Burnt Rubber: Adults Only Motorcycle Club Romance: Roadrunners MC (2 page)

It was obvious the deadly struggle was over, and she was in no doubt the man with the slashed throat was now dead. Where he got the strength from to launch the attack on Jake she didn’t know, but it gave her a chance. The sound of the loud, thudding footsteps racing after her provided the impetus to quicken her pace, but there was no way of knowing if she was getting away. Her breath rasped out as she raced towards a junction, and she stumbled slightly as she careered around it to the right. She was on a wider street and knew she was in sight of the men by the sound of their shouts when they came around the corner after her.

The muscles of her legs ached as she continued sprinting as fast as she could, but she wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough. There was still some distance between her and the chasing men, but she was sure they were closing in on her. She decided to duck in one of the smaller alleys she was passing and see if she could lose them in the darkness. It meant she needed to slow her pace to make sure she didn’t trip or collide with anything, and the sound of the men’s shouts was a sign that she wasn’t losing them. A sense of hopeless dread began to overwhelm her, but she kept her legs pumping to try and escape what she knew would be certain death if she was caught.

She sped around a corner to the sight of a woman in a white chef’s outfit disappearing from sight inside the rear of what she assumed to be a restaurant. It was a chance and she sprinted towards the door and caught it just before it closed. Dragging it open, she fled inside and yanked on the handle. She stopped the door just before it slammed shut to close it as quietly as she could then crouched down.

“Hey, what the fuck are you…” the woman started when she turned.

“I’m really sorry,” Marion cut in and blurted out the first thing that came in her mind. “I’m trying to get away from my crazy ex-boyfriend.”

Her choice of words seemed to strike a chord with the woman and they were both silent as they listened to the sound of approaching footsteps getting louder. Marion screwed up her face in anticipation of banging on the door, but it didn’t happen and the sound of footsteps slowly faded away. A few more seconds passed before she even realized she was holding her breath, and she slowly let it out as the relief washed over her.

“Bastard won’t leave you alone, huh?’ the woman said.

“I thought it was over between us,” Marion replied as she went on with the lie. “He doesn’t appear to agree with that.” It seemed the right thing to do and there was no point in dragging anyone else into the mess she’d made for herself.

“Fucking asshole,” the woman spat out. “They’re all the same, aren’t they? I’ve been there before too.”

Marion took deep breaths to recover from the effort of her escape from the men and looked around at her surroundings. From what she could see, she was in a storage basement with shelving racks and cabinets around her. She needed to get away, but couldn’t countenance the thought of going out the door she came in. The danger of the men retracing their steps was at the forefront of her mind and she needed to leave the building a different way.

“Is there another door out of here?” she asked. “I really need to get away from this area as quickly as possible.”

“Yeah, there is,” the woman answered. “Come on and I’ll show you.”

Marion’s knees almost buckled when she straightened up, and she reached out a hand to the wall to steady herself. The rush of adrenaline from fleeing the men was wearing off to be replaced by a real sense of dread that seeped through her bones. She was in way over her head and couldn’t even begin to imagine how much danger she was facing. The woman walked up a set of steps and she got her trembling legs moving to follow. The kitchen at the top showed that she was in a café or restaurant, but there didn’t seem to be much activity and she guessed the place wasn’t busy.

When they get to the front of the kitchen area and walked through a door, she expected to see tables and customers. Instead she found they were in a long corridor. The woman stopped and pointed to the end of it.

“You can get out that door,” she said. “Just turn left when you get outside and you’ll get to the main street.”

“Thanks,” Marion said and started to walk towards the door.

“Good luck getting rid of the asshole,” the woman said after her.

“Thanks again,” she said over her shoulder and kept going.

She sucked in a deep breath when she got the door and forced herself to open it. The scene outside was deserted and she was quick to turn left to make her way to the main street. When she got there, she glanced both ways to see there were a few pedestrians making their way along the sidewalk, and it scared her to be out in the open. There was a hood on the coat she was wearing, so she pulled it up to try and make herself as anonymous as possible when she set off. Her gaze darted around nervously and the urge to break out in a run again was one she couldn’t get out of her mind. She knew it would only bring attention to her if she did it, so she made herself walk at a reasonable pace.

