Byron

by KJ Dahlen

  “Do you know what they did?”

  Kelly nodded. “Yes I do but I swore I’d never say and I’m sticking to my word. My daddy taught me to always keep my word. He always said it would determine what kind of person you were. That was lesson one, lesson two was to never cheat anyone because Karma has a way of gobsmacking you when it suits her and every lie would come back to haunt you in the end.”

  “I think I would have liked your dad.” Byron smiled.

  “Yeah well, I’m pretty sure he would have liked you too.” She snuggled up to him and began spreading tiny kisses on his chest and neck. “I know his daughter kind of likes you too.”

  Byron groaned and wrapped his hands around the globes of her ass, hauling her up against him. “I kind of like her too.”

  “Show me,” she whispered in his ear.

  “Gladly.” Byron hauled her to the bedroom to show her exactly how much he ‘liked’ her. First, he dropped her onto his king sized bed, then tugged up her tank top, removing it from her torso. “I don’t like this.” He tossed it behind him.

  Kelly giggled as she sat on the bed in her bra.

  He eyed her jeans. “I don’t much care for these either.” He undid her buttons then swiftly tugged then down and over her hips, tossing them to the pile.

  Kelly was chuckling at his antics.

  He stood up to eye her bra and lace undies. “Now....” He raised a brow. “While I love sexy underthings...” He reached down and unclasped her bra, allowing her breasts to pop out nicely. “I do like what’s under them.” Pushing her back, he proceeded to suck on one nipple while he thumbed the other.

  Kelly began to pant and squirm as he suckled, tweaked, and played with her nipples till she was utterly breathless.

  Reaching down, he literally grabbed her underwear and ripped them away.

  Breathing heavily, Kelly protested, “Hey! I don’t have many of those!”

  Byron laid her back as he growled, “Well, I really hated them.”

  Kelly started to laugh.

  Byron grinned at her as he rose up to take his own clothes off.

  Kelly stared up at him in awe as he stripped down to his bare skin. “Well, damn...I really like this!”

  Byron laughed as he covered her body with his and Kelly moaned.

  For the next couple of hours, Byron showed Kelly over and over again, just how much he liked her until she no longer had any doubts.

  ~*~

  The sun was high in the sky when they were awakened by a pounding on the apartment door.

  Byron moaned as he snuggled closer to Kelly when the pounding began. He wanted to ignore the intrusion but the pounding continued.

  Byron swore as he flung back the cover and pulled his pants on.

  Kelly pushed the hair out of her face and leaned up on her elbow. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know but obviously, someone wants something that just can’t fucking wait,” he grumbled then he looked down at her and smiled at all that creamy skin he adored. “You better get up and get dressed.”

  He went through the apartment and flung open the door to find his brother, Mountain and Sin’s President, Deke standing there. “What the hell do you want?”

  “We got visitors.” Mountain growled.

  “Who?”

  “Just get your ass downstairs and bring Kelly and Joe with you.” Mountain turned and walked away, followed by Deke. Neither man looked happy.

  Byron exhaled deeply and went back into the apartment. He went back into his bedroom and grabbed a t-shirt. Kelly was just coming from the bathroom but she was dressed and ready to go. “We got a visitor.”

  Who?” Kelly frowned as she asked.

  “I have no clue. I’m just supposed to bring you and Joe downstairs.”

  Kelly motioned toward the door. “Well then, let’s go get Grandpa and see who this is.”

  A few moments later, they entered the kitchen and saw everyone standing there. No one looked comfortable. In fact, everyone seemed rather tense. The visitors were the police and there were three of them standing there.

  “What’s going on here?” Byron asked with a growl.

  “I need to ask your girlfriend where she was around eleven last night,” one of the police dared to ask.

  “I was in the shop working on a new engine.” Kelly frowned then looked over at the brothers. “Why? What happened?”

