Break Free

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  CREDITS

  Special Thanks:

  Publisher’s Note:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Become one of Jackson’s Nerdy Rebel Readers

  BREAK FREE

  Steel Veins MC Romance

  Book Three

  Bestselling Author

  Jackson Kane

  CREDITS

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Break Free is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.

  Jackson Kane

  BREAK FREE

  Copyright © 2018

  Editor Of Break FREE: Leanore Elliott

  Book Design & Formatting: Wicked Muse

  Cover Art Provided By: Book Cover Love

  Special Thanks:

  Harlow, Pepper, Red, Kim and the rest of my sexy Nerdy Rebels.

  Publisher’s Note:

  This novel is graphic, raw, edgy and violent in parts. With gritty, hot sex as well. There are also sensitive situations depicted. Any reader who feels they should not venture into a story told with a real edge on reality in the violent word of an MC, should consider this before reading…. BREAK FREE.

  Chapter One

  …

  Star

  “The patient is stable,” Doc ‒ as he’d introduced himself when Shawn the EMT and I carried Remy inside ‒ as he peeled off his latex gloves and tossed them directly onto a small pile of indistinct refuse in the large, ominous metal incinerator built into one of the walls. “He will need several more weeks of bed rest and will be sore for a few months. Also, the patient seemed upset, so I was forced to sedate him. Heavily.”

  “Yeah, well...” I almost chuckled at the thought. Who wouldn’t be pissed off if he were nearly killed by bikers. Or by anyone for that matter. “He was shot four times.”

  “Five! One glanced off the patient’s face,” Doc tapped rapidly at his cheek. He was an intense, gaunt man with a ghostly pale complexion. Balding with thick glasses, he was the type of man you’d expect to see working at a funeral parlor. “The patient should avoid extraneous activity of any kind for at least a month or two.”

  “I’ll certainly have my work cut out for me.” I didn’t care about the work as long as Remy made it. I’d probably regret it, but I couldn’t help but to ask, “Are you really a doctor?”

  To say this place was unorthodox would have been the equivalent of calling the Statue of Liberty a lawn ornament. We were in the basement of Hall’s Taxidermy, the creepiest place I’d ever seen in my entire life. I forced Shawn to reassure me several times that we’d arrived at the correct place before I let him leave.

  “Does it matter?” Doc asked in an unnerving skepticism. His insomniac eyes were sunken and encased in loose, purple skin. Although I was sure his question was rhetorical, he regarded me expectantly as he took his glasses off and thumbed away a few errant droplets of Remy’s blood from the lenses.

  A sharp chill tore up my spine.

  With sharp, pronounced features, this man could’ve stepped directly out of a horror film. “I was able to remove all the bullets from the patient. They are in the jar on the shelf. You will be taking them when you leave.” He cleaned his hands and pointed to a dimly lit screw-top glass mason jar between a box of various furs and what looked like a milk crate of animal jaws.

  Although the operating area was very well lit, he saw me struggling in the low periphery light of the rest of the room. He flicked the switch on another fluorescent bulb so that I might see it better. I wish he hadn’t. My eyes hesitantly flitted around the room. It was large enough to be both a work space and a storage area. The animals down here were in various states of either disrepair or dismemberment, and each was hideously contorted with anguish, fear, or fury.

  I caught a shiver. This place couldn’t be any creepier.

  There was no fucking way that people actually bought these freaky stuffed animals, so Doc must’ve made his real money by mending outlaws ‒ disposing of bodies. This place looked like it had been around for quite awhile which was probably a testament to the gaunt man’s ruthless efficiency.

  “I stemmed the internal bleeding as well,” Doc said which jerked me back to reality. “The shooter managed to miss most of the patient’s major organs. Though not due to lack of trying. I will still need to clean and fully close the wounds. I will require him to stay here another day.”

  “Another day... ” I repeated distantly to myself as I squeezed Remy’s hand, checking him over. Remy was laid out, bare to the waist, on a crimson-stained, steel table. His breathing and pulse rate were surprisingly strong despite all the wounds. For as beaten up as he looked right now, I knew it would somehow take far more than this to actually kill Remy Daniels.

  He would be back on his feet in no time. At least that’s what I’d drilled into my head like a mantra on the way over here.

  Truth was—I had never been more scared in my life. Even when I was on the verge of being raped or killed, I could emotionally handle it, at least, eventually. But this…

  This was a different kind of fear entirely – that middle-of-the-night phone call kind of fear. It had felt like there was a howling pit in my stomach and my skin was trying to tear itself from my bones and run away without me.

  It was that not-knowing that was killing me.

  “My fee is ten thousand,” Doc announced. “Cash.”

  “What?" I knew it was going to be expensive, but ten thousand dollars was insane! Where the hell were we going to come up with that?

  “Non-negotiable. I will need it tomorrow by six in the evening. No loose ends.” Doc was completely unfazed by my shock.

