Blacktop Freedom (Kings of Vengeance MC Book 7)

by Winter Travers

  Kimber and Lynn headed off down an aisle with Zephyr following behind them. “Keep an eye on Fancy,” he hollered to me.

  I kept Fancy in my view while the guy sliced all the meat. Fancy came back to the cart with three loaves of bread, two packs of buns, and a large cheese danish coffeecake.

  She blew her hair out of her face and smiled wide. “I tried to grab a cherry danish coffeecake, but I couldn’t get it.”

  I had been the one reminding everyone that we were here for lunch, but I was also the one buying eight pounds of lunchmeat.

  “Is there anything else you’ve been wanting since you got out?” Fancy asked loudly.

  The guy behind the deli counter’s head snapped up, and his jaw dropped.

  I wasn’t ashamed of my past, but I also wasn’t into broadcasting it around the grocery store.

  “Nah, this is it, darlin’.” Before going to prison, it wasn’t like I was eating caviar and lobster every day. I just wanted a good ol’ bologna sandwich whenever I craved one. “I don’t need anything special.”

  They had thrown me a party when I had been released, and that was more than I had ever expected. Asking me what I wanted to eat and being willing to buy it for me was way more than anyone had ever done for me.

  Fancy shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll just buy whatever I think I would want if I got out of the big house.” She nodded to the cart. “I’m going back for the cherry danish coffeecake. I’d totally want that.”

  I shook my head and chuckled. “Whatever you want.”

  “Here you go, man.” The deli clerk set six bags of meat on the top of the deli case. “Anything else I can get you?”

  I shook my head and dropped the meat into the cart. “I think we’re good for a couple of days.”

  The guy chuckled. “Have a good day.”

  I nodded and headed over to where Fancy had her arms full of pastries.

  “How do you feel about butter pecan?” she asked.

  I ran my fingers through my hair and shrugged. “Uh, not sure. I’ve never had it.”

  Fancy dropped everything into the cart. “Well, we’re going to find out.”

  “We’ve got chips!” Kimber and Lynn came barreling over to us with six bags of chips, and Zephyr trailed behind them with some other stuff in his arms.

  “Whoa, snap,” Kimber laughed. “I like how you buried the bologna with coffeecake and cupcakes.”

  “We’re done,” Zephyr boomed. “We were getting shit for lunch, and now we have an overflowing cart.”

  I hadn’t even been able to look around the store other than the deli, and Zephyr was already putting a stop to it.

  We made our way toward the checkout and somehow managed to add even more to the cart before we got to the register.

  “Oh, meatloaf!” Kimber gasped. “We’re totally getting this to have cold meatloaf sandwiches.”

  Fancy curled her lip. “And you think bologna is gross?” she laughed.

  “Tomato, tomato,” Kimber shrugged. “The baby likes what the baby likes.”

  “You mean the heir?” Fancy giggled.

  Zephyr and I managed to drag the girls through the checkout and back out to the van. We piled the back, along with the food, and headed over to the strip club.

  “So, did anyone grab plates?” Kimber asked.

  “We got some of the basics at the strip club. We should be good.” Zephyr pulled into the parking lot of the club and parked next to the bikes.

  Zephyr and I were grabbing the bags from the back when a car pulled up behind us.

  “Did we buy popcorn?” Zephyr asked.

  I quirked my eyebrow. “For?”

  “Thought we would find you guys here.”

  That voice.

  I turned on my heel and saw Kaye and her dumbass partner standing next to the car that had pulled in.

  Zephyr had a huge, dumbass smile on his face. “This is gonna be a shitshow.”

  My eyes connected with Kaye’s.

  Yeah, shitshow indeed.

  *

  Chapter Nine

  Surprise visit…

  Kaye

  Showing up to the strip club was not my initial plan, but here I was.

  Clint and I had stopped by the clubhouse, but some prospect was the only one left there. He didn’t tell Clint and me anything other than they were gone.

  “I didn’t know you guys had prospects,” I called.

