Revved Up Hearts: An MC Romance (Steel Knights Book 2) Read online

  Joy filled her when the ropes finally came free. Her body shook with laughter in the exhilaration; the car made a turn and Jasmine’s body was thrown in the trunk to the side, having her crash against the interior. She turned around and undid the bit of tape stuck to her mouth, spitting out the cloth rag and wiping away some of the sticky residue with her arm.

  I can’t bare it another second in here, she thought. She tried to discern where she might be, or what it might be around her – but as the car rolled once more to a stop, she found it particularly difficult to figure anything out.

  All that Jasmine could focus on was that she badly wanted to hurt this man, take a long, relaxing bath and scream into a pillow. She was not sure on the order of the second two.

  Jasmine’s hand found the crowbar, her fingers gripping along the strip of iron tightly; she was not certain if she could swing it hard enough to do any serious damage, but she was damn sure going to try. A thought percolated in her head as she listened, trying to ignore the feel of sweat rolling along the length of her body and clinging desperately to her shirt.

  The front door of the car opened and Carlos got out, walking towards Jasmine from the driver’s side. She got to her knees uncomfortably, and she was hunched over equally so – but from her position she knew that she would be able to spring an attack.

  But the man never came. Instead her ears picked up the sound of Carlos… fiddling with something. For a brief spell, Jasmine could not understand what the man was doing.

  And then she realized.

  They were at a gas station. Carlos plugged the nozzle into car’s tank; she could hear the sound of gas rushing through the hose and being pumped into the gas tank.

  Jasmine rationalized that if she partially covered her mouth and acted right, she could cause enough noise to grab someone’s attention. Failing that, she would get Carlos to come and lock up her mouth a second time. He couldn’t know for sure that she had freed her hands, so she made certain not to bang around on anything.

  She screamed, and for the first moment there seemed to be no reaction from the man. After a good fifteen seconds, Jasmine heard Carlos remove the nozzle and get back inside of the car; the vehicle itself continued on its way for a solid minute before coming to a stop again.

  Carlos slammed the car door behind him, his steps quick and loud as they approached the trunk. Jasmine sat hunched over like a coiled snake, ready to strike.

  When the trunk compartment opened, a glaring blast of light poured through and forced Jasmine’s eyes to squint. She saw the outline of Carlos and found the point she instinctively wished to strike as the top fully opened.

  He had duct tape in hand and a small knife, but the lines on his face made clear how surprised he was. Jasmine sprung up, her belly full of fire. She shot out her arm in a backhanded swing, a high-pitched grunt leaving her.

  Carlos immediately brought down the top of the trunk in a panic. But it was already too late.

  The top of the trunk came crashing down on Jasmine’s head, making a blossom of pain at the crown of her head – though it was not enough to knock her down. She loosed a quick grunt of pain. The top rebounded and moved back to where it was, fully extended once more.

  The end of the crowbar struck the man’s head and a string of red leapt from the point of impact; some small streaks of red finding their way onto Jasmine’s person, she only half noticed the warmth of it clinging to her. There was a sickly kind of crunch that resounded, paired with a sort of squishing. This caused Carlos to howl, ever so briefly, in agony and stumble at a horrible angle; falling limp to the ground. Everything seemed too quiet then, aside from the cryptic song of birds hidden in their trees. They did not know what she had done.

  Sickly warmth flooded Jasmine, like a disgusting ball of maggots worming around in their newly found home. She had felt nauseous these past weeks, but she could not even will herself to move from the car before feeling that terrible tightness in her throat; Jasmine felt the sickness building up in the back of her throat, and she tried to swallow it down – but the vomit came sputtering out of her mouth all the same.

  She upchucked outside of the car and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, dropping the crowbar – her arms and legs feeling like they were made of nothing more than flimsy paper. Heartbeats passed, she was not sure exactly where she was – some backroad in the woods. Soldiers of dark pine stood beside her at either end, motionless, silent warriors that watched her – that mutely passed judgment.

