Bash is the first to step up and back me. “Truth. I’m good with it.”
North looks to the woman who is wearing a hiker’s backpack that I swear is almost as big as she is. He looks back to me. “She travels like that?”
I nod. It was a bitch to situate on my bike, but we made it work. She says she’s got a place to stay not far from here, but went to Five Points because she figured it was easier to find a job there. Going on an assumption, her life is in that pack.
“She’s not taking shit from us, it seems. So, she gets my okay,” North adds while I look to Sly.
“We got the funds,” Sly chimes in. “Do we need to background check her?”
All of us look to the woman who has dropped her pack and already started cleaning. Chaos looks to me. “You’ve never led us wrong, so she gets the pass. For now, we watch her. If anything seems off, I don’t give a fuck who feels it, sees it, and I don’t care what it is, we cut her loose. But for now, we let her try.”
With that, Sly goes back to her and my phone pings. Pulling it out, I think it’s about my dad. I’m shocked when the system from my truck alerts me that my truck is no longer parked at my house, but instead, on the interstate heading west.
“Someone stole my truck! What the fuck?”
I turn on the GPS and watch the little icon move. North stands over my shoulder looking at my phone with me.
“Bash, get Bouncer on the line. Find out where he is. If he’s closer to Jinx’s truck, have him tail it,” Chaos orders, and Bash grabs his phone.
Within minutes, we’re all on our bikes leaving Sly to get Apple settled while we ride to catch up with my truck.
Who the fuck was on my property? I don’t have fucking neighbors. Who is in my truck? The more the questions play in my head, the more pissed off I become.
The darkness of the night doesn’t soothe anything inside of me. I love my fucking truck. Sure, she isn’t brand new, but she is mine. The matte black lifted Chevy Silverado is custom inside and out.
The damn icon on my phone is taunting me as I watch it move. Since I don’t have the Bluetooth shit set up on my bike, I rigged my phone with duct tape to my gas tank. As Road Captain, I know all the major roads and back roads, which is what I prefer. Only, watching the little arrow that represents my truck, I can’t get a clue as to where this person is headed. They seem to be lost, having gotten on and off the interstate multiple times. Thank fuck whoever has it is heading to Alabama instead of into Atlanta. Even at night, Atlanta can have traffic.
Twisting the throttle, I press on with my brothers at my back. We are closing in when I watch the arrow make a loop on the screen and come to a stop. We are about five minutes from the location when I get the alert that the truck was in a collision followed by the “parked car” update.
Up until today, the fucking updates got on my nerves. Every single time the truck is started or parked, my phone alerts. Well, until today, I was the one driving the truck, so I knew if the damn thing was parked. Literally “parked car alert” flashes on my screen until I clear the notification.
I watch the frozen dot and wonder if OnStar has called for authorities. While I want the person to be punished for stealing my truck, I’d prefer to be the one dealing out said punishment, not the fucking cops.
Within moments we pull up on my truck against a guardrail on an interstate exit. Parking our bikes, I pull my nine and aim at the driver’s window on the off chance someone is still in the cab. My windows are blacked out, so there is no visibility to see inside. Opening the door, I’m shocked to see a woman sitting in the driver’s seat, clearly struggling to reach the pedals and figure out how to get the truck off the guardrail.
“Fuck,” she whispers, holding her hands up off the steering wheel.
“This is OnStar, Mr. Kalini. The onboard crash system has detected a collision. Please respond.”
She says nothing, and I say nothing. We’re in this standoff with me glaring and her trying to remain still. The air between us is tense and it has nothing to do with the anger radiating from me and the fear inside her. No there is passion like I’ve never experienced before. What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Mr. Kalini, I’m alerting first responders to your location.”
“No need,” I bite out because no I don’t want the authorities here. I want the level of power over her this situation gives me.
“Mr. Kalini, this is Todd with OnStar, and your onboard system has identified a collision. Do you need first responder or other assistance?”
“No need,” I repeat wanting to rip the whole fucking system out of my truck.
“If anything changes and you need further assistance, just press the blue button on your vehicle, or for immediate medical response press the red emergency button found on the rear-view mirror. Thank you, Mr. Kalini. Remember, you’re a valued OnStar customer.”
My heart beats wildly in my chest. There is a young woman in the driver’s seat of my truck. This hot mess in front of me stole my truck and wrecked it. And as much of a mess she is, her eyes are unlike any I’ve seen before. Perfectly round, eyelashes with a curl woman pay money for according to the commercials for all the mascaras. I’m drawn in.
“Please call the authorities,” she begs, still sitting on the edge of my seat. She reads me. She feels the danger. She’s smart because she’s in danger with me.
“No.”
Seeing she’s alone, I put the safety back on my weapon and holster it as my brothers approach. Chaos and Bash go to the passenger side to assess the damage to the truck against the guardrail, while North comes over to stand beside me.
“Please, Katie needs help,” she begs and the word please on her lips has my cock getting hard.
“I don’t know Katie, but I do know cops, and you aren’t gettin’ off that easy for stealing my truck. I promise you, baby, I’m gonna punish you my way.”