As she continued moving, she eventually found herself getting to a busier area with more people around her. There was a sense of relief to being in a crowd, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she would bump into Jake Fiori and his men. There was no doubt they would be looking for her. She was a witness to a murder, and that meant she was someone they couldn’t let survive. It made her a marked woman, and she let out a groan when she remembered telling them she worked for the
Bay Republic Newspaper
.

“Fucking idiot,” she berated herself, but knew it was the intense terror of the moment that made her blurt out the truth when she was asked who she was working for.

She knew it was information that could be used to track her down, and the panic hit home that she’d dropped herself well and truly in the shit. It made her unsure of what to do, and she just kept striding forward with no real idea of where she was going. The strong aroma of coffee got her attention as she walked past a sandwich shop, and she decided to duck inside to get off the street. She needed somewhere to sit and think, and it seemed as good a place as any to do it. When the hot coffee was served to her, she moved to a table right in the rear corner of the place. It was impossible to stop her hand shaking, so she waited a minute or two before picking up the cup. The alarm registered in her brain when the door opened as she was taking a sip of the hot liquid and she almost spilled it. The moment of panic quickly passed when she saw it was just another customer coming in, and she put the cup down.

She consciously tried to breathe deeply to regain some composure and attempted to make some sense of her thoughts. That her life was in danger was something she was certain of. She was no expert on the Mob, but knew enough to be pretty certain that the tentacles of Jacob Fiori’s criminal organization spread all over the city. That was bad news for her and severely limited her options for getting out of the situation alive. What was even worse was that she’d given them a starting point for finding her by letting out the name of her employer, and she was sure it wouldn’t be long before they knew everything about her. It meant her home, her workplace and any other location that was linked to her was now off limits. She hung her head in despair.

Marion lifted a hand to wipe away the tear that rolled down her cheek. She briefly considered going to the police but was sure that wouldn’t stop the Mob getting to her. The stories the
Bay Republic
occasionally reported about corruption was likely only the tip of the iceberg, and she was sure that turning herself in to the authorities to report what she saw wouldn’t guarantee her any safety. It was just her word anyway, and she was sure a highly paid Mob lawyer could turn that against her… if she made it to court.

“What evidence have you got?” she let out under her breath. “They smashed your cam…”

The words stuck in her throat as the thought came to her. In the terrifying chaos of her escape, she’d forgotten what she did just before she was captured, but it was now at the forefront of her mind. She didn’t need the camera. Slipping her hand inside her pocket, she rummaged around and eventually brought out the completed film.

The photos on it documented a murder by Jake Fiori and were hard evidence that could be used against him. 

Johnny Barsetti was all too aware of a nervousness that rose towards slight fear when he got to the door of the office. It made him hesitate for a few seconds before he eventually knocked and walked inside. The burly, slightly balding man sitting behind the enormous hardwood desk looked up.

“What is it?” Jacob Fiori asked.

“I’ve got some bad news for you, boss,” Johnny replied.

Jacob’s eyes narrowed as he stared across the room.

“Well, spit it out then,” he ordered.

Johnny hesitated again and remained standing just in front of the closed door. The temper of his boss was legendary, and he suspected he was about to see it coming out. When he first found out the information he was about to reveal, he didn’t even want to pass it on, although he knew it would be worse for him if he didn’t.

“The guy we thought might be skimming money from us on the drug deals is dead,” Johnny let out.

“What the fuck?” Jacob growled as he stood up. “My orders were to question him and find out if and how he was cheating us. I didn’t tell you to fucking kill him.”

“I know, boss…”

“Who did you send to do it?” Jacob demanded.

“Rico was set up to meet him, but…” Johnny answered.

He didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence before his boss cut in.

“That fucking idiot,” Jacob barked. “Did he find out if the guy was skimming us?”

“You didn’t let me finish, boss,” Johnny went on. “Rico was supposed to do the job, but he was overruled. It was Jake Junior that went to see the dealer.”

