Fic: Jensen's Choice (J2, NC-17)
Chapter Five
Jensen awoke to off-key crooning and opened his eyes, once again, to the unwelcome sight of Mark Pellegrino staring into his face.
“Fuck!” he jerked backwards and flailed into Jared who lurched upwards with a mumbled curse, his hair doing its best impression of a large shaggy dog.
“Seriously, man,” Jensen said to him. “Just give me five minutes with the clippers, that’s all I ask.”
“What?” Jared frowned. “Shut up. Mark? What are you--” and then his face turned a sickly green and he clamped his hands over his mouth before running naked for the bathroom.
Jensen and Pellegrino listened to him retching noisily and then Pellegrino pulled a face and shrugged.
“Nice hickeys,” he pointed at Jensen’s throat. “Get up.”
Jensen didn’t bother trying to hide himself this time, just spun around naked-as instructed-to give The Beast a good look at his body.
Pellegrino harrumphed. “He went easy on you.” He gave Jensen’s ass a hard smack.
Jensen spun to face him with a scowl. “Maybe he’s just more creative than you? There’s more than one way to torture someone, you know. And Jared’s got a pretty big box of toys.”
Of course, they hadn’t really done much of anything last night, but Pellegrino didn’t need to know that.
“He’s right,” Jared said, reappearing in the bedroom. “I always enjoy the classics, but there are a lot of fun ways to torment someone,” he cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “Not that it isn’t a pleasure to see you, Mark, but what can we do for you at,” he glanced at the clock. “6.00am on a Monday morning?”
Pellegrino smiled widely. “Oh, just checking in,” he said. “But you know, now that I think about it, there is something that Jensen can do for me. Underlings getting on their knees and blowing the boss is one of the classics, right?”
Jared’s face darkened like a stormy sky. “Jensen is mine,” he said.
Pellegrino’s face lit up with cruel glee. “And I’m your boss. What’s yours is mine, Moose, and don’t you ever forget it.”
Jared’s expression darkened even further. He straightened up, rigid with fury, and flicked his eyes to Jensen. Jensen realized, with a sick sense of dread, that Jared was one protest from Jensen away from doing something stupid; like going and getting his Glock and shooting The Beast between the eyes.
So Jensen did the only thing he could think of. He dropped to his knees and undid Pellegrino’s jeans, as if he was cool with this; as if it were nothing.
Jared made a noise, somewhere between a growl and a whine and Jensen slid has hands around Pellegrino’s hips and gave Jared a thumbs up and then waved him away.
“Yeah, good,” Pellegrino said. “Suck it, slut.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. He’d sucked Pellegrino off before. He wasn’t going to enjoy it, he didn’t really want to do it, but it was hardly going to scar him for life. He did hope that The Beast would keep his dirty talk to a minimum, though, because he sucked at it.
Jensen got Pellegrino’s mostly soft dick in his mouth and sucked and tongued until it hardened. Mostly, he was listening for Jared and when he heard the shower start he was finally able to relax and get to work, using his considerable dick sucking skills to bring The Beast off as quickly and efficiently as possible. Because he was a bastard, Pellegrino held Jensen’s head tightly and flooded his mouth with come.
“Swallow, bitch,” he said.
Jensen held it in his mouth and when Pellegrino let go of his head he spat it out.
Pellegrino scowled. “I told you to swallow.”
“Yeah, no offense, but I don’t know where you’ve been.”
Having said which, it occurred to Jensen that, these days, Pellegrino didn’t usually step out on his old lady-not this close to home, anyway. He hadn’t actually met Alaina yet, but she came with a pretty solid reputation as a heinous, cold-hearted bitch. And apparently she already thought Jensen was a threat. Jensen wondered what Pellegrino was trying to achieve here. Was it just the five star blow job he’d been after, or had putting Jared and Jensen in their place been important enough to him to risk his old lady’s wrath?
Pellegrino tucked himself away slowly with a smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face.
Jensen stayed where he was, kneeling on the floor, until Pellegrino told him to get up.
The Beast ran a thumb across Jensen’s lips and Jensen tried not to let his repulsion show as Pellegrino told him that he was a good little cock sucker; that if he didn’t make enough cash at the tables, they could stand him on a street corner and make a good living off of his mouth.
Jensen refused to react, because he knew that’s what Pellegrino was after.
“Anything else you need?” he asked. “Breakfast? Coffee?”
Pellegrino pursed his lips. “Nah, I got my blow job. Can’t hang around here all day staring at your pretty ass. I got people to do, things to see. No wait, reverse that.”
Jensen showed Pellegrino out and found Heyerdahl waiting in the kitchen, seemingly immersed in something on his cell phone. He stood up when Jensen walked in stark naked, and snapped a photo of him with a wolfish grin.
“See you ‘round, Jenny,” he said in his nasally voice, following his boss to the door and leering at Jensen’s nakedness.
“Make sure Moose isn’t late for work,” Pellegrino told Jensen. He opened the door and then sauntered outside whistling Highway to Hell.
When they’d gone, Jensen went and joined Jared in the shower. The biker’s head was leaning against the wall of the cubicle and he was surrounded by steam.
“You okay?” Jensen asked, circling Jared’s waist with his arms.
“I should be asking you that,” Jared said morosely.
“I’m fine. Nothing I haven’t had to do before, Jay.”
He picked up the soap and began to wash Jared, lathering up his arms, his back, his legs and his butt, massaging each part in turn and then rinsing him off. By the time Jensen slipped his arms around to Jared’s front to do his chest and groin, Jared was hard.
“What are we gonna do about this?” Jensen said teasingly, fisting Jared’s cock with a soapy hand.
Jared looked at him with unfathomable eyes. “Should I just jerk off like a normal person?” he asked.
Jensen shook his head. He reached up and pumped out a generous amount of conditioner and then reached behind himself and began to work himself open.
Jared swore. He turned them around so that Jensen was now the one pressed up against the wall of the shower, and then it was Jensen’s turn to spit out curses as first one, then two of Jared’s fingers joined the two of his own that he was already using to stretch himself.
With nothing but water and conditioner to ease the way, it hurt when Jared thrust inside, but Jensen didn’t care, because he fucking loved Jared’s dick, every long, fat inch of it. He shifted his feet and stuck his ass out further and Jared got the message, taking hold of Jensen’s hips and slamming in hard, nailing his prostate on every other thrust as Jensen moaned at the pain, the pleasure, the relief of being so thoroughly owned.
He began to fist his dick and Jared’s thrusts became erratic as he hammered in hard, chasing release. With a shudder, Jensen realized that they were fucking bare, but before he could open his mouth to say anything, Jared pulled out and came all over his ass. Jensen groaned and followed him over the edge.
“Fucking love your cock,” Jensen said, his voice so slurred with pleasure that he sounded drunk.
“Just my cock?”
Jensen hummed. “Some other parts of you are all right too.”
They got out of the shower and began to towel off.
“So listen,” Jensen said. “I was thinking maybe I’d catch up with Steve today.”
Jared tensed visibly. “Why?”
Jensen wrapped the towel around his waist. “The way I see it, we can play this two ways. One: I meet up with Steve, tell him I’m scared of you, out of my depth, let him convince me to become his informant and then we used him to funnel disinformation to the gang task force.”
Jared was leaning back against the wall and frowning. “He’s going work out pretty quick that nothing you tell him pans out.”
Jensen raised his eyebrows. “Give me a little credit. I do know how to run a successful con,” he waited until Jared nodded in acquiescence and then said, “That’s not the main issue with option one, anyway. The main problem is Dean Winchester. If Steve’s as thorough and diligent as you say he is, he probably knows about my Dean Winchester alias and that means he’s not gonna buy me as a scared punk rich kid who got in over his head.”
“Right,” Jared nodded. “So what’s the second option?”
“I meet up with him, let him know that I know he’s a cop, and then offer to be co-operative, so long as it doesn’t hurt you.”
Jared sucked in a harsh breath. “Why?” he said, eyes narrowed.
Jensen shrugged. “Because it doesn’t hurt to have a cop who likes you, maybe even owes you a favor. And it doesn’t hurt HellSpawn if I keep my ears open and occasionally tell him what bad things other people are doing. Also,” Jensen licked at his lips, “if Steve starts to trust me, I might be able to pump him for information on JD.”
Jared went very still.