She begins to visibly tremble in front of me. I’m too infuriated to care about her level of fear. In some ways I get off on it. She stole my truck. She took from me. Now she will see no one touches what’s mine.
“What do you wanna do, Jinx?” North asks.
I look over to Bash and Chaos. “How bad is it?”
“Gonna need a paint job, but she’ll still ride fine,” Chaos tells me after finishing his inspection of the truck.
I look back to the woman. “You touch my shit?”
She shakes her head frantically. “I didn’t mean to take it. I just had to get away, they had a knife.”
North, being North, steps closer to the woman. “Who?”
She doesn’t speak, and she’s not crying, so even though she’s clearly upset, she’s still fighting to keep her shit together. In any other situation I would find this admirable.
She looks around wildly. “They’re gonna kill me.”
North looks to me, then back to her. “Sweetheart, hate to tell ya this because I don’t think you’ve had a good evenin’, but if you don’t answer our questions, my brother may kill you for stealing his ride. So, who is after you?”
She takes a deep breath. “Rail Wreckers. They were,” she stops and that’s when the sobs begin. “Oh my God. I can’t. They, they, they raped her. Oh god, they raped her,” she spouts off before she begins to hyperventilate.
“Gonna need you to calm down and give us a little more,” North says in a comforting tone that makes me almost want to say, and this is why you’re so dangerous. The man is a stone-cold killer when he needs to be, but something about women and tears and he turns into mister nice guy. North is far from the boy next door. He’s the enforcer for the club after all.
“Look lady, you stole my truck from my fucking front yard. I know who the Rail Wreckers are, what I don’t know is, who the fuck are you?”
She looks around, studying all of us, and with nothing but an empty interstate side road and the dark sky to comfort her, she slouches in defeat.
“Fuck it. If you kill me, you kill me, since no matter wh
at I end up dead. I ride trains. It’s how I live.”
“So, you’re one of them?” I ask, getting angrier by the second.
She shakes her head frantically. “No, I go alone. Only, I met Katie and she’s only fifteen. I wanted to help get her home, but Caleb convinced her to stay with him and the Wreckers. I planned to leave out of Atlanta, but Katie, she’s new to all this. She asked me to stay with her. So, I did, but I kept my distance. I heard her scream. When I found them, they were raping her, saying Caleb gave her up or something. Anyway, Drifter, he had a knife. When they saw me, they chased me. I had been staying in the woods, so I just followed the light. Long story short, when I couldn’t get anyone in the house to wake up and help, I climbed in the truck to protect myself. Only, there were more of them, and they were going to break the windows.”
I’m going to kill every single one of these motherfuckers just for touching my truck. “And stealing a stranger’s truck seems like fun to add to the evening?” I ask, frustrated that I’m in the middle of some Rail Wrecker bullshit that I don’t have time for. Yeah, Katie got raped and possibly killed.
That sucks.
Really it does.
However, there are always twists and sometimes things aren’t what they seem. Does that make me a synical bastard? Sure. I happen to know, from back in Hawaii, there are women who agree to getting raped just to be part of a gang. The desire to belong is a powerful thing. How do I know this woman didn’t just panic and bail?
“I didn’t know what to do. Hell, I don’t even know how to drive. Fight or flight kicked in, and I took off. Then I was trying to find a cop or police station, but I got lost.”
“We’re not goin’ to the cops, babe,” I tell her, looking to Chaos and Bash. “In the back, lift the cover to the bed, roll that back.” They both nod and get started exposing the bed of my truck, just as another motorcycle pulls up beside us.
Bouncer hops off coming to me with a classic Bouncer smirk on his face. “Damn, Jinx, pretty thing stole your truck.”
I nod.
“Whatcha gonna do with her?”
“Punish her,” I state, and she gasps.
And it’s the absolute truth. I want to punish her. I get what I want so I’m going to punish her.
Chaos, Bash, and North, knowing there is a ramp in the back of my truck, begin to set it up. I’ve had to pick Bash’s bike up more than once because he had a headlight that kept going out, making it almost impossible to see at night. I started keeping the ramp in the back of the truck just for him. Tonight, I’m thankful for that short in the wiring that none of us can seem to fix. As my brothers work to load my bike in the back of my truck, I watch the wheels turn in the woman’s eyes. Good, keep thinking, there is no wait out of my wrath, but it will be fun to watch her try.
“Your name?”
She swallows and looks around, no doubt hoping for an escape. “Talia.”
The woman in front of me has long brown hair and eyes like gold, but she doesn’t have a deep tan like most Samoans, yet she has a name that means to wait. She’s too pale and her hair isn’t jet black so she’s not an islander. I find myself curious about her name.
Something in me shifts. Somehow, with my gaze on her I relax. The storm that brews inside me constantly seems to settle. It’s like my soul is calm and waiting.
To wait. Talia.
Then, wait I will.
Reaching into the door of the truck, I pull out a set of leather cuffs I keep. She scurries back to the passenger seat at the sight of them. I’m going to have to fight the urge to strip her down and fuck her with her hands secured in these.
“I’m not going to render you completely helpless, but Talia, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. So, I’m going to make shit a little safer for us both.”
Bouncer lets out a laugh, “Ain’t no one safe with you, Jinx.”
