Wicked Ambition (25 page)

Leon went for him, eclipsed at the last instant by Teddy, who wedged himself between the juggernauts. ‘Jesus, you two; back the hell down!’

‘Only one way to settle this,’ Jax spat, privately relieved at the coach’s intervention: he didn’t much fancy getting floored again.

In seconds the men were crouched, strong legs in front and their hands behind the line. Leon focused on the track, waiting for his anger to subside and trying to channel it into fuel but unable to focus on anything save tearing Jax Jackson limb from limb.

Everything fell quiet.

As soon as Leon heard the pistol he was on top of the
track. That’s what it felt like, as if he had fallen straight on it. The ground rose up to meet him, pushing back against every tread like a living thing, and for this handful of seconds his mind was clear. He was bursting with energy, charged with a flame, as if he could go for a thousand miles. He was back on the Compton road where Marlon had died, running to save him and save the future.

Jax was on a level, leaning into the run, winding up faster and faster till he was in full sprint, his legs turning out the treads like pistons, arms slicing through the air, cutting his way through. Leon caught sight of the finish and in an instant was consumed by the unqualified fact of it and the certainty that this was all that counted: he saw the thing he was trying to get to and he knew time was running out; that it couldn’t happen again this way.

Not again
. He had to be fast enough, had to get there in time. Had to reach it or…

Jax was pulling away. The gold bullet was in sight, drawing further; the head above it dipped as if the body it piloted were in flight. The heat in Leon’s legs told him he was at his limit—he couldn’t push any more. This was as good as he got, and Jax was better.

The other man’s foot crashed over the line, sending up a flat cloud of chalk.

Bent over, his breathing ragged, Leon battled to slow his heart. Jax thumped him on the back, hard. Leon coughed and spat on to the ground.

‘Bad luck, Sway.’ Jax emptied a bottle of water over his face, neck, shoulders, blowing drops of it off his top lip, then he shook his head in a flurry like a wet dog. He watched
as the younger man, palms on his knees, fought to catch oxygen.

‘Know your place,’ Jax growled. ‘Or else.’

At the sides, he grabbed a bottle of water and popped it open. Teddy was distracted by a couple of the team showing early and falling into stretches, and Leon took a long slug, holding it in his mouth a moment before shooting it in a narrow stream on to the hot ground. When he took another he pulled the liquid into him thirstily.

On the benches, a discarded news rag was blowing on the breeze. The strapline read:

ROBIN RYDER TAMED AT LAST?

Beneath it ran a picture of Robin and UK rap sensation Rufio, one third of London posse East Beatz, spilling out of a club. Another showed them clambering into a black cab.

Leon sat down next to it, resting an elbow on his knee and his chin in his palm.

Shit
. She was just a girl. He had other stuff to focus on, stuff that needed his attention, but the fact was her rejection still stung. Hadn’t she felt what he’d felt that night? Hadn’t he broken down a vital wall, or at least dislodged a part of it? Hadn’t she let him in? Try as he might he couldn’t forget how it had been to hold her, how small she had seemed, her skin so sweet and her lips so soft, and how different she had been in that context from the tough image she projected, the hard exterior that she had finally let fall with him.

Why had she vanished the morning after without a word, a note, anything?

Didn’t she care?

Seeing her now with Rufio, Leon accepted that whatever
had gone between them was a one-way street. Robin wasn’t interested, she never had been and he couldn’t force her to be. Now she had hooked up with somebody else without a thought for how that might be perceived. Fine, if Rufio gave her what he couldn’t, good luck to him.

Perhaps Robin wasn’t the girl he’d thought she was.

The wind picked up, carrying the paper off the benches. He watched it ride on the breeze, skimming and wheeling across the track until it disappeared from sight.

31

S
link Bullion was sprawled in his hot tub, sucking on a fat cigar. Through narrowed eyes he surveyed the two girls opposite him, their perfect tits bobbing at the surface of the water.

‘We gotta sound this out, man.’ Gordon Rimeaux, better known by his Puff City stage name G-Money, ran a hand across the back of his neck. He felt bad. Ever since Leon Sway had showed up at their door he’d felt bad. He’d barely slept a wink at night.