“Maybe the cops didn’t try too hard to figure out who killed him,” Jensen said, watching Jared closely and trying to gauge his mood, “because what do they care if one bad guy kills another? But I’m betting they at least looked into it, enough to know if it was gonna start a gang war. Maybe Steve knows something we could use.”
Jensen wasn’t sure what to make of the expression that came over Jared’s face and he couldn’t help backing into the sink when Jared advanced on him menacingly.
“Are you fucking playing me?” Jared barked. “Is this all a huge fucking con to you?”
Jensen gaped at him. “Chill, Jared. I’m on your side.”
“Why? I forced you to have sex with me. I hit you. I wouldn’t let you leave the apartment. Why the fuck would you be on my side?”
“Because I like you, asshole!” Jensen spat. “You’re funny and sexy and smart and a total geek and your dogs love you and the girls all like you because you treat them with respect most of the time and, yeah, okay, you’re kinky as fuck and you can be a possessive, controlling asshole, but it seems like you’ve got your reasons. And the way I see it, pretty much the only guy you ever had on your side was JD and…I liked JD too. You deserve to know what happened to him, Jay,” Jensen slid his arms around Jared’s waist. “I’m not playing you. This ain’t a con. I’m on your side. For real.”
Jared stared down at him with the flattest, most expressionless eyes Jensen had ever seen. And then he blinked and his eyes became those of a sad, lost puppy. He hesitated a moment and then cupped a hand around the back of Jensen’s head and lowered his lips to Jensen’s, kissing him gently, tentatively, before licking his way inside and plundering Jensen’s mouth greedily, almost as if he were trying to taste Jensen’s sincerity by sucking on his tongue.
When he finally pulled away he looked a lot less uncertain and a lot calmer too.
“Do it,” he said decisively, and it was the HellSpawn VP speaking. “Go with option 2. But we’ll tell Pellegrino you’re feeding the cops disinformation. ”
--
Beaver’s Junkyard was small and dilapidated and Jensen wondered how he managed to keep it running now that he was in a wheelchair.
He’d had the cab drop him off a little way down the road and then he’d walked past the used car lot, past the garden supply place, past the tile-and-paver warehouse and, finally, down the long gravel driveway, past all the wrecks, to the small site office.
This was a risk. A big one. And Jensen couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t quietly shitting himself. He walked up the ramp with a pounding heart and opened the glass sliding door.
There was guy with a blond mullet and a muscle shirt sitting at the desk in the front office. He was nobody Jensen recognized.
“Hey,” Jensen said.
The guy looked up from his computer, expression bored.
“I’m lookin’ for Jim. Jim Beaver.”
“And you are?”
“An old friend.”
The blond guy looked him up and down slowly and then picked up his desk phone.
“Boss, got a guy here askin’ for you. Says he’s an old friend.”
The blond guy’s eyes flicked up to Jensen’s. “Name?”
Jensen licked at his lips. “Tell him it’s Dean Winchester.”
Blond guy relayed the information and then his eyes widened. Before he could do much more than look stunned the door into the back office flew open and Jim wheeled himself out, brandishing a sawn-off shotgun.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow a hole in you?” he demanded.
“JD Morgan.”
“He’s dead.”
Jensen nodded. “He was a good man. And a friend of yours too, I hear.”
Jim half lowered the shotgun. “He had a soft spot for you. Was real upset when he thought The Beast had you killed.”
Jensen held his hands up beside his head in the universal gesture of surrender. “Jim, I’m sorry for what I did to you. To Traci. Heyerdahl was…insistent, but that don’t excuse it.”
“Damn right it don’t,” Jim said. He held Jensen’s eyes, expression hard. Jensen did his best to look contrite, which wasn’t too hard, because he still felt like shit about what went down with Jim and Traci.
Finally, Jim sighed. “The damage to my legs, that ain’t on you. That was HeyDay. Same with Traci’s eyes.” Jim ran a hand over his face. “Look, I’ve done a fucked up thing or two in my time. What you did, I don’t hold it against you. What’s done is done. But if you’re on some twelve-steps-askin’-for-forgiveness kick, you can get out. I ain’t got the patience for that nonsense.”
Jensen wrinkled his nose. “Hell no. I just wanna talk.”
“About?”
Jensen looked at the blond guy and then nodded back toward Jim’s office.
Jim frowned. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
Jensen ended up staying for over an hour.
--
Jensen was already at Happy Gok’s Pool Hall when Steve arrived. He was sitting at one of the round bar tables with a double-shot latte in one hand and a lit Marlboro in the other and he watched as Steve paused in the entrance and then made a beeline for Jensen as soon as he saw him, walking slowly, eyes narrowed, taking everything in.
“You all right, Jensen?” Steve said, taking a seat opposite him. “You sounded worried on the phone.”
Jensen took a sip of his coffee; swallowed. “Everything’s fine Detective Williams.”
Give Steve his due, he barely reacted. Only a slight tightening around his eyes and mouth and the way he rubbed at his shirt cuff gave him away.
“I’m guessing Padalecki had me investigated,” Steve said.
Well at least that answered the question of whether he knew who Jared was.
“Hey, Johnny?” Jensen called out to Johnny Gok. “Can we get another coffee over here?” his eyes flicked to Steve. “Long black, right?”
Steve nodded and Jensen relayed the information to Johnny.
“You know that, legally, you’re not supposed to smoke in here, right?” Steve said.
Jensen smirked at him. “What are you gonna do, Detective? Arrest me-and everyone else-for smoking? Besides, pretty sure this place is family run.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “Okay, cards on the table, then. I’m Detective Steve Williams, Gang and Narcotics Division. You’re Jensen Ackles, aka Dean Winchester. It’s been seven, eight years since your alias was last running with HellSpawn. Why are you back?”
Jensen took a drag on his cigarette. “I had a debt to pay.”
Steve’s eyes bored into him. “You still payin’ it? Is that why you’re with Padalecki?”
“It’s…complicated.”
Steve looked less than impressed. “That ain’t an answer, son, it’s a Facebook relationship status.”
Jensen laughed. “Yeah.”
“Huh,” Steve said, his expression curious and assessing. “So why did you call me?”
“Because you seem like a good guy. I wanted you to know that HellSpawn knew you were a cop. They think you want to get to them through me, which makes you a threat to them.”
Johnny brought Steve’s coffee over and he took it with a word of thanks.
“What are they gonna think of you meeting up with me like this, then?” he asked Jensen.
“They’re gonna think we’re running a con. That I’m agreeing to be your informant so that we can feed you bullshit.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “That only works if I don’t know that’s what you’re doing.”
Jensen acknowledged the comment with a wry smile and Steve examined him intently, brow furrowed.
“So what are you really doing?”
Jensen lit another cigarette. “I’ve been talkin’ to Jim Beaver. He tells me the two of you went to school together.”
“From kindergarten, right through until he dropped out in High School.”
“Jim said you were buddies.”
“We were. But we chose different paths. He chose a life of violence and crime and I chose to wear a badge. I tried to persuade him to leave that life behind, but MC culture was in his blood.”
“He’s out now.”
“So I hear.”
Jensen leaned forward. “He tells me JD came to you, that it was you that got him and Traci out of that warehouse.”
Steve took a sip of his coffee; ran a thumb across his mustache. “JD had a conscience. He didn’t like what Heyerdahl was doing to Jim and Traci and he knew that Jim and I used to be friends,” Steve chuckled humorously. “I was denied a place in the Gang and Narcotics division three times, because of my prior friendship with Jim. They were worried I might be unduly influenced by my emotional ties,” Steve glared, the memory obviously still a sore point. “When Jim got four wheels under him permanently, that’s when I got the promotion I’d been after for years.”
You couldn’t be an MC member if you couldn’t ride a motorcycle and after what had happened to him and Traci, Jim and his old lady had too much to adjust to, to want to continue their association with The Dead Reapers. Bad for Jim. Good for Steve.
Jensen took a final drag on his cigarette and butted it out. “Must piss you off knowing your superiors don’t fully trust you.”
“Oh they trust me,” Steve said. “Everybody knows I’m a straight shooter. I’ve earned that trust.”
Jensen pursed his lips. “Still, it’d look pretty good on your jacket if you managed to take down Pellegrino, huh?”
Steve was starting to look pissed. “What do you want, Jensen?”
Jensen smiled. “I want to know what JD was doing for you guys when Pellegrino had him killed.”
