Without Forever: Babylon MC Book 5

by James, Victoria L.

  “Intuition.”

  “It’s not like I sat there counting down to my last period. How could I possibly have known?”

  Autumn rested a hand over my heart, and I looked down at it. “I know I’m an old hippie with unconventional thoughts, but whatever it was, head, heart, or sixth sense, I’m glad it helped you to fight for survival when you were ready to say goodbye.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t ready.” I huffed out on a forced laugh. “I was ready to fight and knew that it might not turn out well, but I wasn’t about to just roll over and die.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  I thought back to that night, and how fast it had all gone down. Every punch, slap, and piece of manhandling Owen had served only adding minutes of pain to his life. I’d felt the fight rise in me. I’d been so tired and full of pain and exhaustion, but when I’d caught Drew’s eyes, I’d known. I would not accept death, and neither would he.

  When he’d pulled me out of Owen’s reach, and our eyes had met, it had been a light bulb going on over my head.

  I shuddered almost violently as the memories of that night flooded me again. It felt like a hundred years had passed since then.

  “You still with me?” Autumn asked gently.

  “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking about it all.”

  “Would you like a distraction?” Pulling back, she flashed me a bright smile and raised her eyebrows in a challenge. She pulled her braid over her shoulder and stroked it like a wicked genius.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Movies,” she said proudly, dropping her hair with a game show hostess flourish. “Great movies with junk food and tissues.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat down and watched a movie from beginning to end without any explosions or auto chases involved. When you were outnumbered ten to one by men, you didn’t really have much say in the matter.

  “What kind of movies?”

  “Baby Boom?”

  I groaned. I’d walked straight into that one.

  “She’s Having a Baby?”

  I started laughing while Autumn continued to name movies from the ‘80s that involved pregnancies and babies. Finally, I agreed and gave her final choice while I went to pop some popcorn.

  At least it would kill some time until Drew got back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  DREW

  I rode for hours, waiting for inspiration to hit. A sixth sense inside told me Eric wasn’t far away. I could almost feel his history on these roads, haunting my every move, steering me in ways I’d never realized he steered me before. I was my father’s son, whether I liked to admit it or not, and the two of us had an instinct that flowed through our blood—one which we could neither explain or describe. But it was there, and the power of it told me to keep riding until something stuck like gum to my wind-chapped face.

  At the border of The Navarro Rifles’ turf, I skidded to a stop and stared down the road, unable to ignore the tingling of my spine.

  Dad had set things in place to take the spotlight off our club—to keep The Hounds of Babylon clean in the eyes of the ATF and the law. The fires, if I’d guessed correctly, were his doing, and now he was in hiding, trying to plant evidence we’d collected, and to make sure our enemies would have motive to destroy us.

  Since the demise of the Emps and Chester Cortez’s charter, The Navarro Rifles were our biggest rivals. Travis ‘Trigger’ Gatlin had placed a target on my back since his half brother Jacob Hove had strode back into Babylon. Trigger was in deep with Walsh and Jon Taylor, that much we were certain of, but the rest…

  The rest we were guessing.

  At least I was. Did Eric know more? Had he always known more?

  My chest rose as I dragged in a hot breath and held it there for just a moment before I blew it back out.

  Go to The Navs, Drew. Find out for yourself. Stick a gun in someone’s face, risk your life, cause mayhem, and worry about the consequences later. Win the war for your brothers.

  That’s what the old me was screaming in my head. But his voice was now muffled behind a gag. It was a muted plea from someone I used to know. The new me had a voice much louder, clearer, and more understanding, and the way he was talking surprised every me I’d ever known.

  Ride away. The battle isn’t here today. You can’t do this anymore without consequence. You cannot go to them without mercy and patience. You cannot fight this war without truth and knowledge. You cannot do this to Ayda without shame and regret. Drew, you can’t fucking do this alone without forever being different to her after its all over. Be careful which road you take. Everything has changed now.

  I swallowed hard, turned, and rode away, circling in loops every direction I could go. When Mayor Walsh’s house came into view on the open road, I slowed to a crawl and looked up at the windows on the first floor, hoping to see some sign of Rubin and get a single look into his eyes the way I’d done with Jedd. All that stared back at me were reflections and disappointment. Walsh’s car wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The house looked deserted.

  The bike remained strong beneath me, forever my faithful steed when my mind wasn’t sure where to guide us. Before I knew it, I was crawling down the main road of Babylon, glancing at the all too familiar stores and buildings. That instinct of mine kept trying to tug at loose threads of my memory, taunting me with weak theories or possibilities I just couldn’t seem to cling to or turn into something solid.

  Eric hadn’t been at Pete or Harry’s grave. There’d been no clues left behind.

  He hadn’t been with Jedd. He wasn’t hiding in plain sight—or sight that I could actually fucking see. But the one thing I knew about Eric was that he was like me, and if I were him, I knew I’d be in the faces of the very people who expected me to hide.

  My bike weaved in and out of the traffic. The sound of my engine and the cut on my back attracted the usual stares. My heart went wild one minute only to level out the next.

