by K. J. Dahlen
A little while later, I stared up at my body in the silver dress in the dirty mirror. My long brown hair cascading down my back. Terrified of what was going to happen to me, tears were streaming down my face.
As I descended the stairs, I heard a man slam through the door of the Bloods club and I stopped dead on the stairwell.
I heard somebody speaking in an aggravated tone. The man had to be on the phone.
The conversation escalated to enraged shouting from the man in the room, “Look just hold the shipment for another day. I can’t have two-hundred grand of whiskey lying about in the open for the world to see. My buyer will pick it up tomorrow. They’re hungry for product. And I need to make sure I’m good for it. Hold it another day and I’ll cut you in on the deal.”
The next thing I knew he was climbing the staircase and stopped mid stride in a frozen-panic. I backed up a few steps but he turned the corner and our faces met. My eyes widened when I realized who I was looking at. But I couldn’t let Antonio catch on that I had recognized him. He would kill me for sure. It was Antonio and I wasn’t meant to hear what he was just discussing.
He pulled on his shirt collar and wiped a bead of sweat from his top lip. “What the hell do you think you’re doing creeping up on me like that?” He scowled at me.
“Sorry,” I replied and turned my back up against the wall to let him pass.
In one blinding motion, he pressed himself up close to me. His breath and the squelching sound of him chewing gum was right in my face. He kissed my neck. “That’s a real nice dress.”
I didn’t dare resist.
My thoughts weren’t on this though. I kept trying to figure out how Antonio played into this. He was a Black Devil, right? What was he doing here then? And…Only the Black Devils traded whiskey. Everybody knew that. The Bloods had worked with drugs and weapons but never whiskey. What would the Bloods be doing with so much whiskey unless they had stolen it? At that moment, I put two and two together. If Antonio and the Bloods found out I knew all this, they would have no choice but to kill me, if word got out that Antonio took the whiskey he would be dead and he knew it. Antonio would have betrayed not only his club but his father as well and he knew his father would put a bullet in his head for that.
“Chloe? I need a drink,” the man’s voice called from downstairs—my kidnapper’s voice.
I smiled apologetically at an annoyed Antonio and shuffled my body out from his.
“Be careful honey, he’s a dangerous man,” Antonio said with a smirk. His voice was an unnerving monotone, as though devoid of feeling.
I hurried down the steps.
I wondered whether he knew I heard his conversation…
As I came down the final few steps, I could hear an impassioned fight between a man and woman in the main room.
My kidnapper was smoking a cheap cigar and fixed his fierce gaze on one of the other two girls in the room. As I stepped into the room, he had stood up and grabbed the girl by the throat, nearly lifting her from the floor. “I swear to god, Lucy!” he yelled, holding her close to his face then letting go violently and she fell to her knees.
He hit Lucy across the cheek and she shrieked as she got up, running out of the room and up the stairs in tears.
My kidnapper took a few steps after her, stopped, and then turned to me.
I hovered by the bottom of the stairwell, and he turned his attention to me. He fixed his cold blue gaze on me. Holy shit. I would have been better off at Roy’s place. He stormed over to me with a hungry smile, wrapped his arm around my lower back, and roughly pulled me into him.
I chewed on my lip and endured the man’s touch as he stroked my hair and curled his meaty hand around the back of my neck.
“Darling, I’ve been waiting for you,” he said in a lecherous tone.
“Don’t worry my sweet, I’ll take real good care of you.” And I followed him behind the bar, walking slower now. I felt like I was in a nightmare I couldn’t wake from with my kidnapper leering at me like I was his intended prey.
Chapter Sixteen
(Jax)
“That halfwit is going to get what’s coming to him,” I seethed.
“He’s no fool Jax. He’s unpredictable as a snake in the grass,” Dino cautioned.
I looked at my watch; it was nearly 5pm. “We will drill him for information all night if we have to. I swore to protect Chloe and I will.”
As ready as we would ever be, we started up our bikes and hit the road. Dino and I tore down the highway with the determination of an army.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the front as the sun had almost set.
