Chapter Twelve: The Director's Cut
As Hale clenched his teeth until his jaw popped and balled up his hands into fists, up north at Gemma's childhood home, Tig watched from the front window as Juice navigated one of the other dark vans out of the driveway and downtown to a day spa.
Time passed as Tig returned to the kitchen and joined Clay and Bobby as they circled Chuckie as he opened file after file from the memory card, each more elicit and worth its blackmailed weight.
Juice and Chibs waited outside the nail salon as Gemma and Rosamund settled into the plush, massaging chairs and soaked their feet in vanilla scented water while back at the house, the guys gathered around Chuckie as he clicked through a series of photos with a currently running senate candidate.
Tig reached for the closest bottle of rye booze and drank deeply as picture after picture popped up on the HD screen with Rosamund entertaining a billionaire philanthropist.
None of the guys spoke as Chuckie clicked on a video link that was labeled, 'jackpot'.
Rosamund's cousin came into focus laying on the floor in front of a fireplace's brick hearth.
At first glance she looked like she was sleeping, flat on her back, naked, the flames casting light on her bare curves. Then the rest of the room came into focus and a grown man came into view, also naked, on his knees, rocking back and forth as he sobbed hysterically, high keening noises coming from between his quivering lips.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened, she just stopped breathing," the man kept repeating on a loop.
The person holding the camera panned back to the dead naked girl's face and zoomed in on the traces of cocaine under her nose. Hale's hushing could be heard from where he held the camera, "it's okay Your Honor, I'll take care of everything."
Clay looked over to where Tig looked like he was going to implode. "Turn that shit off," he growled towards Chuckie who fumbled with his articulating digits to close the video files. "Look through those numbers and don't fucking talk to me until you can tell me exactly what Hale is up to," Clay added as he nodded to Tig and the others to go outside.
"I can accept that," Chuckie said after he was alone in the kitchen.
Chuckie poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and plucked a leftover biscuit from the counter before turning his attention to the stack of papers with row after row of tiny numbers and transactions.
As Chuckie started deciphering the first page of countless others, back at the nail salon, Gemma and Rosamund accepted chipped mugs of green tea before selecting colors for their nails.
Gemma glanced over at Rosamund, catching her staring down at the surface of the tea.
"Are you okay honey?" she asked and reached out a hand to rest on her forearm.
Rosamund shook herself to the present, "yes, no," she managed before putting the cup to the side and rubbing at her eyes. "I just need things to settle into a rhythm I guess or even figure out what that is."
"How do you want things to be?" Gemma asked.
Rosamund picked back up her cup and took a sip of the unsweetened tea. "I'm honestly just so tired of being afraid of everything, the constant fear that each drink with whatever rich guy was going to be the end of my life," she admitted and leaned back in the massaging recliner.
Gemma slid her hand down Rosamund's forearm and wove their fingers together. "I don't know what you've had to endure but that can all be in the past if you let it."
Rosamund shook her head at hearing similar words twice so recently. "How though? Hale is never going to stop looking for that memory card, ever, it's too valuable."
"I know that sweetheart, The Club will take care of Hale and that card," Gemma murmured.
Rosamund finally gave a small nod and turned her attention to the manicurist when she approached with pink, plastic bowls in the shape of seashells to soak her fingernails. As her and Gemma finished their time in the salon, back at the house, Chuckie continued tallying financial discrepancies as Clay, Tig and Bobby stood on the deck in the sunny yard, not really addressing what they'd all just watched on the screen.
"Your old lady know who that girl in the video is?" Clay asked.
Tig took a long burning swallow of the whiskey. "She's not my old lady."
"Yet," Bobby chuckled and lit the end of a fat blunt.
"She didn't mention that video," Tig muttered as he paced the deck, thinking of everything that Rosamund must be withholding from telling him if something like that was recorded.
Clay, Tig and Bobby further discussed Hale and his covert, behind the scenes operating while Chuckie continued to sort through the stack of papers. Back in Charming, Salazar picked up Hale's incoming call before the second ring could sound. Salazar walked outside his home and away from some of his friends and former Club brothers that were still chummy with him, off the radar of their Club presidents of course.
Salazar's eyes got as large as dinner plates as Hale presented him a lucrative cash payment to head north. Hale's friend in the DMV had come back with the address for Gemma's childhood home amongst all the property holdings on public record for Clay Morrow and Gemma Teller-Morrow.
