Page 42 of Jazz

The pressure dragged, and the leather gave way. The sound of tearing fabric was almost worse than the formidable click of the blade. The bike jacket fell away as if it was nothing.Then, with a tug, cold air rushed at my back. The knife worked between my shoulders, the blade icy against my skin, and I tried not to jump. The blade dipped under the strap; a snap of elastic rebounding against my back. Rough fingers brushed away my bra, lingering over my exposed flesh whilst I lay bound, unable to do a fucking thing about it. My stomach clenched, useless rage twisting inside me.

My wrists burned against the ropes as I pulled, the headboard rattling with every useless jerk, and my chest pressed hard into the filthy bedding, stale sweat and mildew filling my nose. I tried to twist, tried to buck, but every angle met another set of hands forcing me still.

Then came another sound. Not the knife. Not voices. A sharp, mechanical buzz that cut straight through the chaos.

It was steady and high-pitched, drilling straight into my skull. Like a swarm of bees trapped in a tin can, angry and endless. I froze, all the fight spilling out of me for half a second as my brain clawed for recognition. And then found it.

“No.” The word scraped out of my throat, small, raw.

I knew that sound. I’d heard it in parlours, in bars, echoing off tiled walls where bikers wore their ink with pride. Where I’d had my own. A tattoo machine.

Horror bled through me, thick and choking. My stomach dropped like I was falling, the cold sweat breaking out across my skin before the needle even touched me. The mattress reeked in my face, my lungs straining against it, but I couldn’t escape the thought of what they were going to carve into me. What they were going to make me wear forever.

After all these years of not being allowed in the Kings. Of being born and bred in the club but never being allowed to fitbecause of what was between my legs, I was getting a patch of my very own. A rat with red eyes.

I thrashed again, harder this time, a guttural scream tearing free. It was instinct, animalistic, because I knew what was coming next.

The scream left my throat raw, but they only laughed, voices circling above me like crows. Heavy palms bore down harder on my arms, my legs, until I could barely twitch, and I strained against the ropes that held my arms. The mattress springs creaked under the weight.

The buzzing drew closer. It changed pitch as whoever held it tested the needle against something, the harsh whine shivering through my skull. I tried to wriggle away from the sound, turning my head as if my blindfolded eyes could escape it. But it followed. Louder. Nearer.

“Keep her still, lads.” A voice slurred, drunk amusement lacing every syllable. “This will be a fucking work of art.”

My chest heaved against the bare stink of the mattress. My mind clawed for Chase, for his voice, his scent, anything, but all I had was this. Hands gripping me, the mechanical snarl above me. I was about to be branded like property.

Then the sting.

A deep burning throb lanced across my skin, sharp and hot, searing into the tender flesh of my back. It wasn’t like a cut. Cuts were sudden, clean. This was a burn that burrowed deep, a thick, nagging scratching, dragging slow and deliberate, over and over, working at the skin until it was sore and swollen. The sound of the machine vibrated inside me, and the pain carved its echo into bone.

I screamed again; the noise tearing out of me against the mattress, muffled but violent. They whooped above me like it was entertainment. Like my pain was their fucking party. Whoever was working that needle was digging it in much further than it was meant to go. I was sure. It felt like the Rats’ sigil was being implanted, not tattooed on me.

I wriggled again, trying to throw the weight of the men off me, like I had any chance of that. Bound and held. There was no escaping what they were doing. The vibration was deep. It was slow and determined, etching a fucking enemy patch into my skin.

And then I stopped fighting. And I lay there and took it. Because what other choice did I have? I was defeated. And now branded. For the first time, I let those tears fall, soaking into the blindfold. They couldn’t see. They would never know that of all the beatings, the attempts to rape me, it was a tattoo that broke me.

“That looks mint.” Skinny’s voice broke through the drilling sound. “I want all Rats’ women tagged like this in the future, lads. Reckon we take a vote on it at the next meet.”

“What’s the fucking point?” Someone asked from over the top of me. “We’re all gonna be the Bloody Hand soon, anyway. The Rats are a thing of the past.”

Grumbles and tension answered. And I concentrated on that, at something else in the room.

“Twenty fucking years,” someone else complained. “And Dougal’s just handing us over to the fucking Hand.”

“You wanna tell him that? Go ahead. But we’re in this fucking thing way too deep now.” Another voice, one I hadn’t heard before.

Over the top of me, the machine still buzzed, and my skin still burned. My tears soaked into the blindfold.

Chapter Twenty Three

The engine screamed as I tore out of the clubhouse yard, the back wheel skidding for a heartbeat before it caught grip. A shower of grit spat out behind me, the Yamaha biting into the road like it wanted blood. The throttle was open before my brain had even caught up, wind clawing at my jacket, my shoulders, my face. Cold, late-March air ripped into me. Sharp. Biting. But I didn’t slow. I couldn’t.

I flipped the number plate up. I needed every bit of speed I could, and I didn’t need a speed camera slowing me down. IfI got caught on a camera doing what I was about to do, there’d be more than just club politics to deal with. But the thought was gone as quickly as it came. The road ahead swallowed everything.

Streetlights blurred into golden ribbons. Shadows from the rows of half-dead terraces flickered across my visor. The Yamaha growled beneath me, naked frame exposed to the cold, engine vibrating through my thighs and up my spine like a second pulse.

Fifteen minutes. That’s all it should’ve been. Fifteen minutes from the clubhouse to my warehouse if you pushed it. I was pushing it. Hard. But the minutes stretched like fucking hours, every roundabout a delay, every traffic light an insult. It felt like the road was fighting me, holding me back on purpose.

And every second that passed was another second she was alone with them. The thought hit me like a punch to the stomach, cutting through the roar of the wind.