Page 14 of Jazz
Where were the Kings? Where were my brothers? They’d had twenty-four hours. Why had they not found me? They were as connected to the police as they were to the criminalunderworld. With all their power, they should already be bowling in on this lot. These were the fucking Teesside Road Rats. Not the Notorious, not the Vandals. A bike club hardly worthy of any real regard, joined only to the coalition for its own protection.
The fingers continued down my cheek, the breath on my face warm and sour. A hint of coffee, more of tooth decay. He smelt as grim as his name. I’d never met the Bloody Hand. They’d been a myth in my lifetime. Any real trace of the bike club vacant from Britain for years. Their only legacy the Great Biker War of the North. And we’d won that one. Then suddenly, this last year, their back patches had been spotted at the rallies. Just one or two. Like an endangered species making a comeback, they’d crept in, gradually. Then suddenly there were more in the country than we’d known.
The American voice amongst voices had only meant one thing: that there was a member of the Bloody Hand in the building. In Chase’s warehouse. I’d recognised his voice. Followed the conversation. A name was useful. Very useful.
The rough pads of fingers tracked down my neck, brushing under the collar of my jacket. I tensed under the sensation; the action sent me swinging slightly, muscles tearing from taking my weight, no floor underneath me to prop myself up. Instead, I hung here like a slab of meat. And that is what I looked like to them. An object hanging there, to be used when they felt like it, how they wanted.
“You’ll be a good girl for Daddy, won’t you, babe?” The American twang crawled over my face, every word greasy and close. Much too close.
My stomach tensed, bile simmering, my mouth filling with water. The thought crept into my mind. I knew it was stupid.Reckless. But I did it anyway, forming the little ball at the end of my tongue and then spitting hard, hoping it would land on him somewhere. The warehouse descended into a loaded hush, an intake of breath, some low mutters and then pain snapped through my jaw and my head was whirling.
The chain above me creaked and groaned. Or maybe I groaned? My head wobbled, like someone had pulled it off my neck, my brain unable to focus, to understand what just happened. The side of my face felt like it was on fire, heat bounding from the side that had been struck.
“Can’t fucking wait for that one,” the American laughed. “Fuck me, she’s going to be good.”
The American accent seemed fuzzier now, competing with the ringing in my ears. I was spinning, confusion creeping into my blood. Blood. A metallic taste flooded my mouth, and I spat again, a searing, stretching pain in my lip.
The man sniggered not too far away. “Gonna have to teach her how to swallow too, lads. She’ll be no good in my joint if she doesn’t learn fucking quickly.”
Chuckles echoed around the warehouse and in my head. A myriad of sounds, some soft, some forced, and his right in the middle of it.
“Now, Chase,” his voice faded away. “This product. You don’t know any other vets, huh?”
“The vet will comply. He’s in too deep. But at the minute he’s more scared of the Kings than us.”
“Well, I want him more scared of the Hand, not some fucking Mickey Mouse Club that’ll soon be wiped off this fucking earth. Take me to him.”
I swallowed another mouthful of blood, the fluffiness in my brain clearing just enough to follow the conversation.
“He’s not practising, Grim. The practice burnt to the ground. We need to rethink the gabapentin approach.”
There was a commotion. The thud of feet moving quickly, the intake of breaths as people reacted in shock.
“Get me some fucking product,” the Bloody Hand’s voice was angry now. He spat the words out through gritted teeth.
Yet the next voice wasn’t fazed. Whatever was happening in front of me, he didn’t seem worried or wound up. The same gruff, deep tone of velvety calmness. Fucking velvety. I was clearly getting concussion.
“You want the monopoly on the drugs trade here, you need to take on the mafia for it.” Chase’s voice, unwavering in the tension.
“And which fucking syndicate is operating here?”
“The Russians. They run the lines in and out of Teesside. Rumour has it the Irish are moving out of the north east.”
There was a pause. Grim thinking. No one seemed to breathe, only me, shallow breaths, pain shooting through my arms and my shoulders every time I drew in air.
“We’ll get you the gabapentin,” a Scottish voice intervened, the soft rumble growing closer.
No one answered. The man with the deep gravelly voice saying nothing. The surrounding air thickened, electrified. Something scratched on concrete. Further away from me, in the distance. A foot maybe? The shifting of weight from one leg to the other. The offer of the drug had everyone on edge. And still,no one said anything. Silence consumed the space, the only thing breaking it up, a nervous sniff.
“Hmmmm,” the grumble was closer to me than the other voices. “I want the gabapentin, Dougal,” the American accent continued. “We make more of a return on that than cocaine, and the fuckers can’t tell the difference. Find that vet and tell him to get it. The Kings won’t bother him. We’ll make sure of that.”
I inhaled, cold air filling my lungs, the tiny movement forcing more bodyweight onto the hook, onto my arms and my shoulders. Deep in my stomach a knot tightened, my brain racing and stuttering on every way the Hand might go after the Northern Kings. Or maybe it was me. What they might do to me to distract and punish the men out looking for me. The knot tightened again, a note of nausea catching the back of my throat. Fury would find me. I forced that thought into my head. He would find me and rescue me. The whole club would. Because that is what they do. But deep inside, something was creeping. Doubt. Worry. Fear. And I couldn’t let it take hold. I couldn’t show any hint that I was scared. I couldn’t let these bastards see that. Iwouldn’tlet them see it.
My lip burned, the trickle of blood irritating my skin as it travelled down the side of my mouth and dripped under my leather jacket. The broken skin itched, the first signs of the blood clotting over the cut. My cheekbone pulsed with every second, a bruise forming underneath, hijacking the tissues and cells under my skin, hot and urgent. I concentrated on the pain, focussing on the twitch in my jaw and the scratch of my clotting lip. Because if I didn’t distract myself from the knot of fear in my stomach, I’d be overwhelmed.
Feet shuffled somewhere away from me, the mutter of voices, of tension relaxing and men whispering to each other.The atmosphere was dissolving around us, hostility ebbing away.
“Tell me when you have my gabapentin,” Grim’s voice was lighter, the anger that had filled it earlier emptying out of it with every syllable.