CHAPTER 1

TOMMY

The freedom of being on my bike was one that never got old. I’d been riding since I’d been old enough to have a licence. I’d left home as soon as I could at eighteen and never looked back. At the time there was only my uncle, aunt, and cousins to look back on and they’d understood my leaving.

My father had been nothing but a drunk who took pleasure in leaving bruises on those weaker than him and a mother that had long since checked out after years of taking abuse, no matter how often help had been offered.

‘Fuck me,’ I thought, that was twenty-seven years ago. Jesus, I was getting old. My bones and joints ached all the time and when I woke up in the morning, I felt every one of my forty-five years. Living the life of an assassin hadn’t been kind to my body.

Slowing my bike down to the thirty miles per hour speed limit as I entered a village that I’d not been through for years. As it had been a few years since I driven through here, I immediately noticed all the changes. Feannag Village had been run by the Crow MC for what must be close to sixty years. By the signage on some of the business shop fronts, it looked like they now owned most of the businesses along the high street. It was good to see they were a good family. Rhett, my oldest cousin, had married one of their daughters years ago, but from the information that I’d found out recently, he’d divorced her when he went inside. I hoped that it hadn’t caused a rift between our families. My guess was he wanted her to move on and live her life. It’s what I would have done.

The one set of traffic lights at the centre of the village turned red as I approached, forcing me to come to a stop. Setting my foot down to the ground to stabilise my bike, I looked around me with interest. The street and all the shops along it were decorated for Christmas. Festive lights in all windows, including a brightly lit Christmas tree in the corner of the café, reminding me that Christmas was just a few days away. It made me wonder how my family was going to take me being back in their lives and not lying six feet under somewhere in the world like they’d been led to believe.

A slight flutter in my peripheral vision caught my eye and my attention was drawn to a window down the way. The beginnings of a smile twitched across my face as I watched a tiny sprite. Well, she seemed tiny from this distance, and she reminded me of a sprite. She bounced around dancing and singing in what looked to be a beauty parlour and hairdressers, the signage on the front showing it was owned by the Crows.

Even my cold dead heart couldn't help but be warmed by the sight of the sprite with bright red hair tied back in green ribbon dressed as one of Santa's helpers in an elf costume as she bounced around, stopping every now and again to sing into the broom that she was pushing around the floor.

My lips twitched again into a semblance of a smile, unfamiliar muscles pulling at my cheeks as I watched her, as I enjoyed the unexpected show she was putting on for anyone who cared to watch. I wondered what it must be like to be so happy and carefree. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever felt that happy and carefree. I hoped that she never lost that feeling.

An unfamiliar tug in my chest took me by surprise. Making me wonder at the feeling that was tightening my chest in such a way, I contemplated it and brushed it off just as the traffic lights turned green again.

I accelerated and pulled away from the traffic light and drove past the happy sprite still cheerfully dancing around with the broom. Leaving her behind me had me wondering if the tightness I felt was sadness that I didn’t know how to feel happiness anymore. It had been so long since I’d felt that particular emotion. Shaking off the slightly melancholy feeling, I rode out of the village once again on my way, but at least this time, I had a destination in mind.

I’d been travelling around the country and then through Europe for months before swinging back around to the UK and coming back to the village of my birth. I’d wanted to ensure that it was safe after completing my last job to visit what little family I had left.

Not that they were expecting me. In fact, I think my turning up may come as a bit of a shock as a rumour had been spread of my death about three years ago. I hadn't seen any reason to dispute the rumour as it worked in my favour in my current job of cleaning up those that had betrayed me. It was much easier being an assassin when people thought you were dead. But I did feel bad about not letting Uncle Colm know.

It would have hit him hard thinking me dead and buried, especially as Rhett had not long been sentenced when the news had circulated.

With no traffic on the road, I opened up my bike and flew along, making good time. I was about five minutes away from my Uncle Colm’s turn off when it happened.

A deer jumped out into the road from the surrounding forests, taking me by surprise. I jacked my bike to the right as hard as I could in an effort to miss hitting it and while I missed the deer, my back wheel skidded on a patch of ice. My bike and I hit the tarmac at speed, my bike going one way and me another.

‘Oh fuck, this is going to hurt, ’ I thought as I skidded down the road. Curling up, I protected my head as much as I could, but it still hit the road pretty hard and even with my helmet protecting me, the blow was hard enough to knock me out. As everything went dark, my last thought was, ‘Typical, I managed to survive a bomb blast on the other side of the world, being buried in rubble only to be taken out by a deer five minutes from home.’

Groaning in pain, I started moving each of my limbs to ascertain how much damage I’d sustained. Moaning as I moved and then hissed as my muscles pulled. My head was pounding, and I could feel the nausea in the pit of my stomach and hoped I’d get my helmet off before I spewed, if I spewed. It was not one of my favourite pastimes, and I held back more often than not.

From experience, I knew that I had a mild concussion. Although my concussion wasn’t a bad one, my head still thumped in time with every beat of my heart. Slowly moving around, it didn’t seem like any of my limbs were broken. Bruised and strained but not broken. My leathers and helmet had done their job except on my left side which felt like it was covered in road rash from where I’d skidded down the road. Guessing that they hadn’t been able to hold up to the friction.

I’d kept my eyes closed as I was cataloguing my injuries. In the background, I thought I heard a voice, but I’d not heard a car drive up, thinking it must have pulled up while I’d been unconscious. Knowing I wasn’t up to moving my head yet or I’d throw up, I waited. Yep, it was definitely a voice, female, and she seemed to be chanting something, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. It was only as she got closer that I could hear what she was saying, and I wanted to laugh when her chants turned from ‘don’t be dead’ to ‘don’t let there be blood.’ Just my luck to be found my somebody squeamish.

And then there she was—my cheerful, singing and dancing Sprite from the window. Her red hair covered in a green wool hat with a massive red pom-pom on the top. She fell to her knees and started to run her hands up and down my legs to check if they were broken. It was then that I realised from how she was assessing me that she’d had some form of medical training.

She was muttering all the time; I felt a wave of nausea come over me just as she reached my head and lifted the visor up. Closing my eyes and inhaling, I hoped like hell I didn’t throw up.

Opening my eyes, I looked into eyes that were a dark chocolate brown, ringed with dark lashes; there was a dusting of freckles dotted across her nose and her lips were plump and pink.

“Hey,” she said softly. “I’m calling an ambulance, but as we’re in the middle of nowhere, it may be a while before they get here. I can’t find anything broken, but I’m not sure if you have any internal injuries.”

Calling an ambulance was something that I couldn’t let her do. I’d had to resurrect my identity, and it wasn’t ready for close scrutiny yet. It had been a long time since I’d used my real name, having used several aliases over the years and while I had a contact filling in a fake history that would explain the missing years, it would take time. He was almost done and by the new year, all the relevant information would be in place, but until then I didn’t need to have any official government departments pulling up my legal name.

“No hospital,” I muttered, my eyes closing as darkness threatened again. “Promise, no hospital.”

“Mister, you need a hospital after that fall.”

Grabbing her hand, I said louder, “No hospital, Sprite, dangerous. Promise.”

“Okay, okay,” she agreed shakily. “No hospital. Do you have a name?”

Opening my eyes again, I struggled to focus on her and for some unknown reason I needed her to know my real name. A name I hadn’t uttered in years, “Tommy, Sprite, name’s Tommy.”

Darkness took me again; my last thought was that I hoped she did as she promised. Me being in a hospital would raise all sorts of questions that I wasn’t in any condition to answer.