“Ready?” I asked, as I turned to Dino and removed my jacket.
Dino nodded. Then headed over, opened the opened the steel door to Roy’s garage and entered.
I followed, looking left and right to see if Roy’s apprentice is still around – the place was clear. I closed and locked the steel latch of the door behind us and we walked across the cement floor to find Roy.
A pair of shabby, worn boots were sticking out from under a pristine 65 Chevy Camaro.
The sound of a steel door opening had alerted Roy that he had company he rolled himself out from under the car.
“How are you, Roy?” I asked.
He stood up as we walked his way. He wasn’t at all happy to see us and shoots me a fiery glare. “Is there a problem, Mr. Coltrane?” he asked with a sly and smug grin. An unlit cigarette hung in the corner of Roy’s mouth as he leaned up against the bonnet of his car, cool and indifferent.
“The small matter of a kidnapping Mr Harris. The kidnapping of your woman’s daughter. I thought it only right to tell you about it,” I said, accusingly.
Roy became instantly defensive. “You think you’re going to scare me Jaxson. I haven’t done anything the cops can come after me for.” He withdrew a filthy towel then wiped grease and sweat from his forehead. “What have you guys got on me? Nothing.”
“Who’s got her, Roy?” I stepped toward him, my voice a threat.
“How should I know? Even if I did, I’m no a rat.” Roy sneered.
“You’re the only person that knows who her father was aside from her mother. And you want revenge on me. Look at you. You’re sweating like a guilty motherfucker.”
“Why do you care about her anyway? My guess is the notorious Jaxson Coltrane has gone soft for a woman.”
“Shut your mouth. Just shut the fuck up!”
“You sayin’ I’m wrong? If it isn’t true, forget her then. She can go to hell for all I care. That girl is dead to me,” Roy said with a disturbing flicker of contempt in his eyes.
“If you don’t tell me Roy, you are a dead man. I’ll repeat the question on more time. Who took her? And, where’d they take her?”
“What’s it worth to you?” Roy lit a cigarette, turned and started to shammy the bonnet only half listening. “Anyway, this was you’re doing, not mine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you made the mistake of messing with me,” Roy replied simply, his back still turned on us, looking down at his car.
While I distracted Roy, Dino walked around to the open driver’s side of the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition.
“Hold on. What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my keys?”
Dino tossed me the keys as Roy approached him. “Hand me the goddamn keys, you fucking cock-sucker.” Roy instantly started to sweat profusely. “This is a 65 Chevy. Too good for the likes you.” He threw his arms up in the air and the shammy went flying. “What the fuck is this? Give me my fucking keys!” I threw the keys back to Dino and Roy shoved me hard toward the door. “GET OUT. GET OUT OF HERE!” he yelled in a rage.
Dino’s fist flew in and connected with Roy’s jaw.
Roy doubled over for a second with the impact of the blow and then straightened again, fuming mad.
“You beat Chlo
e and nearly raped her like a whore, and all I asked you to do was to stay out of our goddamn way. I will take great pleasure in watching you meet the fate you deserve.” I sneered.
“Who the hell are you, Jaxson Coltrane?” Roy asked.
“I’m the guy who’s going to drive you into the ground unless you tell me where the fuck Chloe has been taken.”
“Is that so?” As Roy straightened his body, he grabbed the torch to the oxy – acetylene bottle next to a vintage motorcycle covered in a tarp that stood near the side wall. He flicked his lighter to ignite the flame. Thrusting the flame toward us in warning.
Dino and I stepped backward to distance ourselves from the intense blue flame that Roy was slicing through the air at us. In just a few seconds, we were just a few feet from the back wall. I looked to my left as we reached the blue point engine stand beside me. I gave Dino a look just before I grabbed a metal five-litre can of paint thinner and threw it at Roy so we could escape.
Roy ducked before it could hit him, and the thinner bottle hit the floor with a thud, rapturing the bottle which started to leak over the concrete floor.
“You fucking idiot that could have hit my car!”
