Without Forever: Babylon MC Book 5
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Without Forever
Babylon MC Book 5
Victoria L. James
L.J. Stock
Contents
A Note to The Reader…
Other Books In The Series
Acknowledgments
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Epilogue
The End
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About Victoria L. James
About L.J. Stock
A Note to The Reader…
Without Forever is book five in the Babylon series, all of which are written by both Victoria L. James and L.J. Stock. Book One, Without Consequence, Book Two, Without Mercy and Book Three, Without Truth, and Book Four Without Shame are all available on Amazon.
For more information on the authors’ work together as well as their individual projects, please visit the following pages.
www.facebook.com/Babylonseries
www.facebook.com/VictoriaLJamesAuthor
www.facebook.com/LJStockAuthor
Without Forever ©2019
Victoria L. James & L.J. Stock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except that of small quotations used in critical reviews and promotions via blogs.
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations only. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events or any other incident is entirely coincidental.
Front Cover Design: L.J. Stock (LJDesigns)
Front Cover Image: ©shutterstock.com
Edited by: Claire Allmendinger of BNW Editing
Other Books In The Series
Without Consequence
Without Mercy
Without Truth
Without Shame
Acknowledgments
From Both Authors
With a team of friends around us like we have, it's impossible to express the gratitude we truly feel, but for the final time, we're going to try.
Babylon would not be what it is if it wasn't for the following superstars in our lives.
Claire Allmendinger: Thank you for being your usual selfless self. Thank you for your time, your patience when we miss deadlines and your honesty with each and every story.
Bare Naked Words: AKA Claire Allmendinger (again) and Wendy Shatwell. What started out in 2014 as "just one book we need to get out" has turned into five years of craziness. You two ladies have been there the whole way through, and we cannot thank you enough for your support.
Sue Hollingmode, Mary Green, Charlie M. Matthews, Francesca Marlow, Amy Trevathan, Karyn Lawless Degiorgio, Trish Kitty Taylor, Kristina Hanicar, Valerie DeGeorge, Joanne Bulmer... you guys are just a few names in a sea of loyal friends who have been with Drew and Ayda from the start, and we cannot thank you enough for every single thing you do. From sharing social media posts to beta feedback, you guys are the best, and you'll forever be a part of The Hounds of Babylon MC.
To the Babylon Beta group: Thank you for being there at the drop of a hat. We appreciate your time and feedback so much.
To The J Team & The Saintly Sinners (our individual reader groups) we owe you guys the world. Thanks for sticking with us when we're quiet and when we're busy. You're the fun part of the book world, and we love you so.
To our families, for always encouraging us when times get hard. For your patience, your support, and your loyalty. Thanks for being the reason we do this.
To each other. Vic loves Lou and Lou loves Vic. Two friends who, just a few years ago, didn't know the other existed but now can't imagine a life apart. Here's to an everlasting, fun, easy, breezy, beautiful friendship, and a whole imagination full of possibilities as to what we can do next. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. We got this.
And finally, as is tradition now... to Drew Tucker and Ayda Hanagan.
Thanks for being our dream couple.
Thanks for coming alive in our minds.
Thanks for being our escape.
Thanks for letting us into a family full of brothers who we believe the whole world will one day fall in love with.
Thanks for the adventures.
The romance.
The angst.
The fantasy life.
Thank you for Babylon.
You'll be our forever no matter what happens.
Vic & Lou
Our die hard Babylon readers. To those who have been with us for the last five years. To those who we’ve picked up along the way.
This one’s for you.
Prologue
ERIC TUCKER
Before the Rescue
“Torch it.”
The words passed over my lips as I watched Drew and Ayda get the hell out of the yard that day, the two of them heading out to seal Sinclair’s fate with bullets, blades, and revenge.
An odd feeling of vertigo washed over me as I watched my son drive down a path leading to death and destruction. I should have been terrified. Instead, I was proud of the man he had become—a man who took care of business—a lion at the top of the food chain, willing to protect everything around him, even if that meant sealing his fate.
I turned to Slater; his expression blank apart from the obvious desire to call me fucking crazy shining from his eyes.
