Chapter 18
The black van was already parked beside the garage when Reeze and Billy stepped out into the yard.
It was anonymous as hell, without markings or anything else that might draw attention, and Reeze didn’t particularly like it.
He preferred the bike, the sound of the engine and the feeling of having the road around him, but this wasn’t a job for chrome, club cuts and roaring engines.
Billy pulled open the side door to check the space one last time before slamming it shut and climbing into the passenger seat.
“Never a good sign when we take the van,” he remarked as he fastened his seatbelt.
“No.” Reeze turned the key and the engine came to life with a sound considerably less satisfying than his Harley. “But it’s easier.”
They left the club grounds and headed down towards the harbour.
Clouds hung low over the town and the air was raw, the sort of damp weather that carried the smell of diesel and salt long before the water itself came into view.
Reeze didn’t mind the silence that settled between them, but Billy had never been particularly good at leaving silence alone for long.
“So,” he began after a few minutes. “Charlie.”
Reeze kept his eyes on the road.
“What about her?”
“You mean apart from the fact that you look like a teenager who’s just discovered pussy for the first time?”
“Fuck off.”
“Not a chance.” Billy shifted in his seat so he could look at him properly. “You’ve been drooling over that woman for months. Then I turn my back for one fucking day and suddenly she’s sleeping in your room and the entire club knows exactly who she belongs with.”
Reeze rubbed a hand over his beard and held back a sigh.
“It wasn’t planned.”
“It never is.”
Billy was still grinning, but when he continued, the humour had disappeared from his voice.
“Is she all right?”
Reeze thought about it before answering. The easiest thing would have been to say yes and leave it there, but that wouldn’t have been entirely true.
“Not untouched by it. But she’s strong.”
Billy nodded and turned his attention back to the road.
“And Molly likes her.”
Something in Reeze softened at that.
“Yeah. That means a lot.”
“It should. You don’t let just anyone near that kid.”
No, he certainly didn’t. Molly was the one part of his life where there had never been any room for chance, and the fact that she had taken to Charlie so naturally had affected him more than he particularly wanted to admit.
They drove on for a while as the harbour cranes began to rise ahead of them, dark shapes against the grey sky.
“So you’re thinking long-term?” Billy eventually asked.
Reeze snorted.
“I’m not fucking thinking at all. That’s the problem.”
Billy laughed quietly.
“That sounds more like you than you realise.”
Reeze gave him an irritated sideways glance but didn’t answer.
He turned off the main road and continued into an industrial estate where warehouses stood packed closely together, most of them looking as though they had passed their best-before date sometime during the previous century.
The building they were heading for was no exception.
It looked as though it had been abandoned since the eighties, with filthy walls, rusting gates and weeds forcing their way up through cracks in the asphalt.
A man stood waiting for them with his hands in his pockets and a cap pulled low over his forehead.
Billy stared at the building through the windscreen.
“There’s our department store.”
“And that’s why we brought the van.”
They got out without handshakes or any other unnecessary pleasantries. The man merely gave them a brief nod before checking his watch.
“You’re late.”
“You’re vague,” Reeze replied calmly.
The man gave a crooked smile but didn’t argue. Instead, he walked over and opened the gate.
Inside, boxes stood stacked in neat rows. None of them were labelled and, to anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for, there was nothing to reveal what they contained. Reeze only needed to open the first one to make sure they had received what they had ordered.
“Two semi-automatics, four pistols and ammunition.”
“It’s all there. Same as always.”
Billy bent down and lifted one of the boxes.
“Department store, my arse.”
“Shut up and carry.”
They worked quickly and without more conversation than necessary. The boxes went into the back of the van and were secured before Reeze paid the man, and then they left the industrial estate the same way they had entered it.
It should have been a routine errand, one of dozens he had done over the years without giving it a second thought, but this time part of him was already back at the clubhouse with Charlie. He wanted the job finished, wanted to get back and make sure everything was still quiet.
He discovered that it wasn’t before the gates had even closed behind the van.
