Blacktop Freedom (Kings of Vengeance MC Book 7)
Page 1
Copyright © 2021 Winter Travers
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges
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For questions or comments about this book, please contact the author at winter@wintertravers.com
Also by Winter Travers
Devil’s Knights Series
Loving Lo
Finding Cyn
Gravel’s Road
Battling Troy
Gambler’s Longshot
Keeping Meg
Fighting Demon
Unraveling Fayth
Forever Lo
Devil’s Knights 2nd Gen
Passing the Torch
Riding the Line
Royal Mess
Changing Lanes
Bucking Tradition
Skid Row Kings Series
DownShift
PowerShift
BangShift
Fallen Lords MC Series
Nickel
Pipe
Maniac
Wrecker
Boink
Clash
Freak
Slayer
Brinks
A Fallen Lords Christmas
Kings of Vengeance MC
Drop a Gear and Disappear
Lean Into It
Knees in the Breeze
Midnight Wreckage
Thrill Seeker
Livin’ on the Edge
Blacktop Freedom
Powerhouse MA Series
Dropkick My Heart
Love on the Mat
Black Belt in Love
Black Belt Knockout
Nitro Crew Series
Burndown
Holeshot
Redlight
Shutdown
Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA
Playboy
Six-Gun
Monk
Rebel
Sweet Love Novellas
Sweet Burn
Five Alarm Donuts
Stand Alone Novellas
Kissing the Bad Boy
Trapped with the Bad Boy
Daddin’ Ain’t Easy
Silas: A Scrooged Christmas
Wanting More
Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool
Tangle My Tinsel
Mr. Motorcycle
Oral Communications
Coasting In
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
Sneak Peek
Chapter One
Tell me…
Brick
"Why were you there?"
I sat back in my chair, raised my arms over my head, and rested them on top of it. "Where?"
Kaye rolled her eyes. "Sitting outside of Steph's apartment."
"Who?" That might have been the smartass answer that tipped Kaye over the edge.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" she spat and slammed her hand down on the table. "You were sitting outside of one of your club member's ol' lady's sister's apartment, Jax. What the hell were you doing there?"
I repeated each word in my head and held up a finger for each one. Finally, I squinted and tipped my head to the side. "You're gonna have to clue me in on who you are talking about. I’m not sure if you know, but I just got out of the big house and I’m not really up to date with who is who yet."
Kaye closed her eyes and sighed.
"Am I really under arrest here? I mean, all I was doing was sitting in my car, right?"
Kaye's eyes popped open. "You've been sitting in front of the same apartment for the last couple of weeks, Jax. So, it's not like I popped you for parking your car for a second."
"You been watching me, Kaye?" I drawled. "Didn't know you still had a thing for me."
Kaye gritted her teeth. "I have no thing for you," she seethed.
"Really?" I laughed, tipping my head to the side. "I mean, it's not like we really officially called it quits before, so I can understand the fact that you might have some unresolved feelings for me." I leaned forward and rested my hand on the table in front of her. "Do you need closure?"
A low growl rumbled from Kaye's direction.
That right there was her tipping point. Her eyes flashed, and I knew fireworks were about to explode.
"Are you ready to go back to prison?" she growled.
I splayed out my hands in front of me. "I haven't done one damn thing that could even remotely warrant me having to go back to prison."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that. I'm sure once Steph finds out you've basically been stalking her, she'll be more than willing to press charges." Kaye folded her arms over her chest and smirked. "You're out of prison, but you'll always be a felon. I could always put a parole hold on you and see what your PO has to say."
I tipped my head to the side. Kaye might have had a slight point there. I was damn sure Steph might be pissed at first, but as soon as Zephyr and the club found out what was happening, they would have Steph changing her mind about pressing charges. From what I understood, Lynn and Steph didn't have the greatest relationship, but I was confident I wouldn't be going back to prison.
"You know, go ahead and call my PO. I’m not going back to prison because I didn’t do a damn thing wrong. I may be a felon, but when I lay my head down at night, I sleep like a fucking baby because I know I'm not a liar who only cares about myself."
"Just what are you trying to insinuate?"
I chuckled and leaned back in my chair. "I think that's a conversation we need to save for another day. I don't think either of us has the energy to unravel that twisted web." I wasn't lying when I had said that Kaye and I ended without any closure. First, we were together, and then, we weren't. Kaye was back to her life in the police department, and I was sitting in jail waiting for my court date.