  “That’s a lot of money to come up with in a day and a half! We need more time than that.” For some reason, I reached into the pocket of the swishy, bright yellow jacket that I had taken off the ambulance like I thought the strip club money I’d put in there had magically multiplied somehow. Feeling the small wad of greasy paper in my hand made me realize just how fucked we were. Neither of us had had anywhere near enough to make a dent in the amount we needed.

  “If you value the patient’s life, you will find a way.” Doc rolled Remy’s table to next to another loading table that was affixed to a metal track. The long track fed into the human-sized incinerator. Remy was helpless. One good shove and Remy could’ve easily been rolled onto that track.

  It was a sobering and terrifying thought.

  “Six p.m. and no later. My table is reserved. One way or another, paid for or deceased, this patient will be removed from this table come tomorrow at six p.m.” The matter-of-fact threat was even more bone chilling when Doc closed the open metal door of the incinerator and fired it up.

  The machine roared to life, rumbling and vibrating the entire room.

  “Fine! Fine! We’ll figure it out.” I glanced frantically down at Remy.

  We’ll? Remy was barely conscious. I’d have to figure it out this time. That’s when it occurred to me that Remy’s fate was completely in my hands. I was all alone in this.

  A buzzer rang out, breaking the rising tension. It was the sound from when a person wal
king into a small store which activated a sensor, sending down a ring over the speakers in the basement.

  Doc snapped his attention over to a black-and-white monitor tucked away in the corner. “If you’ll excuse me.” He adjusted the bowtie he was wearing that had been malpositioned from his work on Remy, and made his way to toward the stairs before turning to address me one last time. “You have five minutes before I resume work on the patient. The room is soundproof, but it would still behoove you to remain quiet down here while I deal with customers. Do not touch anything.” With that, the thin man resumed his walk up to the store.

  “What am I going to do, Remy?” I whispered my plea into his ear, kissed him, then rested my forehead lightly on his. A million insane ideas stampeded through my head. Rob a bank, extort some rich guy, blackmail a politician, bring a car to a chop shop, sell drugs. They were all bad TV drama ideas that fell apart as quickly as I thought of them.

  Without Remy, I was completely out of my depth. I didn’t even know where to start.

  “One-fifty-seven... Logan.” I whipped my head up at the soft sound of his voice. I hated how far away he sounded. Remy was still fucked up on the drugs Doc gave him, but even still, I could tell he was in a tremendous amount of pain. His eyes were closed, and his words were barely a whisper. “Boise... City. Grace...” The sound cut out, but I was able to catch the rest of the address and the name off his still-moving lips.

  “Remy, What is at one-fifty-seven Logan in Boise City? Is it money? Remy, who is Grace?” How much of my conversation with Doc had he heard? Was this the address of a friend of his that if I explained the situation to, I’d be able to borrow the money? Or maybe it was just the delirious ramblings of a man who’d been shot a lot and was on some heavy-duty drugs.

  I tried to get anything else out of him, but it was no use, Remy was out of it. I became crazy-nervous all of a sudden. What if in his delirium, he was sending me back to a Steel Veins clubhouse by accident just because the address was etched into his brain and he had once remembered it as a place of safety? I had absolutely no idea what or who might be waiting for me in Boise City, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

  I had to trust in Remy.

  I kissed his forehead one last time, and I let him go. He squeezed my hand with all the strength he could muster before attempting to tell me something else, but the words were strained and I couldn’t make them out. I leaned in closer, but with all his strength used up, Remy finally passed out once again.

  It was obviously a location which meant that he understood at least some of the conversation. I hoped that was what it meant. Either way, it was a starting point! I could work with that.

  I heard the buzzer again. Whoever that person was that came in was now leaving. I left Remy and ran for the door. Hall’s Taxidermy was out in the middle of nowhere. I’d need a ride into town, and whoever that was might be my only chance.

  I brushed past a seemingly perpetually scowling Doc and burst out into the street. A soon-to-be confused, late middle-aged man was just getting into a pickup truck when he saw me awkwardly running-jogging toward him. The black leather heels I wore actively tried to kill me with every step. Aside from the EMT jacket that was four sizes too large and bright enough to be seen from space, I was still wearing my green, plaid schoolgirl skirt and short-sleeve top stipper’s costume.

  I was the definition of hot mess.

  “Ma’am, are you all right? What happened to you?”

  “I’m... I just really need to get into town. Can you give me a ride?”

  “Yes, of course!” Concern was wallpapered across the man’s face. There was no situation worse than where a girl dressed like me comes running out of a taxidermy shop, that was a fucking horror show. “Are you sure you’re okay? Should I call the police? That man in there, he didn’t—”

  “No! No! He didn’t.” Oh, explaining this was going to be fun, I thought sardonically. “I was just using his phone. I... this is really embarrassing. I’m... a PNM. A Potential New Member for a sorority at my college, and last night was, like, a crazy hazing.”

  “I see.” No doubt, he now saw me as a wayward daughter-type. I prepared myself for a youth-nowadays conversation or some passed judgmental comments, but blessedly, none came. While he obviously disagreed with that kind of behavior, he kept his thoughts to himself. He asked where I wanted to go. I told him, and later on, he wished me well when he dropped me off.