  Jasmine crawled out from the back of the trunk and on to the hard dirt, she glanced over at the lifeless body of her captor. Disgusted, she walked over to the front of the black car and went in through the front door, searching around for her cell phone. After a short time she found it hidden beneath the driver’s seat and exited the vehicle. She looked down at her top and her nose twitched at the smell and sight of blood on her person.

  She had taken lives before, but she had never murdered someone.

  You shouldn’t have done that, she thought. It was self-defense, I didn’t know it was going to kill him – I just… did it. Jasmine put her hand to her chest, her heart beating faster and faster still. She could not stay here, she needed to leave this place sooner rather than later – self-defense or not, she questioned if the police would really believe her. If anyone found out professionally, they might come to look at her in a different light. She could practically hear them gossiping now. Laughing at her behind her back.

  Bolting through the forest, Jasmine went off into the thicket of trees. Leaves and sticks crunched beneath her foot; she made sure to stay along the dirt trail, but far enough away that passers-by would not be so like to see her. As the minutes passed by, Jasmine found herself becoming winded. Beads of sweat formed just above her brow. God, she thought. What if they find out? Nobody can know about this. I need to get out of here.

  Jasmine decided that she was far enough away then and went over to a lone pine, plunking her bottom down against the hard dirt and leaves, resting her back against the tree. She produced her phone and looked over her contacts, calling Luke first.

  Come on. Pick up. After a solid minute of ringing and having his phone go to voicemail, Jasmine cursed aloud and cut off the call. She went over to Kate’s number and dialed that instead.

  “Kate? Listen I need you to pick me up… I-I don’t know where I’m at per se but I’ll call you when I do, can you do it?” The woman asked the usual questions. “I just, uh, I’ll tell you when you get here,” Jasmine didn’t know what to say, or if she should spin some kind of lie or not. “Right, well I’ll call you back in a few,” she hung up the phone and continued on her path, figuring that if she had a signal, she could try using the GPS as well.

  ***

  Jasmine found herself waiting by the roadside almost half an hour later when Kate pulled up in her 87 silver Fiero. Jasmine came out of the woodwork after a moment and thanked her friend before getting into the car.

  Kate’s face scrunched up and her brow raised when she spotted the blood on Jasmine’s top, “Is that…”

  “Yeah,” Jasmine responded.

  Kate turned her head back to face the road and Jasmine strapped in her belt. “I better not be aiding and abetting,” the woman joked, giving a small chuckle.

  “Hunting accident,” Jasmine replied.

  “So…” Kate peeked over at Jasmine, “where’s your gun? What were you hunting?”

  She hadn’t thought of a way to spin it, so she hoped that her friend would just understand that it was something not to discuss. “Didn’t need one,” Jasmine offered, “and like I said. It was a hunting accident.” She could feel the nausea pricking away at her again, it was subtle, but there all the same.

  Kate said nothing for a moment, “Right,” an uncomfortable level of silence befell the two and a beat of time passed. “You owe me,” she announced, “like, I don’t want to know. But you better start buying me things when we’re out,” she glanced over at Jasmine again. “I
’m not going to prison over this, and I’m definitely not gonna be interrogated in less than fashionable clothing.”

  “I’ll buy you all the things,” Jasmine promised, a slight smirk gracing her lips, “thanks again, Kate.”

  The woman cocked her head, “Well I’d say it’s no problem…”

  “Yeah.”

  Kate cleared her throat, taking her hand off of the wheel for a moment’s time. “So, I mean, I wasn’t creeping or anything,” of course that means that she was. “But how’d things go with your mom? She seemed nice enough. Dressed kind of like garbage bags were back in fashion though, I mean, who wears that much black?”

  Jasmine laughed, “It went about as well as I could have ever imagined it going,” she said. “Not that it was something I really thought would happen, I only ever thought of her a few times a year,” it was a terrible thing to admit, but it was the truth. She gently pressed her chin to her chest, “I think I can forgive her.”

