novelxo Knuckles: Chapter 17
-:- JOLENE -:-
Being moved to a new location was worrying, but Knuckles made sure I stayed within reach at all times. In the van, he wrapped an arm around me, keeping me safe on the bench seat facing Meat and Wings.
Some men have come in that I recognize, and watching Knuckles’ reaction to them entering showed me they were here to get us out if they can.
Colton, I know from the fight nights Lincoln did, and how these people don’t know that Knuckles was his partner on the door at fight nights, I’m not sure.
Knuckles pats my thigh, and turning my head to look at him, he whispers. “Just stay calm, and be ready for whatever they have planned.”
Giving Knuckles a tiny nod of my head to confirm I heard him, I keep my eyes flitting around the room, but trying not to watch the area where the men are stripping out of their clothes and putting on fight gear.
Other men have arrived and are throwing the MC men dirty, even nasty looks. Knuckles nudges my shoulder and grins. “You’ll see some shit in a minute if the others don’t lay off the comments. I can see Colton getting worked up, and Fist isn’t the most grounded when it comes to fighting.”
Jumping when one of Tommaso’s men runs a cattle prod along the bars of our cage, making me swallow hard. “Stop talking.”
“Fuck off asshole, if I wanna talk to my woman I will.” Knuckles stands slowly and takes a step towards the bars, looking the man directly in the eye.
The man grins and, stepping nearer, lifts the cattle prod, but before he can do anything, a fight erupts on one side of the room. Colton and another man are throwing punches, and the two MC men are standing with what you can only describe as shit-eating grins.
Rushing over to stop Colton fighting, the man forgets about us. I realize I’m not taking in what is happening around me. Lincoln always told me to be aware all the time, then if a chance happened to come along, to take it.
Sitting on the bench, I count bad men, as that’s how I see them in my mind, my author’s mind. One with the prod near our cage. One near the door on the inside of the room, one on the door outside of the room. One by the men changing ready to fight, and one by the only window in the room. Five men in total.
One door, one window. No other way of getting out of the room, until I happen to look up and see a skylight in the ceiling. Now that could be a way out if we could get up to it.
Nudging Knuckles, he turns to look at me from where he’d settled on the bench next to me. I flick my eyes up, and he frowns, not yet understanding what I’m trying to tell him.
Flicking my eyes up again and giving him a glare, he looks up. Quickly looking back down at me as he realizes what I’m bringing to his attention. Wrapping his right arm around me, he pulls me so my face is cheek to cheek, placing our mouths near each other’s ears.
Whispering to me, Knuckles hardly moves an inch, bodily or facially. “I see, but I don’t know what is planned.”
“If you can give me a leg up, I could get up there and it would leave you free to fight if you need to, without worrying about me.” Whispering back, I feel him give a slight nod.
“You two, back off. You’re not here to play footsie with each other.” The bad man snarls, and I giggle a little because I’ve not heard anyone say footsie in forever, and I’m sure some wouldn’t even understand it means fooling around.
Two men leave the room after being called to fight. “Here we go.” Knuckles mumbles.
Watching Colton jogging on the spot, throwing imaginary punches and listening to the large man that has come in with him. I look at Knuckles, worried that one of them will get hurt.
Wings and Meat have been warming up, but I’ve seen they are watching everyone and everything. Meat looks at me and I flick my eyes to the skylight, and I have to admit he’s quicker than Knuckles was, as he lifts his eyes up and back down before anyone would notice he’d done it. He gives me a slight nod and a grin that he’s seen and understands.
Watching Colton bounce out of the room, I can’t help but hope he comes back in one piece. When the door opens the noise from the crowd hits us and for the first time I feel this is real and someone could get seriously hurt.
The bad man, as I think of him, walks over to where everyone is getting changed, grabs some workout clothing and comes back, throwing it through the bars. “Get ready, asshole. You’ll be fighting soon.”
Knuckles doesn’t attempt to take the clothing from the floor. He takes off his Henley and places it over my shoulders. Oh my, he’s going to fight in his jeans and biker boots. I’m not sure what happened to his kutte, because it was on the back seat of the truck when we had the accident.
