Loving You Forever (Battle Born MC Book 7) Read online

  Loving You Forever

  Scarlett Black

  Loving You Forever

  Copyright © 2019 By Scarlett Black

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to being stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, groups, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Art by Opium House Creatives

  Edited by Rogue Readers & Edits by Erin

  WARNING: This book contains sexual situations and VERY adult themes. Recommended for 18 and above.

  Blurb

  Locked up for a crime he didn’t commit, Pawn spent every one of his days on the inside fighting to survive. All that got him through was counting the minutes until he could hold his son for the first time. Can Pawn beat his own demons and addictions to become the father his baby needs?

  Tami’s heart is broken. Following Solo’s death, she doubts she will ever be loved again. First, she must find her own voice and gain the courage to be alone.

  But when mistakes from Tami’s past hunt her down, she learns a harsh lesson about trifling with thieves. Proving his feelings for her never diminished, Pawn rushes in to protect her. Will he sacrifice himself to save his family? Or stand tall as the hero he never thought he could be?

  Dedication

  First, I want to tell my husband that I love him more every year that we get older together. He is my home. Wherever I may be, I always crave his arms, it is my safe place.

  To Tina, my T-Bird, thank God for you and your heart. You gave me direction when I felt lost, even when you didn’t know that I needed it. #SoulSister

  Melissa, fucking love you. Everyone needs that person that gets their head and heart and woman, you made this book with me. You get the words and the woman who felt them. #Priceless

  Beth, damn girl, I love you and your support has rocked my heart. You can change a course in a person’s life with kindness and support. You did that for me. #BestBitches

  This book is for every person that has felt lost, broken and unloved. You are enough. Be strong and when you don’t feel you are, lean on those you love to see you through, they are there.

  “We walk through the fire in this life, will I come out the hero after the ashes have fallen?”

  Scarlett Black

  To the Readers,

  This book about Pawn and Tami has been on my mind for so long. I just hope the words written truly match what I was thinking and feeling. In life, we often expect to know the outcome and think we are on the right path, then one day, a huge shift changes everything. You are left feeling vulnerable because that change challenges you to be better or to see things differently.

  At some points in my life I have experienced this. Lived with the doubt and insecurities. Then one day accepted the change and my life, then the perspective changed everything. Not exactly what I thought was planned but I choose to believe in the possibilities. Their story came to me because I believe that change happens for a reason. Love is never ending and often isn’t what we pictured.

  Keep an open mind that this story is about finding your way through those challenges and having faith in yourself and your road. Sometimes what we are given is meant to change us forever and some things we get to keep forever.

  Be brave, be beautiful and be Battle Born.

  Scarlett

  Prologue

  6 months ago…

  Pawn

  The judge slams the gavel down hard on the woodblock in front of him which jumps up from the impact.

  Two years.

  That’s what I was sentenced to for the drugs I got caught in possession of in the past, along with the brutal bar fights and stolen merchandise I had also gotten busted for as a young adult, before joining the MC.

  The dirty cop I beat in the alley pressed charges, plus the drugs that Feather planted on me fucked me over. The District Attorney was aiming for attempted murder, and thank fuck that didn’t stick, but the assault charges did. The cop lost his eyesight in one eye and had a long recovery time after his stay in the hospital.

  In this moment, a piece of me morphs into a man I don’t know. The past and present has collided and fucked with me. I glare straight ahead at the judge and his smug uptight face. He looks down at me with a pointed stare like I’m nothing. I swear the asshole, with great joy, takes his time reading my sentence into the record. Fuck him and everyone else. I already hate myself, no need for the dirty looks.

  The world starts to blur before my eyes as the pain I’ve held onto four years grows into darkness, pulling me along for the ride. Death becomes comforting when faced with my faults, and most of all, prison time. Fuck my choices and my life. No one is going to miss me in here. A locked-up loser. My old man should be happy.

  I turn and face the crew behind me, nodding my goodbyes. I’ve let down my club, why they stand at my side I won’t understand. Meeting all their furious faces just makes it worse for me. A reflection of what is inside is painted there. Emptiness. Nothing can be done because I am partly to blame. Turning my head, I confront the future I’m dealt and know that I can be out before I’m thirty.

  ‘I’m fucked’ is all I can think. If there are any other cops out there ready to take Brad’s death out on me, I’m in some deep shit and on my own. The guard instructs me to follow him through the hallways, and everything turns into a blur from that point on. My fingerprints, pictures and clothes are taken until all I am is a number in custody of the State.

  I run on auto pilot, refusing to accept my fate, and lie down on the cot in the room before the cell door slams behind me. I feel like my head is in a haze and I have no idea how I got here. I’m dressed down in a bright orange jumpsuit and some cheap tennis shoes. My eyes are fixed on the clothes as I fight the urge to not take my anger out on the man that’s sharing the cell with me. Even as he taunts me with words of being some man’s dick holder, I fight it, knowing this little cunt could be doing a dirty cop a favor, so I ignore him.

