Chapter Eight
“You want help with those pants?” I called, my back turned to the open toilet door.
She needed to hurry the fuck up. The lads would be piling in, trying to rub shoulders with the international MC that had been going through the north of England like a dose of salts. Everyone trying to shine and survive in equal measure.
“You can undo my wrists? That would speed things up.”
“Nah. Not gonna happen.”
“Then shut the fuck up. Have you tried pulling up leather fucking trousers and buttoning back up with your fucking hands tied together?” She spat, and I stifled another laugh.
“If you don’t hurry up, the whole club will be in here getting a fucking good look at you.”
“And that’s not what’s gonna happen to me out there?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t really know, not for sure.
I’d never roughed up a woman before. Only men.
Men who’d wronged the club. Men who’d fucked with me.
Men who tried to fuck us over, nicking products and cash.
I’d taught them lessons in how this club worked.
Some of them were out there after learning from me.
Others didn’t learn, and they were also out there, scattered across Teesside, decaying.
“You done?” I asked again, shaking her out of my head.
“Yes,” she hissed.
Turning to face her, I hadn’t expected her to have moved towards me.
The legs I’d cut free so she could use the toilet, carried her as she walked in long, definite strides.
Her hands came at me quicker than I expected, swinging towards my head like she was taking a shot on a golf course.
She was a stride too far away, her eyes still covered by the tight blindfold, but I stepped back half a step anyway, because I wouldn’t live it down if the club found out she’d cracked me one.
Skinny was still whining via text to the entire club that she’d fucked his knee.
And the entire club had ribbed him about it for hours.
Her arms swung the other way, her legs moving her forwards.
If I’d had more time, I’d have played with her.
I would have seen if she would give up or keep going.
And watched as the leather tightened further over her slim body.
But I didn’t have time. The Hand were in my unit.
Waiting. Waiting for her. I didn’t have time to play.
She shifted her weight, her jaw clenching, and then the swing of her arms came at me.
I was inside that half stride now, ducking under the swing, dipping my shoulder, and launching her body over the top of mine.
“Put me down,” she shouted, thumping the heels of her hands against my spine, her legs kicking, knocking me off balance.
“Fucking calm down.”
“Calm down? You fucking kidnapped me, ya prick!”
“And you think this is gonna help you?” I grunted under the assault of her arms and legs, staggering down the corridor like I’d drunk a skinful.
“Don’t fucking care, you fucking arse.”
Her arms hammered, her legs kicking wildly against my stomach, dangerously close to my dick. One wrong move, one dig of her toe and she’d have me on my knees. I pushed her further over my shoulder, her head dangling lower over my back, her hands now battering off my arse as I walked.
The door to the warehouse loomed. A few more steps and we’d be under the eyes of the rest of the club and the Hand. The tiger over my shoulder still fought wildly. Like she was caught in a trap, feral and angry. I paused a moment.
“You’re gonna want to calm down before we step through into the warehouse,” I warned.
“And why the fuck would I want to do that?”
“’Cos you want to look composed and calm, not fucking crazy.”
“I like crazy.”
“Sure you do. But you need to think. Keep your wits about you and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Why the fuck does that matter to you?”
Why did it matter to me? What did I care what happened next? I didn’t.
“Fine. You do you,” I relented, turning sideways and nudging the door open with my shoulder, not taking the chance to loosen my grip from her, even for a second.
The voices of the men talking in lowered conversation quieted to a low hush. All heads turned to where I carried the swearing, kicking and fucking nipping wildling over my shoulder, suppressing a growl of pain as she squeezed the flesh of my arse between her fingernails. Fucking bitch.
I dropped her to the floor under the winch, hearing the gasp and whoosh of air as she hit the ground hard on already sore shoulders.
That felt good, revenge. But I was too busy enjoying the moment to notice the unbound leg kicking out, catching me hard in the shin.
The groan escaped before I’d even checked it, a thick, dull, bruising pain radiating through the front of my leg.
And I was glad I had my back to the crowd, hearing only the chuckles, my brothers unable to see the pain on my face. Fuck, that smarted.
Grabbing her bicep, I yanked her off the floor, stepping around behind her, letting the backwards kicks do their thing, some landing, some glancing, the only pain I could feel was the heavy boot to my shin.
That was gonna fucking bruise. She squirmed as I pulled her arms over her head, thrashing left and right, her long dark plait whipping and slapping me.
Eventually, I hooked her wrists over the hook, letting her weight hang on those tired shoulders. I didn’t need to step back in front of her to know the pain that I’d just sent coursing through her body. Her fingers stretched out, as if clawing at thin air, her chest heaving a lungful of air.
“Fucking cunt!” she shouted as she let out that breath. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Don’t think so,” I answered, turning away from her and striding to the side of the warehouse and pressing the red button in the wall.
The winch whirred, coming to life, slowly lifting until I stopped it, raising her just enough that her legs were entirely off the floor.
And now she really hung all her weight from her arms and her shoulders, and the pain in my shin transformed into something else.