Reeze saw the man the moment they drove into the yard.
Dennis stood a few metres beyond the fence with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets and his gaze fixed on the club grounds.
He didn’t look like someone waiting for a friend or somebody who had simply happened to stop there while passing.
He stood with the easy confidence of a man who believed he had every right in the world to watch the clubhouse, the motorcycles and the people moving between the buildings.
When the van came through the gates, his attention shifted towards it and a faint smile immediately touched the corner of his mouth.
Something twisted in Reeze’s stomach.
Suddenly, he understood exactly what Charlie had been trying to describe.
It wasn’t the way Dennis looked or the way he sounded. The man was so ordinary that Reeze probably wouldn’t even have noticed him if they had crossed paths somewhere else.
It was the sense of entitlement.
The absolute conviction that he had the right to turn up where he wasn’t wanted, stand there watching and make sure everyone around him knew that he was watching.
“That him?” Billy asked.
Reeze didn’t answer. He switched off the engine and remained behind the wheel for a few seconds, one hand resting on it while Dennis continued watching them through the fence. When their eyes met, Reeze had the distinct feeling that the man already knew exactly who he was.
Perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised him. Charlie had told him about the photographs, about the police outside the house and about the way Dennis always seemed to know more than he should.
Reeze opened the door and climbed out.
Billy said something behind him, probably a warning not to do anything stupid, but Reeze barely registered the words. He crossed the gravel towards the fence while Dennis followed him with his eyes.
So this was the man who made Charlie check locks, flinch whenever her phone rang from an unknown number and sit curled up on a bed with fear in her eyes.
And he looked completely ordinary.
Maybe that was what made him more dangerous.
Dennis remained where he was as Reeze stopped on the opposite side of the fence. His gaze travelled openly over the cut, the patches and the tattoos disappearing beneath Reeze’s sleeves before returning to his face.
Reeze said nothing. He simply let him look while life carried on around them. A lorry thundered past on the road, somebody slammed a door and the familiar sounds of work starting for the day drifted out from the workshop.
Eventually, Dennis’s smile widened slightly.
“You don’t look the way I expected.”
Reeze raised an eyebrow.
“No?”
“No. Bigger.” Dennis studied him again. “Older too.”
Behind Reeze came a sound suspiciously close to laughter.
“Fucking brave first impression,” Billy remarked.
Dennis gave him only the briefest glance before returning his attention to Reeze.
That said plenty by itself.
He wasn’t there because of the club. Not really.
“What do you want?” Reeze asked.
Dennis gave a slight shrug.
“To see who she left me for.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Reeze rested lightly against the fence.
“Now you’ve seen.”
“Mm.” Dennis nodded slowly. “Now I have.”
They stood there in silence for a moment, studying each other. There was something testing in it, as though each man were trying to work out how far the other was prepared to go.
“She’s probably told you I’m a monster,” Dennis eventually said.
His voice was calm, almost friendly, and that was precisely what made the hairs rise on the back of Reeze’s neck.
“She didn’t need to tell me much.”
For the first time, something shifted in Dennis’s expression. Only a slight tightening around the eyes, a flash of irritation that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared.
“No,” he said, glancing towards the clubhouse. “That’s usually how it goes.”
Reeze let him continue. He was beginning to understand that Dennis was waiting for reactions, and that silence bothered him far more than an argument would.
After a few seconds, Dennis leaned slightly closer to the fence.
“You know what the worst part is? You think this is about you.”
Reeze still said nothing.
“It isn’t.”
Now he understood something else Charlie had been trying to explain. Dennis didn’t need to shout or make obvious threats. He simply pushed his way into people’s lives, moved the boundaries a little at a time and behaved throughout as though he had every right to do it.
“No,” Reeze finally said. “It’s about her.”
Dennis’s expression almost brightened with satisfaction.
“Exactly.”
He let his gaze wander across the yard behind Reeze, where a couple of the men had begun paying attention to what was happening at the gate.
“You’re very protective.”
