Page 3 of Jazz
I shut the call off, padding back into the bedroom and raking through my wardrobe. Jeans and a hoodie. No colours. The warehouse was supposed to be a discreet location. Somewhere not associated with the Rats. Somewhere we hauled product from and didn’t need the police sniffing around.
The garage door at the back of the property rattled open. The bright white lights from inside spilled out onto the dully litback lane. I started the black Yamaha. It wasn’t my fastest bike. But it was matte black and naked. Nothing distinguishing on it. Nothing to catch in headlights. Nothing to mark me as one of the Teesside Road Rats.
The garage door rattled behind me, and I flicked the switch on the handlebars, the number plate at the back of the bike dropping back into position. For now, I rode with it down. Compliant. Legal. But, when I got through the middle of Middlesbrough and out onto the industrial roads toward Redcar, I’d pop it back up. And then there was nothing to catch me on cameras. I didn’t exist.
The roads were quiet. Middlesbrough night traffic disappearing quickly, their only focus getting in and out the town centre as quickly as possible. Police crawled the same roads, their attention on the drunks, and the men and women selling their bodies and the hit to go with them. As soon as I was out of the centre I pulled up the number plate and hit the throttle, empty roads welcoming the call of the Yamaha.
The warehouse was tucked away in the middle of the industrial estate. Henderson Logistics detailed the sides. Mine. It was one of my companies. Set up to hide the real business that went on inside. The forecourt was empty. White security lights illuminating the yard. Pulling off my gloves and fumbling inside my black leathers, I felt for the key fob, stiff, icy fingertips tracing over the buttons. I hit the bottom one, the big steel gate slowly sliding to the side. I only let it go a quarter of the way, just so I didn’t have to wait an age for it to close again behind me.
I didn’t recognise the white van inside. But that didn’t concern me. The faces surrounding it were as familiar to me as I’d ever seen. The pointed nose and sunken eyes of Skinny,our vice president, and the scarred, bearded face of the Rats’ president, Dougal.
“Haven’t we got a treat for you boys,” our President’s Scottish rumble addressed the rest of us stood around the van with our arms crossed over our chests, waiting for the first glimpse of the King that would pay, painfully, for Mikey’s death.
Skinny smiled, triumphant. Whatever King this was, it mattered. Because the faces of the brothers who’d rounded the fucker up were gleaming. I didn’t care personally. No matter who it was, Indie, Demon, the Kray twins, they all bled the same colour. And fuck was I going to make sure they shed every last drop.
The van doors were yanked open, and the vehicle rocked from side to side. There was a growl. Not deep and guttural like I’d expected it, and as the men waiting gleefully to present their prize to their brothers jumped in the back, it swayed harder.
“Get the fuck off me. Take your stinking, fucking hands off me. I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Fuck,” someone groaned loudly. “She got me in the bollocks. Fucking bitch.”
There was a snap of skin, like a slap, the angry captive voice in the back stopping for a moment, taking a breath and then rampaging again.
“Fucking ugly cunt!” the voice was clearer. Less dense. Less masculine. “Cut me free. See what happens, cunt! Go on!”
A woman. It was a woman’s voice from the back of the van. It was a woman they dragged into view. Kicking and flailing. Her hands were bound at the wrists, her legs bound at her ankles, a blindfold pulled hard across her eyes, and fresh blood dribbledfrom her lip. Long dark hair tied in a plait swayed as she kicked and wriggled, snapping her teeth at anyone whose hand got remotely within biting range. The Rats had snared a wild cat. A spitting, angry, violent wildcat. And for a moment that rage-fueled, vengeful knot in my stomach unraveled, distracted by the woman in the black and red leather racing suit in front of me. Distracted by thick pink lips and high cheekbones. Distracted by the swell of her chest in the tight leather, at how it nipped in at her waist and covered long, lean legs.
And then I remembered she was a King. Or at least King’s property. And they owed us a debt. One they would repay in blood and flesh.
Chapter Three
There was a whirring in my ears. A throbbing in my head. And darkness everywhere. I lay still. Thinking. Remembering. I’d got free. I was running. Running into something. The back of my head ached, and I tried to touch it. But when I moved, my arms moved together. As one. Tied. My hands clasped tightly, barely able to move independently. Just enough movement to reach over my head. I felt with my fingers, sliding across a sore patch, and wincing at the sudden sting. I squeezed my eyes shut, and my head throbbed again.
My eyes. I’d opened them, but still, I couldn’t see. My fingertips wandered further over the patch of goo and sticky hair. Feeling down the back of my head and stopping over thefabric tied at the back. A blindfold. They’d fucking blindfolded me. And tied me up. Fucking twats. They’d pay. My brother would make sure of it. And if I didn’t survive this. I stopped at that thought. At the unspoken words that sent my heart pounding into my chest and the blood pumping to the spot on the back of my head.
