Breath on the Wind: Kairos, #3

By Catherine Johnson

Charlie “Chiz” Davis is a committed brother of The Priests MC, but even within the world of the outlaw motorcycle club, he’s considered to be a little extreme. His little quirks weren’t an issue in his role as Enforcer; in fact they were downright useful, although, occasionally they caused a problem or two. But now Chiz has been promoted to Sergeant at Arms, and he really should be on his best behaviour. When he gets carried away one night and goes too far, he decides to take a break and leave town while the dust settles.

Andrea Broussard is a businesswoman first and foremost, although her business is somewhat unconventional. Her world is of her own making, she has no family or lover to share it with, because that is exactly the way she wants it. With no commitments during the holiday season she goes out for a quiet drink.

A chance encounter brings two strangers together. Completely removed from their individual spheres, they find there’s a spark that they can’t ignore.

When they return to their respective realities, they find that they’ve changed each other irrevocably. The bond that they’ve forged will be tested, but ultimately it will bring them strength, if they let it.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catherine Johnson
• Release date: Nov 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502205926

Catherine Johnson

Catherine Johnson is a screenwriter and bestselling author of several books for children and young adults. Shortlisted for the 2020 UKLA Book Awards, Race to the Frozen North is a perennial bestseller with sales of over 40,000 to date. Her acclaimed novel Sawbones won the Young Quills Award for Historical Fiction, and The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo was nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the YA Book Prize. Catherine is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Book preview

Chapter One

Ahhhhh. Pussy.

There was nothing on earth like it. There was no substitute for a good, tight, hot, wet pussy.

Unfortunately, the one Chiz was currently pumping his cock into barely achieved even two of those criteria. This pussy defined the term well-used. It hadn’t seen ‘tight’ for years. It was as cold as it could be and still have a pulse, thanks to the almost complete disinterest of the body it was a part of. It was only wet thanks to the liberally applied lube.

He’d had an urge to scratch an itch. Normally, those urges could be taken care of at the clubhouse, but Chiz was feeling restless. The club, his club, the Priests MC, was in a state of alert, but it hadn’t been actively engaged in months. The tension was not good for Chiz; he needed release.

They’d been at DEFCON One for a while, having to be vigilant for the Los Perdidos, the Mexican cartel intent on killing them and disrupting their business with the Rojas family, a Colombian cartel. The Los Perdidos were so much dust in the wind now. Dizzy, the previous Sergeant at Arms for the Priests, Louisiana charter, now President of the newly formed Texas charter, had seen to that, and Chiz had played hardly any part in it. Chiz had been there when they’d cut the head off the snake, when they’d stormed the home of Juan Alberto and killed everyone in it, but he hadn’t been part of the next wave.

Some remaining members of the cartel had kidnapped Dizzy, his woman, Thea, and her son, Josh. They’d tortured Dizzy, and had been about to do worse to Thea and Josh before the Priests had found them. And that was the last action that Chiz had seen in the matter. Dizzy had embarked on a bloody retribution, nothing less than a full extermination, after that. He and his brothers from the Texas charter had made many trips into Mexico and made sure that the Los Perdidos were as ended as was possible. Both charters of the Priests were still outlaw, still deep in a profitable business arrangement with the Rojas family, but now they were in the more usual, general state of alert. There would always be people looking to take a piece of the pie, but for the moment, they had no specific enemies to monitor.

The lack of focus, as well as being denied the opportunity to be a part of some serious action, was what was making Chiz twitchy. And twitchy Chiz was not a good thing. He felt... ‘managed’ at the clubhouse. He had to be on his best behavior there. If he gave into his whims to do what he wanted with the warm and willing females that populated the clubhouse to cater for the needs of the patches, then invariably it ended with a conversation with his president. Chiz was not a fan of those conversations. His president, Samuel, never patronized or condescended, but Chiz always felt that he’d let Samuel down. Knowing that the man he’d gladly take a bullet for was disappointed in him brought a black cloud down on Chiz that he found hard to shift, and which usually led to him doing something else to disappoint Samuel.

In an effort to at least attempt good behavior, and to improve his mood, Chiz had taken himself to an obscure motel off I-55. It was near a diner, not exactly a truck stop, but a place that saw enough travelers breaking their journey that there were always some girls around ready to offer comfort, or satisfaction, for a price. It was remote enough that they weren’t too choosy about their prospects.

Chiz wasn’t exactly on first-name terms with them, but they were aware of him. One or two of the girls made themselves scarce whenever he came by. The newer ones were generally warned by those more experienced to expect something out of the ordinary.