  Zephyr had a huge smile on his face. “I didn’t know we had to tell you who was in the club and where we were.”

  I pushed my sunglasses on top of my head. “You don’t, your prospect did.”

  “We don’t have prospects.” Quinn stood on the porch of the strip club with Dyno next to him. “You sure you went to the right club?”

  “You’re the only motorcycle club in town, Quinn. I think we got the right one seeing as we were there the other day,” I smirked.

  The prospect we had talked to pulled up on his bike and parked next to the van.

  “Where the hell did you go?” Dyno yelled.

  The guy slid off his bike and ran his fingers through his hair. “I forgot my wallet, so I ran back to the clubhouse to get it.”

  I pointed toward the guy. “He’s the guy I talked to.”

  Dyno doubled over with laughter. “Prospect,” he crowed.

  “What the hell is so funny?” the guy demanded.

  “Po-po called you a prospect,” Zephyr smirked. “She said you told her where we were.”

  “I sure the fuck didn’t,” the guy shouted. “I told you everyone was out. Didn’t tell you a damn thing,” he claimed.

  Quinn folded his arms over his chest. “Core,” he growled.

  Things were about to get fucking bad in about ten seconds if I didn’t chime in and let Quinn know Core hadn’t snitched or anything. I knew snitching was not something that was taken lightly by these guys.

  I stepped forward. “He did just tell us you guys were gone.”

  “Damn straight,” Core grunted.

  “She still thought you were a damn prospect,” Zephyr chuckled. “I would be madder about that.”

  Clint moved to the front of the car and leaned against the hood. “We figured you guys would be here.”

  “You graduate at the top of your class with those amazing deduction skills?” Core cracked. “Fucking brilliant this one.”

  “I’ll pull you in for lying to the fucking cops, prospect. Keep it up,” Clint warned.

  Core stepped toward Clint, but Jax raised an arm to stop him. “He ain’t fucking worth it, brother. You lay one finger on him, and he’ll lock you up.”

  That was the damn truth. Clint seemed to rub all these guys wrong, and he knew it.

  Core growled but didn’t move.

  “What do you guys want?” Quinn asked.

  “You wanna talk inside?” I asked. “I don’t want to holler to the whole neighborhood about what is going on.”

  Quinn hitched his chin at me. “Sure.”

  Dyno and Quinn disappeared back into the strip club, and Kimber climbed the stairs. “You guys grab the bags.”

  “Is that because you’re carrying the heir?” Fancy giggled. She grabbed two bags and followed Kimber.

  Lynn snagged two bags and left the rest of the bags for Zephyr and Jax.

  Clint pointed his fingers between Jax and Zephyr. “This part of being in the club? Grocery runs? You got some toilets to scrub after this?”

  Dear God. Clint needed to learn when to shut his mouth. He was just as bad as the guys in the club.

  I trailed behind Jax and Zephyr up the stairs and into the strip club. Well, it sort of looked like a strip club. We walked in to what I assumed was the coat check area, and then off to the right, a huge staircase led up. A half-built stage stood on one end of a large room with a bar on the other end.

  Jax, Zephyr, and the girls headed up the stairs with all the bags. I headed into what I assumed was the main area of the strip club and wandered around.


  “You can’t even tell this place was a funeral home,” Clint remarked. “We had my uncle’s funeral here five years ago.” He moved to a door on the far end of the large room. “Pretty sure they embalmed the bodies in the basement.”

  Core walked in behind us. “Fucking knew it,” he mumbled under his breath.

  I glanced toward where the stage was being built. “That’s a pretty large stage.”

  Dyno leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. “It’s adequate.”

  “I volunteered to go to other strip clubs to do research on the correct size for the stage, but Quinn vetoed that idea,” Core grumbled.

  I laughed lightly. “I think you guys made the right choice of bigger is better.” I hadn’t spent many nights in strip clubs, but I had to think the more stage, the more dancers, which meant more money coming in.

  Jax and Zephyr came back down the stairs and stood on each side of the entry into the main area of the club.