Swallowing, I took a breath. Forcing down the panic rising in my chest, breathing carefully through my nose and thinking of something else than the vomit threatening at the back of my throat.
I was moving. The whirring noise in my ears was the sound of an engine. The fuzziness in my head was a sense of movement. That was good. Now I could concentrate. I reached over my head again, feeling for the back of the blindfold. The knot was pulled tight, forcing the material to my face, and with my hands tightly clamped together, I couldn’t move my fingers enough to unpick it.
Nudging the material at my face, I pushed my knuckles against the fabric. But the blindfold didn’t budge. Whoever had put it on had tied it so tight it was wedged into my eye sockets. Fucker. So, I couldn’t see and had no way of finding a way to escape. Not with my eyes anyway. I wriggled, trying to sit up. But my legs didn’t move either, tied together at the ankles. I screamed. A frustrated roar filled the space I travelled in. Fucking Rats. I knew who they were. The minute their VP spoke from unmarked leathers, I recognised the Smoggie accent. Diluted tones of Yorkshire mixing with the distinct harshness of the North of England. Unmistakable. And the only Teesside bike club with the balls to even consider coming after the Kings.
Whatever I was travelling in rattled noisily over a bump in the road. The impact lifting me off my back and dumping mehard onto my side. My hands scuffed the floor. Cold, bare metal. The back of a van or a pickup truck. I could feel the waves of the floor jutting into my side, jostling me back onto my back as the vehicle went over another bump. Speed humps. It had to be. It was even, like a perfect wave, not the sideways lurch that makes the vehicle rattle. This was smoother. More consistent. But there were speed bumps in any town or city. Nothing different about these.
Town or city. People. This wasn’t the rolling countryside of southeast Durham anymore. We had to be somewhere more populated or there wouldn’t be a need for the speed humps. From the sounds around me, I was probably closer to the front of the vehicle. The engine noise was louder above my head, the slight drone of music, a soft steady bass beating over the purr.
I wriggled, moving like a seahorse out of water, pushing from my bound hands to my bound feet. Sliding over the bare metal underneath me until I couldn’t move any further. Whatever was now at my feet was either the cab of the van or the back doors. With a few kicks, I’d soon find out which. Pivoting on my shoulder, I moved to my back, shrinking down further on the barrier until my legs were bent. And then I kicked. Both legs connecting with metal. The sound dull but resonating. I kicked again, feeling something give a little this time. Doors. It had to be doors. I kicked again. And again. If it were doors, I could force them open. At best, someone would see me. At worst, I could escape. And run blindly into oncoming traffic. Fuck’s sake. Oncoming traffic would have to do. I kicked. Again and again.
The van slowed, a movement to the left, knocking me onto my right shoulder. We were pulling up. I took a deep breath, bracing myself. I might be able to fight back, kick out, catch them as they opened the doors. Because that was what I was surewas happening next. But those back doors didn’t open. No clunk of metal. Nothing.
The engine noise above my head stopped. A fuzzy silence surrounding me. Nothing moved. Not the doors. Not the van. Nothing.
I don’t know how long I lay there. Listening. Waiting. Fearing what was coming next. I counted my breaths, listened to my heart. Strained my ears to work out where I was. There were voices somewhere. Low, barely audible. People, maybe? A radio? I could go back to kicking, try to get someone’s attention. But I didn’t know whose attention I would be getting.
The whirring in my head doubled. Pain pulsed behind my bound eyes. Gingerly, I felt around my head again, waiting for the bite of the sting. As I lowered my bound hands down over my crown, I felt it. Fiery pain. It was sticky, not wet. The blood had clotted but wasn’t yet dry. Tacky and rough around the edges of the wound. Every brief glance of my fingertips made the wound smart, but no fresh blood wet the ends.
An hour. We had to have been travelling for at least an hour. Time for the blood to have stopped spilling. Time for the blood to clot. And now it was a sticky, sore mess on the back of my head, the pain made worse by bumping around on the unpadded floor of the van.
In the distance, there was a noise. A familiar rumble. An engine. It wasn’t a car. It was too loud. And it wasn’t a Harley. With the exposed steel base of this vehicle, I would have felt the vibrations as the noise grew louder. This was a sports bike. The engine noise a warrior cry. Strong. Resilient. Formidable. I held my breath, focusing on the sound. Listening to the notes of the bike’s voice. Each make had its own accent, each model its own dialect. This was a Yamaha. Its voice was raw, powerful. It didn’tboast. It didn’t need to. This was a big engine. More than an 850cc. I could tell by the tone. It was well torqued. Full of power. Not as much as my Hayabusa.