"Tell me what you were doing following Steph and sitting outside of her house."
"Do you really have anything you can hold me on here, or can I go?" Kaye didn't have shit to keep me here. I was being a nice guy and letting her think I would stick around, but I was about done with this bullshit.
"What do you know about Steph?"
Now Kaye was getting to what she really wanted to know. "I've been in prison for the past five years, Kaye. I really don't know shit about anyone other than what I heard in the yard and in my cell at the prison."
"My cellmate listened to music twenty-four-seven, Kaye. So, I guess I do know some stuff, but it basically has to do with what songs are popular and who sings them. Carl was a lifer, and a pretty cool dude, but he did some fucked up things. He always had to have that damn radio playing." I smiled wide. "Most of the time, I was able to tune it out, but there were a few songs that caught my attention."
"And why was that?" she asked.
I looked her up and down. "Brought back some memories, is all."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "What were you doing outside of Steph's house?" she asked for probably the tenth time.
She didn't want to know the songs that caught my attention and basically haunted me in my sleep. They all were about her and more than likely would haunt her, too.
"You don't want to know what songs?" I whispered.
"I want to know what you and the club are up to," she spat.
I chuckled. "We're not up to anything."
"I could pop you for being in the club. I'm sure being a member violates your parole."
I shook my head and stood. "I'm not doing anything wrong, Kaye. I check in with my parole officer, and I'm not part of a motorcycle club. They're my friends." I inclined my head toward her. "It's not enough that they took five years away from me; now you want to take away the only friends and family I have left?"
She clamped her lips together.
"I'm leaving, Kaye. If you wanna know why I was where I was, then you're gonna have to tell me why you want to know. I'm just keeping an eye on Steph for Zephyr and Lynn. That's it." That was all she was going to learn from me. If she really wanted to know what I was doing, she would have to talk to Quinn. I didn't think he would give her any information, but she had a better shot with him than she would with me.
"I'm gonna find out what you guys are doing," she said quietly. "And if you're doing what I think you are, then you're biting off more than you guys can handle," she warned.
I held out my hand. "Can I have my phone? I need to call one of the guys for a ride back to my car."
Kaye pulled my phone from her pocket and slapped it into my hand. She knew that she couldn't hold me much longer. Not without charging me with something or getting my agent to put me on a hold.
I didn't break any laws, and I haven’t violated any of my terms of release—aside from being a member of the club, which they can’t prove.
She had nothing on me.
"Tell Quinn I'll be by in the morning," Kaye called.
I shrugged. "You might want to swing by in the afternoon. You know how bikers are."
"No, I really don't," she stated flatly.
I walked to the door and pulled it open. "I guess what we had must have been in my head, then." I stepped out of the interrogation room and pulled the door shut behind me.
Kaye and I had been over for a long time, but it was a new kind of sting to hear from her mouth that it wasn't anything to her.
It was over. In the past.
That was where Kaye and I were going to stay.
*
Kaye
"That was fucking risky."
I sat back in my chair and sighed.
Clint closed the door behind him, sat down in the chair Jax had been occupying, and laid his hands on the table. "He knows we had no legal reason to bring him in, Kaye."
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bottle of water off the table. "What's your point?"
"You're not worried he's gonna get a bug up his ass and file a complaint?"
Did Jax deal with the police any more than he had to? "He won't. And if he did, I could come up with a reason for questioning him. He technically has been stalking Steph Burnet."
Not that I wanted to play dirty with him. I just wanted to know what the hell the Kings were doing watching her. Sure, she was the sister of one of the ol' ladies, but I didn't understand why she was someone they would want to follow around and sit on.
We had been keeping tabs on all the members of the Kings of Vengeance. They always seemed to know what was going to happen before the police ever knew. Quinn was always a couple of steps ahead of me, and I was trying to put a stop to that.
I had thought I was onto something when patrol reported to me that Jax was following Steph. But unfortunately, that dried up tonight when he refused to tell me what the hell he was doing.
"Maybe we just need to go talk to Quinn and ask him what he knows."
I rolled my eyes. "Because the president of the Kings of Vengeance is just going to let me sit at his table and tell me his plans."
Clint shrugged. "At this point, I'm pretty sure that is the only option we have. The kid connected to Deedra is dead. Ma and Pa Clark are dead with their son rotting away in prison."