She hissed. Audibly this time, and the group of men in leather watching her, watching us, laughed, loud and heartily.
“She’s a fucking firecracker,” the bald man with the long, grey beard commented as I joined my brothers watching the woman swinging from the ceiling. “Fury’s sister?”
“Aye, sure is,” Dougal answered.
“Nice. Couldn’t have picked a better one if ya tried. You told the Kings yet?”
Dougal shook his head. “Nah. Letting them sweat. They’ll be going mad looking for her. Want to let them stew first.”
The President of the Bloody Hand nodded, agreeing. “I like her; she’s wild. Might take her home with us. Put her to work. That would fucking destroy Fury.”
The man stroked his beard as he spoke, his eyes lighting up at his own suggestion.
“Wouldn’t want to try to get that one to comply in one of your brothels; she’ll rip someone’s dick off. She busted Skinny’s knee last night.”
“Bit of smack and it calms even the craziest bitch down. You might want to give this one some?”
“Nah,” I interrupted, all faces turning towards me and Dougal raising an eyebrow quizzically. “I like the crazy. And when the Kings see her fighting for her life, it’ll hit home harder than seeing her passed out on brown.”
“So you’d rather see her fighting as we all fuck that fight out of her?”
I shrugged, not answering, just staring at where the woman hung on the winch, quieter now, focussed only on the pain in her arms.
“Aye, that’s what I would do.”
“This your enforcer?” Grim asked Dougal, who nodded in answer. “I like. He’d do good here for us when we take over.”
I didn’t falter, glancing sideways for a fraction of a second before staring ahead again.
Between my brothers in the Rats and the Bloody Hand, this woman was going to have a really hard time.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, my eyes still on her, a deep gnawing feeling starting in my stomach.
I could do this. I could be a part of this.
It was what they’d brought me up to do. To maim and torture and kill without remorse.
Without conscience. All that anger. Every little bit tried to consume me.
I could push it all into my job. But this.
Her. The thought of harming a woman. Now I wasn’t so sure.
I had a sister, for fuck’s sake. This was someone’s sister.
Would mine end up collateral like the King’s woman was? I chewed harder.
“What’s the status of the product?” Grim’s raspy American accent broke through my thoughts.
“Delayed. The Kings burnt our supplier down.” Dougal answered.
“The vet?”
I nodded. “The local boys went in a bit hard on him. Turns out a colleague of his was running with one of the Twins.” Dougal scoffed beside me. “Or both of them. Who the fuck knows.”
“Then that gives us a problem, doesn’t it, boys?”
Behind me, there were shuffles of feet. Brothers feeling uncomfortable.
“Chase’ll sort it out. He always does,” Dougal continued, eyeing me across the exchange.
“Better sort it quickly, Dougal. You want to be a part of us, better get us some product.”
“About that,” Dougal began tentatively. “We thought we’d stay as the Road Rats. You know, become a sister club to yours?”
“This,” Grim wagged his finger back and forth.
“This isn’t how this works. You become the Bloody Hand.
Nothing else.” Grim patted Dougal hard on the back, his hand lingering over the red-eyed rat back patch.
“Fail us, join us. Doesn’t matter. The Rats will be no more.
You’ll either be The Bloody Hand or dead. ”
Mutters broke out behind me. I glanced at my President, and he caught my look. I didn’t need to ask what the fuck he’d got us into. It was clear it was a huge pile of shit, and we either survived and joined the Bloody Hand, or died. And I knew which one I preferred, Teesside Road Rat or not.
Grim stepped forward, crossing the space from the spectators in leather and the woman suspended from the ceiling.
He stood in front of her. Her face twitched as if she could sense him there.
I held my breath waiting for her to kick off, yet she stayed still, as if she could sense the immediate danger she was in.
Clever girl. He reached a hand up towards her, gently stroking a strand of hair from her face.
Her lips pursed, but she did nothing. No kicking. No wriggling. She was just still.
“I want her first, Dougal. You’ve got three days to mess with the Kings. Then you tell them. Because after that I’ll be the first to fuck her.”
He turned back towards her then, running his hand down her cheek and then the side of her neck.
“You’ll be a good girl for Daddy, won’t you, babe?”
I saw the movement of her eyebrows. The curl at the side of her lips and then suddenly she spat at him, the big gob of spit splattering him in the middle of his face and running down into his beard.
“Fuck off, cunt!” Her voice dripped with poison.
Fuck. I grimaced.
He turned away from her, wiping the palm of his hand through his beard.
And then, without so much as a flinch, he whipped back round, the back of his hand slamming across her face.
Her head snapped backwards as if it had been taken clean off her shoulders, the whimper of pain escaping her mouth unchecked.
Around me no one uttered a word, everyone’s eyes now fixed on the woman who slumped against the bounds that tied her wrists together and suspended her from the hook hanging from my warehouse ceiling.
“Can’t fucking wait for that one,” Grim laughed as he turned back to face us. “Fuck me, she’s going to be good.”
The crowd of Rats standing nervously in the silence breathed out a collective breath before breaking into chuckles with the President of the Hand. All but me.