‘Aw, quit walkin’ round with a face like a slapped ass.’ Principal 7 emerged on to the terrace of Slink’s Long Beach mansion, his bare arms and chest mapped with artwork, and climbed in between the women. He lit his own Cuban. ‘Join the frickin’ party.’

Gordon hung back. He didn’t want to be here but they had to work out what in fuck’s name they were going to do, and if Slink and Principal refused to address the issue then
he had to. How could they look Sway in the eye and act as if nothing had happened?

‘Shoot, brother, I’m listenin’,’ Slink offered, as usual the diplomat where Principal’s crappy attitude was concerned.

At the same time Principal offered, ‘Girls, why don’t you touch each other, work it a bit? Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.’

‘We can’t when
she’s
watching,’ one of them complained, pulling away and glaring, stoned, in the direction of Shawnella, who was perched on the rim in a scant bikini that was only a shade redder than her livid face. Slink had never maintained that he was a one-woman man, yet Shawnella couldn’t abide the company he kept. She’d insisted on making the gig tonight, slouching about moodily in hot pants and applying lip gloss every three seconds.

Shawnella mumbled, ‘Dumb sluts.’

‘Damn, woman!’ The cigar flew from Principal’s hand, landing in the water with a sad fizz and floating across its surface like a turd. ‘You tryin’ to shit all over my party?’

Slink held a hand up. ‘Chill, dog.’

‘Party’s over,’ said the girl, stepping out of the pool. The other followed and they padded inside, dripping water. Shawnella shot them daggers on the way past.

‘That’s just beautiful.’ Principal fished the cigar out and flung it after them. ‘Frigid fuckin’ cunts!’ He sat back. ‘Where’s the champagne? Is this a fuckin’ celebration or what?’

Slink killed the beats. ‘Take control of yourself, man, for real.’ He nodded to Shawnella. ‘Go inside, baby, you heard the man.’

Principal scowled. Shawnella sloped off, long hair plaited like a rope down her back.

Once upon a time this might well have been Gordon’s idea of a party: Puff City gigs were renowned and tonight had lived up to the hype, with Slink favouring spontaneity so that appearances would spring up across LA in warehouses and underground clubs at a moment’s notice, still managing to split at the seams with followers who had uncovered the news through whispered word-of-mouth. In the nineties the crew had powered sixty-thousand-strong stadium events but these days preferred a tighter venue where fans could connect with the music. Lack of advertising meant they welcomed only die-hard disciples.

Now, he grimaced. Gordon wasn’t into that scene any more. Drugs and bought women, they meant nothing, they were wrong and they belonged to another period in his life when he had been royally messed up and hadn’t had a clue what shit was about. It had been a sinister time, a time he preferred not to recall…only now he was being forced to.

Shawnella emerged in the doorway, proficiently brandishing four champagne flutes, two in each hand, and a magnum of Cristal.

Filling Slink’s glass, she began kneading the muscles of his back, which shone like black silk in the moonlight. ‘You having fun now, baby?’ she purred, confidence restored.

Slink drew on his cigar, watching as its end glowed into life. He drew the smoke in deeply. ‘There ain’t no reason why Sway has to know a thing,’ he said, returning to the topic at hand. Shawnella released the clasp on her bikini top and climbed into the water, an attempt at distraction. It worked for Principal, at least, whose flat eyes locked on to
her nipples, just visible above the line of the water, where her tits bobbed, slippery as seals’ backs.

‘Am I crazy or somethin’?’ Gordon’s voice trembled with conviction. Limbo was torture, made worse by having no one to talk to about it. ‘Doesn’t this mean nothin’ to
any
of you? Aren’t you freaking about this situation
at all
?’

‘Ain’t my style,’ responded Slink evenly.

Principal drew his eyes from Shawnella long enough to participate. ‘We gotta keep shit under control. It was way back, man. Sway’s not gonna remember a thing.’

‘He’s not gonna remember his brother dying? Right there in front of him?’

‘Relax.’
Slink pinned him with a stare. ‘I’ve got your back, G; you know that.’ The cigar tip burned. ‘Question is, have you got mine?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Then collect your shit. Because this ain’t the kind of thing that gets us cryin’ like girls to the cops, d’you feel what I’m sayin’?’ A cloud of smoke eclipsed his features. ‘Principal’s right, we stay cool.’