The woman he was currently fucking had been a brunette, once upon a time. The hair between her legs, what little of it there was, confirmed as much. But the hair on her head bore testament to many years of being bleached, and not by professionals. She had tried to disguise the dry, straw-like state by curling it; it hadn’t worked. Chiz felt the crunch of abused and lacquered strands as he moved his hands upwards from the misshapen, false tits.

His head was full of bees, hornets really, angry fucking hornets. He could barely hear the theatrical pants and groans of the women underneath him past the buzzing of confused thoughts. He was barely even aware of what his own body was doing, let alone hers. His hips had taken on an instinctive rhythm, a tempo suited purely to his own pleasure. He couldn’t have said whether the skin under his palms was soft, smooth, rough, mottled or wrinkled.

Something had to stop. Something had to. Had to make the buzzing stop. There must be... must be something to make his head quiet. No amount of Jack or weed would do it; he’d tried. He needed to.... needed to...

He wasn’t aware that his palms had made their way up the whore’s throat, that his thumbs were bracketing her trachea, that they were pushing, pressing...

Hey, what the...?! The body beneath him started to struggle; it was the most movement it had made in the time he’d been fucking it.

He kept pressing, kept pushing...

It’s extra for the kinky shit. Suzie is the one... if you’d’ve said....

He kept pushing, kept pressing...

Time had no meaning for him.

He had no idea how many minutes had passed before the nasal whine ceased, before the blood vessels in the eyes burst and the red-tinged orbs rolled back, before the pulse beating under his thumbs ceased to flutter.

Reality came back with a rush, like a bucket of water over his head. The silence receded like the wave of an outgoing tide, replaced with the sounds of vehicles, the cough of car engines, the chug and rumble of big rigs, the blare of horns, the chatter of the humans outside.

Chiz looked down at the body beneath him. It was still. Very still. Too still. But he was still hard inside it. And it was still warm. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity. He braced his hands on either side of the head, and stared into the blank, unseeing eyes as he grunted and thrust until the pressure in his gut gave way and his orgasm shot out into the latex he was wearing.

Only when he pulled out and stood back from the bed did Chiz realize that he had a problem on his hands. And that Samuel was going to be disappointed in him, again.

Fuck!

He pulled the condom off his softening cock and tied it off. He hitched his jeans back up and fastened them. Save taking off his kutte, he hadn’t undressed. He hadn’t even removed his boots. The whore hadn’t bothered to strip, either, apart from shrugging off her plastic jacket. She’d been naked under the dress she was wearing, a strapless thing that barely covered the bad boob job, and revealed the majority of her legs from the crease of her sagging ass downwards. She’d pulled the top of the shiny blue dress down, and the bottom up, before they fucked. It was still bunched about her middle, like crumpled wrapping paper. Her feet, still in the scuffed, white stripper heels, lolled off the edge of the bed.

Chiz stuffed the condom into one pocket in his jeans, and pulled his phone out of another. He hit one of the speed dial numbers and waited until the person he’d called answered.

Wassup?

Fletch? It’s Chiz...

Fletch cut him off. Fuck. Callin’ at this time on Christmas Eve? When I’ve just seen Samuel ride off after his old lady. You’ve fuckin’ done it again you stupid cunt, haven’t you?

Chiz knew there was no point in making excuses. That would only make people more pissed at him.

Yeah. I need a hand with the clean-up.

Course you fuckin’ do. Jesus Christ, boy. If I hadn’t heard the girls here I’d think you couldn’t get tail without endin’ it. You sure your daddy weren’t Bianchi or Buono?

Fletch, there’s no need to insult my pa.

Yeah, I know. Poor bastard. Where are you?

Chiz gave him the location and the room number, and winced and took a step back as the muscles in the body on the bed relaxed and the bowels began to evacuate onto the covers.

I’ll be there forty.

Thanks, brother.

I don’t want your thanks, boy. I want you stop fuckin’ doin’ this. You know I’m gonna havta tell the boss?

Yeah, I know.

Sit tight. I’ll be there soon.

Fletch cut the connection before Chiz could.

Chiz was alone with the body, and the room was beginning to reek from the urine and feces soaking into the neon orange, chenille spread, but he couldn’t go outside, he couldn’t even open a window. If he re-appeared without the whore - he hadn’t paid attention to her name - the other girls would know something was up. He didn’t fear retribution from them. They knew their place in the pecking order better than that. They knew that the police wouldn’t give two shits about a dead working girl, and they knew that business would become very difficult if the Priests got word of them involving the law about a brother, or about shooting one themselves. But if they caused a ruckus, some of the patrons of the diner might hear. An over-enthusiastic bystander, or an irritated resident of the motel, might call the police themselves, and the involvement of the law was a complication that the Priests did not need.

