by Tia Wilson
“Feeling any better?” he asked handing her cup of steaming coffee. She drew the covers up around her naked body and breathed in the rich aroma from the mug.
“I’m still a little rough around the edges,” she said reaching out and taking his hand. It was instinctual and primal, she needed to feel his touch. It all happened before reason could enter the room and tell her to be careful. Their fingers knotted together as she stroked the back of his hand. If it was possible to freeze that simple act of connection, the feel of his rough skin against hers, Linda would have tried. It felt like all his layers were visible to her as he held her hand. He was a strong forceful presence who exuded the authority of a true alpha male, it wasn’t some kind of macho posturing or empty swagger that he possessed. He had an old school charm and like a rough hewn diamond contained sharp edges. Linda felt sexy and beautiful under his gaze, her skin tingled as images from the night before flitted through her mind. She could feel herself begun to blush.
“I have to return to the ranch. Some serious shit has gone down in my absence. I’m going to be gone for a couple of days. I’ve left you some money and a phone. You can stay holed up here and relax and take a well earned rest,” he paused for a second and went on, “you can come and go as you please. If I were you I’d keep a low profile in case the cops are after you. Will you be here when I get back?”
Linda didn’t hesitate for a second, “Yes I will.”
Blackjack got up to go and said, “I can’t hang about. I’ll be gone seven days tops. I left everything for you in the kitchen.” He stood up and looked like he was going to say something more but changed his mind at the last second. He kissed her tenderly on the nape of her neck and was then gone.
Linda lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She immediately felt a tug in her heart at his absence. The void that was left behind by him was almost tangible. Everything felt desaturated and muted as if a giant straw had sucked the colors out of her world. She had felt alive and charged when she was beside him and now that he was gone she felt deflated. The weight of his absence and the growing realization that she was out of the loop for now, pressed down on her. Fuck. She now had a week to kill in this place with no way of finding out what was going on with the gang. There was nothing much she could do. She got up and got ready to head out into the world. This week of freedom would give her the chance to call her Chief and give him a progress report. Sometimes undercover cops could go months without getting a chance to make contact with the mothership so she would use her free time to her advantage. Once this week was over it could be a long time before she got this kind of opportunity again as she got pulled in deeper to the murky world of the gang.
After showering and dressing she felt a little bit more alive. Her body ached and was tender all over but thankfully the swelling had started to subside on her bruised face. As promised Blackjack had left her some money. On the kitchen counter he had left an old and battered metal box of the kind used in bank vaults. Linda flipped the lid open and inside was a fat stack of hundred dollar bills, a piece of paper with the code for the gate, a burner phone and a snub nosed revolver. Linda slipped the revolver into her belt buckle, the cold deadly steel against her skin making her feel slightly better. She pocketed a bunch of bills and headed out to find a pay phone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The underground car park was accessed at street level through a padlocked door between a bakery and an electronics store. Once inside the first door a short corridor lead to a heavy steel door that was locked. Blackjack unlocked it from a key topped with a black plastic strip. The bunch of keys he held were all color coded, three black keys, three red and three orange. The door swung soundlessly behind him on a pneumatic piston. The air cooled noticeably as the corridor sloped into an open room. Blackjack flicked on the light as he entered illuminating the large space. The car park extended under three of the stores above and had been a completely off the books purchase many years ago. No one in the gang knew he had it. This place was his insurance for that moment when things collapsed around him. He hoped that moment would never come.
In the far corner of the stark concrete room three motorbikes lay covered with a heavy tarpaulin. A thick layer of dust had settled over the tarp. Blackjack walked around the tarp looking for any signs of disturbance since the last time he was here several months ago. Finally happy that nothing was amiss he pulled the cloth back on the first bike. The bike was a classic of seventies American design and built for speed. He ran his hand delicately over the curving metal of the gas tank, the cold chrome reassuring and calming him. He felt like he could actually stop and breath for a moment the tight band of tension on his chest loosened for a brief second and the acrid loop of revenge fantasy stopped playing in his head.
He felt shame at how easily he had been taken down. Taken down by a mere cripple, a broken and weak man. Everything that he had built over the years felt like it was being ripped to shreds before him. The threads of his way of life, unraveling and unspooling at his feet. For the first time he could remember he felt powerless and it was not something he liked to experience. Amidst the dual attacks on the gang and himself there was one beacon that shone brightly and offered him some hope. Linda Lake. Even at this moment of self doubt he couldn’t get her out of his head, he could smell her on his skin and feel her hands on his body. She was beautiful and strong and fierce and unlike any woman he had meet before. Like him she had been born in the crucible of fire, a person hurt by someone they thought they loved, and like him she was a better person for destroying her tormentor.