“It’ll be okay. I’m gonna make sure they put Meat or Wings in with you while I fight, or I’ll not fight at all.” Knuckles gives me a grin that has his dimples pop and he chuckles when he sees my eyes have zeroed in on them. “Concentrate Jo, you can study my dimples later.”
Tommaso walks into the room with two henchmen behind him, and I can’t help but think he’s a weasel, is how I’d describe him. He’s a horrible human being and if I had my way, he’d be behind prison bars.
“Well, it’s nearly your time to fight. I want no trouble out of you, or Jo will be the one to suffer.” Said with such delight that I would punch him in the nuts if I could get near enough.
“You’ll have to get me out of the cage first.” Knuckles states and stands in front of me, shielding me from everyone. I look to the side when I notice the two MC men stepping nearer and look like they are ready to do some serious damage to someone.
“Oh, you’ll come out.” Tommaso nods his head and the henchman on his right takes out a weapon. Before he can use the weapon, the younger of the two MC men surges forward and punches so hard that the man falls to the ground without knowing what the heck happened to him.
I jump to my feet because two against the five bad guys in the room aren’t good odds. Well, I didn’t think they were until the ones near the window, changing area and door are taken down and out of it before the other three can move.
Tommaso steps near the door, ready to run out of it, I’m sure. I grin, then point at him, because I’m sick of all this. “You are a coward. Hiding behind your men. If you are going to be such a good mafia leader, at least do your own dirty work.”
Everyone in the room goes quiet and turns to look at Tommaso, obviously wanting to see his reaction. Giving me a nasty look, he says something to the henchman next to him, but before they can do anything, the door flies open, and Colton steps inside.
Noticing something isn’t right with the men being down, Colton literally turns into a raging beast. He flies at the henchman and takes him down with what I think they call a roundhouse kick, following it by head-butting, then cracking the neck of the one with the cattle prod. I can’t help but grin that he’d never got to actually use it.
The man who’d been on guard outside steps in and Tommaso quickly rushes out the door, leaving the guard to cope with this alone. Coward, just as I thought!
Knuckles shouts to the large man. “Buzz, get us out.”
Fist hits the guard. Colton grabs the guard around the neck as he staggers back and chokes him out. Once he’s out cold, he lets him go and he drops to the floor, smacking his head hard. I can’t help but wince, as that’ll hurt when he wakes up.
Buzz rips the padlock from our cage door and the one holding Meat and Wings. They give each other man hugs, and I can’t help but roll my eyes.
Banging and shouting outside the door has me jerking around with more than a little fear. Meat steps towards me and points up to the skylight. I give him a grin and step forward.
Knuckles has noticed the interaction and looks up himself. “If I hoist you up, can you open that so we can get Jo out of here?”
I’m not sure who Knuckles is speaking to, as they are all looking at him. But Colton steps forward and under the skylight, cocks an eyebrow and gives a nod.
Knuckles hoists Colton up onto his shoulders and quickly gets his balance. Colton fiddles with the small window until he pushes it open. Grabbing the frame, Colton pulls himself up and through, and we all wait for him to report what is up there.
“It’s right on the roof at the front of the mall. You know the piece that juts out with the name of the mall on it, and Jo can stay up here out of the way until we get down here emptied out.” Colton says as his head and shoulders pop down from the hole.
The door opens, and the noise from the crowd rushes inside. Everyone turns, but when we see Winter walk through with a huge grin on her face, everyone relaxes, apart from Buzz.
“Winter, what the hell are you doing?” Buzz asks with a hard voice.
“I’ve come to secure Jo.” Winter calmly states, then lifts her leather kutte at the side to show a holster strapped to her and a weapon inside it. “So, what are you doing here?”
“Fuckin’ hell, what’s it comin’ to in the club when we have the ol’ ladies running the show?” Buzz asks as he looks around at everyone.
The door opens and Axel slips inside and gives everyone a feral look, but his eyes are sparkling with something I don’t really recognize. “Brothers, Jo. I’m pleased to see you’re all okay. So,” Rubbing his hands together, “what’s happening here?”
