Chapter 11
“Have you packed the whole damn flat?”
Reeze’s voice made Charlie stop halfway down the stairs, bag in hand. By the time she stepped out into the yard, he was crouched beside the bike, trying to fasten one of the saddlebags. It already looked full to bursting, but he was still attempting to force another uncooperative bag inside.
Charlie couldn’t help smiling.
“It’s only clothes for a few days.”
“A few days?” he repeated, casting a sceptical glance at the bag in her hand. “Babe, that looks more like you’re fucking moving in.”
She rolled her eyes as he finally managed to secure the strap with a firm tug. Normally she might have pointed out that he was the one who had told her to bring everything she might need, but she couldn’t be bothered now. Not after everything that had happened that day.
The yard around them was almost still. A few children were cycling between the buildings farther away and somewhere nearby a lawnmower droned steadily. The sun had begun to sink towards the rooftops and everything looked exactly as ordinary as it always did.
That was almost the most absurd part.
The world simply carried on as usual while her own day had been turned completely upside down.
Reeze had already turned before she could say anything else, his gaze going straight towards the car park. Charlie followed it automatically and felt her stomach tighten all over again.
Josh was still there.
He wasn’t trying to hide and he certainly wasn’t making any effort to be discreet. He was leaning against the bonnet of the same grey Volvo, looking almost like a man waiting for a friend. His phone rested in one hand, and when his eyes met Reeze’s, he calmly lifted it and took another photograph.
Not quickly.
Not secretly.
Slowly and deliberately, making damn sure they both saw exactly what he was doing.
Beside Charlie, Reeze went completely still.
There was almost nothing in his expression, but she had already begun to know him well enough to recognise the smaller signs.
The tightening of his jaw when he was irritated, the way his shoulders locked when something got under his skin.
Right now he looked like a man having a serious argument with himself about whether walking across the car park and dealing with Josh personally was worth whatever consequences would follow.
After a few seconds, he looked away instead and held the helmet out to her.
“Here.”
Charlie took it in both hands and was surprised by its weight.
“I’ve never been on a bike.”
“I know.”
This time he looked at her properly, and some of the tension left his face. Not all of it, but enough for her to recognise the man she was beginning to know beneath everything else.
“It’s not difficult. You sit behind me and hold on.”
“That doesn’t sound very advanced.”
“Good sign.”
She snorted.
“For you, maybe.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“You’ll be fine.”
The strange thing was that she believed him. She was still nervous and had never even sat on a motorcycle before, but when Reeze said she would be fine, she trusted him.
He waited until she had put the helmet on before swinging a leg over the bike. When Charlie tried to climb on behind him, however, she felt about as graceful as a newborn moose and Reeze laughed out loud.
“I’m not judging you.”
“Good.”
“I’m just enjoying this a little.”
“Reeze.”
“Yes, babe?”
“Shut up.”
He laughed again, caught her wrist and guided her arm around his waist.
“There. Hold on.”
Charlie did as she was told and leaned carefully against his back. Immediately, the whole thing felt slightly less uncertain and considerably less frightening.
“And Charlie?”
“Mm?”
The engine came alive beneath them before he continued, its deep vibration travelling through the bike and straight up through her body.
“Don’t look at him.”
She didn’t have to ask who he meant.
Instead, she pressed her cheek against Reeze’s back, tightened her arms around his waist and didn’t look behind them when they rolled out of the yard a few seconds later.
At first he rode slowly, almost more carefully than she had expected, but once they reached the main road he increased the speed and the buildings began slipping past them.
The wind caught Charlie immediately and she instinctively tightened her grip around him.
She felt rather than heard his quiet laugh in front of her, not mocking this time but almost pleased, as though he had known exactly what she would do.
Somewhere between the yard, the traffic and the heavy thrum of the engine, Charlie realised she had stopped thinking about Josh.
For the first time since she had seen him outside, fear wasn’t sitting at the front of her mind. There was only the wind, the road and the man in front of her, a man she trusted far more than she probably had any sensible reason to.
The contrast hit her the moment they arrived at the club.
The high fence and heavy gates opened onto a large yard filled with bikes, metal, noise and people. Reeze rode straight through as though it were the most natural place in the world, while Charlie felt as though she had suddenly crossed into an entirely different reality.
The air smelled of oil, petrol, smoke and something metallic she couldn’t quite identify.
Music pounded from somewhere inside the clubhouse, mingling with voices and laughter.
Men in cuts moved around the grounds, tattoos disappearing beneath sleeves and leather, while the women among them seemed every bit as comfortable there.
No one appeared particularly concerned about who saw what, and once Charlie followed Reeze inside, that became even more obvious.
Two people were practically on top of each other on one of the sofas at the far end of the room, apparently oblivious to everyone around them.