He hadn’t been sure; not one hundred percent. Not until Steve’s eyes tightened and he began to rub at his shirt cuff.
Yahtzee, Jensen thought grimly.
--
Jared pulled into a parking space around the side of the club rooms and Jensen swung himself off the bike and took off his helmet. He handed it to Jared who hung both helmets over the bike’s handlebars and then Jared cocked his head and gave Jensen a slow, thorough once over.
“Man,” he said. “I’m so tempted to just go home and tie you to the bed. But when the President summons you, you gotta play nice.”
Jensen stepped into his space. “Wanna fuck me up against the side of the building before we go in?”
Jared looked at him with narrowed eyes. “That a genuine offer or are you just humoring me?”
Jensen shrugged. “I’ve got exhibitionist tendencies. If you don’t believe me, my therapist will confirm it.”
“You have a therapist?” Jared raised an eyebrow.
“Had. My parents insisted.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
Jensen punched Jared’s arm. “Don’t you fuckin’ start.”
Jared sniggered. “Hey, I know what it’s like. I had a whole bunch of social workers. Every single one of ‘em underpaid, overworked and happy to lose my paperwork.”
The club rooms were dark and smoky and Sweet Home Alabama was playing on the stereo system as Jared and Jensen walked in, shoulder-to-shoulder.
The whole gang appeared to be there, plus a bunch of hangers-on, sitting around in the den area smoking, drinking and-Jensen’s breath caught in his throat-snorting coke.
“Jay,” Jensen said urgently, rocking to a standstill.
“It’s okay, Jensen,” Jared took hold of his hand.
Jensen shook his head. “I can’t be here.”
Jared turned to face Jensen and lifted his chin, forcing Jensen to meet his eyes. “You don’t have permission to do any drugs tonight. You hear me? There are no choices for you to make. You just have to obey me. Can you do that?”
“How about we just go home? You can tie me to the bed. Do whatever you want to me.”
Jared’s expression remained grave. “Much as I would love to, we’re gonna have to hang out here for a while. President’s orders, remember?”
“Fuck, Jay. I’m gonna use. I--”
“Hey,” Jared gave him a little shake. “Remember the other night, when I refused to let you come for hours?”
Jensen nodded.
“It wasn’t exactly comfortable, was it? But in the long run, I made it worth your while, didn’t I?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen watched Katie snort a line of coke through a straw. He could almost feel the rush and he swallowed hard.
“Look at me, Jen.”
Jensen met Jared’s eyes again.
“You don’t have permission to use.”
“Okay, Jay.”
“This is gonna be uncomfortable for you, I know that. But I will make it worth your while. I promise.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Jared stared at him for a moment and then said, “If you’re struggling I want you to use your safe word and we’ll leave.”
Jensen nodded again.
“What’s your safe word?”
“Red.”
“Are you boys joining us, or what?” Pellegrino called out.
“Be there in a minute,” Jared called back.
“You okay, Jensen?” he added quietly.
“Yeah.”
Jared escorted Jensen past the sofas and straight over to the bar. Rachel was serving and Jensen was ridiculously grateful when Jared told him to join her. He slipped behind the counter and did his best to smile at her, but she could obviously tell that something was off.
“Recovering addict,” he said in response to her query.
She slid her eyes over to the drug taking going on just a few yards away and nodded. “Okay, Sweet pea, I got your back.”
Jensen helped himself to a shot of bourbon and lit a cigarette.
“So Jensen,” Pellegrino called. “I hear you visited Jim Beaver today.”
Jensen sucked hard on his cigarette and thanked God that he’d already told Jared about his impromptu visit. Bikers gossiped more than old women. You couldn’t fart around here without somebody overhearing and telling everyone.
“I did,” he said. “Figured I owed him an apology.”
Pellegrino raised an eyebrow. “And how did that go?”
Jensen manufactured a rueful grin. “He pointed a sawn-off at me and told me to get the hell off his property.”
The comment was met with raucous laughter and then Pellegrino asked him why he’d been in Beaver’s office for so long if that’s all that happened. Jensen explained that he’d been persistent and Jim had eventually let him make his apology.
“It’s a twelve steps thing,” he lied. “Step 9, making amends to people I harmed when I was a coked-out fuck up. He was nice about it. Let me ramble on, get it all off my chest.”
“Huh,” Pellegrino picked up a straw and snorted a line of coke off the mirror on the coffee table. “Does this bother you then?” he gestured at the mirror and the lines.
“Honestly?” Jensen took another drag. “Yeah. It does.”
Pellegrino stared at him for a moment and then whispered something to Gen, who nodded, climbed off his lap and picked up a silver tray. She scurried up to the bar and asked for a round of Tequila, lemon slices and salt.
“Get chopping Big Boy,” Rachel said, handing Jensen a fruit bowl filled with lemons and limes.
Jensen butted out his Marlboro and got to work. He flicked his eyes up to Gen who was leaning on the bar looking up at him. Up close, he could see a bruise on her cheek.
“You okay?” he asked. “Do you need some ice?”
“Already iced it,” she said. “And yeah. But you better watch out. Alaina’s on the warpath.”
“Alaina did that?”
Gen nodded. “She doesn’t hang out down here much, so Mark usually uses me as his lap warmer. Alaina doesn’t normally care unless he actually sticks his dick in me; that’s like, her line in the sand. But she’s in a bad mood today.”
“She’s here?”
Gen nodded. “She’s out the back. She has an office back there. She’ll probably be out later.”
Jensen tipped the pile of sliced lemon into a bowl and put it on the tray. “I haven’t met her yet.”
“You’re not missing much,” Rachel said lowly, putting the last shot glass of Tequila on the tray.
When Gen had gone, Rachel turned to Jensen. “HeyDay was showing Alaina something on his phone earlier. She lost her shit, said, I’m gonna kill him. Fucking slut.”
Jensen could almost feel the color draining from his face.
“What?” Rachel folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “You know something, Pumpkin?”
“What’s with all the nicknames?” Jensen deflected.
“Trying to find one that suits you. Don’t change the subject.”
Jensen sighed and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Had a visit from The Beast this morning. I know for sure HeyDay got a photo of me naked. It’s possible that he might’ve got a few more photos I wasn’t aware of.”
“Huh,” said Rachel. “And these photos…would they…?”
“Cross Alaina’s line in the sand? Yeah.”
Rachel pulled a face and then shuddered. “Better you than me.”
Jensen lit another cigarette.
“Question,” he said. “Why are you here? You don’t seem to like…anyone, really.”
Rachel grinned. “I like all the girls just fine. Except for Alaina. Moose and Rolly are good guys. And Freddie,” she smiled shyly. “He really floats my boat. Crossroads is irritating, I’ll give you that, and the less said about, well, you know who, the better. But if you want my honest answer, I’m here for ol’ Yellow Eyes.”
Jensen was surprised and he knew it showed. “Dude’s gotta be almost sixty,” he said.
Rachel shrugged. “Just means he’s got experience. We can’t all be cradle snatchers like you.”
“Jensen!” HeyDay called out. “Bring me a beer.”
Jensen looked across to where HeyDay was sitting, with line after line of coke spread out in front of him. He swallowed.
“I’ll go get it,” Gen tried to climb up off Pellegrino’s lap, but he tugged her back down and squeezed her breast so hard that she winced.
“Jensen! Now!” HeyDay insisted.
Jensen turned his back and took a gulp of air. Then another.
Rachel got a big glass beer mug down and filled it with the Bud they had on tap.
“I can’t go over there,” Jensen said. “Fuck. I…”
“I got your back,” Rachel murmured. “And so has your boy.”
Jensen turned to see Jared standing on the other side of the bar.
“Breathe,” Jared said. “And then pour me a double bourbon.”
Jensen took a deep breath. Rachel was taking HeyDay his beer. Fuck. He wanted to go over there so badly, to slide to his knees in front of that mirror and snort a couple lines. He could almost taste the bitter, acrid chemicals in the back of his throat. He wanted the euphoria, the on-top-of-the-world feeling of invincibility so badly he was shaking. He needed this. Just one line. He could do that. Just one line. Just one.
But then afterwards, when he was starting to come down, HeyDay would drag him into one of the back rooms and hurt him, just like he always did. He would get out that little knife he liked to carry around and he would run the cold steel over Jensen until he was trembling. Then the cutting would start. Little nicks and abrasions and the hot welling of blood. You’re so pretty when you cry, Dean.
