by Lane Hart
King’s Road
A Savage Kings MC Novel and Prequel to Chase
D.B. West
Lane Hart
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Prologue
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
Also by Lane Hart and D.B. West
Coming Soon
About the Authors
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue were created from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental.
The author acknowledges the copyrighted and trademarked status of various products within this work of fiction.
© 2018 Editor's Choice Publishing
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher or author.
Editor’s Choice Publishing
P.O. Box 10024
Greensboro, NC 27404
Edited by: All About the Edits
Cover by: Marianne Nowicki of PremadeEbookCoverShop.com
Foreword
WARNING: THIS BOOK IS INTENDED FOR MATURE READERS ONLY BECAUSE IT CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE AND EXPLICIT SEX SCENES.
Introduction
King’s Road is a prequel to Chase, the first book in the Savage Kings MC series. It can be read before or after Chase.
Prologue
Chase Fury
2012
“Chase! What got you up so bright and early today?” Deacon asks as I close the door to the chapel behind me. He’s in here by himself this morning, looking over our account books. His expression changes from a smile of greeting to a look of concern as he sees what I’m holding in my hands. “Today’s the day then, is it?”
“Today’s the day.” I walk over to him and place my cut on the table, then pull the holster containing my pistol from my back and lay it on top of my leather. “Take good care of them now, treat them like your own,” I add, before turning and starting to walk away.
“Chase, wait a second, hold your horses!” Deacon barks. I stop in my tracks at his tone, knowing this is the president of my MC giving me an order, not my uncle talking to his nephew. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
When he sees the scowl darken my face, he raises a hand to halt my outburst. He knows full well how bad my temper can be, and how sensitive I am about this particular subject. “You’re a brother in the Savage Kings now. We honor our own and stand by them through anything. Every one of us knows the pain you’ve gone through, and we understand what you have to do. That bastard hurt you, he hurt you deep, and even though he’s been in prison all this time and he’s paid his ‘debt to society’—”
“He hasn’t paid his debt to me,” I growl, my vision blurring as my blood pressure rises, rage pounding through every muscle and nerve.
“Do you even know where to find him?” Deacon asks pointedly. “Or are you going to tear Emerald Isle apart looking for him?”
“Reese has been in the prison’s database. He had to list an address for his parole officer, so I know exactly where he’s staying,” I confirm.
“You can’t just bust into his momma’s house to confront him. Don’t give him an excuse to shoot you. You’ve gotta get him out somewhere, not on his turf, you understand?”
“I’m not the starry-eyed prospect you need to lecture anymore, Deacon,” I tell him, not unkindly. “I might have been a naïve little shit when I first signed on, but with everything that has happened I…I’ve changed.”
“Yeah, you have, Chase. You’ve grown up. You’re a damn fine brother, a true King amongst the Savages. More than that, you’re a good man. Remember that, when you face him. You’re a better man than he is. You’ve let your anger tear you apart every moment of every day since the accident, since Sasha…”
“Don’t!” I roar. “Don’t talk to me about her. That’s mine to bear, no one else. I won’t let anyone use her memory to try and influence me. Not even you, old man.”
“Stop talking about her like she’s dead, Chase,” Deacon says quietly, standing up to come over and put his hand on my arm. “You have to remember that she did recover, and she’s out there right now, living a good life. No matter what happened between you two, remember that.”
“She recovered,” I agree. “I didn’t. You said I’ve become a good brother, a good King, but I don’t feel that way. I feel like everything that was good about me died out there in that damn intersection, when an old drunk decided to go for a joy ride and ended up ripping her out of my life. Now, are you going to try and stop me, or can I go handle my business?”
“I would never try to stop you,” Deacon says, wrapping me in a fierce hug. “If anything, I’m proud of you. No matter what happens, the club will be there to support you, even when your ass ends up in prison. We’ve got quite a bit of influence, even there. All I would ask is this: Don’t kill him, unless you absolutely have to. Your family needs you, the whole you.” Deacon pauses, rubbing at his eyes. “Hell, I wish Rubin was here to talk to you. He founded this club with me, and he was always better with advice. Just…just remember that you’re the future of this club. Get better and get back to us.”
“I can’t promise that.” I sigh as I hug him back. “Without her, I…” I trail off as my voice breaks. “Sometimes, the only thing that kept me going was dreaming of the day when I could finally face him. I hope she hears about this, I hope Sasha…”
“Hush, boy,” Deacon whispers, hugging me tighter. “Don’t ever start down that road. You’re Chase Fury, and you’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a son of my own. Embrace your namesake, and never give in to despair. Now go. Show that bastard what it means to cross the Savage Kings. When you’re done, I’ll be here to hang this cut back on you personally.”
With a final clap on the back, we break our embrace, neither of us willing to look each other in the eye and see the tears that might be threatening to fall. I turn and stomp out of the chapel, not even pausing when I hear Deacon break into a hacking cough behind me.
