Below The Line

by Chelsea Camaron

  Below The Line

  Devil’s Due MC Book 2

  Written by

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Chelsea Camaron

  Copyright © Chelsea Camaron 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Chelsea Camaron, except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.

  This is a work of fiction. All character, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  1st edition published: January 30, 2017

  Editing by: C&D Editing and Asli Fratarcangeli

  Cover Design by: Cover Me Darling

  Formatting by: M.L. Pahl of IndieVention Designs

  ISBN-13: 978- 1542764612

  ISBN-10: 1542764610

  Thank you for purchasing this book. This book and its contents are the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  This book contains mature content not suitable for those under the age of 18. Content involves strong language and sexual situations. All parties portrayed in sexual situation are over the age of 18. All characters are a work of fiction.

  This book is not meant to be an exact depiction of a motorcycle club but rather a work of fiction meant to entertain.

  ***Warning: This book contains graphic situations that may be a trigger for some readers. Please understand this is a work of fiction and not meant to offend or misrepresent any situations. There is quite a bit of violence so if that’s not what you’re looking for then please don’t read.***

  Dedication

  To life lived outside the lines. To roads less traveled. To being fearless in chasing a dream.

  Happily ever after is possible, but it takes work and a fight inside to find your own way for you.

  To Linda Cameron Brashears, thank you for letting me use your name in my way. You were a great sport about winning this fictional character spotlight.

  Below The Line

  The bastard boy was left alone when his mother was murdered and her killer never found. The domino effect of one person's crime going unpunished is everlasting.

  He's no saint.

  Owen 'X' Gallow has never known a real home. Groomed by the streets, he now has a life with the Devil's Due MC that gives him the only comfort he has ever known. Family comes by blood and by choice. All Owen has left is his by selection. He keeps his circle close and doesn't care to have a future.

  She's not afraid to call herself a sinner.

  Hadley Combs doesn't ask questions, and she has never had anyone to cover her back. She was born alone and will die alone, or at least, that's how she views her life. In order to get by, she has a job to do--get them off and get herself paid, no talking necessary. The life of a hooker isn't easy, but she gets by.

  However, danger climbs in her bed.

  Will Owen find a way to let Hadley in? When faced with the dangers of her lifestyle, will Hadley let Owen and his brothers keep her safe?

  Love, hate, anger, and passion collide as the time comes, and the devil demands his due.

  Series Reading Order:

  Crossover (Devil's Due MC and Vipers Creed MC Prequel) co-written by Ryan Michele

  In The Red

  Below The Line

  Each book in the Devil's Due MC is a stand alone, full length novel. Contains adult content, language, and violence not suitable for readers under the age of 18. This is not an exact depiction of life in a motorcycle club, but rather a work of fiction meant to entertain.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Bottom Line Bonus Time with Trapper

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Close the Tab (Devil’s Due MC Book 3)

  Excerpt from One Ride (Hellions Ride Book 1)

  Excerpt from Shamed (Ruthless Rebels MC Book 1)

  Prologue

  ~Owen~

  “One day, we’re gonna find our way outta here, Owen.” Hadley says with a sweet smile on her face. The beautiful girl that has come along and brightened the darkest of my days with her dark hair, ebony eyes, and smile that can chase away any bad dream.

  “You really believe that?” I ask as I settle in beside her on the concrete slab under the overpass.

  The cars rush over us in a whooshing sound. It’s so loud, yet soothing. I guess at this point we have gotten used to it. If I close my eyes tightly enough I can almost imagine it as the sounds of waves crashing against the beach. As least that’s what I tell Hadley to help her fall asleep.

  “Gotta keep hope, no matter how dark the nights get or the days, we gotta hold onto something Owen Gallow.” She explains before tucking herself into my side as we stretch the scrap of fabric that was my coat last year over us.

  New Orleans, Louisiana doesn’t get too cold often, but when it does and your bed’s made of cement it can chill you to the bone.

  “You hold onto hope for both of us, Hadley.” I whisper as I tuck her closer to give her more of my body heat.

  “Owen, we’re gonna get out of this and we’re gonna have a great life together.”

  “You believe in us?” I ask wondering how this fifteen-year-old girl can believe in anything after the shit hand life has dealt her.

  “I believe in you, Owen Maximus Gallow.”

  “Get some sleep, Hadley.” I tell her on a sigh while I feel the weight of the world on my sixteen-year-old shoulders.

  She didn’t ask to live on the streets. A mom who was high more than she was not and a step-father who was a little too handsy left Hadley with a better life on the streets than her own home.

  My story is no better. My mother was murdered when I was fourteen, and life in foster care wasn’t for me. When the good old boys with the badges didn’t care to find out who killed my mom, I spent every spare moment I had trying to find out for myself. Only foster parents set one and three didn’t like my constant time out on the streets investigating and quickly said I was unruly since I wouldn’t find my way back at curfew. Foster family number two didn’t like my aversion to falling in line with their religion. By sixteen, I’d had enough and found living on my own would be better for everyone involved.