“Jensen!”
Jensen’s eyes fixed immediately on Jared’s.
“You with me?”
“Yeah. Sorry. One double bourbon coming up.”
He got down a tumbler and the Jim Beam and poured the double shot. He could hear Rachel using her caustic tongue to give Heyerdahl shit and he was glad, so glad, that he had people looking out for him.
“Just remember,” Jared murmured. “If you’re good for me, I’m gonna make it worth your while.”
Jensen took a deep breath and nodded. He hated knife play. He hated even more that in the past Heyerdahl had got him high and then tied him down and made him bleed. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be so strung out that he’d agree to anything. He wanted to be good for Jared and maybe that was a little bit pathetic, but he knew that Jared would keep his word, that he’d reward Jensen with enough pleasure to blow a fuse in his mind.
“Pellegrino wants us guys to play poker,” Jared said, and Jensen knew that ‘us guys’ didn’t include him. “Are you all right to stay a bit longer, or do you need me to take you home?”
Jensen told Jared that he’d be okay. He wasn’t actually sure that he would be, but if he was going to hang around; if he was going to make this work, then he had to learn to deal with this.
The guys moved across to the table where they played cards and the girls cleared up all the drug paraphernalia. Katie turned the music up and then they were all dancing, slowly sensually, putting on a performance for the guys, stopping sometimes to kiss and rub against each other.
Jensen lit another cigarette and made himself a strong black coffee, which he downed fast. His hands were still shaking.
“You remember where the stock room is?”
Jensen nodded and Rachel handed him a clipboard. “Go count everything and write down what I need to order. It’ll give you some space to get yourself together.”
The stock room was cold, quiet and dusty. Jensen took his cigarettes and an ashtray with him, sat himself down on a stack of slabs of Jack and Cola and flipped open the pack. There were only four cigarettes left. Fuck. He really needed to cut back. Since this whole thing with HellSpawn started, he’d graduated from one pack a day to two.
Jensen finished his cigarette and squashed it into the ashtray on his lap. He stared at the four still standing like soldiers in the pack and pretended for a moment that he wasn’t going to smoke another one.
Fuck it. He shook another one loose, pulled his disposable lighter out from behind the cigarette pack’s plastic wrapping and lit up, sucking in smoke as if his life depended on it, when in fact it was probably killing him.
At least by the time he’d smoked the second one, his hands had stopped shaking.
Inventorying the alcohol was actually soothing and Jensen quickly got into the rhythm of counting, comparing the total to the minimum stock level required, and noting the items that needed replenishing. Half an hour later he was done and he was out of cigarettes. Maybe he could bum a couple off Rachel? She smoked Dunhill International. The other girls who smoked all smoked that menthol shit.
Jensen switched the light off and left the stock room and something hard connected with his face, with enough force to snap his head back.
“Fuck!” He reached a hand up to stem the flow of blood from his nose and eyeballed the tall redhead in the black jeans, black leather jacket and The Devil Made Me Do It tee-shirt. “Alaina, right?”
A moment later he was shoved back against the wall with Alaina’s hands around his throat.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” she said. “Pellegrino is mine.”
Jensen rolled his eyes and then broke her hold on him, reversing their positions and pinning her to the wall by her wrists. “And you’re welcome to him, sister. You think I wanted his tiny, slimy dick down my throat? I didn’t have a choice. But hey, if you ever want any pointers, I can teach you how to make him come quick.”
Alaina tried to knee him in the balls, but Jensen managed to scoot out of the way and she got his thigh instead. “You don’t want to piss me off, Princess,” she said. “People who piss me off end up cut into little strips and buried under cement.”
“Duly noted,” Jensen said, letting go of her wrists and stepping back.
Alaina scowled and rubbed at her wrists.
“Don’t forget that I have status, Jensen. I’m the First Lady. I get treated like a member. You’re just a pretty set of holes to be used.”
She sashayed out into the main part of the club and Jensen waited for a moment and then followed her out. He found her seated at the table with the guys, demanding that she be dealt into the game. She gave him a smug, self-satisfied look as Crossroads dealt her in.
Oh Sweetheart, Jensen thought, you are so far out of your depth.
He gave Jared his most seductive smile and then strolled over to the den area, where the girls were sitting around smoking, drinking and gossiping. He waved the clipboard at Rachel and placed it on the bar before sliding in next to her on the sofa.
Rachel examined him with narrow eyes. “You’re bleeding,” she said.
Jensen put his hand up to his nose as if he’d forgotten. “Oh yeah. Anyone got a Kleenex?”
Katie got a small packet out of her purse and handed it to him and he dabbed at his nose.
“What happened?” Gen asked.
Jensen widened his eyes. “Her Royal Bitchiness is pissed at me. Like it’s my fault The Beast, well, you know. Ain’t like I can say no to him, is it?”
“That’s so unfair!” Gen was quick to commiserate.
Within moments Rachel had brought him a beer (and he’d bummed a cigarette off her) and Katie had dipped a Kleenex in vodka and used it to clean the rest of the blood from his face. Jensen settled back and let them fuss over him and bitch about Alaina, occasionally throwing in a word or two to set them off again when it looked like they were winding down.
He felt eyes boring into him and looked up to see Alaina staring at him with loathing. Loathing and the awareness that she’d made a serious tactical error. The sweet-butts and Ruthie were all most definitely in Jensen’s corner and whether Alaina wanted to acknowledge it or not, the bikers were-for the most part-a bunch of misogynists who would never accept her as an equal. She might think her status as First Lady was a trump card, but Jensen knew better. In the MC world, dick beat pussy every time and that gave him an advantage that Alaina would never have.
You shook me all night long came on the stereo and Katie squealed and dragged Gen to her feet. “Come dance!”
Nicky joined them and Rachel patted Jensen on the knee and went across to the bar to check on the inventory he’d done for her. Ruthie got up from her seat on the other side of the coffee table and minced across on her very high heels to sit beside him.
“Well played, Sweetie,” she said. “You really are a worthy Queen.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. “Being gay doesn’t make me a girl, you know.”
“I know that,” Ruthie huffed. “I was actually comparing you to the chess piece. The Queen is the most powerful piece on the board, you know.”
Jensen rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Well you oughta be the Queen then.”
Ruthie smirked and patted primly at her hair. “Oh Darlin’,” she said, sotto voce, “flattery will get you everywhere.”
Jensen laughed. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. But while we’re talking, just us girls,” he winked at her, “I heard something today, which,” he broke off and sighed. “All of us here, I’m guessing the one thing we’ve all got in common is, I guess you’d call it a certain moral flexibility. But we’ve all got lines we don’t cross. Today, someone told me that HellSpawn was making a profit off of kiddie porn, and that don’t sit right with me.”
“Would that someone be Detective Steve Williams? Moose told the boys about your plan this afternoon. Pellegrino wasn’t happy, but he approved it,” Ruthie leaned in close. “After the meeting I saw Pellegrino and HeyDay talking. Pellegrino said that maybe if they gave you enough rope you’d hang yourselves.”
Jensen wrinkled his nose. It sounded like Pellegrino was already suspicious of them.
“Yeah, it was Steve. And sure, he could’ve just been trying to get a rise out of me, but I think he honestly believed it. Have you heard anything?”
Ruthie looked at him long and hard, her eyes like slits. Eventually she sighed. “You’ve heard that Pellegrino is having my Mark go over the books of several businesses because he thinks that they’re trying to short-change HellSpawn on their cut?”
Jensen nodded. “Right. There was that whole thing with the bookie.”
“Another one of the businesses Mark is investigating makes porn that people subscribe to over the internet. Mark found some irregularities and wanted to take a closer look at them. Pellegrino told him to drop it. Now, as I’m sure you can appreciate, an organization like ours is quite complex. There’s a confusing rabbit warren of shelf companies, holding companies, off-shore accounts and so on that make the money trails difficult for the authorities to follow. Getting into kiddie porn would be against the Club’s constitution, so I’m gonna give you a name. Maybe you can reassure all of us that none of the Club’s rules are being quietly broken.”
Ruthie stopped speaking and looked at Jensen intently.
“Go on,” he said. “What’s the name?”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced across at the guys playing poker. “Amara Enterprises,” she said finally. “That’s the name of the company that Pellegrino uses to channel the porn money. He set it up about four years ago.”