Chapter One
A few weeks later…
I glance over the top of the book I’m reading when one of the guards stops outside my cell. “This is you, Cross,” he says, as one of the biggest sons-of-bitches I’ve ever seen in this place steps forward and casts a shadow over me.
I watch the sad-eyed giant warily as he takes his blanket roll over to the bunk across from me. Then I go ahead and get to my feet, just in case this guy has got some fool notion he needs to pick a fight to establish dominance.
I’m pleasantly surprised when, instead of doing anything crazy, he just sits down on the edge of his bed and sticks one of his ham hands out to me for a shake. “Hey, man,” he says. “I’m Abe.”
“Chase,” I tell him, skipping his hand and grabbing his forearm in a brotherly clasp, the way my boys in the MC greet each other. The big man seems pretty laid-back, so I stand down and take a seat on the edge of my bed, facing him. “I guess you know the drill, Abe. We’re gonna be cellmates, so what are you in for?”
“Stole a car.” Abe sighs, looking out into the common room where dozens of our fellow inmates are milling around aimlessly. “But what a fucking car, you should have seen her. It was a 1957 Jaguar XKSS. That’s what fucked me, really. With my priors and the
value of the damned thing, I took a plea and ended up getting eighteen months.”
“That ain’t bad, man, you must not have had any violent priors.”
“Nah,” Abe says, waving one of his massive paws dismissively. “I’m not proud of it, but I’ve had to scrape by stealing for a long time. When you’re my size, thieving isn’t really the best career choice, it turns out. So, what about you. What brings you to this fine establishment?”
I’m still grinning at the idea of this big idiot being a shoplifter or pickpocket. “Assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting serious bodily injury,” I tell him, being completely upfront. You have to be honest in here when asked what you’re charged with. These pricks find out you’re trying to hide that you hurt kids or something, and they will fuck you up. “Got fourteen months for taking a crowbar and smashing a guys’ kneecaps.”
“You only got fourteen months for that?” Abe asks as he leans away from me, his face going a little pale. “What kind of fucking world do we live in where I’m serving more time for—”
“First offense,” I interrupt him, knowing where his thoughts are going. “It isn’t much time for what I did, but the MC I run with has a good lawyer. Hell, the truth is, the District Attorney and even the guy I assaulted all knew he had it coming.” I realize my voice has dropped to almost a growl as I continue. “It shouldn’t even have been called a fucking assault. It was justice. The only real justice in this miserable world. An eye for an eye, or a knee for a fucking knee.”
I feel the rush of blood to my face and the pounding in my skull as my simmering rage explodes into a boil. It’s been bubbling furiously in me ever since the night of the accident three years ago that cost me the only woman I’ve ever truly loved. When Abe came into the stuffy cell I was already lying on my bunk with my shirt off, but I suddenly feel like I’m about to burst into flames. I get up and go over to the sink in our cell to splash some cold water on my head and neck.
“I’m gonna have to do that to cool off too,” Abe says as I grip the edges of the sink tightly. “It’s hotter than hell in here. You said something about your MC has a good lawyer? That tattoo on your back, the ‘Savage Kings,’ is that your motorcycle club?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, still trying to rein in my anger. I thought it would get easier after I confronted the drunk driver who hit me and destroyed my life. I thought that once he was released from prison, I would face him, smack him around a bit, and hear a sincere apology from a man who had changed his ways to get some sort of closure.
Instead, when I tracked the putrid little shit down the day he got out of prison, he cursed at me for getting in his face. He told me that while he regretted the accident, he had found solace in the fact that he ‘only hit some biker punk and his junkie-whore girlfriend.’ Just remembering the contempt on his face when he said those words to me makes me tremble in rage, the veins in my forearms bulging under the skin from my grip on the sink.
The only reason I’m not in jail for murder is that I had confronted him in public. We were outside of a bar down on the Sunset Strip, where plenty of witnesses could call the police when they saw a man smashing another man’s kneecaps with a crowbar. By the time the police got there, I had beaten his legs until I could see the bones shifting under the skin, knocked out a handful of his teeth, and begun breaking each of his fingers, one slow crack at a time. That son-of-a-bitch is only alive because I wanted him to suffer for what he had done to her, and I wanted him to feel a fraction of the pain he had caused us…
“So, what about that tattoo on your chest?” Abe asks me, his voice floating through the red haze of rage my memories had evoked. “It says Sasha, right? Who is that, your…what do you guys call it, your ‘old lady’?”
“I can’t talk about her,” I growl at him. “Don’t ask me again.”
