Blow Out (Steel Veins Book 1)

  BLOW OUT

  Steel Veins MC Romance 1

  Jackson Kane

  Blow Out © 2019 by Jackson Kane

  This book was previously published as two books, Break Hard and Break Out. The book has been combined, edited, and is complete with brand-new material to create Blow Out.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any written, electronic, recorded, or photocopied format without the express permission from the author or publisher as allowed under the terms and conditions with which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  Blow Out is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and places found therein are either from the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons alive or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For information, contact the publisher, Hot Tree Publishing.

  www.hottreepublishing.com

  Cover Designer: BookSmith Design

  Editor: Hot Tree Editing

  Formatting: Justine Littleton

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-925853-75-9

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-925853-78-0

  Contents

  Part I

  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

  Part II

  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

  Part III

  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

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  This book is dedicated to Tasha Hooks. Without her none of this would've been possible.

  Part One

  Prologue

  I felt it through his fingertips the first time he grabbed me, back when I hated him and everything burned around us. Yet, I couldn’t accept it then.

  Then much later, I felt it again through every raised hair on the nape of my neck as we sped off that final time.

  Hope.

  The low, tumultuous vibrations of his bike pulsed their way throughout my chest. I squeezed him so tight that I thought my arms might squeeze him in half. He hardly noticed.

  With that shithole bar slipping into the blackness behind us and the crisp night air whipping at my hair, I burrowed my head between his shoulder blades, feeling overwhelmed by this uncertainty. These feelings… they were too elusive to name but so overpowering when they hit.

  It was scorching, violent, dirty joy in its purest form.

  All that had raced through my head when they brought me in for questioning. What was Muse’s Place? How far away were they taking me? Would I ever see my parents again? But above all, who was this man, and why did he keep me alive?

  Eventually, the questions stopped. Not because I found any real answers but because I started living. For the first time, I really felt alive.

  It was horrible. I didn’t have time for questions because I couldn’t control anything around me anymore. All I could do was listen, watch, and pray.

  I didn’t pray anymore.

  I realized that back home when I was safe, I was always so pent up, so uptight. I felt like I was waiting for something or that I needed to start something. Whatever it was, I didn’t have it, so I filled my mind and heart with questions to distract myself from that... lingering emptiness I carried around. What time was my next shift? How the fuck was I going to make it through my accounting class this semester? Did I reach my step count for the day?

  Looking back, it was all so meaningless. I can’t relate to that girl anymore. I used to know her—me—but now... I wasn’t so certain. Did I even like the person I was turning into?

  What would it take to survive in the world that I was now a prisoner of?

  I was pretty sure that before all this was over, I was going to die. But there was something comforting in knowing that if I did, he’d be with me and we’d die together. So much had happened these past few days. There were so many things I didn’t know—like where the hell we were going now or even if I could fully trust him.

  But he was all I had. My only lifeline in this dark, dirty, and dangerous biker world.

  And that was fucking terrifying.

  We rode away from Muse’s Place faster than I’d ever experienced. His bike’s engine roared like Death’s hot laughter, reminding us of the decisions we’d made tonight and how they’d further change our lives forever.

  But as hopeless as everything seemed in this one, fleeting moment, I had exactly what I’d always been searching for. The one thing I couldn’t ever even put into words.

  He is Remy Daniels of the Steel Veins Motorcycle Club. He’s a cold, heartless, and cunning murderer. He’s the worst person I’ve ever known.

  My name is Star, and I can’t stop thinking about him.

  God help me… I think I’m in love.

  Chapter One

  Star

  “Star!” My aunt pushed open the door that separated the small gas station store from the living room of the attached house that she and her husband lived in. She waddled into the room, sweating profusely. Booming melodramatic music from a soap opera’s end-of-the-episode cliffhanger did nothing to dull the shrillness in her voice.

  It was bad enough hearing the muffled exploits of Dr. Clive’s back-from-the-dead twin brother throughout the day when I was trying to study, without her harassing me for menial bullshit.

  I pulled my glasses higher up on my nose, then stopped moving. Aunt Gina reminded me of a T-rex charging in slow motion. Maybe if I stayed really still, she wouldn’t see me.

  “Star! Dammit, girl!” She fanned herself with a Tractor Supply magazine to stave off the heat, sending her wispy, graying bangs drifting in front of her small, beady eyes. She wore a shapeless, faded yellow sundress that seemed to only emphasize her beet-red complexion and made her look even heavier than she already was.