Dino and I had bolted toward the front door.
Now completely enraged, Roy dropped the torch which unbeknownst to him was still lit, to chase us.
As we passed him, I noticed the flame. I shouted at Roy but he was too worked up to listen.
I heard the slam as Roy chased after us out the door. “Fuck it, ok! You could have wrecked my car just then you goddamn idiot! I don’t give a fuck about you and that girl. The Blood and Bones MC have her. She’ll still be at their clubhouse. If she’s still alive.”
Dino and I heard him but we legged it toward our bikes. No way were we sticking around for the surprise Roy was about to receive.
BOOM!
Suddenly, the deafening sound of an explosion and crashing came from Roy’s garage.
All three of us ducked for cover.
“Fucking Hell!” Roy yelled.
Dino and I stopped in our tracks. I already knew exactly what had happened.
Moving like lighting, Roy legged it back to the entrance and swung open the door to raging fire inside. As he did, he let in a burst of oxygen that made the flames that set his car ablaze burn ever more fiercely and the blow forced Roy back. A blinding flash of yellow and orange light escaped through the door.
Dino and I stared, stunned for a moment, at the flames in the garage.
“Shit noooo! Fucking give me a hand! Holy fuck, my car!” Roy bellowed, waking us from our trance.
There was nothing Dino and I could have done even with a fire extinguisher and a water hose. The garage was a renovated wooden barn, filled with paint thinner, paint, and vehicles with engines full of fuel, and did it ever blaze. His car had exploded due to the thinner that had been ignited over the garage floor.
It was an awe inspiring explosion of fire. Thick smoke and the chemical stench started to emerge from the building.
“You got any insurance on this place?” Dino shouted with a laugh.
Neither us felt any guilt. Roy had brought this upon himself.
Dino and I mounted our bikes and I stared over at Roy for one final indulgence. I savored the moment as he stamped his feet on the ground in anger and frustration. If I had watched any longer, I was sure I would have seen him boil in his own skin. And if I were completely honest, I would have enjoyed it greatly.
As we rode off, I glanced over in my rear-view mirror to look back at the scene. Roy stood, hands on top of his head in resigned defeat as he watched his entire business go up in smoke. Finally, his hand flopped onto his thighs as plume of yellow-white flame flared and invaded the air.
He got what he deserved. My only regret was that I couldn’t stay longer to watch him suffer. Chloe needed me. I only hoped we weren’t already too late.
We accelerated as we hit the main road.
Dino asked when we stopped at a red light, “What’s the plan, Jax?”
Chapter Seventeen
(Chloe)
What an asshole.
The first question I asked myself was, why isn’t this man in jail? The second question was, how do I avoid getting on the wrong side him?
My kidnapper grinned insanely back at his brothers that were coming through the main door to the clubhouse. When I tried to pass, he shadowed my movement and our bodies collided. Two hands landed on the small of my back and his lips crushed into my neck, kissing and sucking on my skin. His friends jeered and whooped encouragingly. When he pulled back to kiss my lips, he seemed shocked that the expression on my face implied that I hated what he’d been doing. Like he was god’s gift, right before kissing me on the mouth, he gave me a broad grin. “You’re going to enjoy this.”
Should I pull away? If kiss him back, will he leave me alone? I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing and hoped it would stop soon.
After a long-torturing minute, a girl called from behind the bar, “Your dinner’s just arrived.”
I remembered from the night before that the bar had been just around the corner from the staircase.
The man pulled away from my lips and with another wide grin and called to the girl, “Jenny, show this lovely lady the bar.”
The man stepped backward as Jenny swept around the corner and put her arm through mine, abruptly. The man walked to the front of the bar, pulled off his jacket and tossed it on the countertop, while I was dragged behind it. He picked up his plate and walked off toward a table at the center of the main-room. I squinted my eyes at the text on the back of his jacket from the other end of the counter. The lower rocker had his street name: Jumper. Holy Shit. I knew exactly who this man was. I’d been kidnapped by the President of the Blood and Bones MC!