Salazar would've humped Hale's leg at the offer for obscene cash in exchange for the retrieval of the memory card. Hale would've promised anything, cars, drugs and even women. All he cared about was the memory card and the images contained within, those pictures and HD videos were his golden path to the Capitol steps.
Salazar ended the call after returning to the crowded living room and writing the address with his fingertip on the dusty coffee table and relayed a summary of the phone call, emphasizing the dollar amount without much more detail. The guys started whooping with the thought of that much cash divided for a long drive and multiple stops for overpriced gas.
All Salazar's friends took off their patches as they gathered guns and threw a couple of cases of beer in the trunk of the import with a leaky water pump.
As Salazar and his friends didn't think they had enough firepower, one of the guys milling around called a favor in to another club member for some long-term loaning of some automatic pistols, up north at the address Salazar had traced in the glass-top table, Tig paced from room-to-room, antsy and unable to temper his mood with alcohol.
Clay and Bobby left him alone with his thoughts as Chuckie showed them some preliminary data he'd found right away. Clay whistled at the money that was being shuffled without Chuckie barely beginning to dig very deep.
As Chuckie showed Clay and Bobby how Hale had been able to do this for years, on the other side of the house in the master bedroom, Tig closed the door and locked it, sinking heavily on the end of the bed as he dragged his fingers through his glossy strands. "What else haven't you told me?" he asked the braided rug under his feet.
As Tig's question hung in the air and remained unanswered, across town, Gemma and Rosamund stopped at a pub and ordered pints and appetizers with honey-mustard dipping sauce.
Gemma looked across the table at Rosamund, smiling gently as the sunlight made her new ring sparkle.
As they finished lunch and headed back to the house, back in Charming, Salazar and his friends decided to shoot some poison into their veins and lift off one more time before they got on the road.
As Salazar and his low-life pals got wasted, back up north, Gemma and Rosamund got back and found Chuckie buried in numbers and transactions and the rest of the guys drinking in the living room, a play-off game on the tv.
Tig leapt to his feet when Gemma walked into the living room.
Gemma could read Tig's mind, "Rose is in the other room."
"Thanks Gem," he murmured raggedly and stalked from room to room until he found her in the master bedroom, rooting through the new to her bag of clothes.
"Hey," Tig said from the doorway, closing and locking the door behind him before she even looked up.
"Hi," Rosamund started to say but paused at Tig's unreadable expression. "Are you okay?"
"Did you tell me everything your uncle had you doing for those pictures?"
Rosamund blinked hard at his confrontational tone and bombardment with one foul swoop. "For the most part," she said with a shrug.
"What's that mean?"
"I told you the basics," she spit in a clipped tone.
"I asked you to tell me everything," Tig reminded her, trying to keep his tone steady.
Rosamund dropped the shirt she'd been unfolding and held his gaze for a few wordless seconds. "I can't," she finally said.
"Can't or won't?"
"A little of both, I guess," she admitted, starting to feel cornered, the air growing suffocatingly thin as she fumbled for the remote control and flipped through the channels until she found a loud action movie with explosions, high body counts and a monstrous, orchestral soundtrack.
Tig saw what he was creating and immediately held his hands out to the side and slowly closed the space between them. "No baby don't get upset, I saw more of the videos on that card, I want to know what he did to you and the others."
Rosamund allowed Tig to come right into her breathing space, stopping short before he could touch her. He desperately needed her to reach for him, to pull him into her arms, accept him.
Tig held his breath as Rosamund raised her hands and rested them against his chest, feeling his heart pound under her palm.
"You keep saying I can start over," Rosamund stated as Tig nodded.
"I'll try but that means everything has to be in the past," she added as she rose up slightly on her toes and pressed her lips to his. "Can it?" Rosamund asked as she briefly lifted her lips. "Can my uncle be a nightmare I never have to talk about?"
If Tig had been made of snow, he would've melted at the press of Rosamund's lips against his.
Tig found himself struggling for words as Rosamund's hands fumbled at his zipper.
As Rosamund yanked at the metal pull tab of Tig's jeans, out in the kitchen, Clay was shoving cold cuts between bread when Gemma snuck up behind him and pinched his butt.
"How was your girl time?" Clay mumbled as he kissed Gemma's forehead before turning his attention back to the slices of honey-wheat bread.
Gemma smiled at Clay, staying wordless until he sighed and forgot about the sandwich. "What did you do Gemma?"
As Gemma explained to Clay what wheels she had put into motion, Chuckie continued to catalog the images and videos by whether the star subject was an actor, billionaire, or politician. As Chibs, Juice and Bobby crashed in the spacious living room with beer and the game, down the hall in the master bedroom, Rosamund's touch turned Tig's lust into a frantic hailstorm.