  Where would I go?

  Where would I go?

  Where would I…

  And then it hit me.

  The very people he was hiding from weren’t our enemies.

  He was hiding from The Hounds. From us. And if he wanted to hide in plain sight…

  “You bastard,” I ground out, tensing my jaw and working the muscles there as I gripped my hands tighter around the throttle and made a sharp right out of Babylon.

  * * *

  “Seriously?” I stared at Eric on the top step of the wrap around porch.

  He smirked confidently. There he sat at the safe house, wearing the same outfit he’d been wearing when I last saw him outside Owen’s burning home. His face looked dirty, and his hands were black, the same smears covering the gray flecks of his facial hair and actual hair.

  Eric’s legs were parted, and his hands hung limply over the edges of his knees as he stared at me smugly.

  “Took you fucking long enough,” he finally said in that low, calm, confident voice of his. “I thought this place would be the first place you thought to come looking.”

  “I didn’t think you were that obvious.”

  “No need to over complicate simple decisions, Drew.”

  “You’re an arrogant motherfucker.”

  He huffed with amusement, his body barely moving. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I know.”

  Dropping my hands into the pockets of my jeans, I took a few steps closer and stared down at the ground, hearing the stones crunching beneath the heavy weight of my boots.

  “So, Ayda’s definitely pregnant, huh?” he asked casually.

  My head snapped up at once, and I held his gaze—mine serious, his breezy. I searched his eyes, looking for something. A warmth, maybe? A connection. Something that made me think he’d felt the same way I felt when he found out Mom was pregnant with me.

  Eric wasn’t like that, though. At least not the Eric I knew. He had complete control. None of us ever truly knew what he was thinking.

  “Yeah,” I eventua
lly answered.

  He nodded slowly, processing his own thoughts.

  “She’s pregnant, Eric.”

  “You ready for it?”

  “Honestly? I’m both dying inside with excitement and dying inside with fear.” I curled my shoulders in and shook my head. “Now is, quite possibly, the worst fucking time in the history of our club for us to be bringing another life into the fold. I’m only just beginning to figure out who I am. There are so many demons circling above me—I wake up some days not knowing which one is going to drop down to grab me first.”

  “Son?” I didn’t flinch when he called me that then. His slow smile grew, the light of the porch making something I’d never seen before shine in his eyes. “It’s all going to be okay,” he said quietly.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, unable to look away. “You think so, Dad?”

  He nodded once. “On my life.”

  Reaching up, I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly and looked back down at the ground.

  Dad. Son.

  We’d used those two words quickly tonight, and neither of them had made my skin crawl. I wanted to go to him, sit beside him on the porch with a beer in our hands, stare out into the night and clear a lot of old history away. There were still so many questions to ask, but only a few mattered that night. The rest could be answered when he was older, grayer, less… Eric.

  With a sigh, I dropped my hand back into my jeans pocket and walked over to stand in front of him. No words passed between us before I allowed myself to drop into place on the porch steps beside him. Okay, so we didn’t have the beer or the perfect timing, but we were there, and I had my questions as we both looked out into the inky night.

  “Where’ve you been?” I asked, resting my hands over my knees—a mirror image of him. Harry would be choking on his smokey laughter looking down on the two of us and our awkward relationship.

  “Ready for this, too?” Eric side-eyed me.

  “Probably not, but let’s hear it anyway.”

  He spread his hands out, revealing the dirt and grease upon them as he turned the palms up to the sky and stared at them in front of him.

  “The stuff Ayda collected from Harry’s room and from Owen’s place was good, Drew. She’s got an eye for what’s important. After you guys rode off from Owen’s place, I gathered it all up and got the hell out of there. Dumped it all in the repo vehicle, rode someplace remote, not too far, to the outskirts of Owen’s land. There was water there. Did you know that? Water I could drive the front end into, flood the engine, make it so no one could move the thing without a tow truck.”

  “To make it look like whoever burned Owen’s place and him to the ground also stole the car and wanted to get rid of it quickly?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What did you do with the evidence? There was a lot of it.”

  “Left some of it in the car. I had a little time to flick through some of the paperwork. I didn’t leave much. Just enough to tie Owen, Jon Taylor, and Mayor Walsh in together. After you guys rode out of Babylon chasing Owen that day, you had a lot of witnesses to say he’d gone rogue. You also had a lot of witnesses see the look on Walsh’s face, by the sounds of it.”

  “How do you know that?” I scowled, turning to study his aging yet familiar face.

  He stared forward, his amusement lighting his eyes. “I have my sources.”

  “Have you had those sources the whole time you’ve been gone from Babylon?”

  Eric turned to face me, his movements slow and controlled. “I’m your father. I needed to know. Sometimes I hated seeing your life through other people’s eyes. Most days, I convinced myself a day like this would never come—a day where you sat next to me on a porch step, trusted me, and listened to me.”

  “I don’t trust you,” I lied, the croak of my voice giving me away.

  “Okay.” His lips twitched on one corner.

