thinks of the practicalities. “Of course, if it’s a question of support we can discuss…”

“No fuckin’ thing to discuss,” Pyro roars, then comes to stand behind me, his palms gently resting on my upper arms. “You don’t need to be here, Mel.”

But I do. I can’t take my eyes off the woman Skull clearly prefers to me. He married her, put a ring on her finger, fathered a child with her. No wonder he didn’t want one with me.

I glance down to where my hands still protectively rest over my stomach. “This is his fault, he forgot to use a condom.” Suddenly it’s important she understands. “I’d have never gone with him, would have turned him down when he wanted to date me if I’d known he had a wife and child. I’m not that woman.” Pyro’s hands tighten slightly as if confirming he knows that. “I would never go with a cheating man.”

“Don doesn’t cheat.” But she has the grace to look sheepish, and her cheeks are glowing red.

I suspect it’s dawning on her that she’s been played too. Did he promise he’d be faithful? Did he tell her there’d be no one else?

“I don’t believe you,” she suddenly spits out. “Don’s faithful to me. He promised he would be… I don’t know why you’re saying all this, but it has to be lies.”

Whatever justification or defence she was going to offer goes unsaid as she’s interrupted by a noise at the door. Bodies part again, this time to let Skull through. Ignoring everyone else, he runs straight to the woman on the chair.

“Clare, oh my God, Clare. What have they done to you?” He’s examining her, running his hands over her as if to see whether she’s been hurt.

“Red, Crash? A word?”

I ignore whoever it is that’s called the prez and VP away. My eyes instead focus on the man I haven’t seen for almost four months. I can’t look away. It’s strange, there are little differences about him. His voice seems deeper, older somehow, and his bearing is different. It had been hard to believe he was even the age that he’d told me, now he seems to have grown into his years. There’s a new confidence about him. Even though he’s surrounded and in the proverbial lion’s den, he’s self-confident and poised as if it’s the other men who should be the ones unsure.

“Let her go,” he states in a voice full of authority. “She’s not part of this. She knows nothing.”

“Oh, I think we’ll be extending our hospitality to Clare a little longer.” Pyro steps away from me.

Red reappears. He doesn’t bother to lower his voice. “Skull, here, brought company. Cops. They’re outside the gates. His insurance policy to make sure he, and she, walk out unscathed.”

Pyro gives a bellow of fury. He stomps across the room and smashes his fist into a wall. I suspect he’s wishing it was Skull’s face instead. He turns, nursing his hand.

“You brought the fuckin’ heat?”

Skull jerks his head in a back and upward motion. “They’re waiting out front to make sure both of us walk out unhurt.” His voice deepens further, he becomes a man more used to giving orders than taking them. “You lay one hand on me, you go to prison for assaulting a cop. I don’t walk out of here? They’ll take you all down.”

Pyro’s voice is full of fury. “You were undercover all this time?”

Skull doesn’t bother to nod.

“You were trying to dig up dirt on us?”

Again Skull stays quiet and says nothing in response to Pyro’s question. But I know Pyro’s right. There’s only one reason a cop would go undercover and infiltrate a club.To bring them down.

Did he find anything? Should I be worried Pyro’s going to be arrested? Has Pyro done anything wrong?But four months have passed. Surely, if anything was going to happen, it would have happened by now.Did he leave as he hadn’t found anything?

Red steps forward and demands, “You working for the cops or the feds?”

Again, Skull stares back impassively.

“Why did you disappear?” I cry out. The tone of my voice gets Red looking at Pyro with narrowed eyes. It’s like he’s warning him.

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