Fighting for Forever: Tank & Kat's story, Part 2 (Battle Born MC Book 6)

by Scarlett Black

  Fighting for Forever

  Scarlett Black

  Escaping from Forever

  Copyright © 2019 By Scarlett Black

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Art by Dana Hoffman

  Edited by Dana Hoffman

  WARNING: This book contains sexual situations and VERY adult themes. Recommended for 18 and above.

  Blurb

  She wasn’t supposed to leave me.

  In fact, she promised me her heart and forever.

  That is, until she left me, and everything went dark.

  I lost myself, the Road Captain, and I always know which road to take.

  Not this time, not after losing her and my faith in the MC.

  With only pieces of her that are left behind, the secrets began to surface.

  I’m left alone and fighting against the truth and the past.

  Will I find what is real and why she left me in the dark?

  Chapter 1

  Tank

  My heart explodes, I can’t breathe, and my knees give away when I see her lifeless body in Spider’s arms. It’s all so fucking wrong that the pain is crippling my breathing. Life and feeling have been sucked out of me. My need to touch her prevails over my physical weakness, and I go to Kat. My hand is shaking as I reach for her, brushing the hair out of her face. Gently, I place a kiss on her lips before Spider takes her away from me and inside the building.

  I blink once, then twice, while my mind catches up with what is happening. Rage, like a bull, overtakes me, and Blade, with Axl’s help, tries to drag me back as I charge forward for her.

  It feels like nothing in this world could keep me away from Kat. But they can, and do, by wrestling me to the ground as I fight them off. Every kick and punch is futile against their hold. I can’t get away from the choking grip around my throat from Blade’s arm. His weight drops me first to my knees and then my whole body to the ground.

  Her long black hair sways back and forth with every step Spider takes with Kat in his arms. Every single one shatters my world more and more. The road scrapes and cuts into my face, as I’m being pushed against the pavement with the force of Blade’s elbow to the back of my head. A single tear escapes as my forever and any chance I had at love are being stolen from me.

  Axl and Cowboy pile on top of me as well, pinning my body down and keeping me from running after her. It fucking hurts like a red hot poker to the heart.

  “Tank, stay calm, brother,” Blade, the Prez, orders.

  “Get the fuck off me!” I roar. “He’s fucking taking her.”

  The sirens sound off in the distance, a warning that the cops are on the way to arrest us all.

  “Tank, we have to get lost, now.” Blade jumps off me, Axl and Cowboy do the same. I jolt up to my feet, ready to run in the direction of where Spider went.

  The Prez halts me, his voice steady and commanding, “She isn’t in the building, Tank. Follow us to the clubhouse.”

  Indecision wraps its ugly claws around my mind like in a fog. I do the only thing that feels right and run to my bike, cranking it on. The three of us race down the freeway, fleeing the cops before they can spot us. The farther out we get and away from the scene, the angrier I grow. Hate for the world and everyone in it spreads like a plague from within.

  Blade and the brothers turn off the freeway, taking the ramp toward the clubhouse. Not me. I accelerate and keep pushing on. The road calls to me like a demon as the wind and sun beat down against my skin. It barely helps to contain the rage that has taken me on its wicked journey, a road I have never traveled. Riding to the only place I know I won’t be found. Mine and Kat’s cabin in the woods.

  The journey here is faster than usual with the speed I’m traveling through the city and up the mountain pass. As soon as my bike is parked, I get off and take in the silence that is at odds with my inner turmoil.

  I look around at the forest, sun and brush, feeling completely alone. The wind picks up and wrestles the trees and leaves. The sounds suddenly come alive with a bird’s squawk and chirp in the distance, waking me from my trance. I stand there, stunned beyond belief and comprehension of what I am feeling or dealing with. Emotions play with my head all at the same time. Pain lances my body from the betrayal and deceit from Kat. The anguish caused by her death, though, is the strongest of them all.

  My boots shuffle forward toward the front door of the cabin and I find myself standing before the bed we left unmade from the last time we were up here. When I claimed her.

  Goddamn it, she was mine.

  I glance at our mess of crumpled sheets and dirty towels left on the bed. They call to me, to wrap them protectively around me. I fall into a broken heap in the middle of it all, staring straight up at the ceiling. A faint smell of her wafts into my nose and it burns like a fucking torch on its way into my lungs.

  I clench my eyes shut while the memories of us here torment my soul. Her raspy words of pleasure and promises to be mine.

  Lies.

  My soul battles between the truth and deceit. They paralyze and keep me a prisoner, caught in her web. My body grows lax and sluggish.

  I’ve been bitten by the Black Widow.

  “Tank, look at me,” Spider shouts from the passenger seat. My vacant eyes look up at him.

  “She is going to be okay.”

  I sit and stare at him. What could he possibly mean? She is going to be okay?

  He shakes his head at me. “Tank, SHE IS GOING TO BE OKAY.” He says it again, sounding exasperated.

  “What the hell does that mean, Spider? She is dead.”

