Page 9 of Petty's Crime

I widen my eyes in disgust. He must be fucking joking if he thinks I’d ever go near someone like her. And right now, women are the last thing on my mind. Apart from Britney, that is.

Red twists the top off a bottle of water and swallows a few gulps. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, then tries another prod to get me talking. “So what is it?”

Grimacing, I prepare to spill the tawdry secrets of my life, wishing it showed me in a better light. I take a deep breath and start. “Eight years ago, I was on leave from the Army. While I was stateside, I met a woman. We seemed to click. I married her.”

Red’s bottle slams down and his brow creases as he seems to run back over my out-of-the-blue statement through his mind. His eyes first widen, then sharpen. “You’re married?” Then he shakes his head. “Divorced, I presume?”

My lips press together. Up to an hour ago, I wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. But now I have to admit to the truth. “No.”

“No?” Now he leans forward, his face furrowed, his eyes blazing with suspicion. “Never fuckin’ knew you had a wife, Petty.” His fingers rap on the desk, and his expression screams the unspoken question,what else have you been hiding?

Before he gets onto Keys, our computer expert, and complains that he hasn’t done a thorough enough background check, I quickly give him more. “Not many people did, not even Roller.” Again I grimace as I realise my friend is going to have lots of questions for me. “I didn’t alter my service records and didn’t add her to my insurance.” It had been one of those things that I’d been putting off, always thinking there was plenty of time. But as it turned out, there hadn’t been.

He seems genuinely surprised and intrigued. “Can I ask why?”

I breathe deep, then let out the air on a sigh. “Because…” Because, even blinded with love, something warned me she wasn’t my happily ever after. Because I quickly discovered she wasn’t who I thought she was. But I don’t tell him that. Instead, I give him the truth that can’t be questioned or disputed. “She was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated assault.”

He sits back, his mouth dropping open. A couple of minutes pass while he digests that. “Well, fuck. She guilty?”

I’m not surprised it’s the first thing he asks. Being in an MC, we tend to know too many people who the police have stitched up, so it’s easier to ask if there had even been a crime.

Raising and lowering my shoulders, I give him the answer she’d told me. “She went into a convenience store. The owner was there on his own. He ended up smashed into the glass door of an upright freezer.”

Red’s brow creases as he obviously thinks through what I haven’t said. “Because?”

“She said he came on to her, wouldn’t take no for an answer. But his story was that she got angry when he thought she was shoplifting and accused her.”

He’s looking at me curiously. “Her word against his, eh? Surveillance recordings?”

“Fuzzy,” I tell him with another shrug. “Could support either story. But the jury believed him and not her.”

“So she, what? Pushed him and he fell into a glass cabinet? And that was a felony?” Prez is shaking his head.

I feel a tic at the side of my mouth. “She got in a punch first and then shoved him. Hard.”

“But if he’d been feeling her up, then she was quite within her rights to defend herself.” Prez has firm views on women and consent, as do I.

Nodding, I agree. “Yes. But unfortunately the glass went through an artery in his leg. She left the scene…” though he doesn’t know I use her own words, “in shock. If another customer hadn’t come along, he’d have bled out.” And the charge would have been murder or manslaughter. Or maybe, if he hadn’t been around to present an alternate view, she might have gotten away with the story she was a woman protecting herself.

Red wipes his hand over his face. “I can see how she didn’t garner much sympathy, but can also understand why she fled. Must have been distressing for a woman not used to violence and blood.”

Nodding I agree. Yeah. It probably would have been if Britney had been someone else. Sucking in air, I puff out my cheeks. “She got sent down for ten years. Served seven of them. Got a call just now to say she’s getting out. She’s coming back to me.”She’s coming back to me.Oh hell. I’d been on autopilot explaining the bare bones to my prez. Suddenly, the implications hit me fast.Britney’s coming back.I look around, trying to spot where the garbage can is in case I need to vomit.

I realise Red’s looking at me oddly, so I try to disguise the shaking of my hands as I raise it to indicate upstairs, and tell him the reason that would make sense. “I don’t know what to do, Prez. I’ve only got a fuckin’ room. That won’t be enough for her, and that’s even if you’d let a strange woman you don’t know live in the club.”

He leans forward and clasps his hands. His expression would make a weaker man shudder. “Hold up a minute. What exactly are you telling me, Petty? You got married, your wife got locked up. You forget about her for seven years, act like you’re single, now she’s getting out, you’re what? Going to play happy families?” His head moves side to side as if he’s having trouble getting this new information to sink in. There’s a tic in his jaw as though what he’s hearing isn’t pleasant. “Never had you down for a one-woman man. You’ve always been all about the pussy. Couldn’t give a damn about that. But you having a wife? Shit.”

While MCs aren’t necessarily known for treating women properly, in the Satan’s Devils MC, most taken men tend to stand by their women and practise monogamy. That said, Red might frown on, but never criticises if a man wanted to do things differently, as long as it didn’t bring trouble to the club.

But I don’t want him thinking the worst of me. Her coming back is the last thing I want. And while he might now think I’m a cheating, selfish ass, the truth is, I didn’t consider myself married since long before I joined the club.

As his brows draw down, I try to explain so he doesn’t think too badly of me. “We hadn’t been married long when she went inside. When I tried to visit, she refused to see me. I wrote letters, but she never returned them. I was fucking faithful to her until I got out of the Army. She’d been gone three years by then, with never a word. She couldn’t have sent a clearer message to me, so I sent her divorce papers. She didn’t sign them.” I don’t know how much more anyone could want of me. “As far as I was concerned, I was a free man. Maybe not legally, but who could blame me for finding comfort elsewhere?”

I think I can see a softening in Red’s stance. “She never responded to you? Or called you?”

I shake my head. “Last time I saw her was when she was being led away to start her sentence. Last time I spoke to her was the morning before that.”

Shrewd eyes stare at my face. “Are you seriously telling me, you haven’t heard from her for seven years until she rang you today?”

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