  Jax looked mad. Though, that seemed to be his normal look since I had seen him after his release from prison. That might also be the way he was when I was around.

  “You come here to let us know we are doing a good job?” Quinn asked.

  I guess there wasn’t room for small talk. “We wanted to know what was going on with Wrigley and Steph. Were you able to contact him?”

  Jax glanced at Quinn.

  Quinn folded his arms over his chest. “Things are going.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Just what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  “Did you guys forget that you’re working for us on this?” Clint droned.

  “Did you forget that without us you don’t have shit?” Point shot back.

  This was not how I wanted things to go. I was going to have leave Clint at the station from now on if he was going to keep this up. “We both want the same result, Quinn. The drugs out of Whitmore. We’re not fighting against each on this.”

  “We’re meeting Wrigley tonight. Steph is going act like she wants to buy,” Jax explained.

  “I want to be there.”

  Quinn shook his head. “Yeah, no thanks. Anyone can smell that you’re a cop from a mile away. We’ll let you know how it goes.”

  “He won’t know I’m a cop,” I insisted.

  “Can we come down?” Kimber hollered from upstairs.

  “No,” Dyno and Point thundered in unison.

  “Why not?” Kimber countered. “There isn’t anywhere for me to sit up here.”

  Quinn rolled his eyes. “Give us five minutes, Kimber.”

  “Well, fine,” she called, “but just so you know, we can hear everything you’re saying. All you need to do is dress Kaye in some sexy, tight clothes and put a smoky eye on her. No one would be able to tell she is a cop.”

  Uh, I had neither of those things. Makeup was something that never happened for me, and my closet consisted of either sweats or work clothes. I was either lounging or working.

  “This isn’t some nineties movie, Kimber,” Zephyr laughed.

  Three sets of footsteps clomped down the stairs. Kimber, Fancy, and Lynn moved into the doorway and put their hands on their hips. “I’m not telling you to take off her glasses and she becomes a new person, Quinn. I’m saying Kaye is already hot. We just need to make her look like a hot chick looking to buy some drugs.”

  Kimber was right. I wouldn’t have put it the way she had, but I totally agreed with her. “I’ve worked undercover before. This guy is not going to know I’m a cop.” I might need a little help with looking more, well, not cop, but I could totally do this.

  “I don’t like this,” Jax called. “This was not at all what we talked about. We were going to do this, and you guys were going to be there to clear our names when the shit hits the fan.”

  “Does the shit have to hit the fan, though?” Kimber asked. “It’s not like she’s going to walk in there with a huge star on her chest that says cop?”

  I was pretty neutral when it came to the ol’ ladies of the club, but I liked that they were sticking up for me when they really didn’t have to.

  “I would feel better having Kaye with Steph,” Lynn replied. “She was pretty nervous when I talked to her yesterday.”

  Quinn ran his fingers through his hair. “Already this plan is going completely off the fucking rails.”

  “I say we just go blow these fuckers up like before and call it a day,” Dyno shrugged.

  Clint tipped his head to the side. “Before?” he asked.

  Dyno shrugged. “Forgot a word. I mean like we planned before you guys got involved.”

  “Right,” Clint drawled.

  “What are you going to do if we let you do this?” Jax asked.

  “Buy some drugs,” I shrugged. I literally thought up this idea five minutes ago. I figured that would be a good place to start to get an in with Wrigley, but beyond that the plan was building.

  “Buy some drugs,” Dyno cackled. “That is your master plan to getting these dumbasses off the street?”

  “Well,” I countered. “What did you guys plan to have happen tonight?”

  “Either get this punk on our side to get to the main players in this or beat the shit out of him.” Dyno cracked his knuckles. “We might just see where the moment leads us.”

  “You’re all gonna die,” Clint laughed. “You have zero fucking plan.”

  Now it was Clint who might be more right than wrong.

  We needed a plan.

  A plan that all of us were okay with.

  “Do you think this guy has a strong link to the supplier, or is he just another dealer and they only care about him making money?” I asked.

