Blacktop Freedom (Kings of Vengeance MC Book 7) Read online

  I clamped my lips and fought the urge to start a huge argument. Sure, Jax brought in money, but after he went to prison, I had to wonder just where that money had come from.

  “Don’t even say what you’re thinking, Kaye. You couldn’t be more wrong.” Jax stepped further into the house and shut the door behind him.

  “What do you think you are doing?” I asked. “I never said you could come in.”

  “I’m not a fucking vampire who needs an invitation to come in,” he grunted.

  “No, you’re not, but I could still arrest you for trespassing.” This wasn’t Jax’s home anymore, and if I didn’t want him to be here, then he was trespassing.

  “And we both know you’re good at arresting me.”

  I didn’t want to do this. “I was doing my job.”

  And I had no reason to be ashamed of that. Jax was the one who was doing something illegal, not me.

  “Another thing you are good at.” Jax stepped around me and into the kitchen. “You got any beer?” He opened the fridge as if he still lived here.

  “I have beer, but I don’t think you should be drinking since you’re going to be leaving and that whole parole thing you’ve got going on.”

  Jax raised his hand over his head. “Good thinking, babe.” He grabbed a bottle of water and twisted off the cap. “Don’t wanna go back to jail for something as stupid as drinking and driving.”

  I couldn’t handle what was going on. I was trying to decompress from my weird day, and now, Jax—the main reason why my day had been so weird—was standing in my kitchen. “Take your water and go.”

  “You’re not very welcoming at all.” Jax pulled out a chair from under the island and plopped down. “I see you still have these shit stools.”

  He moved around on the stool, and it wiggled unsteadily beneath him.

  “They work just fine.” No one ever sat on them, anyway. It was just Arrow and me here. Not like I was having raging parties every weekend. While I was working, Mrs. Johnson came over to play with and walk Arrow twice a day, and when I was home, I was camped out on the couch or soaking in the tub. Meals typically got eaten on the run or in front of the TV. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had sat on one of the stools.

  Jax leaned back and rested his arm on the counter. “You really didn’t change much about the place, did you?”

  I looked around. There wasn’t anything that needed changing. I loved my house the way it was.

  “Well, besides getting rid of any trace of me.”

  I pursed my lips. “You’re not going to make me feel guilty for moving on, Jax. Things ended between us when you went to prison.”

  At least it looked like I had moved on in the house. Inside my head and heart were a different story.

  Jac nodded. “It sure did. Hell, things ended for us the second they slapped those cuffs on me, huh? You didn’t even give me a second to explain anything to you.”

  “I saw you with my own two eyes dealing drugs, Jax. From where I stood, there really wasn’t anything that needed explaining.” I recalled the betrayal I had felt when I had watched him exchange a large amount of money for a bunch of drugs.

  “If that’s how you want to see it.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “I’m pretty sure there is no other way to see things,” I countered. It wasn’t like there was some fuzzy line that he might or might not have crossed.

  “Suit yourself.” Jax took a long drink of his water and devoured me with a heated gaze. “You haven’t changed either.”

  “I’m a thirty-four-year-old woman, Jax. Not a twelve-year-old boy who went through a growth spurt.” I might have a few more wrinkles on my face, but it wasn’t like I had grown a foot or something when he was gone.

  His eyes zoned in on my chest. “You are far from a twelve-year-old, Kaye. Far fucking from it.”

  I pulled the lapels of my rode tight over my chest. “I need to go put clothes on.”

  “And probably drain your ice-cold tub water, too,” Jax laughed. “I always knew when you had a hard day because as soon as you kicked off your work shoes and took off your gun, you were in the bathtub with bubbles up to your chin. I’d bring you a glass of wine and sit on the toilet to listen to you bitch and moan.”

  “No one said you had to come in with me. You did that on your own,” I grunted. “You could have just dropped off the wine and went back to watching TV.”

  Jax nodded. “You’re right. I liked doing it.”

  There was the man I had fallen in love with years ago. I never did make Jax bring me wine or ask him to sit with me. He did it because he wanted to, and I loved it. “Well, I’m out of the tub and ready to go to bed.” Hint, hint, leave.

  Jax shook his head. “Nope. You are out of the tub, but there is one more thing that needs to happen before you go to bed.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Jax. “No.”

  The doorbell rang at my words, and Jax lifted his finger. “Pizza.”

  “I didn’t order pizza,” I growled.

  Jax moved to the entryway and opened the door. “I know you didn’t; I did.” Jax grabbed a couple of bills out of his pocket and handed them to the teenager standing on my doorstep with a pizza box in his hands.

  “I already had dinner,” I insisted.

  Jax nodded to the kid and grabbed the box from him. “Keep the change.” He closed the door and turned toward the kitchen. “No, you didn’t.”

  He set the pizza on the island and flipped back the lid of the box. The delicious aroma of Pizza Stop pizza wafted up to my nose.

  “Is that…double onions?” I whispered.

  I hadn’t had a double onion and double sausage pizza since Jax went to prison. I had tried the night he was sentenced because I thought it would help me to feel better, but all it did was make me miss Jax even more. I had tossed the whole thing in the trash without even taking a bite.