  I looked out into the trees again, imagining a million pairs of wolf eyes staring back at me, or a hundred guns, pointed and ready.

  “What did you do with the rest of the evidence?” I asked quietly.

  “Gave it to Rubin.”

  “Rubin?” I called in surprise, looking at him once again. “The kid has our club’s future in his hands?”

  “I hope not. Not anymore, anyway.”

  My scowl was deep as I shook my head, telling him I didn’t understand.

  “Trust me, Drew. Trust him. The kid is smart.”

  “And how the hell would you know that?”

  Eric tilted his head to the side and released a slow, long breath of air from his lungs. “Gut instinct.”

  “And Jedd? What have you got him involved with? Why the fuck is he in a cell and looking proud of the fact?”

  “You’ve seen him?” Eric raised a brow, clearly surprised.

  “You’re damn right I have. He’s my VP. You think I’m just gonna let him rot—let any of you just fuck off like a trio of vigilantes trying to bring down the bad guys, while me and my future wife raise a pretty little girl with pigtails for the rest of my life. I don’t think s—”

  “You think it’s a girl?”

  I paused, my heart feeling like it stopped for a second, and my eyes unblinking as I stared at him.

  “I…” I hadn’t even thought about it. Not until now.

  “A girl?” he asked with reverence lilting his voice.

  My mouth opened and closed four times before my shoulders relaxed, and I shook my head. “I don’t know, Eric. I just can’t allow myself to believe it could be another boy for us to bring into this mess and fuck up with ego, bravado, and bullshit the kid doesn’t deserve.”

  Eric’s face fell, and all the regrets I’d longed to hear him speak of were written across his face as he stared at me.

  “I haven’t made many promises to you in your life, Drew. Never felt the need to. Never wanted to make one and break it or let you down. I’ve lived a life where the truth has been both my addiction and my tonic. I figured truth could be yours, too. I was wrong to do that. Truths are often twisted and ugly and sharp. They don’t always make things better. Sometimes truths make things so unbearable, you feel like you can’t breathe. A long life of mistakes has taught me that. The truth isn’t always a good thing. I drowned you in it for years, and then I hid behind lies I thought would protect you. I’m one big fucking mess of a father, and I can assure you, no one knows that more than me.”

  I ran my hand across my forehead, not knowing what to say.

  “But I’m going to make you a promise today.”

  Looking up, I held his gaze and saw that never before seen emotion there again.

  “Before your child is born, there won’t be a mess for you to bring them into. The mess will be gone. No matter who has to pay the price for it, the next generation of Tuckers are going to be born into a world of peace. The kind of peace you and I have never known.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  AYDA

  Spending time with Autumn for most of the afternoon had helped my weird flash of anxiety. By the time Deeks came to get her, we were sprawled out on the huge bed laughing our asses off at nothing in particular. She always had good stories to tell me. Being on the fringes of the club all these years, she’d experienced everything with them, and had watched a fair few of them grow up. Drew was one of those. Happier memories were always welcome to me, and I relished in them when she decided to regale me, but it sometimes felt as though Deeks had a second nature and knew when she was telling a story about one of his indiscretions as a younger, less inhibited biker. The one she been telling me, she’d promised to finish later, and I planned on holding her to that.

  Drew hadn’t made it back to The Hut yet, so I’d found myself reverting to old habits to keep myself busy and distracted. I had worked my way through a couple of loads of laundry and had made a chili that could be reheated for anyone looking for sustenance later. I also managed to direct Moose in the direction of a room where he could sleep off the crate
of beer he’d inhaled since we’d been allowed back inside.

  I wandered around the building looking for a distraction after that, soon finding myself at the door of the club’s heart.

  The War Room.

  Nothing in the room matched, the chairs were all different shapes and sizes, and the reaper and hounds were etched into the surface of the table. If you inhaled hard enough, there was still that lingering smell of Harry’s cigarette smoke in the air. I didn’t dare enter their sacred space, so I leaned my head against the frame and stared, mentally filling the chairs around it. My brain seemed to stutter over the seat that had always been occupied by Owen. I wanted to wheel the damn thing into the yard and burn it, but we’d already had more fires than we could explain. I couldn’t imagine we’d be able to make excuses for my rash decision, especially if we were trying to sell ourselves as being in mourning.

  It made my skin itch to see Owen’s seat there. It also triggered another memory.

  “Hey, Kenny?” I glanced over my shoulder at him and waited for a response.

  “Huh?” Kenny was already behind the bar, but he was watching me.

  “Did you ever mess around with one of the club’s women called Gemma?”

  Sliding his beer onto the surface of the counter, he considered my question. One thing I loved about these guys was they didn’t get prudish talking about their conquests with me. I’d become another one of the guys to them.

  “Oh, yeah, that little blonde with the tight ass? Once, I think, but that was before Drew got out of Huntsville. Her and Slater used to fuck frequently, I think.”

  “You seen her around lately?” I asked, my body turning so I was facing him. Kenny shrugged a shoulder and swiped his beer from the bar, downing half of it and belching before replying.

  “Haven’t looked for her. Why?”