Chapter Seventeen
(Chloe)
What an asshole.
The first question I asked myself was, why isn’t this man in jail? The second question was, how do I avoid getting on the wrong side him?
My kidnapper grinned insanely back at his brothers that were coming through the main door to the clubhouse. When I tried to pass, he shadowed my movement and our bodies collided. Two hands landed on the small of my back and his lips crushed into my neck, kissing and sucking on my skin. His friends jeered and whooped encouragingly. When he pulled back to kiss my lips, he seemed shocked that the expression on my face implied that I hated what he’d been doing. Like he was god’s gift, right before kissing me on the mouth, he gave me a broad grin. “You’re going to enjoy this.”
Should I pull away? If kiss him back, will he leave me alone? I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing and hoped it would stop soon.
After a long-torturing minute, a girl called from behind the bar, “Your dinner’s just arrived.”
I remembered from the night before that the bar had been just around the corner from the staircase.
The man pulled away from my lips and with another wide grin and called to the girl, “Jenny, show this lovely lady the bar.”
The man stepped backward as Jenny swept around the corner and put her arm through mine, abruptly. The man walked to the front of the bar, pulled off his jacket and tossed it on the countertop, while I was dragged behind it. He picked up his plate and walked off toward a table at the center of the main-room. I squinted my eyes at the text on the back of his jacket from the other end of the counter. The lower rocker had his street name: Jumper. Holy Shit. I knew exactly who this man was. I’d been kidnapped by the President of the Blood and Bones MC!
The man the Bloods’ called Jumper had always intrigued and frightened me. I’d heard that when my father had died, it left a hole in the Bloods club that needed to be filled. Jumper took his place. If my father hadn’t died that night, he would’ve been in line to take over as club president. I didn’t know much about Jumper, but according to my mother, he became president after having left the club for several years in the Special Forces. I had a very uncomfortable feeling that the military had fucked him up real bad. Based on what I’d seen of the man when he took me from Jax’s apartment, and the short, deft movement he’d used to knock Lucy to the ground, gave me a horrible sense that Jumper was less man and more a machine-like weapon.
Jenny turned her head to me. “Don’t worry about Jumper. He’s just a little cranky,” she said, clearly in denial. Jenny started to pull pints and load the glasses onto round black trays. I assumed to be carried over to the five bikers that were now in the room.
I replied in a whisper, “He’s a cold hearted bully more like.”
Jenny hesitated, and then added cooly, “Jumper is a smart guy; he looks out for us. And you should see his Harley.” The girl’s eyes lit up at the thought of his bike.
I couldn’t tell whether she was simply crazy for staying in this place and sleeping with men like this. Or, whether she had some castle in the air idea about what being a being a club girl would be ‒ only to find out she was wrong too late when she had nowhere else to go. Whatever her motivation was, one thing was obvious ‒ she was already sucked in too deep to be saved.
I stared at Jenny, who stood beside me, lifting full pint glasses onto a tray. She had beautifully manicured hands and red nails. I eyed her body up and down. She was an attractive twenty-something who looked just a few years older than me. But Jenny wasn’t a hostage being held captive…she was here by choice. And for some bizarre reason, she seemed quite happy. I’d read about girls like Jenny and Lucy. Obsessed with bikers and their bikes so much that they made themselves biker groupies just to get close to them. It always scared me that deep down that a part of me shared this quiet obsession.
Jenny was cloyingly perfumed as though she was begging to be used by these men. It was the kind of excessive perfume so intense it was nauseating to be around. She wore a tight, silver dress like Lucy and I had on. I supposed that it was a uniform of sorts for club whores. With Lucy upstairs, Jenny and I were the only girls in the room. Eight men were now present. And every last one of them were noticing me. I fidgeted behind the bar while Jenny took drinks over to the bikers, darting through the room, placing glasses down and picking them up like a female worker ant.
When she returned I asked, in a confidential whisper, “You wouldn’t have a phone I could borrow, would you?”
She giggled and slapped me on the shoulder, “No silly, Jumper doesn’t allow us to have our phones in here. It’s one of his rules. Club business is top secret stuff, you know?” She gave me a wink before going back to her work.
I still couldn’t tell what was up with this girl. Is she just plain stupid? Is she drugged up or drunk?
I took in the rest of the scene… another biker in a leather jacket was just entering the clubhouse, while eight others sat clustered around a few tables. Combat boots thundered up and down the wooden stairs to my right. Two TV’s were on, one playing a newscast, the other a football game. It was the end of the workday and the Blood’s clubhouse was crowded with bikers and a thickening cloud of cigarette smoke. They appeared to be celebrating, and I could only hope that Jax was still alive.
Jumper sat at the table furthest away, but his body and his eyes faced me directly.
What’s this guy’s deal? If he had Jax and two women here already, then why did he need me?