He was loyal, ready to throw himself under the bus for the greater good if he needed to. I’d always admired Slater for that—appreciated the way he loved Drew and respected the love he held for The Hounds of Babylon MC.
Now I was asking him to step up and do what I knew would hurt him.
“Torch it,” I repeated.
Slater’s nostrils flared, and his chest expanded as he filled his lungs with courage and fortitude.
“The whole place?” he asked quietly.
I swallowed, the thought of Slater torching The Hut, the yard, and everything around it, making my stomach twist like strings of fiery acid were choking it. The sun always seemed to shine when I had a hard decision to make. It wasn’t really my decision to make at all, but there I was with the light in my eyes, squinting at the sky before I took a good look around me and made the decision anyway.
We’d built this world from blood and sweat. My fellow men and I had mol
ded a future from grassroots—a safety net around us made from bricks, wood, and stone. Now I was contemplating setting it alight and destroying it within seconds.
It would free my boy.
It would give Drew a way out—a chance to think about a new life with Ayda and maybe… maybe a fucking child.
I knew what the right thing was. I knew burning it all and setting him free was the way to go.
“Eric.” Slater nudged me, interrupting my thoughts. “You want me to torch The Hut?”
Turning back to Slater, I blew out all the air from my lungs.
Another time, maybe.
“No. Training room only.”
He deflated at once, still keeping himself upright as his obvious relief bled out of him in puffs of air.
“Burn all the evidence of Owen’s blood in there before the cops get here. Make it look like everyone is trying to put the fire out, not start it. You, Jedd, and Deeks… you need to step up now, do whatever it takes to distract attention from the massacre in there. Don’t let them know we know Sinclair was a rat. Don’t let them know anything is wrong among our brothers.”
Slater nodded slowly, and I looked up at the other men standing around the steps that led up to The Hut. They were gathered around the club’s VP, Jedd, waiting for him to guide them. Big men covered in grease and ink who looked like innocent children, some with their head in their hands while others paced back and forth, worried like orphans that knew they’d soon have nowhere to call home.
“Slater?”
“Yeah.”
I looked him right in the eye and held his gaze. “You know how to act, right?”
“Act?”
“It’s time to put on a show for the ATF. No matter what happens, you don’t let them in that training room. You got that?”
“I got it.” He looked at Drew’s bike then back to me. “What are you going to do?”
“Whatever the hell I need to do to make sure my son gets away with what he’s about to do to Sinclair.”
“Drew gets sloppy when he’s broken, Eric. You need to be ready for the wreckage. We all do.”
“I’m ready. I hope he smears Sinclair’s blood across all of the asphalt in Babylon. I’m here to clean everything up for him now, no matter what that means for my future. His forever is my only concern.”
Chapter One
DREW
We traveled down the highway with the future suffocating us. Even unable to breathe, I’d never felt more alive with her wrapped around me and the wind whipping over our skin.
Ayda’s arms tightened around my waist, her legs squeezing me as she sat on the back of my bike—the one my father had dropped off to us on Sinclair’s land before he told us to get the hell out of there.
“What the fuck has happened to Jedd, Slater, and Deeks?” I barked, watching Eric saunter casually toward me outside Sinclair’s burning home.
Ayda was standing strong, her hands down by her sides and her legs parted, like some kind of formidable she-warrior who didn’t care about the dirt and disease crawling over her skin as a building blazed behind us.
Eric took one look at Owen’s home, and that was it. After that, his attention was solely on me.
“They’re taking care of business,” he answered with no emotion whatsoever.
“By turning themselves into the feds?”
“We had to conjure up some magic, Drew. It’s all about distractions.”
I searched his eyes, wondering how he remained so calm at every turn. The sound of wailing sirens far off in the distance caught my attention, making me look up at the crows squawking and fleeing overhead.
“You need to get out of here before those sirens head this way. The sky’s ablaze,” he said calmly, and when I looked back at him, he was smirking. It should have made me angry. Instead, it calmed my soul. A smirk from an arrogant asshole like him only meant one thing: he knew what the fuck he was doing.