  “There was a fire last night at your old residence. It’s already been determined it was an arson based fire. A rather fast burning accelerant, such as racing fuel. There were three people inside the house. Two of them didn’t make it and your brother is in the hospital in critical condition.”

  Kelly gasped and sat down in a chair hard.

  Joe and Byron moved closer and both men laid a hand on her shoulder to lend her support. “Who died?”

  The police looked at one another and took note that every man standing there went to back her. “There was a man named Henry Loker and another man named Jose Ortize.” He paused then added, “By the way, your brother may need blood from you. He was torn up pretty bad trying to get out of the house. The flames disorientated him and he couldn’t find his way out. He’s got some pretty bad burns too.”

  “The doctors have determined he was high and that might have led to his disorientation somewhat,” another officer added.

  Kelly looked as if she had been poleaxed. Haunting memories pushed through her subconscious and flooded her. She looked up at her grandfather with tears in her eyes. “He killed them didn’t he, Grandpa? He couldn’t get to us any other way so he killed them,” she whispered.

  Joe nodded at her but didn’t say a word.

  “Who killed who?” the first officer barked. “Do you know anything about this?”

  Kelly shook her head. “Like I said I was working last night. I never left the shop until after midnight. I spoke to a man named Wes before I left and I spoke to a man named Wiley when I got back to the house a moment or so later. Byron was waiting for me when I got here.”

  “We have surveillance tapes if you want to see them. She was where she said she was all night,” Mountain explained to the police.

  “Ok well, we had to check. Two men lost their lives and the third isn’t doing so well.” The officer looked over at her and asked, “And you don’t seem so upset that your brother is hurt. Like when I asked about giving him blood. Why is that?”

  “Probably because he isn’t her brother,” Deke suggested. “He’s Ted McGee’s second son. The one no one knew about.”

  “Is that a fact?” the officer asked. “Can you prove that?”

  Kelly looked up at him and said, “When Caden was ten, he was involved in an accident. The doctors checked my blood in case he needed a donor. I found out then he wasn’t my brother and that our blood didn’t match. I can’t give him my blood.”

  “Does he know this?” the officer asked. “In his lucid moments, he keeps calling out for Kelly. Isn’t that you?”

  “Yeah, that’s me but he hates me. I have no clue why he’s calling out my name.” Kelly shook her head.

  The cop shrugged. “He’s very agitated. The doctors are giving him something to keep him calm but he insists he needs to talk to you.”

  Kelly shrugged. “I can’t help you officer. I wasn’t anywhere near that house since we left it days ago.”

  “You said something earlier about someone killing someone. What did you mean?”

  “Ted McGee swore he’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted. One of the things he wanted was to find me. He knew the only way to do that was to hurt the one person I was close to,” Kelly explained. “He couldn’t get to my grandfather as he is well protected but he could get to the man I considered a brother. One of the men that died used to be my dad’s best friend back in the day. Henry Loker. My dad died in a racing accident fifteen years ago. My mother Candy Abalone was convicted of tampering with his engine but now we think it was Henry who tampered with it. I have a feeling that Ted s
imply got rid of him now that he no longer needed him. Now Candy can take the evidence she has and get her conviction overturned. So, he can lay the blame on a dead man who can’t protect himself or claim that he was forced to do what he did. Ted protected himself once again.”

  “But why would he set up his own son to get hurt or killed? That just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You don’t know what kind of man Ted is.” Joe shook his head. “He never claimed Caden as his son and he never will. He let my son Dom keep the boy and grow up never knowing he wasn’t Dom’s kid. I imagine he knows now but now he couldn’t take the chance Caden would claim him as a father. All his life, in his mind, Ted’s only had one son, Jack. He can’t let anything muck up Jack’s chances to be a race car driver like he was.”

  One of the officers shook his head. “That is one messed up reason for not claiming your own blood.”

  Joe agreed. “Well, that’s just the kind of man Ted is. Fucked up.”

  “Did you know Jose Ortize, as well?”

  Joe nodded. “He worked in my son’s pit too. Haven’t seen or heard from him in fifteen years or so.”