  At night, the minutes ticking by are the slowest of my life. There is no way I could fall asleep. The anger has cut too deep into me for that. Tattooed on my mind like a constant running movie. Day breaks and the guard comes in to cuff my hands around my waist with a chain and a shackle on my ankles, making my strides shorter as I follow him to start my two-year sentence in the State Pen as I’m catching a bus over to Carson City.

  I get on with a few other new inmates, and we hit the highway. A roar of bikes catches my attention when my brothers pick up speed, following Blade to pass the bus. None of them look up, but the meaning is there, they will be with me to the end. Brothers by choice and not blood, Battle Born to the end.

  Stepping off the bus, I instantly start cataloging names and faces, knowing that they are all the enemy here. After we are shoved through the gated doors, we are given a tour of our stay here. By that I mean, we are stripped down, searched, and cataloged into their system. A blanket is thrusted into my chest and I’m thrown into a concrete box of a cell with no direction from the guard. My cellmate is an older man who doesn’t even acknowledge me when I’m shoved in, with the door slammed shut behind me.

  The old asshole barely speaks to me as time slowly ticks by. He watches everyone and has only shared with me to keep my mouth shut and eyes open. I start to figure ou
t the routine of the day-to-day schedule. Like a bunch of animals, they keep us alive. Some of the locked-up men in here are animals and the hair raises on the back of my neck seeing the disgusting humans they are. I know shit is about to happen, you can feel the storm brewing, but when?

  The first month is the hardest, having no contact with anyone on the outside. Somehow, Stryker did manage to set me up in a cell with whom I assume is an affiliate of a sister club, and the old man has pretty much left me alone except to give me a few words of advice. Stryker has you celled with me. If you end up in solitary, you’re fucked.

  Later, I learn that his name is Loco, and he keeps his mouth shut almost all day long. He listens and gathers intel as far as I can tell. It’s going to take some time before either one of us will trust each other, if ever. We get into a routine of breakfast and then yard time. I watch his back while he works out, then he watches my back so I can do the same. Lunch, and then yard time again.

  I smoke like a motherfucker while daydreaming of killing Feather in about a hundred different ways. I wish I could do it. No, I wish I could go back and choke the fuck out of the cunt in the first few seconds of meeting her. Then, a tough realization hits me. She should have had our son by now.

  It is, I don’t know, a month or more, before I am allowed visitors, so I’m surprised when a guard grabs me from my cell to take me to a room with tables and guards. Solo and Blade are sitting there, waiting for me. I grab a seat across from them.

  “What’s up, brother? You holding up okay with Loco?” Blade asks but his eyes search me for any visible signs showing that I’m not.

  “Fucking great,” I sarcastically say, getting more comfortable in my seat. “What’s up with the club, shit going good?”

  “Aye, brother, we got that shit handled. Dana had the baby not long ago.” Blade looks me dead in the eye for a moment, and I’m almost confused before realizing that he’s talking about Feather. He gives me the birth date, along with the stats. The kid weighed six pounds at birth and is very healthy. “She had some complications after the baby was born, but all has been taken care off.”

  I wish I knew the details, and, one day, I will. Blade fills me in on smaller things before Solo takes his turn. “Tami wrote you a letter, but I didn’t send it to you. It’s about Cash.” She wrote me a letter about my son, my baby that’s now our baby. His words should bring me comfort, but they don’t. Just hearing her name is a reminder of all I have lost. Every muscle tenses up from me trying to hold in the reaction.

  My body tries to break my composure with a slight tremor in my hands. I grip the chair with all my strength. There isn’t a thing I would want more than to read that letter, to see her words and hold them to my heart. The aches can be felt through my entire body from the pain of not being connected to her. I refuse to think about her and be reminded of how I had love and pushed it all away. Then this fucker swoops in and lives my life. My blood boils over and it takes everything not to kill him.

  With controlled practice I slowly say each word clearly. “Don’t send them to me, I cannot know the details.” My heart shatters and my voice cracks. “She can’t ever come here,” I realize my mistake and add on quickly, “none of the kids or Ol’ Ladies.” Because I can’t see her beautiful face, the face of a future I was robbed of, with the woman I love.

  I think all that but don’t have the strength to say it out loud even in a whisper, the regret is so strong. It will never be safe for her or our son to be seen here without raising questions since the cops know I fucked Feather. I’ll never be able to write her back either in order to keep them safe. Tami may never forgive me for this, and I’ll never know what Solo will tell her, but love is a sacrifice I will do only for her and my son.

  Before Blade leaves, he says he has photos of his kids to show me, but they’re of Cash and Tami, my whole world. I stare and memorize them as quickly as possible, wishing I had more time and that I could keep them. After he takes the pictures back with him, my mind can’t help but to reminisce over every smile and detail. It is devastating and perfect at the same time. My angel, her light shines through in those eyes. She can draw me in even through a photo. To me she is perfect, every single part of her. Alone, in the dark, I fall apart in my cell. The pain I don’t have to hide. All of it can be visible in the dark because no one can see me.

