And if something happened to June, I didn’t want to imagine what I would do, the depths I would descend to protect her.
“No,” I said. “We can’t stay. It’s over. I can’t be part of it anymore.”
Blaze nodded. “I didn’t expect it.” He was silent for a while. “Crunch is going back to Puerto Rico, taking MacKenzie.”
“It’s not the best life for her.”
Blaze shook his head. “Dani understands that, more than anyone.”
Dani would, I thought, growing up in a crime family, her own mother murdered when she was only fourteen.
I looked up as Dani and June joined us.
“It was a nice ceremony,” Dani said, sliding her arm around Blaze.
“It was,” I agreed.
Silence fell over the group as we stood there. After so much had happened, there was nothing left to say.
Crunch joined us, holding MacKenzie in his arms. The rims of his eyes were red, and his skin was ashen, his cheeks sunken. It had only been a few days, but he looked hollow, a shell of a man.
He looked broken.
I think all of us looked that way.
"Hi Uncle Axe," MacKenzie said shyly, not moving her head from her place on her dad's shoulder.
"Hey MacKenzie," I said.
"We're going to visit my grandma's house," she said. "My mommy isn't going with us. Daddy said she needs to rest for a while."
I swallowed hard, and looked at June, who was clearly blinking back tears.
"No, baby," Crunch said. His voice cracked, and I thought he was going to break right there. "Mommy's not going with us."
"Hey, Mac," June said, her voice falsely bright. "Can I see your stuffed animal?"
"It's a jaguar," MacKenzie said, smiling. "Put me down, daddy." She ran over to June, and I heard June and Dani begin to pepper her with questions.
Crunch spoke to me, his voice low. "We're going to take off for a while."
"Yeah, that's what I heard," I said. "June and I are going back to Colorado." I nearly said, you're welcome anytime, but stopped myself. I was sure he never wanted to set foot in the state again, after what had happened there. I was the opposite- it was the only place I wanted to be. I needed to lay my father to rest.
I needed to lay my own demons to rest.
SALVATION
West Bend, Colorado
Three Years Later
June
"Be careful, swinging him up in the air like that!" I called from the front porch, watching Cade lift little Stan up in the air and hearing him squeal with delight. "He's only eighteen months- you can't go too high!"
Cade carried little Stan back to the porch, and set him down. He toddled around, mostly stable but not entirely, still giggling. Bailey followed him, always loyal, but mostly looking for abandoned snacks. Cade wrapped his arms around me, around my belly.
"I don't remember you being this anxious the last time you were pregnant," he said.
I leaned my head back against him. "We didn't have a toddler for you to throw around last time."
"No, we didn't," he said. "How's the momma-to-be feeling?"
"Tired," I said. "But happy."
Looking out across the property, to my old house, the one we'd turned into a bed and breakfast, I thought, Stan would have liked this, knowing that Cade had come back here, that we were raising our kids in the home where he'd raised Cade. Keeping the old ranch alive.
"What are you thinking?" Cade asked, his voice low.
"Nothing," I said. "Just that your dad would have liked all of this."
"He'd have loved little Stan," Cade said.
I nodded. "He'd be so proud of you, too, with the bike shop and everything." The bed and breakfast had done so well, with the influx of ski tourists the past two winters, that we'd been able to open a custom bike shop in town, and Cade had gotten to start doing what he loved. It didn't pay much, but it was good for him.
"Do you ever regret not going back to California?" I asked him. "Regret not being a part of the club anymore?" Guys were bringing their bikes to him from hours away, and Cade was getting a reputation for doing good custom paint jobs, but I sometimes wondered if hanging around those guys just made him wish he was back with the MC.
"No," he said. "I'm pretty barn sour now."
"What?" I asked, turning toward him, my protruding belly in the way. I leaned over to pick up Stan, and he patted his hand on Cade's face, intrigued by his stubble. "What do you mean?"
"You and that little man right there are my home," he said. "I feel the way horses get, when they're barn sour and they don't want to leave the barn. I don't want to leave you guys. I know where I belong."
Axe
Everything was quiet, with my wife and child both napping.
My wife and child.
That's something I never thought I'd say.
I stood outside, watching the clouds roll by, turning my cell phone over and over in my hand, thinking about the phone call I'd just gotten from Crunch.
He wasn't Crunch anymore.
He'd moved to Vegas with MacKenzie, had this gig where he did some kind of hacking shit for casinos. I couldn't remember how he'd explained it, something about security or some shit. He had come out of retirement, was starting to associate with the club chapter out in Vegas. The shit that happened out in LA had gotten him a new road name.
Hammer.
I guess brutally killing three assholes, smashing one man to pieces with a sledgehammer, warranted a name change.
After April's funeral, he'd gone back to Puerto Rico, left MacKenzie with her grandmother for a bit. Which was probably for the best, because he'd pretty much gone off the deep end, a total fucking tailspin.
I could understand the feeling.
Last year he'd pulled himself up, gotten his shit together. Now he had this good job and MacKenzie back living with him.
