Chapter Thirty One
When she stood in that doorway, she looked barely any different from when I first set eyes on her.
Cloaked in red, the heavy makeup. Her eyes were dark and rich, just like Jazz.
Her hair almost the same, long and luscious.
Tonight, it fell over her shoulders in waves.
She was an older version. Nineteen years my senior.
Her mouth widened into that smile, lips stained dark red, teeth overly white and unnaturally straight.
That was new. Her teeth used to be crooked, and her canines protruded just a little.
The bulge of her chest was new too. She’d had smaller tits when I knew her last. Business must be good these days.
“Charlie?” she asked, but she knew who I was the moment she opened the door. The question wasn’t ‘is that you?’ It was ‘why are you here?’
“Gina. Been a while.”
She didn’t look twice at Jazz as she rushed over the threshold in bare feet, wrapping her arms around me, her tits pressed against me like two over-inflated kids’ balls.
“Did not expect this tonight,” she spoke into my ear, not letting go of my neck.
Someone coughed in the doorway.
“What are you doing here, Charlie?” she asked, pulling away, her eyes washing over my face, like she was remembering every bit of me.
“Need a place to lie low for a few days.”
She smiled. “Not like you to have got yourself in trouble again.” The laugh was clear in her voice. “Pull that through. It can go in the utility for now. Through there, up the stairs,” she instructed Jazz as she turned.
Jazz’s eyes narrowed, helplessly defiant. Then she glanced at me, and I shook my head, hoping she didn’t piss Gina off. She was our best bet for somewhere safe right now.
“It’s been so long, Charlie,” Gina’s voice carried up the stairs as we followed her into a first floor sitting room.
“We’ve changed here a bit. Different girls now, of course.
They tend to move on.” Gina indicated to the sofa that sat across from where she lowered herself into a red velvet armchair.
“I see you’ve brought your own, though. Cigarette?
” She pushed the silver holder towards Jazz, who shook her head and did her best to smile. “Still don’t smoke, Charlie?”
I shook my head. “Not cigarettes anyway.”
The smoke billowed up into the room from the end of the tab.
“So,” she turned her head towards Jazz. “How come you’re Charlie’s girl?”
“I…I’m not,” Jazz stammered, almost speechless for the first time since I’d met her.
Gina sank back into the chair, crossing a long, tanned bare leg over the other one. Above us, there were faint sounds of noise. Rhythmical. Low voices. Just a hint. But Jazz hadn’t noticed, her eyes fixed on the older woman opposite her.
“Sure. Sure. He rocks up here at my place with a girl. A stunning one at that, and asks me to hide him for a few days. You’re Charlie’s girl.” Gina pointed at her, the cigarette squeezed between two slim, delicate fingers, rich ruby red polish on the ends.
“I rescued her.”
Gina looked at me, puffed out her cheeks and then let out a hearty laugh, smoke pouring from her mouth.
“You rescued her?”
“From the Rats.”
“From your Rats?”
Jazz’s head tick tocked between us, her brow furrowed as she tried to follow the conversation.
“Yeah.”
“The Rats running hookers now?”
Jazz was on her feet before I’d had time to pre-empt it.
“Call me a hooker one more time, bitch, and see what happens.” Jazz growled, fists balled at her sides.
Gina laughed, the sound filling the room.
“Jazz, sit down.”
She threw me a look. A warning as I tugged at her wrist.
“The Rats kidnapped Jazz from the Northern Kings….”
“And you, Chase. You were the one who hung me on that fucking hook.”
I sighed, dropping my head to my feet, avoiding Gina’s gaze. But now she said nothing, just watched us.
“I was involved with it, yes,” I admitted. This was feeling like some sordid chat show. Confessions in a Brothel. Sure, that would be a hit. “For a while….”
“And then you fell for her, Charlie?”
I didn’t need to nod or agree, and I didn’t deny it. Gina could see right through me. She always had.
“So now what? You’re in hiding for the rest of your life?”
“Just a day or two. I need to get her home to her family. But the Rats will expect me to go straight there. They’ll intercept us. I need to wait for the dust to settle. Was hoping we could wait it out here?”
Gina smiled, stood and walked over to the dark mahogany cabinet on the other side of the room.
The back light lit the bottles of expensive spirits, golds and ambers glowing through cut glass like molten jewels.
Crystal decanters stood in a perfect line, each one glinting beneath the low red light that soaked the room.
“So, you’re here again for the dust to settle, Charlie? Sounds like old times.”
I glanced nervously at Jazz, who was sitting again now, but on the edge of the red velvet sofa like she might jump up and take a swing at Gina any second.
And that’s where their similarities ended.
Gina played on words; she yearned to be adored, to be lusted over, to be noticed.