  Tami disappeared as quickly as she came into my life. I make sure to push her away now, because I am not the man that could give her the things she deserves. I am a disease and would corrupt her and Cash. With her, my son has the best world and better than with me. She won’t hurt him with words or fists. I’ve tried to get them off my mind, but they drown me in despair, and they won’t let me go. Why can’t they let me go? I don’t deserve to have them. I am a fuck up.

  I feel lost to the world for now, destined to live in a hell I never wanted, and the anger grows thicker than the pain.

  Chapter 1

  Current Day…

  Tami

  Rocking Cash back and forth in the chair next to his crib, my fingertips run over his perfect little face. He’s grown so much, and each day he looks more and more like Pawn. Just like him, he’s so beautiful. His appearance is a constant reminder that his father refuses to talk to me. I don’t know why. I feel like a complete fraud. Am I even alive? Everything feels gray in the world. Without the touch, sound, and smell of Cash I wouldn’t feel anything at all. Sure, I rock him to sleep, but I know I have to do these things. When, God? My heart begs, when will I do these things because my body tells me that it desires and crave it?

  I can’t help but allow the waves of pain to wash through me. Guilt that I am alive and wishing I wasn’t while holding a perfect baby boy. I hide away the remorse of my dark thoughts. I’m bitter and angry that Solo picked the club, over me. It cost me everything. It cost me him and our future. He fucking left me, all for the club.

  I am such a piece of shit and my selfishness surprises me. That’s how I feel, he chose everyone and everything else over us. Can I kill myself and make the darkness go away? The fantasy pulls me into the depth of my mind, and I allow it to free myself, for just a little while. I want nothing but the peace only death could bring. Can you die from a broken heart? The answer is no, at least not for me. Because I am still alive but numb to the world. Solo is gone and has been dead now for a few months. I’m trying not to keep track of the days anymore. That’s been almost impossible. I’ve been better because before I was counting the minutes and hours.

  Slowly I open my eyes and I stare ahead at the pictures I put up before of Solo with Cash. Also, pictures of Pawn with Solo. The loneliness creeps in like an assassin when it’s quiet like this. I swear sometimes I hear the sound of a motorcycle approaching. My mind likes to pretend it's him and plays tricks on me. I know that he’s not riding it, but I still expect him to come in at any moment. I just can’t turn it off, I don’t know how? He’s not ever going to call my name or kiss me goodnight. Nothing. I have had daydreams so real, that they are crushing when I realize it is all made up in my head. Like him riding home to us on his bike.

  Alone, every human I have cared for has abandoned me in this world. I thought for sure Solo would never leave me. He did. I just wanted a simple life, and I counted on him to take care of me. Can you be angry at someone for dying while saving someone else’s life? It doesn’t seem right, but I hate him today for ruining what I thought could last forever.

  I easily recognize the downward-spiraling of my mind. Shame hits me hard that I could even allow this around my baby. I would hate myself even more if I infected him with these feelings. Placing a kiss atop Cash’s head, I breathe in his sweet scent. His warmth and sweetness finds a small way to bring me comfort. Laying him softly in his crib, I leave and take my toxic thoughts with me.

  Slowly, I walk into the bedroom Solo and I shared for just a short period of time. I lower myself into a chair that faces the bed. A bed that I haven’t slept in or touched since we were in it together. Noth
ing has been moved, not even the dirty clothes where he tossed them on the floor. I haven’t cleaned because, if I move anything in here, I will erase it all. Every trace of his existence will disappear, and I just can’t. I refuse to do that. It feels like he would die all over again.

  My chest takes in quick and shallow puffs of air as I try to quell the shooting anguish. I physically feel the loss in every part of my body, the ache is so crippling. I just wish that I could go and be with him. Losing my life would be a relief. Except there is my little boy. I can’t leave Cash and he is the only thing that keeps me on this earth. But my Solo is calling me home to him.

  I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my shins, allowing the sorrow to leak from my bleeding heart. My forehead rests against my knees and I pray for relief as the tears squeeze through my closed eyes. “Can I just fall asleep and see you? Just for a little bit,” I sincerely beg, but I don’t know if he will ever hear me. Is there a God? Does He hear me at least?

  Like everything I have ever known, it never lasts. Leaving me alone and broken. Why did Solo have to bring me love only to leave me? He taught me to be brave and to live in this world. It’s almost as if he knew he didn’t have time without actually knowing. He cherished every second he could in life and also with me. I’d never known how to live before him. Now, I am barely existing and struggling to stay in the present.

  I can’t go on this way, that much I know. Every day I stay in the same state of mind living within a paradox. Solo was a steady strength that I learned to believe in myself through his eyes first. From that, I grew a unique bond to Solo with trust and respect from the love he gave me. Now I have no option but to walk this life all alone again. How many times! How do I do this alone? I don’t know who I am. The biggest battle of this is, who the hell am I? If I knew who I was would I even be in this mess?