  “Maybe he knew all along who hurt dad,” Kelly suggested. “Ted couldn’t take any chances that Jose would tell his secret. He had to make sure he covered all his bases.”

  Joe shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now any more. That’s the past.”

  “We need you to stick around here in case we have more questions. As the past just came back in the guise of a burned out house,” the third police officer stated.

  Kelly nodded. “I’m not going to run.” Shaking her head, she looked around the room. Byron and his brothers were all there, plus several bikers were there as well. She looked back at the cops standing there. “I don’t think they would allow me to leave anyway. They’d just drag me back.”

  One of the cops chuckled. “That, they would. You wouldn’t even make it to the outskirts of town.”

  “We don’t run from trouble,” Deke stated as he crossed his arms over his chest. “If we need to, we stand and fight but we don’t run.”

  “She isn’t going anywhere,” Byron agreed. “The one place she won’t be going to is the hospital. Caden made his own bed now he can lay in it.”

  “And I’ll tell you more thing,” Mountain told the officers. “Ted McGee has been coming around here, even after we’ve asked him repeatedly to stay away. He doesn’t listen to anyone but himself. He was here again yesterday and he threatened to get back at her and her grandfather. This was his way of doing just that.”

  “What does he want from you guys?”

  “He wants the engine we’re working one,” Kelly answered this. “It’s the Mach Three.”

  One of the officers startled when he heard the name of the engine. “Those engines belong to the Abalone family. How the hell can you be working on them?”

  “I’m Joseph Abalone and she’s Kelly Abalone.” Joe motioned toward Kelly.

  “But Ted is also after one of my cars,” Byron stated. “He said he would get it too.”

  The officers shrugged. “Well, we don’t know anything about that.”

  “If you see Ted McGee you better tell him to stay away from here. We don’t want him here and he isn’t welcome. Next time he comes around, he might get hurt.” Mountain glared at them. “He would be a trespasser while damn well knowing he isn’t allowed onto the property.”

  The cops nodded, as they knew Mountain would be within his rights to protect his own property.

  ~*~

  A few hours later, a car pulled into the parking lot. It wasn’t Ted this time but instead it was her mother, Candy.

  Kelly ignored her and went back to work.

  Byron met her before she got too far out of the car. “Get back into your vehicle and fucking high tail it right back to your boyfriend. You got nothing to say that anyone wants to hear.” Byron was wiping of his hands.

  Candy glared at him. “Don’t try and tell me what to do.” She hissed at him. “I came here to see my daughter and I’m not leaving until I do. I have to tell her about her brother.”

  Byron nodded. “The cops already came by this morning.”

  “Then you understand why I need to talk to her.”

  “Actually, I don’t,” Byron commented. “You’ve been gone most of her life and now it’s too late. She moved on a long time ago and now, you need to do the same.”

  Joe moved into the light from the shadows of the shop. “Move on Candy. Kelly won’t talk to you.”

  Candy turned and sneered at the man standing there. “Well, if it isn’t Joe Abalone. I thought you’d be dead by now, old man.”

  “Nope, still fit as a fiddle.” He took a moment to look her over well. “But I can see your time in the slammer hasn’t done you any favors, have they?”

  Candy flushed bright red. “God! I always hated you and that hasn’t changed a bit.”

  “Nope, now go away and leave the girl alone.” Joe snarled at her.

  “She’s still my child!” Candy screamed.

  “I was never your child,” Kelly spoke from behind Joe. Stepping out of the shadows, she came out to stand beside her grandfather. “You carried me and you gave me life but you were never my mother. You proved that by walking out on me a long time ago, not once but twice you walked away and never looked back.”

  “I made a mistake, baby girl,” Candy whined, trying to play the sympathy card.

  “No!” Kelly laughed. “The only mistake you ever made was coming back.” She turned away and called out, “Go back to your husband, Candy. Oh, that’s right! He dumped you as well, didn’t he? He divorced you and let you rot in prison for a crime he knew you didn’t commit for fifteen years. That’s just harsh.” She walked back into the shop.