Four years ago. So that’d be right around the time JD was killed.
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Jensen awoke to off-key crooning and opened his eyes, once again, to the unwelcome sight of Mark Pellegrino staring into his face.
“Fuck!” he jerked backwards and flailed into Jared who lurched upwards with a mumbled curse, his hair doing its best impression of a large shaggy dog.
“Seriously, man,” Jensen said to him. “Just give me five minutes with the clippers, that’s all I ask.”
“What?” Jared frowned. “Shut up. Mark? What are you--” and then his face turned a sickly green and he clamped his hands over his mouth before running naked for the bathroom.
Jensen and Pellegrino listened to him retching noisily and then Pellegrino pulled a face and shrugged.
“Nice hickeys,” he pointed at Jensen’s throat. “Get up.”
Jensen didn’t bother trying to hide himself this time, just spun around naked-as instructed-to give The Beast a good look at his body.
Pellegrino harrumphed. “He went easy on you.” He gave Jensen’s ass a hard smack.
Jensen spun to face him with a scowl. “Maybe he’s just more creative than you? There’s more than one way to torture someone, you know. And Jared’s got a pretty big box of toys.”
Of course, they hadn’t really done much of anything last night, but Pellegrino didn’t need to know that.
“He’s right,” Jared said, reappearing in the bedroom. “I always enjoy the classics, but there are a lot of fun ways to torment someone,” he cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “Not that it isn’t a pleasure to see you, Mark, but what can we do for you at,” he glanced at the clock. “6.00am on a Monday morning?”
Pellegrino smiled widely. “Oh, just checking in,” he said. “But you know, now that I think about it, there is something that Jensen can do for me. Underlings getting on their knees and blowing the boss is one of the classics, right?”
Jared’s face darkened like a stormy sky. “Jensen is mine,” he said.
Pellegrino’s face lit up with cruel glee. “And I’m your boss. What’s yours is mine, Moose, and don’t you ever forget it.”
Jared’s expression darkened even further. He straightened up, rigid with fury, and flicked his eyes to Jensen. Jensen realized, with a sick sense of dread, that Jared was one protest from Jensen away from doing something stupid; like going and getting his Glock and shooting The Beast between the eyes.
So Jensen did the only thing he could think of. He dropped to his knees and undid Pellegrino’s jeans, as if he was cool with this; as if it were nothing.
Jared made a noise, somewhere between a growl and a whine and Jensen slid has hands around Pellegrino’s hips and gave Jared a thumbs up and then waved him away.
“Yeah, good,” Pellegrino said. “Suck it, slut.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. He’d sucked Pellegrino off before. He wasn’t going to enjoy it, he didn’t really want to do it, but it was hardly going to scar him for life. He did hope that The Beast would keep his dirty talk to a minimum, though, because he sucked at it.
Jensen got Pellegrino’s mostly soft dick in his mouth and sucked and tongued until it hardened. Mostly, he was listening for Jared and when he heard the shower start he was finally able to relax and get to work, using his considerable dick sucking skills to bring The Beast off as quickly and efficiently as possible. Because he was a bastard, Pellegrino held Jensen’s head tightly and flooded his mouth with come.
“Swallow, bitch,” he said.
Jensen held it in his mouth and when Pellegrino let go of his head he spat it out.
Pellegrino scowled. “I told you to swallow.”
“Yeah, no offense, but I don’t know where you’ve been.”
Having said which, it occurred to Jensen that, these days, Pellegrino didn’t usually step out on his old lady-not this close to home, anyway. He hadn’t actually met Alaina yet, but she came with a pretty solid reputation as a heinous, cold-hearted bitch. And apparently she already thought Jensen was a threat. Jensen wondered what Pellegrino was trying to achieve here. Was it just the five star blow job he’d been after, or had putting Jared and Jensen in their place been important enough to him to risk his old lady’s wrath?
Pellegrino tucked himself away slowly with a smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face.
Jensen stayed where he was, kneeling on the floor, until Pellegrino told him to get up.
The Beast ran a thumb across Jensen’s lips and Jensen tried not to let his repulsion show as Pellegrino told him that he was a good little cock sucker; that if he didn’t make enough cash at the tables, they could stand him on a street corner and make a good living off of his mouth.
Jensen refused to react, because he knew that’s what Pellegrino was after.
“Anything else you need?” he asked. “Breakfast? Coffee?”
Pellegrino pursed his lips. “Nah, I got my blow job. Can’t hang around here all day staring at your pretty ass. I got people to do, things to see. No wait, reverse that.”
Jensen showed Pellegrino out and found Heyerdahl waiting in the kitchen, seemingly immersed in something on his cell phone. He stood up when Jensen walked in stark naked, and snapped a photo of him with a wolfish grin.
“See you ‘round, Jenny,” he said in his nasally voice, following his boss to the door and leering at Jensen’s nakedness.
“Make sure Moose isn’t late for work,” Pellegrino told Jensen. He opened the door and then sauntered outside whistling Highway to Hell.
When they’d gone, Jensen went and joined Jared in the shower. The biker’s head was leaning against the wall of the cubicle and he was surrounded by steam.
“You okay?” Jensen asked, circling Jared’s waist with his arms.
“I should be asking you that,” Jared said morosely.
“I’m fine. Nothing I haven’t had to do before, Jay.”
He picked up the soap and began to wash Jared, lathering up his arms, his back, his legs and his butt, massaging each part in turn and then rinsing him off. By the time Jensen slipped his arms around to Jared’s front to do his chest and groin, Jared was hard.
“What are we gonna do about this?” Jensen said teasingly, fisting Jared’s cock with a soapy hand.
Jared looked at him with unfathomable eyes. “Should I just jerk off like a normal person?” he asked.
Jensen shook his head. He reached up and pumped out a generous amount of conditioner and then reached behind himself and began to work himself open.
Jared swore. He turned them around so that Jensen was now the one pressed up against the wall of the shower, and then it was Jensen’s turn to spit out curses as first one, then two of Jared’s fingers joined the two of his own that he was already using to stretch himself.
With nothing but water and conditioner to ease the way, it hurt when Jared thrust inside, but Jensen didn’t care, because he fucking loved Jared’s dick, every long, fat inch of it. He shifted his feet and stuck his ass out further and Jared got the message, taking hold of Jensen’s hips and slamming in hard, nailing his prostate on every other thrust as Jensen moaned at the pain, the pleasure, the relief of being so thoroughly owned.
He began to fist his dick and Jared’s thrusts became erratic as he hammered in hard, chasing release. With a shudder, Jensen realized that they were fucking bare, but before he could open his mouth to say anything, Jared pulled out and came all over his ass. Jensen groaned and followed him over the edge.
“Fucking love your cock,” Jensen said, his voice so slurred with pleasure that he sounded drunk.
“Just my cock?”
Jensen hummed. “Some other parts of you are all right too.”
They got out of the shower and began to towel off.
“So listen,” Jensen said. “I was thinking maybe I’d catch up with Steve today.”
Jared tensed visibly. “Why?”
Jensen wrapped the towel around his waist. “The way I see it, we can play this two ways. One: I meet up with Steve, tell him I’m scared of you, out of my depth, let him convince me to become his informant and then we used him to funnel disinformation to the gang task force.”
Jared was leaning back against the wall and frowning. “He’s going work out pretty quick that nothing you tell him pans out.”
Jensen raised his eyebrows. “Give me a little credit. I do know how to run a successful con,” he waited until Jared nodded in acquiescence and then said, “That’s not the main issue with option one, anyway. The main problem is Dean Winchester. If Steve’s as thorough and diligent as you say he is, he probably knows about my Dean Winchester alias and that means he’s not gonna buy me as a scared punk rich kid who got in over his head.”
“Right,” Jared nodded. “So what’s the second option?”
“I meet up with him, let him know that I know he’s a cop, and then offer to be co-operative, so long as it doesn’t hurt you.”
Jared sucked in a harsh breath. “Why?” he said, eyes narrowed.
Jensen shrugged. “Because it doesn’t hurt to have a cop who likes you, maybe even owes you a favor. And it doesn’t hurt HellSpawn if I keep my ears open and occasionally tell him what bad things other people are doing. Also,” Jensen licked at his lips, “if Steve starts to trust me, I might be able to pump him for information on JD.”
Jared went very still.