  “She’s not dead, asshole. I made her look that way.” The fucker has enough nerve to snicker at me.

  Fuck! My eyes pop open from the nightmare, startling me awake. My heart is beating so hard in my chest, it feels like I’m having a heart attack.

  Somehow, I fell asleep. I think my body gave up and gave in from the intense struggle of conflicting emotions that had overtaken me.

  Right now, my heart is beating only because it has to, whether I want it to or not. My hands rub over my face back and forth and I struggle to breathe through the hollow ache in my chest. Labored breaths do escape and I beg the world, “Please. This can’t be happening. I wasn’t ready for this.”

  Anxiety crawls inside of me, pushing for me to move and do something. Get out of here where it’s full of memories of us.

  I roll out of bed, stand up, taking a pillow and the sheet with me. I drop them to the floor without care.

  I decide to shower and snap out of it before I figure out what to do and where I am going. The hot water spraying my skin does nothing to warm the coldness inside. Blade is no doubt freaking the hell out and has Spider looking for me. I turned my phone off at a gas station before leaving Reno. I didn’t want anyone to find me.

  I turn the shower off, water rolling down my skin, and I wrap a towel around my waist. Loss wants to pull me under, and I rest my hands on the sink in front of me, bowing my head, not wanting to look in the mirror and see the emotions wr
itten across my face. Hollow. I don’t know this man.

  It was bad when my parents disowned me, and it stung when Ava left me for another man. But this is gut wrenching. Some part of me will never recover. A big piece of me feels warped with it all. I don’t know who to trust and I feel as if my brothers betrayed me, too.

  In one day, I lost all that I had accomplished in my entire adult life.

  I won’t lie down in defeat, though. I push myself off the sink to find my clothes and put them on. They are dirty and soiled, just like I feel inside. I can’t stay here because, eventually, the Prez will find me, and I don’t want them here. Even in her death, no one can touch her. This is all I have left. There is no way I can go to her funeral either.

  The only thing that matters is revenge. Matias, her husband, will die for killing her.

  And it dawns on me that she was taken and killed. Had she left with him of her own free will, she wouldn’t have made a scene for Tami to see. Kat was too smart for that. She would have taken off into the shadows. She left me a clue, but I believed my own lies and doubts.

  What is my dark angel up to today? Even in death, she belongs to me, and only me.

  Chapter 2

  Tank

  My cut slides over my arms easily as I contemplate my first move. A beat so evil drums in my body. A thirst for revenge and blood flows like a crimson river from within.

  Grabbing my bike keys off the counter, I slam the cabin door shut behind me on my way out. The bike eats up the road like a demon possessed, on a mission. Seek, kill and destroy.

  Once I am inside mine and Kat’s house, I start looking around for signs with a set of eyes I have never had before. Nothing in here matters except for clues.

  I wonder if this was the world she had been subjected to her whole life. A new understanding hits me like a sledge hammer, of who she had really been. A queen in the Cartel playing chess with life and death.

  Even though I am raging from within, my thoughts and actions remain calm. Absorbing the feeling of a possessed demon from her, I feel it entering my soul, finding its match within me. A focus so sharp and deadly overtakes my mind. I see her now, the pain that had driven her for so long. I loved Kat, but now I understand the Black Widow.

  Red is coating the world.

  Like in a trance, I walk into the bedroom we shared, and contemplate where she would have left me clues. Taking my time, I scan the room first and look at the stuff from a different angle. What things had mattered to her and what things hadn’t. What had been moved and what hadn’t.

  I smirk when it hits me. She wouldn’t have hidden something so important on herself. The Black Widow would have hidden it where I would never look. In my belongings.

  Turning around, my eyes examine my stuff, trying to get a feel of where she could have placed any hints. What would I protect without a thought? My guns and knives. Reaching under the bed, I pull out the large metal case. The weight of it scrapes against the wooden floor. I analyze every corner and remember in my head how I left everything in place.

  Two guns are out of order, and I pick both of them up. Under one of them rests a small thumb drive. I grip the device in my hand and pocket it, only to leave the house and ride over to Tami’s. She and Solo are gone, either out to work or, I am sure, on lockdown until Matias is killed. I sneak around to the back of the house and unlock the door. When Kat and I got this house for Tami, we made an extra set of keys for us, in case we ever needed it.

  Peeking around, I find Tami’s laptop on a small table in her room and sit down with it. The device springs to life with a picture of Solo, Tammy and their baby, Cash, on the screen. I push the thumb drive in and open the one file on it, a video recording. Kat’s face pops up and my eyes water as I choke on the emotion ripping through me.

  “Hey, Tank. If you are watching this, then this only means that either I am dead, or that we started the second phase. I’m sorry, baby. I couldn’t tell you everything. I hope that you find me alive at the end of this, and that you understand the reasons for me not telling you everything.”