"Also connected back to the Kings of Vengeance." I tapped my fingers on the table. "I'm sick of being behind the eight ball when the chips fall."
Clint tipped his head to the side. "I think you might have combined two analogies there, boss."
I flitted my hand at him. "You know what I mean."
"Well, I do, but I also think that you are crazy if you think you're gonna find out what the Kings of Vengeance are up to."
The thing was, the Kings weren't going to talk to me because they thought I was going after them.
I wasn't.
I wanted to take down whoever was running drugs in Whitmore now.
Whitmore was a good town that didn't need to have some scum move in and destroy it with all the filth they brought in.
I was going to go to the Kings of Vengeance clubhouse tomorrow, and I wasn't going to leave until I got the information I wanted.
*
Chapter Two
Rare breed…
Brick
"Heard you got a ride in the back of a cop car last night." Quinn sat down next to me and slapped me on the back. "I knew we should have had a bet going on when you would have a run-in with the cops."
I rolled my eyes and reached behind the bar for a glass, then set it on the top and poured two fingers of rum in the bottom. "Don't you think you should have given me a heads up that Kaye was watching the club?"
Quinn shrugged. "I didn't know for a fact that she was. I had a feeling she might be, but…."
"Well, she is watching the club, and she wants to know what the hell we are up to."
Quinn laughed. "Half the time, I don't know what the hell we are up to until we need to make a quick decision."
"She wanted to know why I was sitting outside of Steph's house. She didn't say it exactly, but she has been watching me for a while."
"You tell her anything?" Quinn asked.
I leveled my gaze on him. "You really need to ask me that question?" A fucking snitch I was not. I spent five years in prison for that very reason.
"How long were you there for?"
"Not even an hour. She didn't have a reason to haul me in, but I didn't want to ruffle her feathers, so I went along with it."
"She must be pretty desperate if she's pulling you in."
Quinn didn’t know everything that happened between us, but he knew Kaye and I had a past. "I told her if she wanted to know what the Kings were up to, then she needed to come to the clubhouse this afternoon."
"You invited the cops to come here?" Dyno called. "What in the hell are you thinking?"
Dyno sat down next to Quinn.
I shrugged and downed my shot of rum before I refilled my glass and screwed the cap back on the bottle. "I'm thinking that it would be better to give the cops something rather than act like we're guilty of doing something."
"We aren't guilty of shit," Dyno spat.
"I know that, but the cops don't." I took the other shot and slammed the glass on the bar. "You don't have to tell her everything; just give her enough to get her off of our backs."
"You mean your
back," Quinn smirked.
"Trust me, Kaye doesn't want to be on my back. She made that clear last night." Crystal fucking clear.
"Rejected," Dyno chuckled.
I flipped him off. "Fuck off." It wasn't like I had tried to take her right there on the table and she had told me no, but it sure felt like.
Dyno held up his hands. "We're cool, man."
"Or we tell her what we do know and let her handle it," Quinn suggested.
Dyno and I turned to Quinn.
Quinn smiled wide and busted out laughing. "Or not," he laughed.
I wasn't against the cops, but I wasn't about to become one of them. I had tried that shit once before, and it had exploded right in my face. Now, I was on this Earth for myself and no one else. That was the only way I was going to stay alive and out of prison.
I had put Kaye before myself, and I had landed right in a fucking cell.
Never again.
"What are we talking about?" Kimber shuffled over to Quinn and launched herself into his arms.
"Jesus, woman," he grunted. He managed to wrap his arms around her and lift her onto his lap.
Seeing Quinn with Kimber was…different.
When I had been released from prison, I sort of expected that I would stay at the clubhouse and be able to just hang out with Quinn.
That didn't happen.
I hadn't considered that he had an ol' lady who was pregnant and that there were also five other ol' ladies wandering around at any given time. It wasn't exactly living the bachelor's life I had been anticipating.
"We're not talking about anything." Quinn pressed a kiss to her lips. "You sleep, okay?" he asked.
Kimber shrugged. "As good as can be expected when I have this little nugget rolling around in my belly."
"Nugget?" Dyno laughed. "Please tell me that's what you are naming him."
I smothered a laugh with the back of my hand. "If you don't, you know that's going to be his road name now."
Dyno bumped his fist against mine. "Damn straight, brother. Gotta get that second-generation going."
"You are not going to call my baby Nugget," Kimber insisted.