  Quinn shrugged. “Core knew the guy. From what he says, he’s probably just a foot solider, and that’s it.”

  “But he might know more than we think,” Core chimed in. “Wrigley was always good about blending into the background, but that was how he always seemed to know everything. People get comfortable with him being in the background, and then they say shit. Shit they don’t want people to know but they forget that Wrigley is there.”

  Fancy raised her hand. “Why don’t you guys just buy drugs from him tonight and see how it goes? You might be able to gauge what kind of person he is from how he acts.”

  “The kind of person he is is a piece of shit,” Point scoffed. “He’s connected to the Devil’s Rebels. Piece of shit,” he repeated.

  This wasn’t the first time I had heard the club mention the Devil’s Rebels. From the research I had done, they had various chapters all around the country and were a strong club. It wasn’t like I could hop on the internet and search them, but I did page through some police reports and whatnot that were connected to the club. There weren’t any reports about them in this area, though. For some reason, they had recently moved into Whitmore, and I wanted to know why.

  “Why do you think the Devil’s Rebels are behind this?” I asked.

  “We don’t know that they are,” Quinn thundered. “We don’t know anything for sure.”

  I didn’t believe that at all. The Kings knew a lot, but they didn’t want to tell me. That needed to change. “Everything you say to me can’t be used against you guys. That was what we agreed to if you help me bring down the Devil’s Rebels or whoever it is that has moved into Whitmore. Even if it involves things that happened in the past, we’re not going to go after you for them.”

  Did I really think the Kings were going to tell me everything they have ever done? Hell no. But I sure hoped that they would tell me what I needed to know.

  “We have a past issue with the Devil’s Rebels, and we’re assuming they’ve set up shop in Whitmore to basically be assholes and lift their middle finger in the air to us.” Quinn shrugged.

  “So, they’re fucking up our town because of you assholes?” Clint shook his head. “Figures.”

  Quinn pointed his finger at Clint but spoke to me. “You need to get your little puppy under control, Mama.”

  Clint pu
shed off the wall and stepped toward Quinn. “Did you just call me a puppy?” Clint spat.

  Jax stepped in front of Clint and held him back from Quinn. “You might want to take a breath, boy.”

  Uh, Quinn calling Clint puppy was not good. Now Jax calling him boy was really not going to be good.

  “Stop,” I shouted. “Clint, go outside and check the radio.”

  “Check the radio?” Clint seethed. “What in the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  I didn’t have a clue, but he needed to go figure it out. “Go.”

  Clint and I were partners, but I was his superior.

  “Fucking bullshit,” he muttered under his breath. He banged out the front door and slammed it shut behind him.

  “Is that guy for real?” Rhino laughed. “I thought all of you cops were dry pieces of toast who sat around with their thumbs up their asses.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “That’s really what you thought?”

  Rhino shrugged. “I mean, before I met you, yeah. You kind of knocked the dry toast in the water by being so hot.”

  Core raised his hand. “I second that.”

  Jax glared at Rhino and Core.

  Fancy pulled out her phone. “I think Petra needs to hear this,” she mumbled.

  “She knows,” Rhino called. “She was the one who said it to me.”

  “Petra was right,” Kimber announced. Kimber looked me up and down. “Past the men’s clothes and gun, you’re hot.”

  It didn’t happen often, but I was totally uncomfortable. I cleared my throat and dropped my eyes to the floor. I didn’t even know what we were talking about before it was announced I was hot for a cop.

  “Be at the clubhouse at seven tonight. Jax will take you over to Steph’s before the deal goes down,” Quinn grunted.

  Thank God for Quinn. The man was rough and tough around the edges, but he showed me mercy by squashing the immensely embarrassing moment.

  “Great,” I chirped. “I’ll make sure to look like a woman and leave my puppy at home.”

  Sledge scoffed and choked. “Did she just call him puppy, too?”

  I shouldn’t have called Clint that, but I needed to show these guys that I was on their side even if we were on opposite sides of the law.