  Her face looks down at the floor of a room I have never seen. She takes in a deep breath, steeling herself for whatever else she has to tell me. My finger pauses the video and I look behind her, at the surroundings she’s in. It’s all metal and, barely into the corner, I see a garage type door. Is she in a storage shed? I push play again, ready to finish watching the video.

  “I know that you are onto why I am here, and it is not for me. I have left you clues, Tank, that only you can find. If you made it this far, then you do know me and have listened. My hopes are that you save what I failed to do. Keep going, baby, and destroy this drive, for your safety and everyone else’s.”

  I torment myself with her voice and the pain in it as I watch the video several more times. Her words and face are everything, and I memorize it all, locking it away, even if I die.

  Kat wrapped me up in her web and injected herself inside of me. She is my poison and obsession. I realize that she said she might still be alive. Was Kat anticipating her own death?

  So many questions and few leads to follow. I sit in Tami’s room, with her laptop on my legs, completely confused about what any of this could mean.

  Holding my breath, I dare to hope that she could be alive. I set the laptop back to where it was and go with what I do know. She needs her biggest secret of all to stay protected.

  I have a hard time of letting her go, but I manage to break the thumb drive and throw it away in the trash outside. My gut tells me that I need to investigate that family in California that I already found. Also, she shot that video in a small metal room. First, I look up all the storage facilities and narrow it down. I start at the closest one located near our house. The Road Dog will hunt down and find the truth.

  I know that what comes next will be a battle to the death. Or to bring back the dead.

  Hours pass and I’m about to give up for the day, but I push on and pick the lock of the storage shed. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to obtain a list of customers. Only a few on that list were female only renters. Only one was under the name of Emily Scott.

  The sound of metal screeches when I push the door up. Inside, I’m taken by surprise at the setup before me. Computer monitors sit above a small desk, a cot, food, and Kat’s black Tesla. Nothing else, no papers or boxes. It’s very clean and minimal.

  I sit in the desk chair, turn the computer on and wait for it to boot up. Fuck, I have to enter a password. I try one and fail. Desperation starts to creep its ugly head in. My cheeks start to heat, and I attempt the second guess. Incorrect.

  If I don’t get this right, I will be locked out for good. The Black Widow will wipe the drive after three failed attempts, I know it. I bow my head in desperation and think. Kat said I was listening to her and I knew her. What would she use? It would be something I would use, not her.

  It is always the easiest, most obvious pick. Relaxing my muscles and closing my eyes, I think of her and a word strikes me. I type in K-Love, and I have entry. A confirmation that she was mine. She brings me to my knees, because Kat was listening to me, too.

  I browse through all her files and emails to clients, and I see for the first time who she had really been in the shadows. Ready to move and kill to fill the emptiness she lived with.

  Every job she took was to protect women or children. She took out men who were influential in law enforcement or who took bribes.

  I search for hours and find that all these people she killed either had worked for an associate of the Cartel or a Boss under them. One at a time, she was taking down a piece of the Cartel empire until she was ready to go after the big boss himself, Matias.

  Pictures of missing kids and documents of their families kill me. Kids that where stolen and taken into the sex trade, only for the people who bought them to die months or years later. Did Kat kill all these people? Was she righting the wrongs of her family?

  I find a file that’s detailed with information on
Kat’s lookalike, Korina, her twin sister, without tattoos. I check the date of the file and see that it was just right before we left for Mexico to kill Angel, Matias’ brother. Kat has several photos of her sister outside of schools, talking to children and bringing them to her house. Under the guise of helping them, she lured them there only to drug them, then hand them over to Matias’ men. They were used and sold for profit, like animals. Makes perfect sense now why Korina had never been allowed to marry or have a family.

  My hands shake and my vision blurs from the murderous craze that takes over my brain. Kat barely spoke about her sister, and now I know why she killed her. Korina had been a puppet of the Cartel. Working for them and prostituting children.

  Pictures of the man she shot with Korina on that night, Estaban, the right-hand man of Matias, litter the file. She killed them both and the baby that Korina was carrying. Now I know, fuck me.

  This was how Spider tracked her down. He knew that she was killing anyone that had to be an associate of the Cartel. The last one in California had been a big buyer. He had purchased, sold and used kids for his pleasure. Kat was contacted by the woman who couldn’t get justice from the cops. She killed off one of Matias’ biggest buyers, taking a small piece of him at a time, without him seeing it. Just like that motherfucker did to us.

  For a moment, a wicked smile creeps over my face at that thought. Kat used Matias’ own strategy against him, something he wouldn’t have seen coming. Smart fucking bitch. He will pay for what he has done to her.

  Kat didn’t tell me anything, but now I know everything. He fucked up her heart and, no doubt, did some sick shit to her. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I continue looking through her files and memorize what I can.

  I click in her browser, and a string of webpages she visited come up. I go through each one, and my heart stops when a video feed comes up, with signal from multiple separate screens. The family in California that I found before pops up on the big monitor. They are sitting at the table, praying together before dinner. I click to enlarge that image and they fill the screen.