“Maybe the cops didn’t try too hard to figure out who killed him,” Jensen said, watching Jared closely and trying to gauge his mood, “because what do they care if one bad guy kills another? But I’m betting they at least looked into it, enough to know if it was gonna start a gang war. Maybe Steve knows something we could use.”
Jensen wasn’t sure what to make of the expression that came over Jared’s face and he couldn’t help backing into the sink when Jared advanced on him menacingly.
“Are you fucking playing me?” Jared barked. “Is this all a huge fucking con to you?”
Jensen gaped at him. “Chill, Jared. I’m on your side.”
“Why? I forced you to have sex with me. I hit you. I wouldn’t let you leave the apartment. Why the fuck would you be on my side?”
“Because I like you, asshole!” Jensen spat. “You’re funny and sexy and smart and a total geek and your dogs love you and the girls all like you because you treat them with respect most of the time and, yeah, okay, you’re kinky as fuck and you can be a possessive, controlling asshole, but it seems like you’ve got your reasons. And the way I see it, pretty much the only guy you ever had on your side was JD and…I liked JD too. You deserve to know what happened to him, Jay,” Jensen slid his arms around Jared’s waist. “I’m not playing you. This ain’t a con. I’m on your side. For real.”
Jared stared down at him with the flattest, most expressionless eyes Jensen had ever seen. And then he blinked and his eyes became those of a sad, lost puppy. He hesitated a moment and then cupped a hand around the back of Jensen’s head and lowered his lips to Jensen’s, kissing him gently, tentatively, before licking his way inside and plundering Jensen’s mouth greedily, almost as if he were trying to taste Jensen’s sincerity by sucking on his tongue.
When he finally pulled away he looked a lot less uncertain and a lot calmer too.
“Do it,” he said decisively, and it was the HellSpawn VP speaking. “Go with option 2. But we’ll tell Pellegrino you’re feeding the cops disinformation. ”
--
Beaver’s Junkyard was small and dilapidated and Jensen wondered how he managed to keep it running now that he was in a wheelchair.
He’d had the cab drop him off a little way down the road and then he’d walked past the used car lot, past the garden supply place, past the tile-and-paver warehouse and, finally, down the long gravel driveway, past all the wrecks, to the small site office.
This was a risk. A big one. And Jensen couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t quietly shitting himself. He walked up the ramp with a pounding heart and opened the glass sliding door.
There was guy with a blond mullet and a muscle shirt sitting at the desk in the front office. He was nobody Jensen recognized.
“Hey,” Jensen said.
The guy looked up from his computer, expression bored.
“I’m lookin’ for Jim. Jim Beaver.”
“And you are?”
“An old friend.”
The blond guy looked him up and down slowly and then picked up his desk phone.
“Boss, got a guy here askin’ for you. Says he’s an old friend.”
The blond guy’s eyes flicked up to Jensen’s. “Name?”
Jensen licked at his lips. “Tell him it’s Dean Winchester.”
Blond guy relayed the information and then his eyes widened. Before he could do much more than look stunned the door into the back office flew open and Jim wheeled himself out, brandishing a sawn-off shotgun.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow a hole in you?” he demanded.
“JD Morgan.”
“He’s dead.”
Jensen nodded. “He was a good man. And a friend of yours too, I hear.”
Jim half lowered the shotgun. “He had a soft spot for you. Was real upset when he thought The Beast had you killed.”
Jensen held his hands up beside his head in the universal gesture of surrender. “Jim, I’m sorry for what I did to you. To Traci. Heyerdahl was…insistent, but that don’t excuse it.”
“Damn right it don’t,” Jim said. He held Jensen’s eyes, expression hard. Jensen did his best to look contrite, which wasn’t too hard, because he still felt like shit about what went down with Jim and Traci.
Finally, Jim sighed. “The damage to my legs, that ain’t on you. That was HeyDay. Same with Traci’s eyes.” Jim ran a hand over his face. “Look, I’ve done a fucked up thing or two in my time. What you did, I don’t hold it against you. What’s done is done. But if you’re on some twelve-steps-askin’-for-forgiveness kick, you can get out. I ain’t got the patience for that nonsense.”
Jensen wrinkled his nose. “Hell no. I just wanna talk.”
“About?”
Jensen looked at the blond guy and then nodded back toward Jim’s office.
Jim frowned. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
Jensen ended up staying for over an hour.
--
Jensen was already at Happy Gok’s Pool Hall when Steve arrived. He was sitting at one of the round bar tables with a double-shot latte in one hand and a lit Marlboro in the other and he watched as Steve paused in the entrance and then made a beeline for Jensen as soon as he saw him, walking slowly, eyes narrowed, taking everything in.
“You all right, Jensen?” Steve said, taking a seat opposite him. “You sounded worried on the phone.”
Jensen took a sip of his coffee; swallowed. “Everything’s fine Detective Williams.”
Give Steve his due, he barely reacted. Only a slight tightening around his eyes and mouth and the way he rubbed at his shirt cuff gave him away.
“I’m guessing Padalecki had me investigated,” Steve said.
Well at least that answered the question of whether he knew who Jared was.
“Hey, Johnny?” Jensen called out to Johnny Gok. “Can we get another coffee over here?” his eyes flicked to Steve. “Long black, right?”
Steve nodded and Jensen relayed the information to Johnny.
“You know that, legally, you’re not supposed to smoke in here, right?” Steve said.
Jensen smirked at him. “What are you gonna do, Detective? Arrest me-and everyone else-for smoking? Besides, pretty sure this place is family run.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “Okay, cards on the table, then. I’m Detective Steve Williams, Gang and Narcotics Division. You’re Jensen Ackles, aka Dean Winchester. It’s been seven, eight years since your alias was last running with HellSpawn. Why are you back?”
Jensen took a drag on his cigarette. “I had a debt to pay.”
Steve’s eyes bored into him. “You still payin’ it? Is that why you’re with Padalecki?”
“It’s…complicated.”
Steve looked less than impressed. “That ain’t an answer, son, it’s a Facebook relationship status.”
Jensen laughed. “Yeah.”
“Huh,” Steve said, his expression curious and assessing. “So why did you call me?”
“Because you seem like a good guy. I wanted you to know that HellSpawn knew you were a cop. They think you want to get to them through me, which makes you a threat to them.”
Johnny brought Steve’s coffee over and he took it with a word of thanks.
“What are they gonna think of you meeting up with me like this, then?” he asked Jensen.
“They’re gonna think we’re running a con. That I’m agreeing to be your informant so that we can feed you bullshit.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “That only works if I don’t know that’s what you’re doing.”
Jensen acknowledged the comment with a wry smile and Steve examined him intently, brow furrowed.
“So what are you really doing?”
Jensen lit another cigarette. “I’ve been talkin’ to Jim Beaver. He tells me the two of you went to school together.”
“From kindergarten, right through until he dropped out in High School.”
“Jim said you were buddies.”
“We were. But we chose different paths. He chose a life of violence and crime and I chose to wear a badge. I tried to persuade him to leave that life behind, but MC culture was in his blood.”
“He’s out now.”
“So I hear.”
Jensen leaned forward. “He tells me JD came to you, that it was you that got him and Traci out of that warehouse.”
Steve took a sip of his coffee; ran a thumb across his mustache. “JD had a conscience. He didn’t like what Heyerdahl was doing to Jim and Traci and he knew that Jim and I used to be friends,” Steve chuckled humorously. “I was denied a place in the Gang and Narcotics division three times, because of my prior friendship with Jim. They were worried I might be unduly influenced by my emotional ties,” Steve glared, the memory obviously still a sore point. “When Jim got four wheels under him permanently, that’s when I got the promotion I’d been after for years.”
You couldn’t be an MC member if you couldn’t ride a motorcycle and after what had happened to him and Traci, Jim and his old lady had too much to adjust to, to want to continue their association with The Dead Reapers. Bad for Jim. Good for Steve.
Jensen took a final drag on his cigarette and butted it out. “Must piss you off knowing your superiors don’t fully trust you.”
“Oh they trust me,” Steve said. “Everybody knows I’m a straight shooter. I’ve earned that trust.”
Jensen pursed his lips. “Still, it’d look pretty good on your jacket if you managed to take down Pellegrino, huh?”
Steve was starting to look pissed. “What do you want, Jensen?”
Jensen smiled. “I want to know what JD was doing for you guys when Pellegrino had him killed.”