  “You should,” the woman opined. Jasmine looked over to Kate as she flipped her blinker and they made a turn. “If you don’t, you’ll regret it,” she said matter of factly.

  “She really hurt me.”

  “We all hurt each other,” Kate replied coolly, “we don’t always forgive each other. And it’s… the worst mistake a person can make; you can’t see it because you start off so certain.”

  Jasmine pressed her hands together and a fist clenched at her heart.

  There was a melancholy that dripped so freely from the woman’s tongue, that Jasmine found it suffocating. It was hard to listen to a person in pain, and harder still to listen to someone speaking from experience – saying something you know that you should agree with, but having that stubborn part of you want nothing to do with it. “But, little by little,” Kate’s words came out like wilted petals, one by one, “you start to doubt how right you were. You start to remember; some nostalgia, some real,” she stopped and her hands worked the steering wheel, taking a left through an intersection. “Just be thankful you still have the opportunity to forgive.”

  Jasmine tried to swallow away the rock in her throat, “Yeah, you’re probably right,” she admitted.

  A couple of minutes passed between the two in silence, and then Kate said something, “You probably didn’t hear about this, but Angie’s pregnant.”

  “Oh, really?” She didn’t know Angie very well, only that she was a quiet ER nurse who stayed out of everyone’s way.

  “Yeah, apparently her Mr. Everything has Michael Phelps for swimmers,” she joked. “You know they talk about how it can happen, but shit I’ve never had someone I know that was on the pill actually get pregnant.” Fiery serpents wormed their way around inside of Jasmine’s stomach, snaking up slowly to her chest. “I mean, she’s beautiful – they’re gonna have great children together, if they don’t, you know… took her weeks of being sick even to realize it was what it was.”

  The fire shot to Jasmine’s throat and her muscles tightened.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Luke

  The world around him felt out of place. His body numb. It was a small holding cell at the station that held him. Iron bars, simple concrete pavement flooring, and a dull yellow set of stone walls. Luke brought his chin down to his chest; he was sitting with his back against the yellow stone wall. Anger filled deep his bones, making them thick with lead. He could still feel the phantom throbs of pain after having struck the bastard.

  Why didn’t she tell me, he lamented. She should have told me, was he lying? He had to have been. Luke had dealt with enough liars in his life, far more than any man should. He was tired of them. Exhausted.

  The brothers back at home loyal to Allen are surely howling. All the drugs and all the guns, but love was enough to get him busted.

  He thought of that man’s lips on Jasmine’s again, and a surge of anger jolted through his body – a growl escaping his throat. Luke could see her, with her full and bright red lips – her lithe, curvaceous body entangled with another’s.

  The very thought made his blood pound. He had tried to call her when he first arrived, but Martine was less than willing to cooperate.

  It was then that Luke’s ears picked up on something, the rattling of a door out of sight. The door closed and a set of footfalls resonated throughout the air. Luke looked to the right, patiently waiting to see who would pass by.

  Sheriff Martine came into view, dressed in his usual attire, wearing his typical smirk. “Comfortable?” He asked, leaning against the cell and wrapping a hand around one of the iron rods.

  Luke promptly responded with a smile and a quick gesture for the Sheriff to explore himself intimately.

  “No need to be rude now,” the man crooned, “it’s not like you don’t belong here. You’ve been in and out of here since you were a kid.”

  “You say that like I had a choice back then.”

  The Sheriff shrugged, “You made a choice today, and look where it got you.”

  Luke scoffed, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Laughter escaped the man’s throat, “Court’l see things differently. I didn’t come here to hound you,” the man said, “much as I’d enjoy it… you got a visitor.”

  That was suspiciously fast. Luke’s mind immediately turned, wondering who could have found out so quickly.

  Martine walked back the way he came, and Luke could make out the sounds of some kind of chatter. After a brief moment, another set of footfalls could be heard approaching Luke’s cell.