“You could try leaving her the fuck alone. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Dennis looked back at him. “You all think this is about me not being able to let go.”
Reeze gave him nothing. The longer the conversation continued, the clearer the pattern became. Dennis wanted to control both the conversation and the people in it, and every time Reeze refused to play along, Dennis was forced to fill the silence himself.
“Charlie has always been good at telling stories,” he continued. “She’s always been good at making people want to save her.”
Billy shifted behind Reeze.
“That’s enough.”
Dennis looked at him.
“Is it?”
“I’ve heard you. I’ve also heard what you’re saying.”
There was no humour left in Billy’s voice now.
Dennis watched him for a moment before turning back to Reeze.
“Does she know you’re here?” Reeze asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
Dennis nodded almost pleasantly.
“She’d only get upset.”
Something about that sentence sent the anger inside Reeze somewhere darker.
Dennis said it as though he still knew Charlie better than anyone, as though he had the right to decide what she could cope with and what was good for her.
The restraining order, the years that had passed and all her attempts to get away from him seemed to mean nothing.
In his head, she still belonged to him.
“You’re going to listen to me now.”
Reeze didn’t raise his voice, but Billy went still behind him. He knew that tone.
“You stand outside my club watching a woman who’s done everything she can to get away from you. You send her messages in the middle of the night, turn up wherever she is and send other people to take pictures of her.”
He stepped closer to the fence.
“So don’t misunderstand me. I don’t give a fuck what you choose to call it. If you keep doing this, we’re going to have a problem.”
Dennis’s smile faded slightly.
He held Reeze’s gaze for a moment before slowly nodding and then, to Reeze’s annoyance, smiling again.
“That’s what’s interesting.”
“What?”
“You all think you’ve only just met me.”
He pushed his hands deeper into his jacket pockets.
“I’ve known who you are for quite some time, Reeze.”
This time Reeze was the one who fell silent.
There was the real warning.
Dennis hadn’t merely been keeping track of Charlie. Somewhere along the way, he had started mapping the people around her as well, and judging by the way he said Reeze’s name, it had been going on for longer than either of them had realised.
Billy glanced at him, and Reeze knew exactly what he saw. The same thing Rollo had seen earlier.
A man far too close to his limit.
Dennis let his gaze travel over the grounds once more, over the motorcycles, the workshop and the men who were no longer pretending they weren’t watching the exchange.
Reeze’s patience ran out.
Not his control.
He intended to keep that.
“That’s enough. You’ve seen whatever the fuck you came here to see, so now you turn around, go back to your fucking car or wherever the hell you crawled out from, and stay away from my club.”
Dennis’s smile weakened.
Reeze stepped closer to the fence.
“You don’t send her any more messages. You don’t stand outside her home and you don’t send people to take pictures of her. You stay away from Charlie, her family and everyone in her life.”
Dennis’s gaze flicked briefly towards the men in the yard before returning to Reeze.
“Is that a threat?”
The question came softly, almost curiously, and Reeze understood exactly what he was trying to do. Dennis wanted the words. Something he could use, especially considering he was a police officer himself.
Reeze wasn’t going to give him that.
“No. It’s a request.”
They stared at each other through the fence.
Eventually Dennis nodded, not as though he accepted anything, but as though he were filing the moment away for later.
“We’ll see.”
Reeze came dangerously close to reaching through the fence.
The impulse was so strong he could already imagine closing his hand around the bastard’s throat, but just as quickly he understood exactly what would happen if he did.
Dennis would get precisely what he had come for.
An assault. Witnesses. A Wallhalla MC member attacking a police officer who had been standing on public ground outside the club’s property.
No. Reeze stayed where he was. He watched Dennis turn and begin walking away, forcing his hands to remain loose at his sides.
For the first time since Charlie had told him about Dennis, Reeze truly understood what they were dealing with.
Dennis wasn’t dangerous because he lost control.
He was dangerous because he almost never did.
And the bastard had just tried to make Reeze lose his.