Chiz retrieved his kutte from the back of the tan vinyl chair in the corner of the room and slipped it on before sitting down and resting one ankle on the knee of the other leg. He checked the time on the display of his phone, and waited.

When he heard the growl of Harley engines, he checked his phone again. Fletch had made good time. Chiz heard the increasingly shrill questioning voices of the girls still loitering around the motel lot, but they silenced before the first pair of boots had finished tramping along the walkway outside. Chiz was up and opening the door before a knock was needed. His president was waiting on the other side.

Chiz backed up into the room without saying anything, and let Samuel enter. He refused to look down. He would own his actions instead of behaving like a kid caught burning ants in the sun with a magnifying glass.

Shit, Chiz. Again?

Sorry, boss.

Don’t be sorry, son. Stop fuckin’ doin’ it.

There was nothing Chiz could say to that. Samuel was right. He needed to develop better self-control. Every time they had to do something like this, he put the club at needless risk.

I’ve pulled the van up as close as I could, boss.

The doorway was filed with the massive frame of Shark, Chiz’s friend and brother. Where Samuel looked disappointed and resigned, Shark looked curious, and angry. Chiz figured that he’d have been told by now that this wasn’t the first time that this had happened, that they had a well-established routine for keeping Chiz’s predilections from landing him on Death Row. Chiz had grown up with Shark, before he’d moved away from their home state while still in his teens. The look Shark was giving him now was one of someone who’d found out that their friend was a complete stranger to them.

Samuel turned from the body on the bed. Fletch takin’ care of the girls?

Shark answered without taking his quizzical gaze from Chiz. Yeah, he’s payin’ ‘em off. I think a few’ve taken off to spend their lottery win already, a couple are hangin’ around for appearance’s sake.

Fletch givin’ ‘em extra for that? We don’t need anyone wonderin’ why they’ve all suddenly hit the bar.

Yeah, I did. Fletch answered from behind Shark. Shark stepped into the room and immediately moved to the side to make way for the equally tall, but only half as wide, frame of the older man. Gave the guy on the desk a little extra for the linens, too.

Fletch walked in, stroking his silver handlebar moustache with one hand, the other was occupied holding the roll of plastic sheeting he had tucked under his arm.

Good. Let’s get to it, then.

Between the four of them they laid the plastic out on the carpet next to the bed, then rolled the girl and the covers from the bed onto it, leaving the mattress bare. The new stain was one among many on the faded stripes of the ancient box spring. Chiz handed Samuel the candy-pink plastic jacket that the whore had flung onto the set of drawers before climbing onto the bed. Samuel undertook a brief search of the pockets and pulled out the thin roll of bills that had been the girl’s takings. He slipped the money into his pocket and tossed the jacket down onto the body. They rolled the body up like a burrito, tucking it and the rest of the evidence in tight. Shark stood, hefting the bundle onto his shoulder.

This sure is easier with a big fella like yourself around. Fletch spoke to Shark, but arched a bushy black eyebrow in Chiz’s direction.

Yeah, I’m just all sorts of useful. Shark grunted under the uncooperative weight and started out of the door. Fletch, Samuel and Chiz followed.

They descended the rusting metal steps from the first floor of the motel. Shark had pulled the club van up with barely enough room for a man to squeeze past it. He took one hand from steadying the bundle on his shoulder and fished the key out of his pocket, hitting the remote locking button on the fob as he did so. With a flash of the signal lights and a thunk, the vehicle unlocked. Shark opened one of the rear doors, Fletch reached around him on the side where his arm was employed keeping the morbid parcel in place, and opened the other. Shark shrugged the package unceremoniously down onto the floor of the van’s cargo space with an insulting thud.

A couple of the girls that had been touting for business when Chiz arrived were hanging around, watching the scene unfold with openly mistrustful expressions. Samuel waved them over. They came reluctantly, teetering over the uneven ground on spindly, scuffed heels.

Samuel reached into one of the back pockets of his jeans and pulled out the roll of bills he’d taken from the hooker. He counted it quickly and then divided it in half. He handed a fold of crumpled bills to each of the women.

Don’t worry, girls. He’s not coming here again, are you, brother? He didn’t even turn to look at Chiz as he spoke, but Chiz answered all the same.