Then I get this voicemail today.
He'd gotten involved with a girl. Someone important to him, he said.
And now she was missing.
Back inside the house, I poked my head through the bedroom doorway, careful not to wake June. She was sleeping peacefully, and I wanted to keep her blissfully unaware for as long as possible. I slipped into bed beside her, cradled her stomach, and breathed her in. She murmured something in her sleep, snuggled in close to me. I knew that I'd have to call Hammer, face whatever grotesque reality he was going through.
But right now, I wanted to soak in a few more minutes of peace.
For now, everything was right in my world.
THE END
BREAKING HAMMER
He would search the ends of the earth to bring her home.
Betrayed by the MC he once loved, mourning the brutal murder of his wife, Joe "Hammer" Holder was picking up the pieces of his life.
He swore he would never fall in love again. Until Meia.
A high class escort catering to some of the richest and most powerful clientele in Las Vegas, Meia has a dark past. She escaped the clutches of the vile men who trafficked her through southeast Asia years ago.
Love was not part of her destiny. Until Hammer.
When Meia disappears without a trace, will their love be enough to help her survive?
Book Three in the Inferno Motorcycle Club series contains mature themes, including human trafficking and violence. It is not meant for the faint of heart.
Please enjoy this preview of Breaking Hammer.
Author’s Note
Breaking Hammer contains mature content, including descriptions of sex, language, and violence, that are not suitable for readers under the age of eighteen. It also should be noted that it deals with subjects that might be sensitive for some readers, such as abusive situations and human trafficking. However, please note that while this book deals with abusive subject matter, there are no descriptions of non-consensual sexual encounters. All sexual situations in this book involve consenting adults over the age of eighteen.
In June 2014,
the U.S. State Department released its annual report evaluating the efforts of international governments to police human trafficking in their countries. Thailand and Malaysia were downgraded to Tier 3 status, meaning that they now rank in the lowest 12 countries in the world in efforts to prevent human trafficking. In both countries, undocumented foreign workers are particularly vulnerable, especially minority groups from Myanmar fleeing persecution.
I lived in southeast Asia for several years, and that region of the world will always hold a special place in my heart.
This book was inspired by reading about the plight of trafficked persons everywhere, but especially in those countries I think of so fondly.
BREAKING HAMMER
PROLOGUE
Meia
In the darkness, I waited. I crouched, perfectly still, every one of my muscles tensed up, coiled to spring. I imagined myself as a tiger, waiting for its prey. Hungry.
The only thing that would satisfy me, the only water to quench my longing now, was vengeance. I had to kill him, the man responsible for my sister’s death. The man who thought he owned me. The man who believed he had bought my loyalty, who thought he had bought my soul.
It was my destiny.
He might possess my body, but he would never own me.
He could never possess my heart.
That honor belonged to another man. A man I left behind when I was ripped from the life I’d carefully constructed, the life I had built, brick by brick, from nothing. A man who would not recognize me now, who would not know the monster I had become.
A man I’d never see again.
A man I could never forget.
Hammer
I knew immediately that everything was wrong.
In my gut, I knew it. I tried to convince myself otherwise, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for her, the tap-tap-tap of my foot on the tile floor the only noise in the room.
The room was immaculate, as it always was, which was to be expected from the type of hotel this was. This was not the type of hotel where bad things happened, even if it was Vegas. At least, this wasn’t the floor where bad things happened, the suites where high-rollers stayed. Not that I was a high-roller. I wasn’t here to gamble. Gambling wasn’t my vice.
I had so many other fucking vices, I didn’t need to gamble.
The room was eerily still. Nothing was out of place...no furniture overturned, no ripped open sofa cushions or gutted mattress. Nothing to indicate anyone had been here in the room.
Except the locket.
Her locket.
The one with the picture of a girl inside. When I’d asked her who it was, she had averted her eyes, looked away, sat there silently.
I could have easily missed the locket, on the floor behind the toilet. If I had overlooked it, if I had just walked away instead of listening to my gut, I wouldn’t have known. I would have assumed that she walked away from me, that she had come to her senses.
That she had decided that whatever this was, it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
It’s the same thing I kept telling myself, trying to rationalize away what I felt. Reminding myself of April. It had only been three years. A man should mourn his dead wife for longer than three years, I told myself. A man should grieve.
How much more could I grieve?
Everyone I loved died. It was like a goddamned curse.
Not this time. This time would be different. It couldn’t happen that way again. It would destroy me. I wouldn’t let this happen.
Chapter One
Ten years ago
Meia
“I don’t understand,” Lily whispered. “What’s happening?”
My heart beat wildly in my chest, and I gripped her hand, shaking my head silently, warning her not to speak. Something was not right. I was only thirteen, but I knew something was terribly wrong.
The room was hot, stifling hot, and it stank of sweat and urine and feces, the odors that were a part of traveling the way we had traveled. Sweat rolled down my forehead, stinging my eyes, my hair damp. My shirt clung to my body. My body ached from being packed together in the back of the truck that transported us across the