When he had left the safe house he had wanted to return immediately to Linda and sweep her up in his arms. His cock throbbed painfully in his tight trousers and his mind was filled with images of her dark limbs wrapped around his shoulders as they made love. He somehow felt lesser when not in her presence like a badly sketched drawing in pencil his edges felt ill defined and fuzzy. When he was around her everything snapped into sharp focus and nothing else mattered to him. Every time she looked at him his heart beat fiercely and thunderously in his chest. It had been so long since he felt anything but lust around a woman. He had closed himself off so as to never feel any real connection with someone, because of this the rush of feelings he was experiencing now was like a bucket of ice water thrown over him, shocking and bracing all at once. For years he had slept with a succession of women that were nothing more than tokens by his side, never anything more than a warm body to screw at the end of the day. He never treated those women badly and most of the time they got more out of the arrangement then him. A lot of them got to live out some sort of fantasy by being by his side. If he was honest with himself they both used each other, no harm no foul. Linda was different, he felt immensely attracted to her and at the same time he could see that she was a force to reckon with. Whatever hell she had gone through with her abusive husband it had somehow not broken her. She had come out the other side hardened and ready to fight for whatever she wanted. He could see that and appreciate it. He had also been forged through pain and hardship and degradation. Blackjack shuddered, he always did when he thought about HIM and his past. It was like black oil seeping into his thoughts and if he allowed memories of the past to seep into his bones and skin coating him in a thick oily residue he felt like he might go a little mad. He pushed it deep down into a dark recess afraid to let any of the oily residue of his past bubble up from below.
Blackjack pressed a portion of the smooth concrete wall in a far corner and a panel slid aside. Hidden behind it was a waist high safe with a digital keypad to unlock it. The door swung open soundlessly exposing the contents. Inside were six neatly stacked metal boxes and on the door of the safe were affixed three handguns. He ran his finger down the front of the boxes. The cold metal under his skin reassuring him in their metallic reliability. These boxes were his guarantee of a new start and a new life if he had to disappear. He had passports and fakes documents for countless identities and enough money stashed away so
that he could live very comfortably south of the border. This was his emergency ripcord and he had come close to pulling it a few times. He took a magnum off its mount and levelled it towards the bikes. The gun felt good in his hand, heavy and powerful. Sometimes in an altercation all he would have to do was draw his magnum and the sight of this massive hand cannon was enough to make anybody think twice about messing with him. It had an old school vibe that he liked. From one of the boxes he grabbed some bullets and a set of keys for his chosen bike. Once the concrete panel slid back into place hiding the safe it was completely invisible. The seam was barely visible and only someone who knew what they were looking for could have found it.
Blackjacks chosen bike was a vintage model from the seventies, built for speed and manoeuvrability and world famous for its stubborn reliability. It was known as a bike that could take a serious beating and still keep on going. It was a mixture of Russian design and ingenuity and an American flair for masculine lines and a throaty roaring engine.
Armed and ready Blackjack gunned the engine and took the smoothly sloping incline out towards the back alley exit. Nobody saw him exit the underground car park and the graffiti covered shutter slid down securely behind him as he roared off down the street.
The first thing that caught Blackjacks eye was the beat up dune buggy parked in front of the ranch. This was the vehicle owned by Doc Vilner, the coked up ex surgeon the gang held on retainer. Vilner had let his little drug habit get the best of him and one two many patients had died under his shaking scalpel. He had avoided a long stint in prison when one of the main witnesses, a younger doctor vying hungrily for his position, suddenly changed his testimony weeks before the trial with a little coercion from Blackjack and friends. The Doc was now permanently indebted to the gang and was their on call field surgeon.
Blackjack hated dealing with the Doc, he was a shifty squat man in his fifties with thickly haired forearms that would look more suitable on a man digging ditches. He always trailed off as he spoke and you could never tell if it was from some pharmacological haze or general disdain for the person he was talking to. For someone whose life was saved by the gang, Doc barely hid his utter disgust at the low life’s he had to mingle with. His drug habit was legendary but he didn’t like to mingle for longer then was needed with the cogs in the drug acquisition game. Blackjack didn’t trust him at all but he was needed. The Doc had patched up and saved the lives of countless gang members all without ever having to leave a paper trail from visiting a regular hospital.