  It’s how I found Hadley six months ago and we haven’t had a night apart since. We aren’t together in a romantic way, but we are together. She’s mine and I’m hers in a way that works for us both. We are tangled up in the shit storm life has dealt us together.

  There is something about her that calls to me. Since I lost my mom I haven’t felt whole until Hadley came along. She gives me a reason to do more than seek vengeance against a man in expensive shoes and a star tattoo on his face. She gives me a reason to keep going and a reason to do better for myself and both of us.

  I have a job at a local restaurant washing dishes. It gives me a discount on meals so I can keep Hadley and I both semi-healthy and clothed as we both seem to keep growing. During the day, she occupies the corner a block away with her guitar singing fo
r spare change like all the other street performers. The tourist eat it up and don’t question her age because they get too blinded by the life that is NOLA.

  We’ve managed Hadley and I. Despite the odds we’re getting by.

  Hadley sleeps soundly against me while I lay still with my eyes closed and my ears open. We aren’t safe out here like this. I’ll rest my body but never my mind.

  Three Weeks Later

  “Owen we need to get you to the clinic,” Hadley pleads. “You’re burning up.”

  “I just need to rest. We have the tent now, Hads, we’re gonna be fine. I got stuck walking home in the rain it’s gonna be alright, just need sleep.” I say in agony as each word only scratches my sore throat even more. I’m sick. I know it, she knows it, but there isn’t anything either of us can do about it. I have no insurance and can’t afford to go to a clinic. Needing to sleep it off, I close my eyes drifting in and out.

  Hadley sits up in the small two person tent I was able to purchase for us two weeks ago while I lay in my sleeping bag. We actually have a duffle bag each to hold our clothes and inside the tent they won’t get wet anymore. I even got a small lock for the zippers on the door for Hadley to lock herself in when I’m at work. It’s not the safest of measures since anyone with a knife could slice the material, but it’s something. It’s not much, but it’s something. When you get down to nothing, you find holding onto something … anything really does help.

  I finally fall into a deep sleep with Hadley watching over me.

  For the most part, the thing about life on the streets is if you keep to yourself no one will bother you. Most people out here aren’t thieves looking to take from someone like them, but rather they are regular people who for whatever reason life served them a serious can of whoop-ass landing them on the streets.

  I wake, I don’t know how many hours later, to find myself drenched in a cold sweat, my face covered in blood, and my head pounding. Reaching up, I wipe the liquid covering my left eye only to feel more fall from my nose. There is a draft. Using the blanket we just bought at a thrift store two days ago, I wipe my eyes to find the front of the tent open. With my head pounding, I reach up to find a lump on my forehead as I assess my injuries. I look over to find Hadley is gone. In her place is only a bloody blanket.

  In a rush, I jump up and take off pounding away at the pavement beneath my feet looking for her and heading straight to the hospital.

  The woman at the Emergency Room reception desk looks up from her papers with a smile that quickly turns into a frown.

  “We can get you seen, son.” She says softly.

  “I don’t need to be seen,” I retort even as I feel the blood still dripping down my face and the burn from the air hitting my open wound under my nose all the way to the top of my lip. I have to think fast. “My sister, Hadley Combs, has she been admitted.”

  “Were you in some kind of accident?” She asks calmly. Too calmly. Hadley’s gone and I’m struggling not to barge beyond the doors without a second thought to security. How can she be so normal, so calm, like this shit happens all the time? Job or not, Hadley is missing and probably hurt.

  “No,” I reply to which the woman raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Why would you think your sister was here?”

  “Just tell me if she’s here, please.” I’m ready to drop to my knees and beg.

  “I can’t disclose any information.” She studies me. “I can get you to the back to be seen, okay?”

  I nod not because I want to get checked out, but because if Hadley is being seen, I can find her behind the locked doors of the Emergency Department.

  Four hours later, I have been triaged, thoroughly checked, my wounds cleaned then stitched, and told I’ve suffered a concussion from a trauma to my frontal lobe. Whatever. I don’t give a fuck about any of it. I can’t find Hadley, it’s a problem and child protective services are on their way according to the hospital social worker. I won’t go with them. I won’t go back to foster care.

  I need to get out of here and fast.

  I’m pulling on my pants when a man in scrubs enters my room.

  “Where you goin’ boy?” He asks me sharply wheeling in a janitor cart.

  “Looking for my sister, you seen a young girl in here tonight?” I ask continuing to put on my clothes and not giving a shit that he could try to stop me from leaving.

  “She have long dark hair and a mole above her lip like Cindy Crawford?” The man asks on a smirk.

