by K. J. Dahlen
JAXSON
BLACK DEVILS MC
J.R. Ryder
&
K.J. Dahlen
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.
Damned, J.R. Ryder © Copyright 2018
Jaxson, K.J. Dahlen & J.R. Ryder
Copyright © Butterfly Publishing, 2018
Book Design & Formatting: Wicked Muse
Cover Art Provided By: Book Cover Love
Published by Butterfly Publishings
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
DAMNED
JAXSON
GHOSTS OF THE PAST
SPAWN & SPITFIRE
SIN’S BASTARDS VOL. TWO
SIN’S BASTARDS VOL. THREE
ABOUT J.R. RYDER
ABOUT K.J. DAHLEN
BUTTERFLY PUBLISHING HOUSE
Acknowledgement
JAXSON is a full-length standalone novel that ends before 100% on your kindle file because of awesome extra stories which is pretty hot, gritty that complements JAXSON. Since this is K.J. Dahlen’s first co-write, she has a gift for readers by introducing them to her MC universe for a limited time. We hope you enjoy it. Happy Reading!
~J.R. Ryder & K.J. Dahlen~
DAMNED
PREQUEL TO THE BLACK DEVILS MC SERIES
J.R. Ryder
Chapter One
Jaxson Coltrane lit a cigarette and leaned out of the open sash window of his bedroom. Icy-fingers of cold wind blew in and whipped at his face. His eyes narrowed against a beam of the early morning sun, and he put one hand up to shade them. Taking a deep draw, he looked out onto the empty streets below, taking in the view of the clubhouse in the distance; an inconspicuous outpost of the town he called home.
He smiled. Nothing had changed about the place in the last ten years; still unappealing and functional looking from the outside. At this time of day, it always seemed like the forlorn, abandoned storage warehouse it had been before. Inside, it had been refurbished: scrubbed up, gutted out and turned into a fully operational clubhouse. Inside was where the real magic happened. The place came to life; a die-hard biker’s paradise. Every single operation since day one was planned in the back office. But it was more than just the club’s fortress. The place had been the home that sustained him for the past decade. It was ten years to this day when it all began; ten hard and dangerous years with the Black Devils MC.
Life in an MC had taken him to hell and back. Those who survived the years always carried the scars to prove it. Jaxson knew he was lucky to have come through largely unscathed. Being Vice President of the club for the past three years, he’d hustled and fought to earn his stripes. Though, how he’d managed to do so, was a mystery to him. For others, those whose pictures adorned the Wall of Death, it had proved to be lethal. It’d always been an unnerving thought that he may not have been so lucky. There weren’t many weeks that went by when he didn’t get the stomach-churning feeling that this would be the week when De Luca would tap him on the shoulder and say: ‘sorry kid, I was wrong about you.’
Jaxson still remembered the look of shock on his mother’s face when he told her he was joining the club at the age of 17. She’d wanted him to join the military and ‘make a man of himself,’ instead; she got a punk outlaw biker for a son. She’d warned Jaxson to steer clear of the formidable Bruno de Luca. Bruno, the notorious head of the De Luca crime family, and the clubs’ president, had told him he saw a lot of himself in Jaxson and took him on as a prospect. If she’d wanted a son that lived on the right side of the law, she was doomed to be disappointed.
She told Jaxson she had a horrific sense that her son would be six feet under within months. “He’s a user. He’ll make a puppet of you and cast you aside when you’re broken. You’ll see.’ Warning him that he would be no more than a means to an end for De Luca. She knew the danger in Jaxson making himself a vessel for De Lucas whims.
Undaunted, Jaxson hustled tirelessly as a young prospect to prove his worthiness as a brother in the club. Sure that if it hadn’t been for Bruno, he would be locked up inside the joint, Jaxson became determined never to disrespect the opportunity Bruno had given him. The club was all he had. The club had given something he felt he was missing in life: a sense of family. And it had given him a lot. In return, he became what they wanted him to be, bound for a new life in a new world.
It’d been a frustrating time for Jaxson with no fancy education, no job, no father in the picture, and a mother busting her ass every day just to get by off of waitressing tips. Formal education had dubbed him ‘unemployable.’ Like most of the guys, he had nowhere else to go. It all had left a chip-on-his-shoulder and a drive to succeed no matter what.
Jaxson’s eyes fell closed. Nothing would ever beat the feeling of his first solo ride on that black Harley Soft tail. The sun glinted off of the polished silver as he climbed on and cranked the engine. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as the beast roared to life. The rush as he raced out of the parking lot, wind whipping past his face and through his hair, as he weaved through traffic it was simultaneously thrilling and yet remarkably and amazingly tranquil. It calmed a piece of his soul that life had left hollow.
Life had gotten a lot better very fast for Jaxson. As a unit, the club felt unstoppable. He had a job, an intense passion for bikes, and a brotherhood there to defend him anytime he was threatened. The club protected the town too, not that they seemed to notice, and he was rather proud of this. Although on the surface, Coronado was a charming and agreeable coastal community, there were dark and severe threats to the town from crime groups in neighbouring territories.