  Fortunately, the bus station was near a bunch of little shops. It was still too early for the first bus, so after I bought my ticket to Boise City, I went shopping for some clothes that didn’t scream, “I woke up at a strip club” or “Please return me to the trunk you found me in.” After a little asking around, I was able to find a thrift store which was really all I could afford.

  I cut across a small patch of desert to get there, and it turned out that the store, called Mi Casa, was actually part of someone’s house. The owner and sole employee was a woman named Estefania. She was nice enough to offer me a cup of tea and a freshly made enchilada while I tried on some garments. When I picked out something and paid, she granted mercy on me and let me take a quick shower.

  The least visually offensive clothing I could find was a pair of acid-washed jeans and a turquoise, “Is it Monday again?” goofy, cartoon cat T-shirt. There weren’t any bras, but I did find a pair of sneakers that were only one size too big.

  Anything to get me out of those damn heels.

  It felt so good to be clean and to wear pants again. I donated the nice EMT jacket and threw away all the other disgusting clothes I was wearing. Knowing where these garments had been, I’d have burned them if given the option.

  Surprisingly refreshed, I headed back to the bus station and waited to board. I had a long ride ahead of me.

  “Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me.” I ran a hand over my face and adjusted my glasses. Was I seeing this right? I was standing at one-fifty-seven Logan Street in front of Our Lady of Resurrection church.

  Seriously, Remy? You gave me directions to a church?

  Remy didn’t strike me as a particularly God-fearing person. I wasn’t one to talk, either. I mean, I went to church a lot when I was in elementary school but probably not for the best reasons. My family wasn’t religious, but my best friend was Baptist, and they let me go with her to church every Sunday. The service was extremely dry to the point that staying awake for the whole thing was a challenge. However, as a reward for mostly not causing trouble during mass, my friend’s parents would always take us to Taco Bell afterward.

  That was huge for me because my parents never let me have fast food growing up. To this day, despite the food being kinda gross there, Taco Bell will always have a special place in my heart.

  Now I’ve come back to church, and again, it was under false pretenses. Well, if I’m going to Hell for it, at least saving Remy is a better reason than fake Mexican fast food.

  I strolled around the two-part building, praying to find whatever the hell I was supposed to without having to actually go inside. The church, a long, rounded metal shed that looked like a small airplane hangar, was attached to a one-story, blue building, probably the rectory for whoever ran the church. The whole mess squatted by a flat, lonely, intersection with only distant brick homes and a smattering of telephone poles to keep it company. Aside from half a dozen resting or forgotten trailers in the parking lot and an ancient dumpster, the area around the church was barren of all life.

  “Goddammit...” I sighed. I had to go in.

  I had spent almost everything I had to get here, so there was no turning back. I couldn’t even go back to Remy now without stealing a car. I needed to somehow leave this church with at least ten thousand dollars, and I had to do it quickly. I didn’t have much time left, either. Between delays and having to switch buses and find a taxi for the last leg of the trip, that four-hour journey turned into a sixteen-hour expedition! If I was being honest, part of me was grateful for the downtime. It allowed me to
steal some much needed sleep which, since meeting Remy, was more precious than gold.

  Hesitantly, I opened the old wooden door with the painted cross. What day was it? I had lost track. There were a few other vehicles in the parking lot as well, and it would be my luck to barge in on a Sunday mass.

  God, I hoped not.

  The door’s rusted springs sang my entrance like shabby trumpets. So much for a stealthy entrance! Turns out that didn’t matter. The few people that knelt in the pews didn’t bother looking up but just continued praying silently.

  Despite the sad exterior, the chapel inside was beautiful! The expertly crafted and meticulously maintained wooden statue of Jesus hung crucified above the vibrant velvet-draped altar. The wood paneling on the walls and floor were newly installed and still held a polished shine.

  This place was a legit diamond in the rough.

  In the deathlike silence of that room, my every footfall sounded thunderous along the redwood flooring. My suddenly racing pulse was driving rain, and my ears were a tin roof. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. I guess I felt guilty for just being here. This was a church, and in essence, I was planning on stealing something from it. It felt wrong on every level, even if I did recognize what was at stake if I left empty-handed.

  Robbing a bank felt more and more morally righteous the longer I stayed.

  What the hell was I even looking for? The new ornate clock just above a plain, old confessional booth read twelve noon. I had six hours to be back at Doc’s, paying for Remy’s life, with money I didn’t have!

  The only way I was going to make it now was if I rented a car, again with money I didn’t have! I felt that lingering hope start to unravel, leaving me frustrated and angry. Angry at the situation, at the Lobos, but mostly, I was angry at myself for not being able to figure this out.

  Angry at myself for not being able to save Remy.

  I sat in the front row, dropped my head into my hands, and fought back the tears. They came anyways. After all he’d done for me, I couldn’t help him when he needed me most.