Page 77 of Jazz

“Point it down there then.”

I grabbed her hand and guided her down the ramp. The light filled the cavity under the garage. Metal shelves filled with three rucksacks and the bike. I circled it twice. Looking for damage. Not quite believing my eyes. My Unicorn.

“Shit,” Jazz swooned from behind me. “Is that a…”

“An NR750. Honda’s impossible dream.”

I ran my hand over her. She was crimson and black, gleaming, untouched by the soot from the chaos above. The paint looked molten, like blood and mercury had been poured over the fairing and left to set. Exotic, experimental, andstupidlyrare.

“Fuck,” Jazz breathed. “She’s a beaut. Have you ridden her or just wanked over her?”

“Both, Tiger. She’ll hit a hundred and seventy if you have the guts to keep your wrist steady, and fuck, can she move.”

Jazz understood that. I could see it in the dark eyes hungrily sweeping over the bike. It wasn’t the speed that made the NR750 special. It was the way she moved. Smooth, silent, like she was part of you. Like she forgave you everything, even when the rest of the world didn’t. My bike. My heart. The only other thing in all this madness that I’d die to protect, and here she was. I ran a hand along the smooth fairing, and theworld outside, the club, the Kings, everything that could have destroyed me for good, faded for a heartbeat. Relief, disbelief, and something dangerously close to awe collided inside me. She was mine. Still.

I kicked my toe in the crumbling concrete, pepper potted with cobbles, feeling for the brick in the floor that stood out a little too pronounced. Nudging it free, I felt in the gap, my hand sliding into the cavity to the left. Metal. Rubber. Keys.

The starter whirred, then she roared to life, a deep, mechanical growl that vibrated through the concrete floor and walls. In the cellar, she was a monster trapped in a cage. Every intake hiss and exhaust bark magnified, bouncing off the low ceiling and stone walls. She was loud, angry, alive and every rumble, every thrum through the frame, felt like she was speaking directly to me. She was perfect, untouchable, a creature I’d cared for daily, nurtured, tended to like no one else could. The roar of her engine wasn’t just sound; it was a pulse, a heartbeat in sync with mine, reminding me why I rode.

Jazz stood watching. Her eyes dark. The same richness I’d seen in them when she’d come on my cock, the bike doing to her what it did to me. I thought I’d belonged with the Rats. I thought they were my calling. My everything. But the moment they’d dragged her from that van, something had shifted inside me. I didn’t know what it was then. But I knew it now. That missing piece of me. Jazz was that piece. And maybe now I was complete? I would be. But there was something I needed to do first. A line to draw under my old life.

“I need to do something, Tiger. My last journey.”

She raised an eyebrow, waiting for more.

“Gina.”

It was all I said, and I’d expected her to kick off. To complain. To screw her face up. She did none of that, just nodded like she understood.

Chapter Thirty Nine

I wasn’t expecting to be pulling up at a brothel once in my lifetime, never mind for the second time in less than a week. But here we were, outside that dark blue door with the little square window over the top. A light blazed in the hallway of the house that never slept.

There was no hesitation this time, Chase knocking hard, cradling the rucksack strapped over his chest, the other supporting the one on his shoulder.

A woman came to the door, her eyes scanning Chase, then glancing at the bikes and up at me.

“Gina’s with a client.”

“I’ll wait.”

The woman nodded. She wore as little as Gina. A black satin nightgown. A bare leg peeking out from under it. It looked like a uniform, but I guessed there wasn’t a need for branded t-shirts in this business.

“Push the bike through to the back,” Chase’s voice was muffled by his helmet.

I followed him, bumping the bike up the threshold, pushing it through the ground floor of the multi-storey house to the back. To join the black Yamaha in the utility room.

“Dunno how we’re gonna wash sheets with all these motorbikes in here,” the blonde girl in the black satin robe complained. “It’s been hard enough these last couple of days.”

“We’re not staying long,” Chase responded gruffly. “How long will Gina be?”

“He paid for her all night. So, whenever he’s done.” The girl shrugged, uninterested.

“Room eight free?”

The blonde girl looked at him, feinting surprise, but her eyes told of anything but.

“We’ll stay the night,” Chase pressed.