  Guess not. Jurassic Park, you have failed me.

  “I don’t know where your TV remote is.” I slammed shut my textbook, causing the cash register that was propped up against it to clatter and ring. Then I looked up at my aunt over my glasses. “I haven’t been in there all day.”

  “Uncle has been yelling for you to take out the trash!” Breathing heavily from the short trip from the couch, she eyed me expectantly.

  “I just checked it. It’s not even ha
lf full. We haven’t had anyone pull up in an hour.” I stood up, brushed my wavy, brown, shoulder-length hair out of my face, and looked out the gas station’s window.

  The one, lonely pump stood stoically, waiting for cars that rarely ever came. It had a fueling nozzle on either side so in theory two vehicles could fill up at the same time, but in all my time here I’d never seen it happen. Uncle rocked slowly in his chair beside it, reading a newspaper. He was Gina’s opposite in almost every way. Thin as a rod, with bushy, dark hair, he rarely ever stopped moving, which was odd because he was a least ten years older than his sedentary wife.

  Squinting past him, I might’ve been able to make out a tumbleweed rolling across the dusty browns and sunblasted grays of the wasteland that was the Oklahoma panhandle.

  If there ever were farmlands here, they were long gone. Between the biblical tornadoes, droughts, and flash flooding, I didn’t know why the hell anyone would live in Stillwater. I was from the East Coast, where cities existed. The longer I stayed here, the more I could actually feel myself getting older.

  “I don’t care how full it is! Uncle wants it changed, so get up off your lazy ass and change it.” She wrenched my chair away from me to better prop herself up. Was she really just looking to steal my seat?

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “Look! He’s sitting within arm’s reach of it! Why can’t he do it? Aunt Gina, I really have to study for this test tomorrow. All these distractions are killing me,” I begged. “Please?”

  “I’m only going to tell you once more, girl. Go!” She frowned, shaking her head, which sent her saggy jowls rippling.

  “Fine, Master.” I exhaled hard, setting my jaw. I didn’t mind working the cash register because of how few customers we actually got, but all these stupid little errands and chores were extremely distracting.

  One more semester. It’s only one more semester. I reminded myself so often that it was quickly becoming a mantra. Of all places, why did the University of Oklahoma at Stillwater have to have the course I needed?

  “Don’t you dare sass me!” she shouted after me.

  I skipped out before she could begin her usual tirade of how they’d let me stay here for free and how they’d only asked me to pull my weight in return. I thought back on how often my aunt tried to guilt me. There was a joke in there somewhere about pulling one’s own weight, but I would never be bold enough to say it out loud.

  When my uncle stopped fidgeting around the gas station or garage, he typically sat on a stool right in the middle of the fueling station.

  I sauntered over to the can placed at the far end of the pump. The only new item that had been added to the less-than-half-full can in the forty-five minutes since I’d checked it last was a coffee cup—his coffee cup.

  “Uncle?” I asked. Why was I doing this again?

  “Mmm...?” He didn’t bother tearing himself away from what was probably a riveting article about the ins and outs of harvesting or whatever.

  I hate Oklahoma.

  “Seriously, there’s nothing in here,” I pointed out, glancing back at the store window to where Aunt Gina was contentedly reading as the natural light was better at the register than by her couch.

  Did she really kick me out from studying just so she could steal my seat and read? She had the entire house!

  “That dirty sonofabitch is runnin’ for mayor again! Reynolds is an ex-con, for Christ’s sake!” Uncle roared, snapping me out of focused irritation.

  “Uncle?” I still needed to ask him what he wanted me to do now. I learned from experience that I’d get yelled at if he looked up and I wasn’t at the register.

  “Goddammit. Gerry was right, after all. I can’t believe it. Can you believe this shit?” Uncle had a way of abruptly blurting out whatever was on his mind while he read the news.

  It had caught me off guard more than I’d like to admit.

  I sighed heavily. He wasn’t listening. Maybe if I found a stick to poke him with….

  I should be studying right now!

  “What are you sighin’ about?” he barked, finally noticing me. “You’re ruinin’ the damn paper!”

  What? How’s that even possible? “The trash—”

  “What about it?” He immediately cut me off now that he’d finally turned his attention to me. “Did you empty it?” He stood up and craned his neck to look in the can without actually raising himself off his stool. “Don’t bother. Ain’t even half full.”