The face and balding head of the Mob boss went red as his anger grew and his temper erupted to make him sweep his hands across the desk. Everything on it was sent crashing to the floor and he stared down at the now bare wooden surface. With nothing left on it to aim his fury at, he grabbed the edge of the desk and put his effort into tipping it over. As strong as he was, he couldn’t quite manage it and the veins bulged on his neck as he gave up and aimed a vicious kick at his chair to send it flying towards the wall behind him.

“Why didn’t you fucking stop him?” he yelled.

Johnny put his hands up in a conciliatory gesture and was glad the desk was still between him and his boss.

“Jake Junior took it upon himself to do the job,” he said. “I just got the news about what happened.”

“It was my son that killed the dealer?” Jacob asked.

“That’s what I’m hearing,” Johnny answered. “Jake supposedly got angry at the answers he was getting and slashed the guy’s throat.”

“Shit,” Jacob spat out angrily as he moved around the desk.

His portly belly strained against his shirt and the black suit he was wearing looked about a size too small for his large frame. He paced back and forth across the floor of the room, revealing his agitation at the news, but he stopped as Johnny went on.

“That’s not everything, boss.”

“Ah for fuck’s sake,” Jacob let out. “What else happened?”

“The boys with Jake Junior caught a photographer taking pictures of the scene,” Johnny went on.

“This just gets better and better,” Jacob snarled. “They took care of it, right?”

Johnny shook his head as he went on with the bad news

“The dealer supposedly made a fight of it right at the end and the boys went to help Jake. The girl they caught ran for it and got away.”

“She has fucking photographs of what happened?” Jacob said.

“The camera was smashed and the film inside exposed, so they don’t think so,” Johnny replied.

“They don’t think…” Jacob repeated in a disbelieving voice and partially closed his eyes as he looked up towards the ceiling.

Johnny expected his boss’s anger to worsen, but Jacob’s voice was suddenly calm and urgent when he opened his eyes.

“When did this happen?” he asked and moved around his desk. He retrieved the chair to set it in place and sat down again.

Johnny waited until his boss was finished before answering.

“No more than thirty minutes ago.”

“No cops involved yet then?” Jacob went on.

“One of the boys stayed at the scene and I just called him before I came in to see you,” Johnny said. “It’s still quiet down there, so I’m arranging to get a truck to get rid of the body.”

“No,” Jacob said. “Don’t do that. I have a better idea to take the heat off Jake and put it on one of those fucking Roadrunners.”

The mention of the biker gang that Jacob Fiori hated with a passion got Johnny thinking. He knew his boss wanted to wipe them out and take over the drug and arms trade they controlled, although after three years of trying they were still in business.

“The knife?” he asked as he cottoned on to what his boss was considering.

“Yeah, the knife,” Jacob confirmed. “It’s got the fingerprints of one of those pricks on it, so get it down to the scene and make sure you drag it across that dealer’s throat. If we make it look like the knife was used in the murder, then we can drop a Roadrunner in it and have one less of those fuckers to worry about.”

“What about the…”

Johnny stopped talking as his boss put his hand up.

“Just get this done first before the cops come sniffing around that body,” Jacob said. “When you’ve finished with that, come and see me.”

“Sure thing,” Johnny said and turned to walk to the door.

“And Johnny,” Jacob said and waited until his top enforcer turned around before going on, “you deal personally with this. I don’t want you delegating it to some clueless halfwit that screws it up.”

Johnny nodded his head then opened the door to leave. He got his phone out of his pocket straight away to call the man that was still with the body of the dealer.

“Is everything still quiet?” he asked.

“Yeah,” the man replied. “How long will it be before the van gets here?”

“There’s a change of plans,” Johnny informed him. “I’m on my way down to meet you now, so just make sure that no one finds that body before I get there.”

“Sure, but…”

Johnny hung up the phone before the comment was finished.

“Fucking Jake,” he muttered under his breath.

It wasn’t something he would say to anyone, but his boss’s son was a liability to the organization. Not that Jacob saw it that way. Anyone else that made such a disaster of what was a relatively simple job was liable to find themselves on the wrong end of a severe beating or worse. Jake Junior, on the other hand, could seemingly do whatever the hell he wanted without suffering the consequences of his actions.