He hadn’t been sure; not one hundred percent. Not until Steve’s eyes tightened and he began to rub at his shirt cuff.
Yahtzee, Jensen thought grimly.
--
Jared pulled into a parking space around the side of the club rooms and Jensen swung himself off the bike and took off his helmet. He handed it to Jared who hung both helmets over the bike’s handlebars and then Jared cocked his head and gave Jensen a slow, thorough once over.
“Man,” he said. “I’m so tempted to just go home and tie you to the bed. But when the President summons you, you gotta play nice.”
Jensen stepped into his space. “Wanna fuck me up against the side of the building before we go in?”
Jared looked at him with narrowed eyes. “That a genuine offer or are you just humoring me?”
Jensen shrugged. “I’ve got exhibitionist tendencies. If you don’t believe me, my therapist will confirm it.”
“You have a therapist?” Jared raised an eyebrow.
“Had. My parents insisted.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
Jensen punched Jared’s arm. “Don’t you fuckin’ start.”
Jared sniggered. “Hey, I know what it’s like. I had a whole bunch of social workers. Every single one of ‘em underpaid, overworked and happy to lose my paperwork.”
The club rooms were dark and smoky and Sweet Home Alabama was playing on the stereo system as Jared and Jensen walked in, shoulder-to-shoulder.
The whole gang appeared to be there, plus a bunch of hangers-on, sitting around in the den area smoking, drinking and-Jensen’s breath caught in his throat-snorting coke.
“Jay,” Jensen said urgently, rocking to a standstill.
“It’s okay, Jensen,” Jared took hold of his hand.
Jensen shook his head. “I can’t be here.”
Jared turned to face Jensen and lifted his chin, forcing Jensen to meet his eyes. “You don’t have permission to do any drugs tonight. You hear me? There are no choices for you to make. You just have to obey me. Can you do that?”
“How about we just go home? You can tie me to the bed. Do whatever you want to me.”
Jared’s expression remained grave. “Much as I would love to, we’re gonna have to hang out here for a while. President’s orders, remember?”
“Fuck, Jay. I’m gonna use. I--”
“Hey,” Jared gave him a little shake. “Remember the other night, when I refused to let you come for hours?”
Jensen nodded.
“It wasn’t exactly comfortable, was it? But in the long run, I made it worth your while, didn’t I?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen watched Katie snort a line of coke through a straw. He could almost feel the rush and he swallowed hard.
“Look at me, Jen.”
Jensen met Jared’s eyes again.
“You don’t have permission to use.”
“Okay, Jay.”
“This is gonna be uncomfortable for you, I know that. But I will make it worth your while. I promise.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Jared stared at him for a moment and then said, “If you’re struggling I want you to use your safe word and we’ll leave.”
Jensen nodded again.
“What’s your safe word?”
“Red.”
“Are you boys joining us, or what?” Pellegrino called out.
“Be there in a minute,” Jared called back.
“You okay, Jensen?” he added quietly.
“Yeah.”
Jared escorted Jensen past the sofas and straight over to the bar. Rachel was serving and Jensen was ridiculously grateful when Jared told him to join her. He slipped behind the counter and did his best to smile at her, but she could obviously tell that something was off.
“Recovering addict,” he said in response to her query.
She slid her eyes over to the drug taking going on just a few yards away and nodded. “Okay, Sweet pea, I got your back.”
Jensen helped himself to a shot of bourbon and lit a cigarette.
“So Jensen,” Pellegrino called. “I hear you visited Jim Beaver today.”
Jensen sucked hard on his cigarette and thanked God that he’d already told Jared about his impromptu visit. Bikers gossiped more than old women. You couldn’t fart around here without somebody overhearing and telling everyone.
“I did,” he said. “Figured I owed him an apology.”
Pellegrino raised an eyebrow. “And how did that go?”
Jensen manufactured a rueful grin. “He pointed a sawn-off at me and told me to get the hell off his property.”
The comment was met with raucous laughter and then Pellegrino asked him why he’d been in Beaver’s office for so long if that’s all that happened. Jensen explained that he’d been persistent and Jim had eventually let him make his apology.
“It’s a twelve steps thing,” he lied. “Step 9, making amends to people I harmed when I was a coked-out fuck up. He was nice about it. Let me ramble on, get it all off my chest.”
“Huh,” Pellegrino picked up a straw and snorted a line of coke off the mirror on the coffee table. “Does this bother you then?” he gestured at the mirror and the lines.
“Honestly?” Jensen took another drag. “Yeah. It does.”
Pellegrino stared at him for a moment and then whispered something to Gen, who nodded, climbed off his lap and picked up a silver tray. She scurried up to the bar and asked for a round of Tequila, lemon slices and salt.
“Get chopping Big Boy,” Rachel said, handing Jensen a fruit bowl filled with lemons and limes.
Jensen butted out his Marlboro and got to work. He flicked his eyes up to Gen who was leaning on the bar looking up at him. Up close, he could see a bruise on her cheek.
“You okay?” he asked. “Do you need some ice?”
“Already iced it,” she said. “And yeah. But you better watch out. Alaina’s on the warpath.”
“Alaina did that?”
Gen nodded. “She doesn’t hang out down here much, so Mark usually uses me as his lap warmer. Alaina doesn’t normally care unless he actually sticks his dick in me; that’s like, her line in the sand. But she’s in a bad mood today.”
“She’s here?”
Gen nodded. “She’s out the back. She has an office back there. She’ll probably be out later.”
Jensen tipped the pile of sliced lemon into a bowl and put it on the tray. “I haven’t met her yet.”
“You’re not missing much,” Rachel said lowly, putting the last shot glass of Tequila on the tray.
When Gen had gone, Rachel turned to Jensen. “HeyDay was showing Alaina something on his phone earlier. She lost her shit, said, I’m gonna kill him. Fucking slut.”
Jensen could almost feel the color draining from his face.
“What?” Rachel folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “You know something, Pumpkin?”
“What’s with all the nicknames?” Jensen deflected.
“Trying to find one that suits you. Don’t change the subject.”
Jensen sighed and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Had a visit from The Beast this morning. I know for sure HeyDay got a photo of me naked. It’s possible that he might’ve got a few more photos I wasn’t aware of.”
“Huh,” said Rachel. “And these photos…would they…?”
“Cross Alaina’s line in the sand? Yeah.”
Rachel pulled a face and then shuddered. “Better you than me.”
Jensen lit another cigarette.
“Question,” he said. “Why are you here? You don’t seem to like…anyone, really.”
Rachel grinned. “I like all the girls just fine. Except for Alaina. Moose and Rolly are good guys. And Freddie,” she smiled shyly. “He really floats my boat. Crossroads is irritating, I’ll give you that, and the less said about, well, you know who, the better. But if you want my honest answer, I’m here for ol’ Yellow Eyes.”
Jensen was surprised and he knew it showed. “Dude’s gotta be almost sixty,” he said.
Rachel shrugged. “Just means he’s got experience. We can’t all be cradle snatchers like you.”
“Jensen!” HeyDay called out. “Bring me a beer.”
Jensen looked across to where HeyDay was sitting, with line after line of coke spread out in front of him. He swallowed.
“I’ll go get it,” Gen tried to climb up off Pellegrino’s lap, but he tugged her back down and squeezed her breast so hard that she winced.
“Jensen! Now!” HeyDay insisted.
Jensen turned his back and took a gulp of air. Then another.
Rachel got a big glass beer mug down and filled it with the Bud they had on tap.
“I can’t go over there,” Jensen said. “Fuck. I…”
“I got your back,” Rachel murmured. “And so has your boy.”
Jensen turned to see Jared standing on the other side of the bar.
“Breathe,” Jared said. “And then pour me a double bourbon.”
Jensen took a deep breath. Rachel was taking HeyDay his beer. Fuck. He wanted to go over there so badly, to slide to his knees in front of that mirror and snort a couple lines. He could almost taste the bitter, acrid chemicals in the back of his throat. He wanted the euphoria, the on-top-of-the-world feeling of invincibility so badly he was shaking. He needed this. Just one line. He could do that. Just one line. Just one.
But then afterwards, when he was starting to come down, HeyDay would drag him into one of the back rooms and hurt him, just like he always did. He would get out that little knife he liked to carry around and he would run the cold steel over Jensen until he was trembling. Then the cutting would start. Little nicks and abrasions and the hot welling of blood. You’re so pretty when you cry, Dean.
