Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
His dark brows furrow at my words. “Why aren’t ye good?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I thought the degree I studied would let me help people, and then I find out I’m more messed up than some of my clients would be. How am I meant to help others when I don’t even know how to fix myself?”
Even I can hear the woeful tone in my voice. When I walked off the stage with my degree in hand, I thought life was perfect. I believed it. I just don’t know if I do anymore.
“One thing I did learn from Ma is that ye can’t allow others to define ye. Ye’re the only person who can decide what ye want to be. If you want to be like yer folks, then so be it. But ye have that choice. Not them. Not me. Nobody else.”
I can’t help but smile. “You know, for a biker you’re quite philosophical.”
Monster chuckles and shakes his head. “It’s Ma. She taught me all these things. At the time, I was convinced she was going crazy. But now, I realise she was right all along. I chose to run the club in my own way. I could have taken after my Da, but I vowed not to. And I don’t. Not now, not ever. And I will never be like he was.”
I nod slowly, understanding dawning on me. ‘Thank you.”
“Fer what?” he asks me.
I shake my head and turn away from his dark gaze. I don’t know what to say. Thank you for saving me, for keeping me safe, for making me feel. For showing me that I can be a good person. Not one of those can encapsulate what I’m feeling right now. So, I opt for a simple answer. “For being you.”
“There’s nobody else to be,” he tells me. “For a long time, I didn’t want to admit that when I enjoyed killin’. But someone pointed out it was the who not the what. We work with a few detectives at Scotland Yard who give us names, and we finish the jobs they can’t.”
“What do you mean? Surely that’s illegal. Being a vigilante doesn’t make it right.”
Monster turns to me and pierces me with his dark stare. “We’ve taken the lives of men who do very bad things. There’s a lot of evil in the world. With Tye’s skills, we’re able to find them before law enforcement.”
“And now they’re all dead.”
“Aye,” he confirms. “Because they feckin’ deserved it. When we go to their hideouts, we find the women and children they’ve taken, kept prisoner.”
A cold shiver trickles down my spine at his words. Those are horror stories you read about, or hear about on television, not learn about in real life.
“Then why do they call you Monster?” I ask genuinely curious. “I mean, you don’t scare me. And it sounds like you do a lot of good. It doesn’t make sense.”
This causes him to chuckle. “When I was younger, I was a handful. When Da told me not to do somethin’, I’d go out and do it.” He gets a faraway look in his eyes then.
“Aye, ye were a cheeky wee bastard,” Rebel cuts in. “Fecker almost took my eye out when we were out on the piss one night.” He laughs when he tells the story. “I was two sheets to the wind when Monster here walked into the pub. I’d started early that day,” he recollects. “Lost me job, was feckin’ pissed about it. Probably had ten pints in me by the time this arsehole walks in.”
“Aye, you’d been hitting on a poor girl who was out with her mates,” Monster throws back. “I was savin’ ye from yerself,” he tells Rebel. “Fuckin’ pain in my arse.”
“Takes one to know one,” the VP retorts, and both men laugh.
There’s a deep friendship between these men. I’d love to dip in more to their connection, to find out what makes them tick. To listen to their lives and offer advice, solace. I now see them as family, rather than strangers. But once all this is over with my mum and Patrick, I’m going to have to leave. The realisation dawns on me, and for a moment, my chest aches.
“Friendship turned family after that,” Cathal says. “Ma always called me her wee monster. It was a name I had lived up to. Raisin’ a youngen who was stubborn wasn’t easy for her. I was a feckin’ monster, but she loved me anyway.”
I can’t help but smile at that. “So the name stuck?”
“Aye, I quite like it. Not that I think of myself as bad,” he says with a shrug. “But it’s how other people see me. I don’t give a shite what someone says about me. I’ve always lived my life like that.”
“Life’s too fuckin’ short to care,” Rebel says. “If you live day in and day out worried about what some other bastard thinks of ye, you’ll never be happy.” His words sink in. “They call me a feckin’ Rebel. I’m proud of it. I don’t follow the rules. I colour outside the lines,” he tells me. “I love my life.”