“Oh shit, man, I know how that is,” Abe replies. I’ve still got my back to him, so I can’t see his face, but I can hear the surprise in his voice, and what sounds like…like he’s laughing. “I’ve heard that getting a girl’s name tattooed on you is the kiss of death for a relationship. You fall in love with the wrong girl, and find out she’s a crackhead or a whore, then, next thing you know…”
“She’s not some junkie whore!” I scream at him as I spin around, my right fist crashing down on the side of Abe’s face. His skin splits open, splatters of blood flying across the cell as his head rocks sideways. All I can see is the blood, my senses overwhelmed by the memory of her, the smell of burnt rubber and charred skin, and her blood on my hands. “She was everything to me! Everything!”
The strange screeching of my own voice brings me back to my senses, my fist cocked again, ready to crush the man who destroyed me. Instead of a middle-aged drunk, though, I see a wounded giant sprawled across his cot, his hands raised to try to ward me off.
“Chase, shit, oh shit, man! I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to set you off. I won’t ask about her, all right? Peace, brother. H-how about we start over?” Abe asks as I back away, panting, desperately trying to clear my head from the flashbacks that sweep over me.
“Well, look at this. Fury is already giving the new meat a warm welcome,” a voice says from outside our cell. Abe pushes himself back to a sitting position, then stands up as a tall, lean man with a swastika tattoo taking up most of his chest steps in with us. He’s got two other men with him who take up positions just outside, their arms crossed.
“What the fuck do you want, Randy?” I snarl, still trying to get myself under control.
“Just came by to check out our new recruit here, and extend an invitation to this fine specimen,” Randy says as he turns to Abe. “A man needs someone watching his back in this place, and our brotherhood is always ready to welcome one of our brethren. What’s your name, boy?”
“Abe Cross,” he replies warily. He’s much bigger than our uninvited guest, but after he misspoke to me a moment ago and got punched, he seems to be more cautious about what he says, and to whom.
“Well, Abe Cross, the Aryan Brotherhood could use a man of your obvious gifts on our side,” Randy tells Abe, before I abruptly interrupt.
“Get out of my goddamned cell, Randy. We don’t need to hear your sales pitch because we aren’t buying what you’re selling,” I tell him.
“Now, Fury, just because you turned us down doesn’t mean that the new meat here might not want our kind of protection. Hell, he might need it from you, from what I can see,” Randy says, dragging a hand across his clean-shaven scalp. “What do you think, Abe Cross?”
“I’m not a racist,” Abe replies simply, shrugging his shoulders.
All three of the skinheads burst into laughter at that, turning to smile at each other. “You hear this poor boy?” Randy tells his companions. “He says he’s not a racist. Let me tell you something, Abe Cross,” Randy continues, his voice dropping almost to a purr. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a racist or not. Because all those boys gathered out there…” Randy waves an arm over the common room, taking in all the gathered prisoners. “All those boys you see, black, yellow, white, or green are all plenty racist for you. You can cry yourself to sleep at night after one of those gangs beats you half to death, consoling yourself in the knowledge that at least you weren’t a racist, like them. Is that what you want, boy? Or do you want someone watching your back while you’re here?”
“He’ll have someone watching his back,” I say, pushing past Abe to get right up in Randy’s face. “You know damned well not to try your bullshit anywhere near me. You’re not recruiting my damned cellmate, now piss off.”
“Randy,” one of the skinheads outside our cell calls out in warning as another group of men approaches.
Randy turns to take a look at the half-dozen black men who stop just outside, then throws up his hands in surrender as he steps out of my cell.
“Yo, Chase, everything all right in there?” one of the men asks.
“Thanks for stopping by, T.J.,” I call out to my friend.
“These peckerwoods bothering you?” He points at the three skinheads standing only a few feet away.
“We were just leaving,” Randy says. “But maybe we’ll talk again later, Fury. Keep in mind what I said, Cross,” he calls back as they finally head back out into the common area.
I wave T.J. over and he steps into the cell while his boys spread out outside, casually leaning against the bars. “T.J., this is my new cellmate, Abe Cross. Abe, this is T.J. He’s a member of an MC that has a relationship with my club.”
Abe takes a moment to get a wad of toilet paper, which he holds up to the bleeding bruise on the side of his face, then reaches out to shake T.J.’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he says. “Now, can I ask what the hell is going on here? Chase, I’m sorry about what I said a minute ago, I won’t bring it up again, but…man, what is all this?”
“This is prison, son,” T.J. answers with a laugh. “Boy, look at you, all puppy breath and baby butt cheeks. Don’t see many this smooth and fresh in here anymore.”
“I wasn’t much different when I arrived,” I remind T.J., getting another laugh out of him.
“That’s true, your ass would have had a purely unpleasant time if you didn’t have such sterling and upstanding friends in the community. Sit down, big man, and let me tell you all about how this works.” T.J. motions to Abe. “So, let’s start simple,” he begins as he leans casually against my bunk. “I’m a founding member of the Outer Banks O.G.’s MC. You ever heard of us?”