  “Double onions and double sausage. Your favorite.” Jax leaned against the island and folded his arms over his chest. “That is, unless you changed what kind of pizza you like.”

  I hadn’t. Well, I had, but not because I wanted to. My feelings were all confused when it came to pizza. And Jax.

  I stared down at the pizza. “Why are you here, Jax?” I whispered. I didn’t want to play games and act like things were back to normal. Why was he here with my favorite pizza talking like the man I used to know?

  “Figured we had some things to smooth over before we get the ball rolling on other things.” Arrow let out a bark. “And I missed Arrow.”

  “There isn’t anything we need to smooth over. Things are what they are, and that’s how they are going to stay.” I knew the facts. I was there through it all. Nothing Jax could say would change the past.

  “Grab a couple of slices, and I might have a story to tell.” Jax grabbed a slice of pizza and took a huge bite. “I’ll meet you on the couch.”

  Grr. What the hell was he talking about?

  Did he think that he could just explain away the past? That wasn’t going to happen.

  I lived by facts. The truth.

  I knew the facts and the truth.

  Nothing Jax had to say was going to change either of those.

  I shut the lid of the pizza and balanced it on my hand. “I’ll be right there.” I headed to the bathroom and grabbed my glass of wine.

  Something told me I was going to need booze to get me through what came next.

  Wine always helped.

  *

  Chapter Six

  Whoa…

  Brick

  Nothing had changed.

  The furniture was the same.

  The same rickety stools in the kitchen.

  Arrow waiting at the door for me.

  Though, the picture of Kaye and me was missing.

  That had changed.

  I flopped into the couch and kicked up my feet on the coffee table. “Come here, boy,” I hollered to Arrow. Arrow hopped up on the couch next to me and rested his h
ead on my thigh.

  Just like old times.

  I listened to Kaye move around the house while I ate my pizza and rubbed Arrow’s head. “I see you have been taking good care of your mama,” I cooed to Arrow. “Good boy.”

  A minute later, Kaye dropped the pizza on the coffee table and sat in the recliner next to the couch. She was still in her robe but had a glass of wine in her hand. “You’ve got ten minutes or however long it takes me to finish this glass of wine.” She took a sip and smiled. “And I’m thirsty.”

  “You really hate me that much, Kaye?” I was the one who should hate her. She put me behind bars without looking back. Sure, I did some dodgy shit, but there was reason behind it that I couldn’t tell her. At least, not back then.

  “I’m indifferent to you, Jax.”

  That was a fucking lie. If she was indifferent to me, she wouldn’t look at me like I killed her kitten and ran over her grandma. I saw the hurt in her eyes. It was always there right below the surface.

  She hated me because I hurt her.

  “How did you sleep next to me at night knowing you were going to arrest me?” I asked.

  “How did you sleep next to me when you knew you were breaking the law?” she countered.

  “Because I didn’t have any other choice.”

  She tipped her head to the side. “Dealing drugs wasn’t your choice?” she questioned. “Did someone put a gun to your head and make you do it?”

  “In the literal sense, yes.”

  “You plead guilty, Jax. You didn’t fight any of the charges against you. You didn’t speak,” she stressed.

  I hadn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  “Did you ever meet Dom?” I asked.

  Kaye shook her head and reached for a piece of pizza. “Dom Toretto?” she laughed. “I’ve seen a few of his movies.”

  I chuckled and shook my head. “Not him, though he is the better Dom than the one I am talking about.”

  She sipped her wine and set it on the table next to her. “So what Dom are you talking about then?”

  “Dominque Adler, my brother.”

  Kaye choked on the bite of pizza in her mouth. “Uh, come again? I didn’t even know that you had a brother.”

  Most people didn’t. He was the black sheep of the family who never seemed to make the right choices. I had been forever bailing him out of shit. “He’s six years younger than me. He never really comes around unless he needs something.”

  “Interesting,” she murmured. “Though I don’t know why this is something we need to talk about.”

  I looked down at Arrow and sighed. “Because Dom is the reason why I was dealing drugs.”

  “You had a brotherly drug ring going on?” she guessed.

  That was far from what was going on. “I was dealing drugs because my brother had gotten his ass so far in deep with his supplier because instead of selling the drugs, he was shoving them up his own nose.”

  Kaye stopped chewing and her eyes narrowed. “What?”

  I knew my words were shocking. Not once had I ever mentioned having a brother, and now, I had just dropped the bombshell on her lap that he was the reason why I did the thing that broke us up. “I either needed to take over for him, or they were going to kill him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered. “I could have helped.”

  I shook my head. Kaye couldn’t have help. Dom had been too far gone for the police to step in and save him. If the cops would have busted Dom’s supplier, everyone would have known that Dom was the one who ratted him out.

  All I had to do was three deals to make enough to get Dom clear.

  Three.

  The first time went fine. The deal was made, and I sold off all of it.

  The second time, same thing. No problems at all.

  That third time? I was fucked seven ways to Sunday with no way out. I could have ratted out Dom and laid the blame at his door, but I didn’t. My brother was a fuck up, but he was still my brother at the end of the day.