Gordon looked down at his hands. When he spoke, his words were so soft he could barely be sure they were heard. ‘But remember which one of us shot him.’

There was a grave silence. Slink looked at Gordon. Gordon looked at Principal. Principal looked at Slink. Shawnella stared at the water.

‘He’ll find out,’ said Gordon tightly.

What had Slink been doing in the first place, agreeing to front the single with those guys? Inviting Leon Sway back into their lives, the same boy they had deserted years before, the boy who had been weeping in the road and clutching
his brother’s dead body…and who said that if Gordon hadn’t bolted from the scene then a life might not have been lost that night? Maybe then he wouldn’t be living with this searing guilt every damn day he woke up.

‘Sure as shit he will if you don’t stop pissin’ confessions all over town.’

Principal smirked. ‘We were kids back then, what’s the big deal? Guy shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was his own fault, brother.’

‘You’re not my brother.’ Only in their emergence did Gordon realise the words were true. He had never liked Principal: the guy had a bad vibe through and through.

Slink rose from the tub in a cascade of water, like Neptune surfacing from the waves. In lieu of a trident he wielded a bottle of Cristal.

‘Never let me hear you say that again, G, or you’re outta here faster than I take a dump in the mornin’. We’re
all
family. Break that bond and you’re out.’

It was a sentiment Gordon had heard before. Of course the crew had to stick together, put on a united front, because as soon as one stepped free of the ranks, the scandal of Marlon Sway’s murder would risk being exposed. Sure, the City had a sketchy history, it was a given they hadn’t always played nice, but no one suspected them of homicide—especially not in one of the most publicised cases in Compton history. Marlon had been a promising athlete, a kid with the world at his feet, still a teenager, for Christ’s sake…

‘Are we clear on that?’ Slink’s tone was measured.

Gordon nodded. He had to remember that twelve years back he’d been another man. Put him in that situation again and it would never play out that way. That fateful night
had forced him to change his priorities and turn his world around…only now he had, the shame was more debilitating than ever. How long could he keep the secret?

He would keep it for as long as it took. Because Gordon knew that if he ever risked Slink Bullion’s name, he’d be lying in a bloodbath of his own.

32

K
ristin had never been with a man like Jax Jackson. Everything about him was novel, from his swagger to his dangerous streak, from his insatiable sexual appetite to his breathtaking physique. She could not take her eyes off his body. It was stupendous. Every inch polished to perfection, the glossy dark skin beneath which a powerful engine lay in wait, steadying to pounce, and the hard, long muscles that made him the biggest turbo diesel on the planet.

They had hooked up every night since Vegas. After vowing she would never get close to a man again, Kristin found herself responding to Jax like a bloom to sunlight.

He was change…and change was what she craved.

‘You wanna go where no girl’s gone before?’

It was Saturday night and they had returned from a gallery opening where Kristin had presented a Fresh Talent Award. The instant they were through the door to his apartment Jax was fumbling to free her from her clothes. He
was ravenous, a red-blooded hot-bodied sex weapon, and she loved it.

‘Wherever you want me,’ she breathed.

Deftly he unfastened her halterneck. Beneath she wore no bra and he grasped her tits, running his thumbs across her nipples so she moaned, and plunging his tongue into her mouth. Swiftly he hooked his fingers into the loop of her jeans and tugged them down. His touch was in her and in a rush she was drenched, his practised groove running across that nub so she was tightening and swelling against him until she was ready to come.

‘Not yet,’ he murmured, kissing her neck. ‘First you’re gonna break my record.’

Kristin was thrown to her knees, marvelling as Jax unbuckled his suit pants and stepped out of them. His dick was straining against his underpants, a caged beast.

‘Nine seconds, baby,’ he rasped, exposing himself in all his Olympic glory. ‘An’ I’m not gonna let you come till you nail it. Understand?’

Claiming the stopwatch, holding it aloft, Jax guided her mouth towards his cock. Only when her lips closed around it did he begin to slam and grind, shouting out the count as she fought to contain his hard-on, turned on to the max by the challenge he had set before her and wanting more than anything to please him.

Jax had been her first…She longed to be his.