“We are going to get Jo up on the roof above the main door to the mall. She’ll be safe until it’s all over.” Knuckles states, and before I can say anything he grabs my waist, sits me on his shoulder and then tells me to climb up and grab Colton’s hands to be pulled through the window above me.
Winter steps forward. “Go on Jo, I’ll follow you through. Tell Lincoln and Mav where we are because they are coming to retrieve Jo and Knuckles. Lincoln will panic if he doesn’t know where Jo is.”
Axel claps his hands. “Move it, we’ve got people to take out, things to do, places to be.” Everyone quickly jumps to attention and I climb onto Knuckles’ shoulders, lifting my hands for Colton to pull me up.
Through and onto the roof, Colton guides me to the back of the roof portion and gets me sitting with my back to the wall before going back and hoisting Winter through and over to me.
“Stay down and stay out of sight. Lincoln is coming for you, Jo, and Winter will keep you safe until he gets to you.” Colton dashes back and lowers himself through the skylight window, and Winter follows, closing it behind him.
Rubbing my arms as we are catching a breeze up here, I worry that everyone will be alright, but Winter is grinning as though we are on a day out at Disneyland.
“It’ll be okay, Jo, and when this is over, I’m going to teach you how to use weapons. In the future you’ll be able to protect yourself better and it’ll be less worrying for Lincoln and Knuckles.” Winter sits beside me, bumps me with her shoulder, and then grins at me before winking. “Knuckles, who would have thought it?”
The blush quickly flies into my cheeks. “We’ve not done anything; you know sex-wise.”
“Why not? He’s a fine catch. Big, strong, reliable, honest, and he has those dimples that are panty melting.” Winter laughs when my blush gets even darker and I have to fan my face because it’s making me hot.
“Well, we never had time, really. I just agreed to a relationship with him, and wham, we were snatched. Is Lincoln alright?” I’m more than worried about my brother because he’s so protective I can imagine he’s not been eating or sleeping all this time.
“Lincoln’s fine. He’s been in the office with Specs, finding out everything they can about Tommaso, what buildings he owns, his wife, and his mistress. Honestly, the man’s a piece of shit and I’d be happy to put a bullet in his head.” Sighing, Winter looks up, studying the clouds as she continues. “Vincenzo Vitale is the Don of the mafia, and Tommaso is one of his Capos. But Tommaso isn’t going to live very long as Vitale is right behind him now, and knows everything there is to know. He is here with his men, and I’m sure Tommaso will be caught before this fight event is over.”
“I can’t understand why he has been so insistent on getting his hands on me. Knuckles hasn’t left my side once. They’ve threatened him so many times, but he’s stood firmly in front of me, making sure I’m safe.”
“He wants you, that’s for sure. You can see it in his eyes. You’ve made Knuckles want something he’s never had for a long time. You’ve made him see family.” Winter sighs again. “Give him a chance, Jo. He’ll make you a good man and husband, I’m sure, if you want him to marry you. He’ll always stand beside you and he’ll always encourage you to do what you want.”
“I’m happy to give this a chance, Winter. I more than like Knuckles, but I’ve been so shielded by Lincoln to keep me safe that I’m not as forward as most of you at the club. I’d love to have your confidence.”
Turning to look at me, Winter gives me a small smile. “We’ll help you get more confidence. You’re in the girl gang now.”
“What’s the girl gang?”
Winter tells me all about Mia and the ladies at the club, how they all help each other, and how even the older ladies managed to get tickets for everyone for this fight event, much to Axel’s displeasure. It does sound wonderful to be involved with all the women and I’m going to push myself to be more outgoing, because I don’t want to waste this opportunity to belong.
“What do you do for a living, Jo?”
“I don’t work now, but I used to work at the library. I’m writing a series of romance novels, but need to get them published. I just hope people will like them enough to read them.”
“Oh, wow, that’s cool. I’ll read them. Just let me know when you’re published.”
We keep talking about anything and nothing and the time ticks by. I’m getting tired and lean my head back against the wall. I hope my brother comes soon because I need to pee and I’m not sure how long I can hold on to it. That’s the last thought I have before I fall asleep.