To Jaxson’s profound surprise, now three days away from the election of a new club president. Jaxson, it turned out, was infinitely more clever, hardier and dependable than anyone had ever supposed. With the big day rolling closer, he was the favorite to be voted in as the new leader. Too fucking close for comfort, he thought. The prospect of taking on the responsibility of ‘boss’ for the whole MC was unsettling and it had set him on edge for weeks.
Plus, he had to wonder whether accepting the role was a smart thing to do. There was a serious problem in this, as not everyone would embrace this change warmly. Even in a close-knit MC brotherhood, there was always a male rivalry that left tensions brewing beneath the surface.
De Luca’s son, Antonio, four years Jaxson’s junior, had always been disturbed and deeply offended at his father’s affinity for Jaxson. Jaxson knew his underlying jealousy and frustration would become stronger if he were promoted to president. To Antonio, it was all crushingly unfair. To compound his misery, he would have to work under Jaxson every day with no hope of being promoted to take his father place as president, and for that, he would always quietly hate Jaxson to the grave. And Jaxson didn’t relish having to look over his shoulder every moment of every day for the rest of his life, waiting for the knife he knew Antonio would have ready for him.
But this was a world where you had to take the bad with the
good. For Jaxson, it had meant having to harden himself to the sight of death. Over time, he got used to it. But he still had flashbacks of his first killing to this day. All he could do was look down at that body, brokenly. The amount of blood he saw took his breath away. Sure, he never pulled a trigger, but the man had died at his hands.
A vision of himself at home in the shower, scrubbing his body over and over, that night, flashed into his mind.
Since then, it had been nearly ten years of looking over his shoulder worrying that someone would find out it was him and take him out. Almost expecting it, in fact. As fate would have it, no one ever came out for his blood. Not yet, anyway.
He rested his head on the wall beside him. He hadn’t thought about this for a while. That same night, Jaxson had come home with blood on his shirt, and his mother snapped—she grabbed a bag, filled it with some things, and in the place of a goodbye, yelled, “That club is nothing but a god dammed suicide. And I’m not going to be sitting at home like a fool waiting for a knock at the door telling me you’re dead.” With one brief pause, she stared into Jaxson’s eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks, in the hope of a concession, but it was too late—he was one of them now. Fifteen minutes later, a taxi came and picked her up. She was out of his life, forever. If Jaxson’s fate were to be as tragic as his mother had thought, it seemed reasonable to infer that she didn’t want to stick around to watch it happen.
He took a few more deep drags of his cigarette, trying to let his mind travel to a place where it could calm down….riding his bike on the open road.
Stubbing out his cigarette, he pulled the window shut and grabbed his leather jacket off of his bed. He stopped to look at himself in the standing mirror before leaving the room. He’d changed since he’d first joined the MC. Ripped might be the word for his body. Arms like steel bands. Dark hair and startling blue eyes. He stood at 6 foot two and was built like a brick wall. Gone was the skinny, lean kid who’d rode into the club in a stolen car while running from the cops.
On his way out of the apartment, he took one last swig of his now cold morning coffee, grabbed his keys and sunglasses, then made his way out of the front door of his apartment.
The vote of his brothers was out of his hands. On the day of the election meeting, his fate would be decided. Jaxson could only hope things wouldn’t come to blows between himself and Antonio.
Chapter Two
Outside, the air was still and sharp. Jaxson mounted his bike, slid the key into the ignition, and cranked the engine. As it roared to life, he felt the same sparks of excitement fly through his body, the same as he’d felt on that first ride as a younger man. He loved it. He sped out of the parking lot and out onto the street. The road was calm and quiet, just how he liked it. As he revved the engine more he felt free and alive; a surge of adrenaline coursed through his blood. Riding would always be his salvation—the perfect exhilarating escape. It was no wonder why his passion for bikes had become an obsession over the years.
Ten minutes later, he slowed to pull into the car parking lot outside of the clubhouse building. He looked left and right at the other bikes to see who was here. Six of the guys were already inside, and that included Antonio. Fucking great… He took off his sunglasses, dismounted, and headed towards the entrance.
When Jaxson stepped into the dimly lit room, and even now in this early hour, it was filled with choking smoke. The smell of cigarettes and old liquor hung in the air. Heavy metal music was blaring out of two large speakers that sat on either end of the counter of the bar that covered one side of the room.
Goddamn it. Not today.
He coughed and grabbed a stool from the workbench to his left and propped the outside door open, to air out the room. With the raging noise in the place, none of the guys had noticed him come in yet. Half sat tinkering with parts for their bikes, the others sipping black coffee at the bar and talking to Kelsey, Antonio’s girl.
Jaxson’s eyes darted quickly around the room and locked down on Antonio at the bar‒his mind sharply trying to assess the degree of potential danger. He knew to expect trouble. There was too much background noise to discern what Antonio was talking about ‒ but for now – he seemed to be in a pleasant and calm enough mood.