Their breathing soon competed for being the most ragged as they tugged, pulled, and yanked at each other's clothes. Rosamund reflexively pushed at his hands as he tried to slip under her shirt and find her naked skin.
Tig didn't see the ugliness that Rosamund did in her scarred skin, he didn't understand her shame, the toxic feelings that had teeth and bit chunks out of her soul.
"Hale's in the past," Tig rasped as he pushed Rosamund onto the surface of the neatly made bed, shifting them around until her thighs came to rest on either side of his hips as he continued pushing her shirt out of the way.
"I want ya to stop hiding," Tig growled as he dropped lower in the bed and burrowed his face against Rosamund's scarred belly. She shuddered as he traced the varying ridges of scar tissue with his tongue, making her shiver as he kissed a path lower.
"Yeah?" he groaned as he swirled the tip of his tongue against the smooth dip of her belly button.
Rosamund could only moan in response and help him get her panties out of the way as Tig's mouth found her intimate pink folds, slickly wet in anticipation of him filling her.
"Marry me here, in the backyard, tomorrow?" Tig panted as he stroked his cock to painful hardness, squeezing the thick shaft as he traced the smooth, sensitive head over her wet center, aching to be buried inside her.
Rosamund tightened her thighs around him, arching her back while bringing him closer, gasping as the head of his cock shallowly dipped into her tight, wet center. "Such a rush," she managed as Tig bobbed his cock in and out of her at an erratic pace, prolonging the sensation of her tightness stretching to accommodate his pulsating girth.
"I don't want ya to disappear," Tig managed to groan as Rosamund's pussy gave him a healthy squeeze as she chuckled upon his admission.
"Where am I going to go?" Rosamund said on a shaky breath as Tig smoothed a hand down between them and teased her clit with the rough pad of his thumb, his touch made the sensitive flesh harden and her body to shake.
"Canada?" she moaned lowly as she raised a hand to cup his jaw. "I'm here with you," she added.
Tig growled incoherently as he held her eyes and sank himself inside her until he was stopped by their intimate flesh kissing.
"All mine," Tig groaned as he thrust himself inside her with unrestrained enthusiasm, grunting in frustration when he knew he wasn't going to hold any Guinness World Record for stamina with his performance.
Rosamund gasped at the end of each thrust until Tig uttered a strangled moan as his cock spasmed and shuddered as he filled her with a flood of his sticky seed, keeping himself her until his rigidity softened and into flaccidity.
As Tig and Rosamund's breathing came back to normal and they remain entangled in a naked knot, out in the kitchen, Clay's phone rang, and he stepped into the garage when he saw 'Marcus' on the caller ID.
"Marcus?" Clay answered in the middle of the second ring.
"I heard Salazar rounded up some friends to come search for you, Hale's been looking around, sent his paid friends," Marcus said.
"Shit," Clay whispered, "you got any free rooms around here?"
Marcus listed off a property a full day's drive further north, he said he'd send the address in a message and call ahead for the incoming party of four. Clay thanked him and quickly ended the call after Marcus ensured he'd secure and send reinforcements for Clay's support as well as to stomp out Salazar and crew.
As Clay told Chuckie to wrap up the computer equipment and Gemma to pack up to prepare to head north with Rosamund and Tig, Bobby, Chibs and Juice cleared the van of all of ammunition they brought.
Tig made his way to the airy kitchen to find everyone bustling around like drones for an invisible queen.
"Tigger, we need to get out of here now," Gemma murmured urgently as she filled Tig in on what was happening.
Rosamund froze when she appeared in the kitchen doorway and saw the amount of movement, guns, and ammo.
"What's going on?" she asked, scanning the room for Tig's face.
Tig found her eyes across the room and rushed to her side. "It's nothing you need to worry about, just pack a bag, we need to get out of here for a bit," he soothingly murmured.
"But," Rosamund started before Gemma appeared to her other side. "I'll explain it all while we pack baby," she murmured and guided Rosamund to the master bedroom.
As Gemma explained they'd be headed to another house for hopefully just a few days, Clay and the other brothers got the two vans ready for Juice to drive Gemma north to the safe haven Marcus offered, along with Tig and Rosamund in the other van.
While those four began their long trip north, Clay and the other brothers waited at Gemma's childhood home for Marcus's reinforcements and the arrival of Hector Salazar and his low-life, scum-bucket, orbiting lifeforms.