She was intelligent, like Jazz, but in a different way.
Shrewd. A businesswoman in a tough world, but careful and measured.
Jazz was impulsive. And as sensitive as a fucking bomb.
There were no undertones with her, no hidden agendas.
Just a purity of spirit far greater than Gina’s would ever be.
“Not quite, old times, Gina. But if you can put us up for a few nights, I’d be really grateful.”
“Love it when you’re grateful, Charlie,” Gina’s back faced us as she mixed a drink, but I caught the look on her face in the mirrored background of the cabinet. “Anyone else want a drink?”
“Yeah, please.” Jazz responded, her voice as stiff as her body.
“Preference?”
“Something strong.”
“Gotcha.”
Gina passed a crystal tumbler to Jazz, the liquid inside a deep amber that caught the red light and burned like fire.
“Smoky Mezcal Old Fashioned,” she said with a knowing smile. “Figured you’re not the type for sugar or fruit. You strike me as someone who likes to taste the bite.”
Jazz took it, eyes flicking up in a silent challenge, like she’d half expected to be handed something sweet and girly and was grudgingly impressed she hadn’t been.
“Thanks,” Jazz mumbled, sniffing at the liquid and recoiling slightly.
“It’s volatile. Think you’ll like it.” Gina smiled.
Jazz’s eyes locked with Gina’s, pressing the tumbler to her lips and taking a long hard swallow.
A swallow that made her jaw clench and her eyes darken.
I watched her throat bob and then tense, the burn chasing a line of colour up her neck as she controlled the recoil that I expected from her.
And, fuck, if it wasn’t the hottest thing I’d seen all day.
“And for you, Charlie.” Gina pushed a glass towards me, a little packet of white hanging between her fingers. “Vodka on the rocks and a chaser.”
I took the glass. “Don’t do the coke these days, G.”
For a second she looked disappointed, but then it was gone, replaced by that seductive, arrogant smile.
“You cleaned yourself up then, Charlie boy?”
“The Rats helped with that.”
“So, what are you going to do now you’re no longer a Rat?”
“I’m still a Rat.”
“Course you’re not. If they’d kidnapped her and you’ve let her go…”
“Jazz,” I reminded her brusquely.
“If they kidnapped Jazz. Who are you in the Northern Kings, by the way?” Gina turned back to the woman staring at her with venom in her eyes.
“I’m Fury’s sister.”
“Fury. Ah. A Gray. I see it now.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“I know things, kiddo. In my line of work. People talk in their sleep.” Gina grinned at her, like she had scored a point and was pulling ahead in the game. Whatever game this was. Then she turned back to me. “What does Mikey say in all of this?”
“Mike’s dead.”
“Fuck. How? What happened?”
I glanced across at Jazz, whose gaze had turned from murderous to interested.
“Had a fight with a twenty-six tonne truck.” Those words were still hard to say out loud, and I took a big gulp of the freezing vodka to wash it down.
“Mikey was an excellent rider. Better than you, Charlie. He didn’t just fall under a fucking truck.”
I shook my head.
“We were chasing the Kings. The Hand are involved with the Rats now. We’re supposed to be patched over, though not sure whether that’ll happen now.” I stole a look at Jazz, and Gina followed, understanding. “We were all riding fast, but we had the fuckers pinned in.”
Jazz tensed beside me, bringing the glass of amber liquid to her mouth again and taking a huge gulp. She was concentrating on the burn to stop her kicking off. I could see it.
“It was tight. Really tight. We were on the A66. It was busy. Someone darted out just as the truck was coming. The engine bars hit Mike and he wobbled. He had nowhere to go. It wasn’t an accident.
The fucker waited until he was right alongside him and then smashed into the side of Mikey. The Kings killed him.”
Around me the room went cold, bodies stiffening. And no one spoke. Not for a while.
“And that’s why you took me?” Jazz asked, with the tiniest of wavers in her voice.
“You were a King. You were with them.”
“I was on a fucking Hayabusa.”
“Oh, she rides too? Now I get it.”
Both of us stared at Gina. A warning to shut the fuck up right now.
“We thought nothing of it. Thought the Kings had a change of heart over their bike policy. We’d heard they were trying to recruit as many as they could.”
“Heard?”
“Yeah. We’ve got our sources. I didn’t take you, Jazz. That wasn’t me. The front riders just followed you. It was Skinny and Shade who ran you off the road. You were easy pickings on your own. No one knew you were a woman. I didn’t know you were a woman. Not until they dragged you out that van.”
The room went quiet. No one spoke. The only movement was Gina sitting back down on her velvet throne.
“To Mikey.” She said in a low voice, holding her glass up towards the centre of the room.
“Mikey,” I repeated, my eyes sinking into the vodka and melting ice in my hand.