  “Yeah,” I reply feeling hope.

  The man pauses and studies me. “I shouldn’t tell you this.”

  “I won’t say a word, just want to find Hadley and get outta here.”

  “She’s not leaving. She came in a busted mess. Didn’t make it, man.” He says straight faced and with no emotion.

  Busted mess. Not leaving. I feel like I’ve died a thousand deaths in these few seconds.

  At his words, though, my life forever changes. She believed in me and I failed her. The need to leave hits me like a train barreling down the tracks and I rush out of the hospital never looking back.

  Taking a freight out of New Orleans, I left town, and spent years moving from one place to the next.

  They say some things stay with you. Hadley stays with me. My mother’s murder stays with me. No matter how far or fast I run, they both find me in my sleep.

  Chapter One

  ~Owen~

  “Get some rest, we’ll hit the road tomorrow,” Deacon says before stepping into his hotel room. Another shit-hole in another small town. I shouldn’t complain. It’s better than crashing on a pop up cot at Sonnie’s shotgun, one-bedroom house listening to Trapper talk to her damn fish like they can talk back.

  Rowdy leans against the side wall smoking a cigarette while I contemplate if I need another one right now or it can wait.

  The air tonight is still in a stark way making time feel like it’s dragging on painfully slow. Another town, another lifetime, really since losing Hadley nothing matters. I’ve been a piece of driftwood floating along in life going where the tides take me.

  She was this tiny piece of good in every single day. She was something to push for, fight for, and work harder for. I could get by with less, but having Hadley in my life, I wanted more.

  So much more for both of us.

  She came into my life and gave me a different purpose other than seeking vengeance for my mother’s death.

  Then it was over before it could really begin. All hope for a future for me, for her, for us was lost leaving the hospital that night.

  “We’ll find her man,” Rowdy says confidently while I simply roll my shoulders back. “Took years to solve Collector’s shit, we did it though.” He studies me, watching my reaction. “Look how that turned out. Sure, we lost Old Dog and the shit cuts deep, but Collector got Sonnie, happily ever after and all that shit.”

  “I get you had a woman and you believe in that romance and love, all the lies people spew.” I say knowing the love he has for the woman he lost runs deep. Looking to him, watching the man who is a brother to me, I give it to him honest. “Happily ever after is more like happily never ever for a guy like me.”

  He huffs before tossing the cigarette butt down and stomping it. “Yeah, I believe Collector and Sonnie thought that very same shit too. Look where it landed them. I’m pretty sure Collector would argue with himself and his woman about it now.” Rowdy brushes passed making his way to his hotel room while I take a deep breath of the night air.

  Tennessee. The volunteer state. I’ve lost nothing there and gained nothing there.

  Alabama. Some call it the heart of Dixie. Me, I’ve got no heart and didn’t find that shit in Bama either.

  Is Hadley going to drag my sorry ass back to Louisiana?

  The place I left in the rearview the night I was told she died - New Orleans, the city of second chances they say, and it’s the place that cost me everything I’ve ever held dear. People believe in the ability to rebuild in New Or
leans. The city always rises after each fall. Well, I fell to my knees the first time when my mother died, Hadley gave me a reason to rise again. I fell the night she was taken from me and haven’t stood all the way up since.

  Hadley Combs is still alive. It’s too much to process.

  Should I have stayed and looked longer, harder? What has she endured during my absence?

  I wouldn’t believe it if the cryptic emails hadn’t kept coming to the club.

  Devil’s Due Motorcycle Club, it’s my home without a home, if that can in any way make sense. We are a group of Nomad bikers. The six of us ride together with no zip code to claim as our own.

  I met Dover ‘Collector’ Ragnes at a dive bar in Mississippi a few years ago. He was belly up to the bar with Jackson ‘Rowdy’ Presley when a random chick approached them both and practically swallowed Rowdy’s face. The woman’s current man was making his approach when I stood up just before the man got to them and blocked his way.

  I didn’t give a shit about the men in front of me, the woman, or the man I was blocking. I simply hate to watch grown adults play games with each other which is what this woman was obviously trying to do.

  I have been with the guys ever since. Along the way we picked up Bladen ‘Judge’ Jones, Gentry ‘Deacon’ Hawkins, and Mitchell ‘Trapper’ Gates. We all have different reasons for living our lives as nomads. We bond over it. None of us can be in one place too long, not when the world has so much more for us to see, to face, and to overcome.

  Collector is a solid investigator. The man was a cop, he’s quick to weed out what is a viable lead and what’s not. The emails about Hadley came in direct to him. Only when he felt it was worth looking into did he even approach the subject with me. Even though I knew he believed the emails, to some degree, my mind couldn’t wrap around the idea she was really alive. She’s been dead to me for more years than we the one we had together.