At the bar, a woman in a fishnet top and tiny denim shorts laughed loudly at something one of the men had said before smacking him across the arm with a napkin.
Everywhere Charlie looked, people moved between tables, the bar and the different rooms with the easy familiarity of people who had been doing it for years.
Which, she supposed, many of them probably had.
She stood still for a moment, trying to take everything in at once. The music from farther inside, the smell of beer and food, the stale cigarette smoke that seemed to have settled permanently into the walls, the men in cuts and the women who apparently knew everyone.
It felt less like walking into a pub than stepping straight into somebody else’s living room.
Charlie glanced down at herself. Her jeans and pale jumper had felt perfectly normal back at the flat, but in here they suddenly made her feel like a teacher who had accidentally wandered into the wrong party.
Or worse, like someone who very obviously didn’t belong.
Almost without thinking, she moved closer to Reeze.
He noticed immediately, his hand closing around hers without him even having to look at her.
“Stay close, babe.”
Charlie nodded.
She had absolutely no intention of doing anything else.
People watched them as they crossed the room.
The looks weren’t hostile, not even particularly unpleasant, mostly curious, but somehow that almost made it worse.
Several of them clearly knew exactly who she was.
Reeze had talked about her; she could tell from the glances and small smiles, while she herself hadn’t the faintest idea who any of them were.
Who was an officer, who was a prospect and who simply happened to be there.
Everything seemed to operate according to rules everyone else already understood, while Charlie didn’t even know where she was supposed to stand.
Reeze, on the other hand, moved through the clubhouse as though it were an extension of himself. People shifted automatically when he approached, some nodded to him and someone shouted something from the bar that made him answer without breaking stride.
But he never once let go of her hand.
Strangely enough, that was what finally began to settle the worst of her nerves. She didn’t understand this world, at least not yet, but Reeze did.
For now, that was enough.
They passed the bar and continued down a narrower corridor where the noise from the main room became muffled behind them. When Reeze opened the door to his room, Charlie stopped in the doorway and looked around.
It was smaller than she had expected.
Much smaller, actually.
A bed, a table and chair, a few photographs and books, some clothes and not much else. It was simple and surprisingly bare, and for some reason that made a greater impression on her than everything she had just seen outside.
“This is where I sleep when Molly isn’t with me,” Reeze said, rubbing the back of his neck with an almost embarrassed expression. “Not exactly a fucking palace.”
Charlie let her gaze travel around the room again.
It was the first time she had seen anything truly private about him. Not Master at Arms, not the biker she had watched in the yard or the man who seemed capable of making an entire room shift around him simply by walking through it.
Just Reeze.
And the few things he had chosen to keep around him.
“It feels very you.”
He gave her an amused look, but Charlie had already noticed the cut hanging over the back of the chair. She had seen him wearing it countless times without ever really studying it, but now her gaze travelled over the patches.
Wallhalla MC.
His name.
And the smaller patch that had apparently been interesting enough to make Josh pull out his phone.
“Master at Arms,” she read, pointing towards it. “What does that actually mean?”
Reeze looked up from the bag he was putting away.
“Mm?”
“Master at Arms. What do you actually do?”
A crooked smile appeared.
“I shout at people when they do stupid shit.”
Charlie laughed.
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Close enough.”
“Reeze.”
He sighed theatrically and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“It means I’m responsible for security, making sure people follow the rules and making sure nobody fucks around where they shouldn’t.”
Charlie raised an eyebrow.
“And if they do?”
“Then I tend to get in a very bad mood.”
“That I believe.”
He had barely managed to raise an eyebrow before the door behind her flew open.
“There she is!”
Charlie barely had time to turn before a huge arm wrapped around her and lifted her almost clear off the floor.
The man was tall and broad-shouldered, with red hair, an enormous beard and a laugh that seemed capable of filling half the clubhouse as he hugged her like they had known each other for years.
“You must be Charlie! Fuck, it’s good to finally meet you.”
Charlie blinked.
“Er...”
“Billy,” Reeze said dryly behind her. “Put her down before you fucking crush her.”
Billy released her immediately, although the enormous grin remained firmly in place.
“Sorry. Sorry. I forget sometimes that not everyone’s built like us.”
He held out his hand and Charlie took it, still slightly dazed.
“Billy. VP and Reeze’s best mate, in case that wasn’t already painfully obvious.”
“Charlie.”
“Yeah, I gathered that.” Billy looked her over with obvious approval before nodding. “And just so you know, everything he’s said about you is true.”
Reeze gave him a warning look.
Billy only laughed.
“Relax, brother. She’s here now.”
Charlie looked from one man to the other and felt something inside her slowly settle into place.
She still didn’t really know what she had got herself into. She barely understood the rules of the world she had just stepped into, and she had no idea what would happen when Dennis made his next move.
But she was beginning to understand one thing.
She wasn’t alone in this any more.