Blackjack strode into the ranch and the circle of men turned to greet him, they crowded around him slapping him hard on the back as obvious relief lit up their faces. He felt good to be back among his gang, these men would fight and die for him without hesitation and Blackjack could feel the dark pressure building knowing he would have to call on them if all out warfare was to break out. He couldn’t let them know what had happened yesterday with the crazed gimp and his fucked up partner. Right know he knew it was time to show his men the solid fearless man of legend, it was time for them to go on the offensive, they had been caught off guard for too long now. This ends tonight he vowed to himself even as he could feel a creeping dread undermine his outward show of confidence. The men crowded around him as he walked into the large living room area that was now a makeshift hospital room. He could feel the men feeding off his outward show of bravado as his heavy boots thumped across the floor, each step seemed to strengthen and embolden his men in this time of crisis. Inside Blackjack sneered at himself, he did not feel like the strong capable leader that these men needed. Grit it out he told himself, no time for self doubt now.
The pool table had been pushed into the corner of the room and in its place was a wooden table with Pops lying on it. Blood had soaked into the wood staining it in several places and blood stained rags were strewn across the floor. Pops face was the color of wet newspaper and his skin had a damp sheen to it. The Doc was bent over his shoulder trying to remove a bullet fragment from deep in his flesh. Beads of sweat ran down the Docs forehead and his eyes were ringed by deep dark circles. Pops’ eyes fluttered open as Blackjack came forward and he reached out. Blackjack took his hand and clenched it hard and let go. Pops tried to speak in a croaky voice, “Red and the others, all dead. I barely made it out before…” his sentence was stopped by a series of wracking coughs. Blackjack looked around at the others for confirmation. They nodded in unison and someone spoke up “It was a massacre. Pops was lucky to make it out alive.”
Blackjack clenched his jaw tight and his face was a solid mask which betrayed none of the emotions exploding inside him. He turned back to Pops and nodded grimly at him as the Doc finally dug the bullet piece out from his shoulder. A wordless agreement passed between the two men. Years of friendship and hard fought battles, close calls and vicious triumphs negated the need for words, both men knew what needed to be done for the sake of the gang and its future.
Blackjack turned to the waiting men and readied himself to speak, the weight of the next few words crushing him before they even left his lips, the certainty that troubled times were ahead pressing down on him. The only glimmer of light at the end of the hell that was about to come was Linda. If he could hold on to how he felt when he was near her, the sweet tightness he felt in his chest every time she looked at him with a smile in her eyes, this was what was going to wrench him free from the darkness threatening to destroy his gang. In the moment before he addressed his men it hit him, it was as if a super nova exploded above his head and his human form was insignificant below its incandescent light. He knew in that moment that he was already in love with Linda and that he would do anything to see her again. This realization emboldened him as he spoke in his deep baritone and said to his waiting men, “Tomorrow we go to war.”
BOOK 2 COMING SOON.
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My stomach lurched as the plane dipped again. Fasten your seatbelt signs popped on and the stewards rushed along the aisles collecting drinks and popping trays back into place. I gripped the armrest and looked out at the swirling snow whipping past the window. Every time the plane dipped or lurched people let out gasps and moans.
The plane ride smoothed out and the people around me sighed. The woman sitting beside me had model good looks and the icy blues eyes that I had seen several Icelandic people with since I first landed in Reykjavik. She nudged me and said, “This part of the flight is always a little bumpy. Once we get across the mountains it should smooth out.”
I was thankful for her small gesture and if I was being honest with myself I was feeling alone and disconnected ever since I landed in Iceland yesterday. I was heading north to the the second largest city in Iceland called Akureyri. Once the plane landed it was a short drive to my hotel and the thought of collapsing onto a soft eider down duvet was appealing. In the morning I would be going to the university to demo a piece of software I had helped design. After that I had a few days off and then it was back to Reykjavik for a couple of hectic days of meetings and demos. I was looking forward to burying myself in the work, I was glad for a chance to distract myself from the heartache of a recent breakup.
“I’m not a great flyer. This is the smallest plane I’ve flown in and I think its making me even more nervous,” I replied. What is it about being trapped in a metal tube with a bunch of strangers that will sometimes make us open up to each other. If only it was more like that in everyday life I thought.
“Don't worry. Icelandic pilots are excellent. They have to fly in worse conditions than this,” she said smiling. “What brings you to Iceland?”
“I’m here to demo a piece of eduction software to a couple of universities around the country. I helped design it and have been invited to Akureyri university to demo it,” I said and waited for the usual reaction.
�
�Very impressive,” the woman said. I had seen the range of reactions in women swing from praise for my accomplishments to suspicion that I might of slept my way into the role. Men can be cruel about my line of work, but I have found that women outside of the business could be even worse a lot of the time. The woman beside me seemed genuinely impressed. “Are there many women in your field?”
“A few. It increases every year,” I said, glossing over the fact that women were a rare breed in software design and an african american programmer was as rare as a unicorn. “I’m Sasha,” I said and reached out my hand to her.
“I’m Gunna. Nice to meet you.”
“What is it you do?” I ask. Judging by her stunning looks I wouldn't be surprised if she was a model or an actress.