  Candy watched her go and turned her hate filled glare to Byron. “God I hate that bitch,” she mumbled under her breath.”

  “Then why the fuck are you here?” Byron glared at her.

  Candy just glared back at him. “You know this would have been so much easier if she only cooperated a little bit.” She waved her hand in the air. “Not to worry though. It will all be mine when she’s gone, won’t it? As her next of kin I’ll get it all when she’s gone,” Candy mumbled. She ignored Byron and Joe then just got into her car and pulled out. Making the turn, she sprayed gravel at Byron but he didn’t move out of the way.

  When he watched her turn the corner, he looked over at Joe. The old man looked as worried as Byron felt. “Is she crazy?”

  Joe nodded. “I’ve always thought so but this is way out there. What the hell did she mean when she said she would get it all after Kelly was gone?”

  “I think she was threatening Kelly’s life.” Byron growled.

  “But I’m Kelly’s next of kin, not that miserable bitch,” Joe grumbled.

  “But you’re an old man, Joe,” Byron pointed out. “Anything can happen to you any time.”

  Joe just stared at the other man.

  “She’s threatening both you and Kelly,” Byron surmised.

  “The hell you say!” Joe exclaimed.

  “Yeah, the hell I say,” Byron repeated his statement. “That ain’t happening, not on my watch.” He reached inside his pocket and grabbed his phone. He knew what he needed to do. “Prez, we just had another interesting visitor...”

  Chapter Twelve

  The next ten days flew by. Kelly as Joe worked day and night to finish off their engine.

  Caden was still in recovery and little had changed with his condition. He spent the first nine days in a medically induced coma to allow his body to heal. The fire had done some serious damage. It had burned only twenty percent of his body but the burns were deep and the doctor determined he should remain under until the burns could heal some more.

  Ted drove by every day but didn’t stop. He only drove past the shop to try and throw them off their game. They did send letters of intent for the purchase of the Ford Roadster but Byron never opened the letters
after the first three days. He wasn’t interested in selling and even if he were, he wouldn’t sell it to fucking Jack McGee.

  The race was only days away now and tension was building. Byron had the 67 Shelby Mustang in the best possible condition it could be, now all they had to do was wait for race day.

  Two days before the race, Kelly received a phone call from the racing commission. They wanted a meeting tomorrow in New York. They would even come to Troy. Ted McGee had brought charges that the Mach Engine her father built fifteen years ago was the same one he sold to McGee just before he died.

  When Kelly told Joe what was going on, Joe just smiled and asked Mountain for a ride to his attorney’s office. He insisted that Kelly come with him, Byron as well.

  When they got to the office Joe’s attorney, Dan Wade looked around at the huge bikers and Joe and Kelly. “What can I help you with Joe?”

  “It seems Ted McGee is claiming the Mach One is the design he paid for when he bought the engine off Dom and I three weeks before the race that cost Dom his life. He’s bringing the commission here and we have to prove the designs are different.”

  “Then you want what you gave me for safe keeping back, right?” Dan asked the man.

  “I do.”

  Dan got up and picked up his phone. He ordered his secretary to call the police and get an officer over to his office. Then he asked Mountain to follow him.

  Mountain frowned with confusion but he went with the other man. They waited in the lobby for the officer to arrive and when he did, all three men went to the vault.

  Dan, Mountain and the officer went into the vault.

  Dan then opened a safety deposit box and withdrew some papers. He had the officer write his initials on the outside of the package.

  The officer looked down at the date on the outside of the package. Looking up at Dan he said, “This package hasn’t been out of the deposit box in fifteen years?”

  Mountain stepped over and snapped a picture of the withdrawal slip. “No, they haven’t been. They wouldn’t be even now except Joe needs them for t a Racing Commission meeting.” He stopped to look at Dan. “Do you know what’s in there?”