  Holy fuckin’ hell. What’s he doing here? Luke was beside himself now, his whole body perking up, his body lifting an inch from the yellow wall. The man hasn’t changed since last I saw him.

  Just outside of Luke’s cell stood J.D Rochester, posed like he hadn’t the time to be here – and that perhaps the ground he walked upon was beneath the kiss of his shoes. His silvery-white hair was done in a pompadour, though his hairline had thinned some from his once prime. He wore a fine black suit and matching pants, and a sleek pair of dark laceless shoes. The man still had a silver piercing through his lip, and his dusky eyes cut through the iron bars like they were not there – searching Luke’s own. Finally, he said, “I do not want to be here,” his words came out in a smoky, hard edge. His lips twisted into a displeased frown, “The only reason that I am is because my daughter made the mistake of loving you.”

  Luke rose up from the floor and walked closer, removing some of the distance between the two. “She doesn’t love me,” Luke retorted in a furious whisper, shaking his head.

  J.D Sucked in a long breath and pushed it out, “It would please me if she did not. I do not much care regardless,” the disgust was palpable in his words and eyes; his eyes raked over Luke like a sheepish coroner on their first day of work, not wanting to dirty themselves.

  “How’d you find me so quick? Didn’t even know you were in town, old man.”

  The lines of his face creased into a scowl. “Watch your tongue,” he said with a venom, putting his hands behind his back, “it pays to have wealth.”

  “Bet it does. Must be nice wanting for nothing,” Luke said smugly, eying the man from head to toe, “sure did your club a lot of good with all that money, money that you never would have got without us. Bet you practice your golf strokes while some floozies from the hills parrot off about how great you are and go down on that wrinkly quarter-roll pecker you call a cock, while you drive off to the next hole.”

  J.D’s chest expanded, and his long nose twitched. The man’s jaw jumped in anger, “Childless prat, hope that you never make a child – you have no idea the lengths you will go, the compromises you will make to make them happy. You will hate yourself for it,” he looked away for a spell. “If you want out of this place, and of your charges – you will see my daughter who has decided to hide herself away. Fix whatever it is you did,” he said.

  “What I did? She tried to kill someone, you think that’s normal?”

  His voice grew louder. Dangerous. “Yo
u hurt my daughter,” J.D bellowed, bringing his face closer to the iron bars, “trust that my influence goes both ways. You might get eight years, but I could make it twenty. I’ve been out of the game you fucking piece of trash, but I’ll get these knuckles bloody and this hair wet with you yet.”

  “Fuck yourself, you don’t have that kind of pull. There’s only one of us here whose man enough to do real time, and I know it sure as hell ain’t you.”

  “You mean less than nothing to me,” J.D proclaimed, cocking his head to the side, “but you will fix this. Speak with her, apologize to her, make love to her – tell her off for all I care. Just get her to stop sulking in her silly depression about the man she says she can’t be without. Make her done with you.”

  “Finally something we can agree on,” Luke’s blood was hot and heavy through him. “But I don’t want your help, and I sure as hell don’t want to see her.”

  “Good, I can have the pleasure of knowing you will rot for the next twenty years like the hoodrat you are,” J.D turned and started to walk away.

  Luke called out to him, “At least I didn’t sell out my people and pretend that I didn’t rape my wife! You think you’re better than me? You’re nothin’ but white trash with money,” he clutched the iron bars as he watched the man walk away, nearly reaching the door. “Just a greasy rat that made enough to wear some fake clothes and speak some fake words; you’ll never be what you’re not.”

  The door closed, and the absence of the man stung. Luke’s head pounded and he became hyper aware of his breathing, glimpses of Jasmine and Gabriel and his brothers-in-arms swirled inside of his vision.

  He would never take help from a man like that. There were three kinds of men in this life; men of honor, men of action and men of lies.

  J.D was what Luke knew the man hated the most. He was just a man. A weak, abusive, simple man.

  Chapter Thirty