He turned his head to the three guys at a workbench just ahead of him and cleared his throat. “Didn’t I tell you fella’s Bruno was coming in today?” Jaxson asked, sternly.
One of the men jolted, then quickly alerted the others to Jaxson’s presence. In a matter of seconds, all six pairs of eyes looked up at him. They froze for a moment.
“I fucking cleared this place out yesterday.” His footsteps echoed as he walked across the room, thrusting open a window and the double-wide doors that lead to the back of the shop at one end of the main room, to ventilate the clubhouse.
“I did tell you not to smoke in here. Tidy this place up. And open another window for Christ’s sake! Bruno will be here at eleven am.”
“Sorry, boss,” a few of them muttered as they jumped up, snubbing out their cigarettes and shuffling their things around, keeping conversation to a minimum. The music stopped a few seconds later.
Jaxson exhaled deeply and glanced around the room again, inspecting the place before sitting down on the old sofa in one corner. He tried to relax a little, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.
From the corner of his eye, he could see that Antonio hadn’t moved to help the others. Fucking typical. Over the past few months, he’d become increasingly bitter and uncooperative. Still sat on his barstool on the far side of the room, back turned, it was apparent Antonio was trying to make a point.
“Lazy bastard,” Dino, Jaxson’s friend whispered as he carried a chair past.
“Ignore him. A reaction is what he wants,” Jaxson replied.
“Well, he sure is asking for it. Boy, he’s so smug, sitting there, still smoking, like he doesn’t answer to anybody…like he doesn’t give a shit who sees him doing it. If De Luca could see him now….” Dino made a cutthroat motion across his neck. He put down the chair and rolled his eyes.
“Would suit him to put those smokes down for once,” Jaxson commented, in a hushed tone.
“Yeah, maybe the fucker would eat something,” Dino mocked with a deep chuckle, eyeing Antonio’s lanky frame up and down. It seemed extraordinary to them that the great Bruno De Luca could have a son that wound up like looking this. It might be a petty thing to say, but it was the truth.
“Seeing as Antonio is a brother, we’ll treat him with respect,” Jaxson replied.
Dino nodded.
Jaxson didn’t say another word. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t let Antonio work him up today. It didn’t take a lot to set Antonio off. The man was the unstable type with a ferocious temper. And today, wasn’t a good day to be setting him off.
Antonio was a short, string bean of a man – 5’8 or 5’9 – with a terrier-like temper and a pretty face; nothing like his father, and certainly no match for Jaxson. Numerous times in the past, Antonio had blown up with violence far beyond the scale of anything used by the rest of the group.
“That cocksucker. Look at that smug grin still on his face, acting like you don’t even exist,” Dino commented in disgust.
Jaxson glanced up at the clock and took one last look around the room; Bruno would be here any moment. His eyes unwillingly drifted back to Antonio. At least he could see his face now, as he teased and flirted with Kelsey behind the bar. Jaxson noted that he was casting an eye in his direction every 20 seconds or so.
That couldn’t be a good sign.
“Seen that bruise on her cheek?” Dino asked
Jaxson’s eyes widened and he felt his blood start to boil with rage. “How the fuck did that happen?”
“Antonio gave that to her last night when we were out. The guys heard him, screaming, shouting, calling her a whore,” Dino whispered.
“Son of a bitch. He makes me so mad!” Jaxson growled. “Men do
n’t need to be hitting women. That just isn’t right.” Jaxson took a deep breath and stood up. He grabbed stacks of empty pizza boxes, crushed beer cans, and empty cigarette boxes that somebody had so kindly taken the time to drop down the back of the sofa, and threw them into the trash. Anything to distract himself and break down the fire of adrenaline burning up his insides.
“Shit. If he was any kind of man…..” Jaxson’s instincts screamed at him to go over there and tear his head off.
But the both of them know they couldn’t get involved. As Antonio’s girl, she was fundamentally – in practical terms completely – off limits to all of them.
“I want nothing more than to make him fucking pay.” Jaxson sneered.
Chapter Three
The steel latch of the oak door closing behind De Luca made a loud clatter, shattering the silence in the room. Bruno stepped through the clubhouse doors. He was a big man, six-foot-six inches, and 280 pounds. He wasn’t just large; he was easily two times bigger than any of the other men. A master of men, he was solid muscle, with the physique of a competitive bodybuilder. You’d never guess he was in his early sixties. His sheer size and strength, coupled with his shark-like ruthlessness in business earned him the reputation of being called the Giant Killer.
The epitome of an alpha-male, De Luca was the super-volcano that sat at the top of the brotherhood’s hierarchy. He had a stoic, confident air; rarely had a man been so at ease with his greatness as Bruno. As he stepped through the main room, his footsteps echoed as his feet struck the floor.
The clubhouse fell silent.
He glanced over at Jaxson.
“Good morning, Boss. How you keeping?” Jaxson broke the silence as he held out his hand to meet Bruno’s.
