Vitus and Leila

Chapter eighteen: Real talk

"Leila? How did you know how to pull a bullet out of a leg and bandage it up correctly?" Vitus asked directly.

Leila coughed, nearly choking on her food.

"Sorry, it just randomly came into my head, I didn't mean to make you choke." Vitus said concerned.

"It's fine, would you like another sandwich?" She asked.

"No, I'd like an answer, stop trying to distract me." Vitus replied.

"I didn't know how to do it correctly, I just did it." Leila shrugged, looking down at the sausage roll on her plate.

"Leila, don't lie, tell me." Vitus said compassionately.

Leila shook her head "I don't like talking about it." She whispered.

"Ok. I'll leave it. You can tell me another time, if you want to, if you don't, you don't have to." Vitus backed off.

Leila wrapped her arms around herself and stared at her food.

"I didn't mean to pressure you. I didn't mean to destroy our date." Vitus apologized. "Why don't you ask me something?" He suggested.

Leila thought about it.

"Ok, what's your family like?"

"Have you never googled me?"

Leila shook her head.

"Well, that's a hard one" Vitus inhaled deeply, calming himself. He knew if he wanted Leila to open up to him, then he was going to have to open up to her first. "I kind of have two families, my club family and my blood family." Leila nodded taking it in. "You've met some of my club family and when the war is over then you can meet some more, if you want to that is." Vitus looked at Leila, she was listening to him intensely, she smiled "I would like that" she agreed.

Vitus continued "and my blood family, well, I have a sister, Elena, she's married. My dad died a few weeks back and my mum died when I was little, I don't really remember her." Vitus trailed off.

"Oh Vitus, I'm sorry, I shouldn't of asked." Leila started. "Now I know why the waiter in that italian place offered you his condolences."

"It's fine, honestly, my dad was a pr*ck." Vitus spoke calmly.

"I used to have to pull darts out of my brother." Leila stated suddenly.

"You did WHAT?" Vitus wasn't sure if he had heard Leila properly.

Leila sighed, "you asked how I knew how to remove a bullet and patch you up."

"Who did that to your brother? Where's your brother now?" Vitus questioned.

"I was adopted when I was ten, my brother is three years younger than me and he was adopted 2 years before me, he was five. I haven't seen him since. My parents, my adopted parents, they tried to find him with me, but we failed." Leila explained sadly, Vitus nodded taking it all in. "When our producer, the man who made us, when he got drunk, he would tie Marvin to the dart board and chuck darts at him, then when he passed out, I would run in and untie Marvin and take him upstairs. I often had to remove the darts. So I guess you could say I had a lot of practice, removing things from body parts wothout wanting Marvin to scream, because then our producer would wake up." Leila finished. She looked at Vitus, he was shaking, his head was red.

"F*CK*NG H*LL, WHAT KIND OF A B*ST*RD WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO A CHILD?!" Vitus shouted.

Leila shrank back into her chair.

"WHERE IS HE NOW?? LEILA SPEAK! IS HE STILL ALIVE?! I'LL TIE HIM TO A F*CK*NG DART BOARD IF HE IS!!" Vitus continued. Suddenly he stood up pushing the chair away. Leila pulled her knees up to her stomach and covered her face with her hands.

Seeing Leila so afraid made Vitus snap out of his fury at once "s**t, Leila, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry. I swear. I'm sorry." He knelt down next to Leila's chair. "I'd never ever hurt you Leila. Never. You know that right?" Leila looked up from her hands, into Vitus' eyes. "Hearing your story made my blood boil. Normally I can mask my anger, but not when I hear something like that. I didn't mean to shout. I'm sorry for scaring you. But I did mean what I said. If I find him, I'll tie him to a dart board until he wishes he were dead." Vitus snarled.

Leila looked deeper into Vitus' eyes. Seeing the light blue made her tense body relax a little. "I don't like it when you shout" her voice was barely a whisper.

Vitus reached for her hand and stroked it gently, "I really didn't mean to scare you. I can't stand it when innocents, especially children, are hurt. I shouldn't of shouted though, I'm sorry."

Leila smiled faintly and stroked Vitus cheek, "it's ok, I get it, it must sound really bad for someone hearing it all for the first time. But for me, that's my life, to me, it just seems, well, normal." Leila explained.

"I still want to kill him though." Vitus grumbled.

"Vitus?" Leila asked quietly,

Vitus opened his eyes and looked at Leila, "I know, you're trying to keep me safe, but I'm really worried about my friends and my family. Normally I ring my mum and dad once a week. They're going to wonder why I haven't rang soon and Julie, Mary, Martin and the boys are going to be really worried that I haven't turned up to work."

Vitus sighed "I do feel bad, it feels like I kidnapped you, I just didn't know, well I still don't really know, how to keep you safe."

"I know there's a war going on, but I don't really understand what you're keeping me safe from? What's any of that to do with me?" Leila asked calmly.

"It's nothing to do with you, really, it's just all about power and money" Vitus sighed, "do you really want to know all the ins and outs?" He asked, Leila nodded.

Vitus stood up and sat down on his chair.

"So as I said before, we chucked some guys out of our club. They were killing innocents and forcing them to do things that they didn't want to do. We have rules in our club. They broke them, they were warned, they didn't listen, I threw them out." Vitus said simply, then he continued explaining. "These men along with others grouped together to fight us, hoping to win and gain the money and power that our club has. They haven't got the numbers that we have, so they are trying to over power us 'underground' which basically means they aren't leading an open war, they are doing it secretly, schemingly. Does that all make sense?"

"Yes, I still can't see where I come into it though." Leila answered honestly.

"Well, instead of throwing bombs and shooting or fighting man against man, the honest way. They saw me with you and then you with my helmet, they were trying to use you to get to me. We killed some of their men on that day when one of them asked for that helmet and the man that asked, we took him to interrogate. Before we shot him, he admitted that he tried to get the helmet off of you, so that it would look like one of them was one of us, whilst sat on a motorbike, then they would of gone into our club's premises and blown us up from the inside." Vitus finished.

"I understand. I do. But, Vitus, you can't keep me locked up here forever. You can't. I'm a person, I have feelings, I'm lonely. I want my life back." Leila reasoned.

"Leila, if you hadn't given them the helmet and we hadn't have been there, they would of taken you and used you to black mail me, they obviously thought you were my girlfriend. As I said, they don't fight fair. They aren't men, they're rats." Vitus snarled.

"And? What if they took me? I'm not your girlfriend, you said yourself, you don't do girlfriends. Why keep me locked up here?!" Leila questioned him angrily.

"You're right. I don't do girlfriends. But one of my main rules is to not harm innocents. Why do you think I got so angry when I found out that my men had kidnapped you?!"

Leila shrugged, "because I'm an innocent."

"Why DID they kidnap me? They could of just killed me right then and there?" Leila asked.

"They were looking for a woman from the underground club, they thought you were her, they thought you had been told to watch them. And as I said, many times before, they aren't allow to kill INNOCENTS. so no, they wouldn't of killed you then and there of they had known you weren't her." Vitus stressed the last part.

"Vitus, I'm an innocent, not your girlfriend, you could just tell everyone that and then let me go home, back to my life." Leila argued.

She looked at Vitus, his dark hair fell into his face, his blue eyes were closed, his hands were clasped, it looked a little like he was praying, but she could see he was thinking hard about what she had just said.

After a short while he spoke, "you're not my girlfriend. But I feel Like I have to protect you. And I want to make you happy.." he trailed off.