Jumper looked to be in his mid-thirties, with cold, dark eyes. He was surprisingly smart and well dressed for a biker, but he was definitely not handsome. He almost looked like an older, and taller, Antonio but how the hell could that be possible? Knife and fork in hand, he leaned over a white dinner plate with a steaming steak. I watched as he impaled the steak on his fork and picked up the whole thing to scrape the vegetables off his plate into a bin he’d pulled beside his chair. Jumper stared at me as he ate for the fifteen minutes it took him to consume his steak. He was like a predator stalking his prey. His body still, eyes fixed, motionless except for the simple, repetitive movement of his mouth chewing on his rare steak, as he prepared to pounce.
When Jumper finished eating, he sat back in his chair and beckoned me over.
“That means you,” Jenny said.
“You’re kidding, right? We have to wait on them like maids?” I asked.
“Just take his plate. That’s all you have to do,” she replied.
I walked toward the table where he sat. The three other bikers around Jumper’s table watched my legs as I walked across the room, eyeing my body like a piece of meat. At the table, Jumper pushed his dirty plate to the side and I picked it up. As I did so, I saw something I hadn’t noticed the night he kidnapped me. He was missing his little finger on his right hand.
“Grab me a scotch, will ya?” a gruff male voice said from the neighboring table, startling me.
I nodded, shakily.
As I walked toward the bar with Jumper’s plate in hand, another man called, “Come back! Hey, come sit on my lap.”
I kept walking away as though I hadn’t heard him and hoped he wouldn’t follow me.
I reached the relative safety of the other side of the bar and put the dirty plate in the sink by the wall at one end. Seconds later, industrial beats poured out of the speakers bolted to the ceilings.
An older looking man in his fifties, with a beer belly and creases on his face staggered over to me. “Come on, do a dance,” he said, swaying his hips from side to side and making wide, uncoordinated gestures with his arms.
I turned around and started scrubbing at the plate with a sponge,
The man gave up and went back to his table.
I need get out of here – now.
I looked up at Jumper who had his eyes fixed on the final minutes of the football game on the television. I swiftly turned and dashed for the toilet adjacent to the bar, underneath the stairs.
Inside the bathroom, I sized up the window; it was the only one in this place that wasn’t barred up and looked just large enough to fit my body through. The only problem…it was jammed open about five inches where a toilet roll was compressed into the gap. I tried to pry the thing open but with the years of paint on the sliding hinges, it wouldn’t budge. I fiddled with the stay which had two rusty old screws loosely fitted into the rotting frame. It wiggled loose, and I was able to pry it off. I levered it between the sliding hinges and the edge of the frame, then to my surprise, it started to give slowly, a quarter of an inch at a time.
A loud bashing came at the door.
“Chloe, don’t hide from me, baby!” It was Jumper, and he sounded like he’d been drinking.
I tugged at the window for another thirty seconds, but it was as though the hinges were rusty and busted. The window wouldn’t budge.
“Chloe, don’t make me put a bullet through this door like I had to before. I’m not a man you want to upset.”
I wouldn’t be able to get the window open in time, if at all. I drew in long, deep breath and opened the door.
With sudden violence, Jumper pulled my body from the room and into the hall, away from the prying eyes of the men in the main room. He thrust me up against the wall.
My mouth was open in silent protest.
He whipped his gun out and pressed the barrel of it sideways over my lips.
“You’re psychotic,” I whispered as I squirmed in his grasp.
Jumper glared. “I can make you wish you’d never met me, sweetheart.” He sneered, as his gaze went from my face to my chest.
My mouth had gone dry with fear and I cleared my throat. “I already do,” I said, fending off Jumper’s hands as he started to unbutton my dress. I couldn’t help but shake with the effort not to cry.
Jumper took a moment and brushed the hair from my face. “Shhh. Shhh,” he whispered, stroking my hair with his messed up hand. “Let me explain something to you. I’m in charge here. And since you’re mine now, you’ll abide by my rules.” He paused as I fidgeted in his grasp.
Jumper held me tighter. At that point, I couldn’t move. “Baby, if you’re not going to be of any use to me, then I’ll have to kill you.” His crotch pressed up against me.
I couldn’t tell whether he had a hard on for me or was turned on at the thought of murdering me. “I’d rather die,” I responded.
He tilted his head and pulled a face of pseudo-sympathy. “Oh. I see. You love him, don’t you?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Jaxson Coltrane,” he replied with disdain.
I said nothing in response.
“You’ll do as you’re fucking told. Jax is gone, just accept it,” Jumper said aggressively.
“Let go you fucking creep!” I exclaimed, still fighting his hold.
He smiled wildly. “Pity, I thought I would get to enjoy you before I killed you.” He paused for a beat. “And when I find your man, I’m going to kill him too.” As he cocked his gun, true hatred flashed in Jumper’s eyes.
I braced myself and realizing that Jumper’s face would be the last thing I ever saw, I squeezed my eyelids shut.
“End of the line, sweetheart.”
Suddenly, there were gunshots hitting the wooden walls.