No, boss.

The girls nodded, and with openly hostile glances in Chiz’s direction, they turned and tottered back to the posts they’d been lounging against to resume waiting for their next customers.

Fletch headed over to his bike as Shark squeezed around the van in the direction of the driver’s side door, leaving Samuel virtually alone with Chiz.

You know you’re gonna havta take a beatin’ for this, Chiz, don’t you?

Yeah, boss.

We’ll finish this up, then we’ll go back to the clubhouse and take care of that. You’re gonna have some bruises for Christmas dinner tomorrow, but don’t you dare think of cancellin’.

Usually Chiz looked forward to the annual festive meal cooked by the old ladies and the sweetbutts and served in happy chaos in the clubhouse. If Samuel hadn’t expressly said so, he would have cried off this year. He wasn’t looking forward to the beating, or the derisive looks he would get the next day, although he knew he damn well deserved both.

Samuel seemed to be about the say something further, even opened his mouth to speak, but he stopped, changed his mind, snapped his jaw shut, and instead went to his bike. Chiz went to his own ride and pulled out after the others when they set off. He knew they’d be heading to one of their tried and tested dumping grounds in the bayou where the alligators, fish and insects would take care of the body disposal for them. The bed linens would be burnt somewhere else, and the evidence of Chiz’s inability to restrain himself would be hidden again.

Chapter Two

Bing was crooning about snow, the like of which Louisiana never saw. Chiz was sitting on one of the less stained couches in the Priests clubhouse, nursing a warm bottle of Bud, and watching the tinsel strewn hurricane that was their Christmas Day as it began to wind down, or at least find a calmer level. The frantic bustle that had been the opening of presents and the serving and eating of food had ended. Time was, that this would have been the time to light up the joints, break out the hard liquor and get a sweetbutt on her knees. Not anymore. Now there was a young kid and a pregnant woman to make allowances for.

Shark had administered Chiz’s punishment beating on behalf of the club the night before, after they’d returned to the clubhouse having stripped, weighted and dumped the body of the prostitute in a deep bayou tributary. They’d stripped to their jeans and climbed into the boxing ring that occupied one of the bays in the garage attached to the clubhouse. Chiz had done his best to stand still and take his lumps with dignity, even though it went against every instinct he had to keep his fists by his sides while someone beat on him.

Normally, as Sergeant at Arms, it was Chiz’s role to discipline errant club members, but he couldn’t very well punish himself, so Samuel had delegated the job to Shark. Chiz and Shark had been friends a long time, but Shark had an off switch for all things empathetic, in a similar way that Chiz did, but Shark didn’t keep forgetting to turn his back on again or hit it by accident. In the same dispassionate manner in which Chiz had been able to stand and watch Shark be branded with a motif of the club for patching in with traitorous intent, Shark had given Chiz a solid beating for putting the club in a precarious position.

Chiz wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful that Shark had stuck to body blows. He guessed it would have looked bad at the meal if he’d turned up with a broken face. As it was, he was fairly certain that he had a cracked rib, and his torso was a mass of developing, florid bruises.

Hurting and despondent, Chiz had slunk off back to his dorm room afterwards. He’d seriously debated hitting the bar for a bottle of something and drinking himself unconscious, but he figured he was in enough trouble as it was. Rolling in with a hangover the next morning wouldn’t endear him to anyone, so he’d swallowed some Tylenol with tap water and done his best to sleep.

He’d been a member of this club for seventeen years, and never in all that time had he been alone unless he wanted it that way, but now, surrounded in a room full of people that he considered closer than blood family, he felt lonely. He knew word of his stupidity had spread beyond those directly involved in the clean-up. Everyone seemed to be looking at him sideways, wondering what the fuck was up with him that he had to do what he did. Even the club girls were giving him a wide berth. He’d made sure never to give any of them real reason to fear him, so the fact that they were acting like timid bunnies in his presence now pissed him the fuck off.

Anyone would think that he’d lost control like that every other Saturday night. In truth, it had happened less than a handful of times before. There had been other women who had lived through whatever he’d done in an effort to calm the noise in his head, and those episodes had resulted in similar punishments.

But his actions the previous night hadn’t had the desired effect. His head was still buzzing. He still felt restless. It had been months since the almost-betrayal of Shark, his friend and brother, had been laid before the club. Shark had paid the price that the club had demanded and had found his place with them again. Everyone was right with it. Chiz had made his peace with it, but he couldn’t help but feel a little responsible. It had been his idea to call his old friend and offer him a seat at their table in the first place, and when his friend had accepted that seat he’d had assassination on his agenda.