The man the Bloods’ called Jumper had always intrigued and frightened me. I’d heard that when my father had died, it left a hole in the Bloods club that needed to be filled. Jumper took his place. If my father hadn’t died that night, he would’ve been in line to take over as club president. I didn’t know much about Jumper, but according to my mother, he became president after having left the club for several years in the Special Forces. I had a very uncomfortable feeling that the military had fucked him up real bad. Based on what I’d seen of the man when he took me from Jax’s apartment, and the short, deft movement he’d used to knock Lucy to the ground, gave me a horrible sense that Jumper was less man and more a machine-like weapon.
Jenny turned her head to me. “Don’t worry about Jumper. He’s just a little cranky,” she said, clearly in denial. Jenny started to pull pints and load the glasses onto round black trays. I assumed to be carried over to the five bikers that were now in the room.
I replied in a whisper, “He’s a cold hearted bully more like.”
Jenny hesitated, and then added cooly, “Jumper is a smart guy; he looks out for us. And you should see his Harley.” The girl’s eyes lit up at the thought of his bike.
I couldn’t tell whether she was simply crazy for staying in this place and sleeping with men like this. Or, whether she had some castle in the air idea about what being a being a club girl would be ‒ only to find out she was wrong too late when she had nowhere else to go. Whatever her motivation was, one thing was obvious ‒ she was already sucked in too deep to be saved.
I stared at Jenny, who stood beside me, lifting full pint glasses onto a tray. She had beautifully manicured hands and red nails. I eyed her body up and down. She was an attractive twenty-something who looked just a few years older than me. But Jenny wasn’t a hostage being held captive…she was here by choice. And for some bizarre reason, she seemed quite happy. I’d read about girls like Jenny and Lucy. Obsessed with bikers and their bikes so much that they made themselves biker groupies just to get close to them. It always scared me that deep down that a part of me shared this quiet obsession.
Jenny was cloyingly perfumed as though she was
begging to be used by these men. It was the kind of excessive perfume so intense it was nauseating to be around. She wore a tight, silver dress like Lucy and I had on. I supposed that it was a uniform of sorts for club whores. With Lucy upstairs, Jenny and I were the only girls in the room. Eight men were now present. And every last one of them were noticing me. I fidgeted behind the bar while Jenny took drinks over to the bikers, darting through the room, placing glasses down and picking them up like a female worker ant.
When she returned I asked, in a confidential whisper, “You wouldn’t have a phone I could borrow, would you?”
She giggled and slapped me on the shoulder, “No silly, Jumper doesn’t allow us to have our phones in here. It’s one of his rules. Club business is top secret stuff, you know?” She gave me a wink before going back to her work.
I still couldn’t tell what was up with this girl. Is she just plain stupid? Is she drugged up or drunk?
I took in the rest of the scene… another biker in a leather jacket was just entering the clubhouse, while eight others sat clustered around a few tables. Combat boots thundered up and down the wooden stairs to my right. Two TV’s were on, one playing a newscast, the other a football game. It was the end of the workday and the Blood’s clubhouse was crowded with bikers and a thickening cloud of cigarette smoke. They appeared to be celebrating, and I could only hope that Jax was still alive.
Jumper sat at the table furthest away, but his body and his eyes faced me directly.
What’s this guy’s deal? If he had Jax and two women here already, then why did he need me?
Jumper looked to be in his mid-thirties, with cold, dark eyes. He was surprisingly smart and well dressed for a biker, but he was definitely not handsome. He almost looked like an older, and taller, Antonio but how the hell could that be possible? Knife and fork in hand, he leaned over a white dinner plate with a steaming steak. I watched as he impaled the steak on his fork and picked up the whole thing to scrape the vegetables off his plate into a bin he’d pulled beside his chair. Jumper stared at me as he ate for the fifteen minutes it took him to consume his steak. He was like a predator stalking his prey. His body still, eyes fixed, motionless except for the simple, repetitive movement of his mouth chewing on his rare steak, as he prepared to pounce.