It was no way to do business, but Jacob always cleaned up after his son – or rather got someone to sort out the mess. Johnny had lost count of the number of occasions it was him that did the dirty work of covering up one of Jake’s fiascos, and what he was about to do was just another example of it. A grim expression remained on his face as he walked to a set of stairs and made his way down to the basement of the building. He put his hand in his pocket to get a set of keys and used them when he got to the door he wanted.

The cabinet on the far side of the room was also locked, and after opening the doors he searched through the items on the shelves for what he wanted. The switchblade was sealed in a plastic bag and he grabbed it when he saw it. He wasn’t even sure how the knife came to be in the possession of Jacob, but he’d been assured that the fingerprints of one of the Roadrunners were on the handle. That meant it could be used at the appropriate moment to frame the guy and drop him in the shit for a crime he didn’t actually commit.

Johnny wasn’t sure that now was the appropriate moment, and he would have happily let the heat land on Jake Junior, but it wasn’t his decision. He left the room and made sure the door was properly locked before climbing the stairs to the ground floor of the property. From there he walked to the door that led out to the parking lot and walked to the small building at the rear of it.

“Give me the keys to the black SUV,” he said when he ducked his head through the door.

They were handed over without question and Johnny stepped across to the vehicle to get in. He gunned the engine after turning the key in the ignition and put his foot to the floor when he got out of the parking lot. A glance at his watch showed it was now after midnight, and he let out a quiet curse at the shitty job he was doing. It was just part of being a top enforcer for Jacob Fiori’s crime organization, and he’d done a lot worse in his years working for the Mob boss.

The late hour meant that the streets weren’t busy and it allowed him to quickly navigate his way towards where he needed to be. He eventually parked a block or so away from the murder scene and covered the last part of the journey on foot. The sight of someone loitering around on the corner of a dark alley made him wary and he slowed his pace, but he saw it was the man guarding the body when he got closer.

“Has anyone been around?” Johnny asked in a hushed voice.

“All quiet,” the man replied. “The body is in this alley.”

He led the way to it and Johnny grimaced when he saw the blood-stained tarmac.

“Jake did a fucking job on him,” the man said.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Johnny replied. “Were you watching?”

“Not to begin with,” the man answered. “I was told to scout around and make sure the place was quiet.” He nodded towards the body. “His throat was already sliced when I returned. Fucker wouldn’t die though and somehow found the strength to fight. We ended up having to help Jake when he finished him off.”

“You boys never heard of a gun and a silencer?” Johnny said in a sarcastic tone. “What a fucking mess.” He reached in his pocket to bring out the plastic bag. “Hold this.”

The man narrowed his eyes as he stared at the knife.

“Set up?” he asked.

“That’s what the boss wants,” Johnny replied. “The knife has prints of a Roadrunner on it, so he gets the blame for Jake’s mess.”

He brought a pair of surgical gloves out of his pocket and snapped them in place on his hands. The other man carefully opened the plastic bag and held it to let the knife be taken out. Johnny was careful not to step in the pool of blood around the body as he moved closer. He let out a quiet curse as he squatted down and put some force into dragging the blade across the gaping throat wound. He then stabbed the dead man a couple of times and tossed the blood stained knife on the tarmac.

“Do you think it will work?” the man asked.

“Don’t see why not,” Johnny replied as he straightened up. “They have the dead body and the murder weapon with the prints of a Roadrunner all over it. It’s not rocket science to work it out, and I can’t see them looking into it any further than that for a scumbag drug dealer. They’ll probably be satisfied that he’s off the streets and view it as an open and shut case. When they match the prints on the knife, they’ll find the guy has a record. They’ll hunt down the poor schmuck and throw the book at him.”

“Do you need me for anything else?” the man asked.

“Yeah,” Johnny replied. “The first thing is to tell me about the photographer that got away.”

“I caught her hanging around the end of the alley taking pictures when Jake was first going crazy on the guy,” the man replied.

“Was she a young woman?” Johnny said.

“Yes,” the man replied. “She was a mousey looking girl with glasses and a ponytail. I guess she was probably in her early to mid twenties. She said she worked for the
Bay Republic Newspaper
.”