“What did you do?” I asked him quietly, my fingers flexing down by my thighs.
Eric glanced at his watch. “Tick tock, Tucker. Time’s a wastin’. You need to take your old lady and that precious cargo she may be carrying and get her the hell out of Babylon.”
“Out of Babylon? Are you fucking crazy?”
“You’re meant to be out on a ride together, unaware of the shit happening on our own porch step. If you rush home now, you’ll look guilty, panicked… like you’ve got something to hide. You’re the president of The Hounds of Babylon MC. Do I need to remind you of that? If you march into Sutton’s building and tear that ATF woman to pieces, demanding to see your men, you’ll look like you’ve been in on it all along. You need to stay calm, Drew. Like you’ve switched off your cell to go and enjoy some quiet time with your future wife, and that’s why nobody can get hold of you. Not like the whole club is in chaos because they’re about to get proven guilty.”
“You want me to walk away?”
“We fucking need you to.”
I glanced at Ayda whose eyes were bright with adrenaline and, more importantly, faith. She had faith we would handle this—faith that we could find our way out of this tangled web we had weaved.
Grabbing her hand, I pulled her to my side.
“How long for?” I asked, turning to Eric.
“A few hours at most.”
“But they know we chased after Owen when we left Walsh’s rally because we wanted to kill him.”
“They know you wanted to kill him?” Eric arched a brow. “How?”
I scowled again. “Walsh. He’ll have told them.”
“You think Walsh would confess to ATF that he knew Sinclair was a rat? You think he’d admit to having intel he hadn’t shared with them already?”
Shit. My father was right. Winnie may have seen disruption in our club when we jumped on the bikes and followed Sinclair, but they wouldn’t know why we were chasing him. All they could do was assume.
A case couldn’t be built on assumptions.
“Are they at least safe?” I asked as the sound of the sirens grew more distant instead of growing closer. “Are my men safe?”
Eric’s eyes narrowed. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.
“Then get the fuck out of here.”
“But—”
“Now, son.”
And that time, I didn’t correct him or tell him he wasn’t allowed to call me his son. I followed his instruction without further hesitation. It was time to get my girl out of there.
* * *
Smoke seemed to fill the sky around us, and I wasn’t sure if that was just in my head or not. No matter which road I tore down with Ayda wrapped around me, sirens sounded close by. No matter which direction I looked up at the sky, it was gray, taunted with ashes.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered to myself.
My skin prickled, but even though I wanted to turn around and head back to The Hut, I found myself listening to the memory of my father’s words.
Do you trust me?
Motherfucker.
I carried on through to the outskirts of Babylon, heading for the one place that was still a sanctuary to me.
Pete’s tree.
But demons lurked on those roads that day, and with death still lingering on my fingertips, I began to panic that all my sins were catching up with me.
Fire at the back.
Fire from the sides.
And now what looked like fire up ahead, rising from the tree that held all the memories of my long-lost brother and our time together as young boys.
“No,” I breathed in a panic, twisting the throttle to pick up speed. Ayda tensed around me, her arms tightening as she sensed the shift in my mood. Thick plumes of black smoke rose up the branches of the tree, spreading until the once green leaves on it turned chargrilled. Those damn sirens seemed to be following us now, and as I skidded to a halt at the side of the field, all I could do was drop my feet to the ground, stand up over my bike, and stare as
my youth and memories turned to ash before my very eyes.
Hell had arrived on Earth—my own personal Hell.
Babylon was burning.
Just as I said it would.
Chapter Two
AYDA
The smell of fresh burning wood made it feel more like a cookout than a funeral pyre. Cloying black clouds rose high above us, but there was nothing we could do to stop the flames now. The fire was in full swing, crawling through the upper branches and into the hazy air above.
I was sickened by the sight of another representation of the club going up in flames, but I couldn’t think about myself right now no matter how gutted I was at the sight of Pete’s tree ablaze. The man in front of me, the love of my life, was watching one of the most important and significant things in his world turn to charcoal. For Drew, this would be the same as losing Pete all over again.