  My expression darkened at the futility of these people. All I wanted to do was study for my damn test!

  He glared at me with defensive confusion, having no idea for the life of him why I might be irritated. Uncle pointed to two tires leaning up against the entrance of the store. He wasn’t the inquisitive type and decided he’d rather send me away than figure out what was wrong. “Take them tires around back and throw ’em on the pile.”

  After staying here this long, I’d learned that some things weren’t worth fighting for. The faster they ran out of stupid time-wasting busywork for me to do, the faster I could get back to what really mattered. Sporting what was becoming a semipermanent frown, off I went.

  A ratty pickup truck, modified to have an extra loud exhaust, raced into the parking lot unnecessarily fast. I didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Todd on his way to see me.

  Ugh.

  Todd was the biggest mistake I’d made since coming here, one that I just couldn’t get rid of. I hustled as fast as I could, but the damn tires were so unwieldy that Todd saw me before I could duck around the corner.

  Uncle had gone back to his newspaper but spared Todd a distracted hand wave. Of course, those two had gotten along famously since Todd started coming by.

  “Hey, sweet ass! Did ya miss me?” Todd rolled up next to me in his truck. He hung out the driver’s side window, smiling smugly as his piece-of-shit truck backfired.

  “Yeah, but I’m working on my aim.” I glowered at him. How many times did I have to turn this guy down before he got it through his Cro-Magnon skull?

  “You’ve got a smart mouth there, city girl, but I like it.” Todd Habberon aggressively coached the boys’ football team at the high school he’d barely graduated from. Clean shaven with short-cropped, blond hair, Todd wasn’t anything special to look at, but he wasn’t hideous either. “Lemme do that for ya. You don’t wanna get dirty.”

  “Nope, I got this.” I laboriously dragged both tires around the side of the building, shifting positions a few times. “And that’s funny, because I don’t really give a shit what you like, Todd.”

  “Ain’t up for debate, babe.” He threw his truck into park then hopped out and grabbed them from me. “Let a real man take care of that for ya.”

  He was in decent enough shape and threw the tires on the unsightly pile behind the building more quickly than I would’ve, but he was far from the manly man persona that he was trying to portray. He was the type of guy who told people at the bar about how he was an Army Ranger but just came off as full of shit.

  “Let me know when you find one.” I adjusted my glasses from the physical exertion and crossed my arms. His alpha male façade was about the most tone-deaf bravado I’d ever seen. Why did he think anyone liked to be patronized like that? “I’d love an actual conversation for a change.”

  “You didn’t care about conversation at Rosco’s Bar and Grill a few weeks ago.” He brushed some of the grime off on his pants and reached out to grab my shoulders with tire-greased hands. “You were all about Todd’s big D.”

  “The most lackluster two-and-a-half minutes of my life.” I pulled away before his grubby hands could touch me. “There’s not enough alcohol in the world for me to make that mistake again.”

  That hookup was such a mistake. I was drunk and lonely with homesickness. He was kind enough and wasn’t terrible to look at. I’d been blowing him off ever since, but he just couldn’t take the hint.

  “You say whatever you want, but I know you loved ri
din’ the big buck.” Todd humped the air with a disgusting smile he probably thought was endearing. “Hey, I got us tickets to this concert up in town this Saturday starring Vertical Horizon. They’re a little faggy for me, but I figured you’d be into them.”

  “Todd, I’m not interested. Leave me alone.” This shit had to stop.

  “C’mon, babe.” He used what he probably thought was his sweet voice. I hate it when people call me pet names. “Babe” was my new least favorite. “Sweet ass” wasn’t great either, but at least it wasn’t as generic. “What the fuck am I gonna do with these tickets? It was, like, fifty bucks.”

  “I don’t know! Sell them on eBay or something. I don’t care. I have to get back to work.” I brushed pass him, and the fucker had the gall to grab my ass. “Hey!”

  He threw his hands up and smiled like he was just joking around and I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

  There was a rumbling sound off in the distance, like rolling thunder, but I was too heated to take my eyes off Todd. How many more ways could I possibly tell him no?

  “How ’bout a lil’ kiss?” he asked. “I drove all the way up there to get ’em for ya. A kiss is the least you can do. We’ve gone way further than that before.”