Added to that, his brother, mentor and former SAA of the Priests had left for Texas to head up the new charter that was being established there to replace the Rabid Dogs MC. Destroying the club that had been their long time allies, but who had tried to stab them in the back, had broken a vital link in the pipeline that the Priests ran for the Rojas Family, moving drugs and people. Samuel was unwilling to trust another group, insisting he wanted more control, so they had set up a new charter, and Dizzy had left to take the president’s gavel.

It seemed to Chiz that Dizzy had barely been out of state five minutes before he’d found himself an old lady, one with a kid, no less, a ready-made family. And Shark had married Ashleigh, and she had a bun in the oven. Terry and Dolly had adopted a little girl who was as cute as a button and was currently explaining one of her toys in great detail to Kong. It wasn’t what Chiz was used to, and he was struggling to adjust to the sudden onset of PG-13 domesticity, where a solid R rating had previously prevailed.

Fuck this. Chiz wasn’t sticking around to be given the fish-eye by everyone that chanced to look over. He was still sober. He’d only had a couple of beers with the meal and had barely tasted his third. He left it on a nearby table and headed to his dorm room. He needed to get out, to go for a ride. On a whim he decided that he’d be better off not wearing his club colors.

In his dorm room, he slipped his kutte off and laid it out on top of the neatly made bed. His doing, he liked things neat. He paused, and although he didn’t have a destination in mind, he threw some clothes, some condoms and his toothbrush into an ancient rucksack that had been buried in the bottom drawer of his dresser. He patted the knife at his hip to make sure it was there, put his gun, a Beretta M9, into his shoulder holster and slipped it on before donning a leather jacket over the top, which he zipped up. December in Louisiana was not cold, but the air rushing past him while he was riding would be chilly.

Mostly, everyone was occupied with talking and drinking, snacking on leftovers, or clearing up. No one paid him much attention as he made his way back through the main room. He was through the door and out into the gathering dusk before a hand on his arm stopped him. Samuel. Chiz should have known he wouldn’t get to just walk out.

Goin’ somewhere, brother?

Just for a ride, boss. Not sure where.

Okay, you take some time, but stay safe. We want you back here in one piece.

Will do, boss.

And Chiz...?

Yeah?

Call us if you need us.

Well, that surprised the hell out of him. He was humbled, that after everything, his president still wanted him around, and was still willing to bail him out. He hadn’t been expecting that, not tonight. He’d figured everyone was just plain mad at him, and sick of covering his ass, but it didn’t reduce his need to get the hell out of town for a night, or longer.

Thanks, boss. He nodded, as did Samuel, who also gave him a slap on his back to send him on his way.

Chiz stowed his rucksack in his saddlebags, clipped his helmet in place, and set off. He headed towards the Interstate, only knowing that he needed more of a run than would be provided by the local roads. When he got to the interchange, he had to make a decision, east or west. He chose east, away from Louisiana, and away from the charter in Texas.

As he approached the state line with Mississippi, he passed the spot where Dean, Samuel’s son, had died. He missed Dean. That boy had known how to party, how to enjoy every moment simply for what it was. If someone had come along and told Chiz that he could have taken Dean’s place on that miserable day, he would have agreed in a heartbeat. It seemed to him that Samuel’s boy had had a lot more to live for, but that was all a moot point now.

The cooler temperatures that were a result of his speed made his right leg ache. He’d broken it in the spring, trying to do Dolly a favor with some home furnishings. Now, whenever it got cold or wet, it ached like a motherfucker. That was what he got for being well-behaved. Between the cold, the aching and the sadness, Chiz felt fucking wretched, but he kept going, trying desperately to outrun his demons.

After riding for a few hours, tired and sore, but in no way ready to head home, Chiz pulled off the highway. He’d ridden clear across Mississippi and had just crossed into Alabama. He took a spur that led off the interstate to a spot that he knew well from his runs with the Priests. A couple of miles down the side road, not visible to the highway, was a wide spot in the road with a motel on one side and a bar cum diner on the other. Chiz didn’t know if he wanted a room there yet, but he sure as fuck wanted a drink somewhere where that he wouldn’t be looked at sideways by the staff, or the patrons, and where he’d be left the fuck alone.

Chiz parked his bike, double checked that his saddlebags were locked tight and took himself inside to get a drink. He hitched onto a stool at the bar. He needed to take the weight off his leg, but he wanted the solitude of a stool, not the companionship of a table.