  I had made the deals. I had sold it. I had done it. There was no sense in pleading not guilty. I wasn’t about taking the punkass way out. I did the crime, and I paid my time.

  Had I talked to my brother when I was in prison or since I had been out? Hell no. From I had heard from various distant family while I was in the pen, Dom had cleaned up his act and moved to West Virginia. What he was doing there, I had no idea, but I hoped his kept his nose clean and his ass out of trouble. That lasted for about two years into my sentence when I heard he had killed himself by driving drunk.

  I gave up my whole life so Dom could start over fresh, and instead, he decided to continue with his dumbass ways and die. Over the years, I had lain awake so many nights thinking that my life would have been so different if I hadn’t given it all up for Dom.

  “There wasn’t anything you could have done, Kaye.”

  She shook her head. “There was a ton I could have done. Hell, if anything, I could have used you as an informant and then you wouldn’t have gotten busted on the raid.”

  The thought had crossed my mind, but I didn’t want any of this to touch her. Sure, she had shit to deal with when they would found out that she and I were dating, but it could have been much worse if she tried to help. She could have gotten dragged down with me.

  “It’s in the past. It happened like it should have.” Neither of us could go back and change it.

  “You think dealing drugs and spending time in prison was the best scenario?” she scoffed. “Things could have been way different if you would have let me help,” she insisted.

  I shrugged. “Well, the original plan was to do the three deals and not get busted at all.” I laughed and took a bite of my pizza. “I hadn’t thought my girlfriend was watching.”

  “Someone is always watching when you’re making bad choices.” Kaye sipped her wine. “Might not always be the police, but someone always knows.”

  “That’s some freaky shit,” I laughed. “You are sure you’re with the police and not some satanic cult? Maybe you could be a physic medium or something.”

  Kaye laughed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me laugh when I’m supposed to be shocked and disappointed in you.”

  I cringed. “Damn. Don’t pull out the disappointment on me, Kaye. I dealt with that enough when I was sitting in court, and I could see you scowling the whole time.”

  “I was scowling because I was trying to figure out how my boyfriend was a drug dealer, and I didn’t know it,” she confessed

  “Because I wasn’t a drug dealer,” I growled. “I was trying to be a good big brother and it bit me in the ass.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything in court? Sure, you were still going to get time, but they might have been more lenient with you if they knew why you were doing what you were doing.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not a rat, Kaye. I could handle being in prison. I knew that Dom wouldn’t make it a week, let alone five years.”

  “So, you were the bigger brother who gave up his whole life so his younger brother could have one.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “You gave up us.” She sipped her wine and glanced out the window. “You gave us up and gave me no choice in the matter.”

  “I always knew you were too good for me, Kaye, and then, I was a felon. I never once thought that you would stay with me.”

  She sighed and drained her glass of wine. “My wine is gone. Time for you to leave.”

  “Really?”

  She shrugged and stood, dropping her barely eaten piece of pizza back into the box. “You said what you needed to say, and now, I need time to process it, Jax. For five years, I thought one thing, and now, you just completely turned everything on its head.”

  “I just wanted you to know the truth, Kaye. I don’t expect it to change anything between us.” I was more than realistic in all of this. At the end of the story, I still dealt drugs, and I still went to prison.

  “Good. Say goodbye
to Arrow and see yourself out.” Her words were short and harsh. “I have work in the morning.” She ran her fingers through her hair and looked everywhere but at me.

  “I was hoping you and me talking would help to make things a little easier the next couple of weeks.”

  “Well, it did something all right,” she mumbled.

  I stood and Arrow jumped off the couch. I had said what I needed to say. Did it change anything?

  Only time would tell.

  *

  Kaye

  There were nights after Jax went to prison when I would cry myself to sleep wondering why things happened the way they had. How I could still love him even though he had shattered my world.

  Now, I had the answer to why he did it.

  Family—though, that didn’t help me understand how he could have thrown away what we had.

  Tonight was one of those nights the tears didn’t stop falling, and my pillow was soaked by the time I fell asleep exhausted.

  *

  Chapter Seven

  Just call me Outlaw…

  Kaye

  “I love sitting around with our thumbs stuck up our asses, waiting.” Clint leaned back in his chair and spun a slow circle. “This is one of your best ideas, boss.”

  I rolled my eyes and refreshed the messages on my phone.

  So, maybe things were moving like molasses with the Kings of Vengeance, but I hadn’t expected things to happen instantly.

  It had only been four days since the Kings had agreed to work with us and signed the paperwork. From where I was sitting, I figured we had about two or three more days before we heard anything.

  “Maybe you can check in with Quinn and see what they are up to,” Clint suggested. “Hell, let’s go to the fucking clubhouse and see what they are up to.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to do. I hadn’t spoken to Jax since he had shown up unexpectedly at my house and flipped my world upside down. “We can wait a couple of more days.”

  It would be a couple of boring days, but I preferred that over seeing Jax.

  I had lain awake at night wondering if I would have done the same thing if I had been in Jax’s position. It wasn’t like he knew that he was going to get arrested, and if it was true that he was just doing it to get his brother out of a deep hole, then it wasn’t something he did all the time.