I twist my head to him but don’t speak. Normally, that would be true, but something inside me bristles at the idea of Talia being afraid of me suddenly. Which just moments ago, I got off on her fear. Climbing into my truck, I reach over and take her wrist. Electricity shoots through me like never before. The way her eyes grow wide, she feels it too.
I slap the leather band on her wrist while attaching the other to mine. “This way, I can’t easily manhandle you, and you can’t try to jump out of a moving vehicle. Now, my name is Jinx, and we’re the Kings. North is gonna get someone to check out the rails behind my house and find your Katie friend. If your story checks out, then you have my word, Teineitiiti, that you will be safe with me. If this Katie person is some bullshit story to gain my sympathy, well, you should know I have none, and I will punish you far worse than any cop or Rail Wrecker could.”
She gasps, but I ignore it. Whispering to herself, “Teineitiiti, what does that mean? Is that bitch in another language?” I don’t tell her Teineitiiti is little girl in Samoan. It’s not because she’s young, even though she is. It’s because she’s small compared to me. Shouting to North to get someone over to the rails, I watch as Bouncer checks the straps, securing my bike to my truck before I shut the driver’s door. Rolling down the window, I let the others know I’m heading home with Talia before we pull away.
She sits quietly beside me while I drive the truck wondering what kind of shit show we just entered.
All because the pretty little sprite stole my truck.
I don’t have all the answers yet. The only thing I have is her, and for some reason, I don’t want to let her go.
Eight
Talia
“Nobody is watching. It’s just you and your hard work.” A sign inside a gym I once snuck in to take a shower. Nobody is watching because nobody knows who I really am, Talia
The leather binding pulls at my wrist, it’s not unbending like a regular metal handcuff. I wonder what he uses these for and why he would have them in his truck. I don’t dare ask. I can’t scoot over into the passenger seat, since I’m connected to him. The only way to be comfortable is with my thigh pressed against his as I sit in the middle of the bench seat.
When I first took off, I wondered what kind of man drove a truck like this. What was he overcompensating for because this truck is massive? After meeting the man behind the machine, it’s no wonder he’s got this monster. He’s huge. Did he eat too many chicken nuggets and become a giant? I can’t help but wonder.
I had to climb up into the truck, whereas, he’s got to be six and half feet tall and he slid in with ease. I struggled to reach the pedals with the seat all the way back, and I couldn’t figure out how to move it, yet, he seems slightly squished. His arms, massive ropes of muscle and as he drives, they flex in turn. He wears a black leather vest and smells of cedar and leather. He has a baseball hat on backwards, that was under his motorcycle helmet, and black sunglasses. With the black t-shirt and black pants, I think I know what his favorite color is.
My mind races. One second, I’m worrying about Katie, the next, I wonder what will happen to me, and then like a tornado spinning round and round, I start wondering about the stranger beside me.
The ride is silent as he seems focused on driving and fuming because I stole his truck. The air between us is tense as the road passes on and he takes us back to Uprising. I don’t know what to do or what comes next, but that’s the life I lead. I’ll figure shit out as I go because that’s what I do.
The silence between us is broken by the sound of his phone ringing through the speakers of the truck. He taps the answer button on the screen that controls the radio.
“Yo,” he answers.
“Checked into it. Brother, she’s telling the truth,” a man I assume to be Sly, based on the name on the screen, says. “Found the body.”
I stop breathing. Katie is dead. This kills me inside but at the same token at least he can understand I’m telling the truth. At least I hope he sees it.
“Call in Asher. Let him get the PD on it so the girl can be returned to her family. That will protect our assets an
d avoid any unwanted investigation.”
“On it, brother,” Sly replies, and I can’t help but find myself more confused.
Without saying another word, Jinx ends the call.
“What does it mean avoid an unwanted investigation? I know who did it.”
He turns his head to me, but I can’t see his eyes because of his sunglasses. It’s three in the morning and pitch-black outside; no one needs sunglasses at this time of night.
“Means, I don’t want cops in my backyard.”
“But they killed Katie. Doesn’t that matter?” I argue when I should shut up because this man is far more dangerous than Drifter or Chrome ever could be. He’s like a dragon, and I expect smoke to blow out of his nostrils any second.
Dragons are majestic and move with ease, despite their size. Anger them, and they’ll burn down an entire village. That’s what I think of the man in the truck beside me.
“Her life matters, her death does not. Asher is a cop. He’s on my payroll. He’ll make sure your friend gets home, so her family can properly pay their respects.”
I don’t know why I can’t let it go, but I just keep going. “They can’t get away with this. They raped her in the worst of ways,” I explain as fresh tears fall from my eyes. “I’ll never get it out of my head. Caleb was under her, Chrome over her, and Drifter cutting her while they just kept taking and taking from her body.”
“Naunau, you got passion.”
Frustrated, I lift my hands and throw them back onto my lap, forgetting about the cuff linking us. “I don’t know what you said, but this isn’t passion, this is disgust.”
“Teineitiiti, you have passion.”
“What’s that mean?” I question even while wondering why I even care.
Jinx: Kings of Carnage MC Page 7