Page 15 of Jazz
There was a clap. A hand against leather. He’d patted someone. On the back or the shoulder, I couldn’t tell. But it was forceful, more than a pleasantry, a lingering threat, and feet moved on the concrete, scratching.
“See you in a day or two,” the President of the Hand continued. “Think we’ll make a start on her. Unless I get an appetite earlier.” His voice changed, moving away from me, or maybe he had turned in a different direction. “You lot keep your hands off her. She’s mine first. I want her unspoilt till then.” His voice changed again, coming from a slightly different direction now. “Keep her strung up like that, Chase. I want her desperate to be on her back when I get back.”
And then he laughed, scratchy and harsh. Not a chuckle, but a knowing, telling cackle. The knot in my stomach tightened again, my breath shallowing. A tightness crept into my chest.
Come on, Fury. Hurry the fuck up. The words echoed loudly in my head, and I focussed on the pain in my lip and my face, and in my arms at the creeping, numbing feeling of blood trickling to my fingertips but not quite reaching. Because if I focussed on the fear, I would cry. And I wouldn’t drop a tear here. Not one tiny drop.
Chapter Ten
“I’ve got the shop to open, Dougal,” I complained, glancing at my watch and seeing the minutes creeping to lunchtime.
It should have been open hours ago, but I was here, watching a woman swinging on a hook and wondering where the fuck we were going to get enough Gabapentin without our vet on the books.
The rest of the Rats had filtered out, Grim going first and the rest following enthusiastically like he was the Pied Piper.
That left just the two of us. Dougal watching silently through the office windows and me, perched on the desk, nipping the bridge of my nose.
“Dougal,” my voice came out as a groan. “Gabapentin? Where the fuck are we gonna get that? And at the amount Grim wants? The vet was a smart move. But it still wasn’t enough product to produce what the Hand wants us to do.”
Dougal shook his head. “I dunno. Just let me think on it for a while. But it was finding Gabapentin or take on the fucking mafia for it. I could see where Grim was heading. And that would be a death sentence.”
I nodded, agreeing. We kept our heads low. We didn’t challenge their lines in and out of the area. We used different products and different clientele, offering an expensive drug at half the price to the average person, but never stepping on the toes of the mafia. And the Russians never bothered with us, as long as we stayed away from them. With the Hand back in the UK, the Russians were alert, and we all knew that Grim was intending to take them on. Once he’d built his army and taken out the Northern Kings, he’d challenge the Russians.
“You’re frowning, Chase. What is it?” Dougal’s voice broke my thoughts.
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“You’ve never hurt a woman before, have you?” he asked gently, like a father schooling his son on his first hunt.
“It’s not that.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t like what the Hand has planned.”
“What? Taking out the Kings?”
“No, not that.” I shook my head, a dull ache forming across my skull. The lack of sleep catching up with me. “After that. Do you think the Bloody Hand are just gonna set up shop here and then we all go back to normal bike club shit?”
Dougal stared at me silently, and I suspected he’d already had the same thought.
“He’ll go after the Russian Mafia. And we’ll all be cannon fodder. It doesn’t matter to him whether we all live or die, as long as he secures one of the biggest drug trafficking routes in the north of England.”
“He just wants control of the bike clubs. We’ll all be patched over,” the President shrugged, “and we’ll follow their rules. But I doubt he’d want to take on someone so big as the Volkovs.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “They’re at their weakest right now. No experienced enforcers, two dead family members, the Irish keeping them in check. The easiest crime syndicate to wage a war against right now.”
Dougal rubbed his jaw.
“We’d still lose though,” I kept going. “The Russians have weapons like we can only dream of, and contacts, and actual trained soldiers. It would be a massacre. And Grim won’t care. So long as he can get that drugs route. He’d use the bike clubs to fight and that fucking little street gang of wannabe bikers to run the product when we’re all dead. Is that what you want?”
Our President’s hands balled into fists at his side, his jaw clenched, muscles in his neck flexing, and I knew I was pushing it.
“Time you got the shop open, Chase,” he growled, a tone low and threatening, and I knew I’d pushed enough, for what good it would do.
He wasn’t wrong. I’d have customers and staff sitting outside waiting for me. Bike parts in boxes, waiting forsignatures and a load of custom bike jobs not getting done. And somewhere in that melee of chaos would be a box of contraband or two. Just small stuff. Enough to keep the club’s coffers afloat, and the police constantly sniffing around trying to work out what we were up to.
I dragged my helmet from the desk I was leaning against.
“What’s next for her?” I asked, tipping my chin to the glass windows.
“I want some more video footage. When I send that message to the Kings I want that bitch crying and screaming. See you back here tonight.”