“Jensen!”
Jensen’s eyes fixed immediately on Jared’s.
“You with me?”
“Yeah. Sorry. One double bourbon coming up.”
He got down a tumbler and the Jim Beam and poured the double shot. He could hear Rachel using her caustic tongue to give Heyerdahl shit and he was glad, so glad, that he had people looking out for him.
“Just remember,” Jared murmured. “If you’re good for me, I’m gonna make it worth your while.”
Jensen took a deep breath and nodded. He hated knife play. He hated even more that in the past Heyerdahl had got him high and then tied him down and made him bleed. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be so strung out that he’d agree to anything. He wanted to be good for Jared and maybe that was a little bit pathetic, but he knew that Jared would keep his word, that he’d reward Jensen with enough pleasure to blow a fuse in his mind.
“Pellegrino wants us guys to play poker,” Jared said, and Jensen knew that ‘us guys’ didn’t include him. “Are you all right to stay a bit longer, or do you need me to take you home?”
Jensen told Jared that he’d be okay. He wasn’t actually sure that he would be, but if he was going to hang around; if he was going to make this work, then he had to learn to deal with this.
The guys moved across to the table where they played cards and the girls cleared up all the drug paraphernalia. Katie turned the music up and then they were all dancing, slowly sensually, putting on a performance for the guys, stopping sometimes to kiss and rub against each other.
Jensen lit another cigarette and made himself a strong black coffee, which he downed fast. His hands were still shaking.
“You remember where the stock room is?”
Jensen nodded and Rachel handed him a clipboard. “Go count everything and write down what I need to order. It’ll give you some space to get yourself together.”
The stock room was cold, quiet and dusty. Jensen took his cigarettes and an ashtray with him, sat himself down on a stack of slabs of Jack and Cola and flipped open the pack. There were only four cigarettes left. Fuck. He really needed to cut back. Since this whole thing with HellSpawn started, he’d graduated from one pack a day to two.
Jensen finished his cigarette and squashed it into the ashtray on his lap. He stared at the four still standing like soldiers in the pack and pretended for a moment that he wasn’t going to smoke another one.
Fuck it. He shook another one loose, pulled his disposable lighter out from behind the cigarette pack’s plastic wrapping and lit up, sucking in smoke as if his life depended on it, when in fact it was probably killing him.
At least by the time he’d smoked the second one, his hands had stopped shaking.
Inventorying the alcohol was actually soothing and Jensen quickly got into the rhythm of counting, comparing the total to the minimum stock level required, and noting the items that needed replenishing. Half an hour later he was done and he was out of cigarettes. Maybe he could bum a couple off Rachel? She smoked Dunhill International. The other girls who smoked all smoked that menthol shit.
Jensen switched the light off and left the stock room and something hard connected with his face, with enough force to snap his head back.
“Fuck!” He reached a hand up to stem the flow of blood from his nose and eyeballed the tall redhead in the black jeans, black leather jacket and The Devil Made Me Do It tee-shirt. “Alaina, right?”
A moment later he was shoved back against the wall with Alaina’s hands around his throat.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” she said. “Pellegrino is mine.”
Jensen rolled his eyes and then broke her hold on him, reversing their positions and pinning her to the wall by her wrists. “And you’re welcome to him, sister. You think I wanted his tiny, slimy dick down my throat? I didn’t have a choice. But hey, if you ever want any pointers, I can teach you how to make him come quick.”
Alaina tried to knee him in the balls, but Jensen managed to scoot out of the way and she got his thigh instead. “You don’t want to piss me off, Princess,” she said. “People who piss me off end up cut into little strips and buried under cement.”
“Duly noted,” Jensen said, letting go of her wrists and stepping back.
Alaina scowled and rubbed at her wrists.
“Don’t forget that I have status, Jensen. I’m the First Lady. I get treated like a member. You’re just a pretty set of holes to be used.”
She sashayed out into the main part of the club and Jensen waited for a moment and then followed her out. He found her seated at the table with the guys, demanding that she be dealt into the game. She gave him a smug, self-satisfied look as Crossroads dealt her in.
Oh Sweetheart, Jensen thought, you are so far out of your depth.
He gave Jared his most seductive smile and then strolled over to the den area, where the girls were sitting around smoking, drinking and gossiping. He waved the clipboard at Rachel and placed it on the bar before sliding in next to her on the sofa.
Rachel examined him with narrow eyes. “You’re bleeding,” she said.
Jensen put his hand up to his nose as if he’d forgotten. “Oh yeah. Anyone got a Kleenex?”
Katie got a small packet out of her purse and handed it to him and he dabbed at his nose.
“What happened?” Gen asked.
Jensen widened his eyes. “Her Royal Bitchiness is pissed at me. Like it’s my fault The Beast, well, you know. Ain’t like I can say no to him, is it?”
“That’s so unfair!” Gen was quick to commiserate.
Within moments Rachel had brought him a beer (and he’d bummed a cigarette off her) and Katie had dipped a Kleenex in vodka and used it to clean the rest of the blood from his face. Jensen settled back and let them fuss over him and bitch about Alaina, occasionally throwing in a word or two to set them off again when it looked like they were winding down.
He felt eyes boring into him and looked up to see Alaina staring at him with loathing. Loathing and the awareness that she’d made a serious tactical error. The sweet-butts and Ruthie were all most definitely in Jensen’s corner and whether Alaina wanted to acknowledge it or not, the bikers were-for the most part-a bunch of misogynists who would never accept her as an equal. She might think her status as First Lady was a trump card, but Jensen knew better. In the MC world, dick beat pussy every time and that gave him an advantage that Alaina would never have.
You shook me all night long came on the stereo and Katie squealed and dragged Gen to her feet. “Come dance!”
Nicky joined them and Rachel patted Jensen on the knee and went across to the bar to check on the inventory he’d done for her. Ruthie got up from her seat on the other side of the coffee table and minced across on her very high heels to sit beside him.
“Well played, Sweetie,” she said. “You really are a worthy Queen.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. “Being gay doesn’t make me a girl, you know.”
“I know that,” Ruthie huffed. “I was actually comparing you to the chess piece. The Queen is the most powerful piece on the board, you know.”
Jensen rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Well you oughta be the Queen then.”
Ruthie smirked and patted primly at her hair. “Oh Darlin’,” she said, sotto voce, “flattery will get you everywhere.”
Jensen laughed. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. But while we’re talking, just us girls,” he winked at her, “I heard something today, which,” he broke off and sighed. “All of us here, I’m guessing the one thing we’ve all got in common is, I guess you’d call it a certain moral flexibility. But we’ve all got lines we don’t cross. Today, someone told me that HellSpawn was making a profit off of kiddie porn, and that don’t sit right with me.”
“Would that someone be Detective Steve Williams? Moose told the boys about your plan this afternoon. Pellegrino wasn’t happy, but he approved it,” Ruthie leaned in close. “After the meeting I saw Pellegrino and HeyDay talking. Pellegrino said that maybe if they gave you enough rope you’d hang yourselves.”
Jensen wrinkled his nose. It sounded like Pellegrino was already suspicious of them.
“Yeah, it was Steve. And sure, he could’ve just been trying to get a rise out of me, but I think he honestly believed it. Have you heard anything?”
Ruthie looked at him long and hard, her eyes like slits. Eventually she sighed. “You’ve heard that Pellegrino is having my Mark go over the books of several businesses because he thinks that they’re trying to short-change HellSpawn on their cut?”
Jensen nodded. “Right. There was that whole thing with the bookie.”
“Another one of the businesses Mark is investigating makes porn that people subscribe to over the internet. Mark found some irregularities and wanted to take a closer look at them. Pellegrino told him to drop it. Now, as I’m sure you can appreciate, an organization like ours is quite complex. There’s a confusing rabbit warren of shelf companies, holding companies, off-shore accounts and so on that make the money trails difficult for the authorities to follow. Getting into kiddie porn would be against the Club’s constitution, so I’m gonna give you a name. Maybe you can reassure all of us that none of the Club’s rules are being quietly broken.”
Ruthie stopped speaking and looked at Jensen intently.
“Go on,” he said. “What’s the name?”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced across at the guys playing poker. “Amara Enterprises,” she said finally. “That’s the name of the company that Pellegrino uses to channel the porn money. He set it up about four years ago.”
Four years ago. So that’d be right around the time JD was killed.
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