Colt’s Betrayal (Kingdom Come MC #7)

1. Jayne

JAYNE

Iknow something is wrong with my father before he opens his mouth.

It's the cut. I've seen that same black leather for as long as I can remember: hanging over kitchen chairs, thrown across the back of the couch, filling doorways when I was a kid because Dad never seemed to arrive anywhere alone.

Only it isn't the same anymore. The leather is his.

The name across his chest is still there. CHAINS.

Everything else is gone: the Kingdom Come patch that covered his back for most of my life, the rockers, the MC patch, every piece of stitching that said who he belonged to.

Pale marks remain in the leather where they used to be.

I stare at them as he walks past me into my house without waiting to be invited.

“You're just coming in without knocking?”

“You opened the door.”

“That wasn't an invitation.”

He looks over his shoulder. “You always this difficult now?”

“I've been this difficult since I was six.”

“That part's true.”

Usually, that might almost make me smile. Today, I close the door and look at his chest again.

“What happened to your cut?”

His expression changes by less than an inch. “You know what happened.”

“I know you left Kingdom Come.”

“I didn't leave.”

I fold my arms. “Okay.” He gives me the same look he used when I was sixteen and deliberately annoying him. “Don't start with that tone.” I don't get to answer him because someone knocks at the door behind me. Dad looks toward the door, and something about the way he does it tightens my stomach.

“You expecting someone?”

“Open it, will you?”

“You brought someone to my house without telling me?”

His jaw hardens. “Jayne.” The knock comes again, not impatient.

Just certain. I look through the narrow pane beside the door.

A motorcycle sits at the curb behind Dad's.

The man on my porch wears black leather too, except his cut has patches.

PERDITION MC curves across his chest. Beneath it sits a smaller patch. VP. I turn back to Dad. “Seriously?”

“He came with me.”

“That doesn't make this better.”

I open the door because leaving Perdition's vice president standing outside isn't going to make him disappear.

He's taller than Dad, maybe early forties, with dark blond hair pushed back from his face and a beard clipped close along a heavy jaw.

He's good-looking in the hard way men like him often are.

The kind of face designed to make danger look like something a woman ought to want.

I've spent my entire adult life knowing better. His gaze moves slowly over me before reaching my eyes.

“Jayne.”

I keep one hand on the door. “You have me at a disadvantage.” His mouth lifts.

“Raze.” Of course it is. Dad has mentioned him twice since everything happened, both times like I should be impressed.

I'm not. I step back, and Raze walks in without waiting to be told where to sit.

He takes the chair beside the window while Dad stays standing.

For one ridiculous second, I notice how wrong the picture looks.

I grew up surrounded by bikers. Boots on floors.

Cuts on furniture. Men calling me kid and stealing food off my plate because apparently boundaries weren't part of motorcycle-club culture.

But this is my house. My quiet house. The place where I built a life where motorcycles don't line my drive and patched men don't walk through my door. Now two of them are in my living room.

Except only one is patched now. My gaze slips to Dad's chest again. Raze catches it. “Looks strange, doesn't it?” Dad's mouth tightens. “It's temporary.”

“Why, are the patches growing back?” I ask.

“Cyrus and Perdition know what I bring. Thirty years means something.”

“And to Kingdom Come, apparently, but probably not in the same way.”

His eyes flash. “Don't start, Jayne.” Raze leans back in the chair, openly entertained, and Dad notices. His irritation disappears almost immediately. That bothers me more than the anger.

“I ain't prospecting,” Dad says. “Nobody expects that. A man doesn't spend thirty years patched and start over carrying beer for kids half his age. Cyrus knows it too.”

I haven't asked, but he keeps explaining anyway.

“I've got history. I know this life. I know Ransom, and I know Kingdom Come better than Kane ever fucking will.”

There it is. The name changes him. It always does now.

“Kane grew up in Kingdom Come.”

“Yeah, under his daddy. King knew what that club was and wasn't fucking afraid of it.”

I don't answer. There isn't any point. I stopped listening to Dad explain what Kane had done wrong somewhere around the fiftieth time. Kingdom Come had changed. Kane had apparently made it weak. Judge was in his ear and the younger men didn't understand.

Dad did, or so he constantly tells me, right up until he left the club he'd belonged to for most of his life and started showing up wearing leather with ghosts stitched into it. Raze's attention settles on me again.

“Chains says you never had much use for the life.”

I look at Dad. He looks away. My stomach sinks. “What else has Dad told you?”

“Enough.”

“You never wanted anything to do with this life,” Dad says. “It's not exactly a secret.”

“It also isn't his business.”

Raze tips his head. “Touchy subject?”

“No.”

“Colt usually is.”

For a second, I don't register what he said. Then I suddenly do and every muscle in my body goes still. Dad's eyes flick toward me, but it's too late. Raze saw it.

“You do remember him.”

“I remember a lot of people.” I shrug as if his statement hadn't just awakened every nerve in my body.

“Chains said you were smart enough to get away from that one.”

My eyes go back to my father. He has the decency to look slightly uncomfortable. But not enough.

“You've been discussing Colt with him?”

Dad exhales. “Jesus Christ, Jayne. It just came up in conversation.”

“Oh, really? How exactly?”

“I asked whether you had a man,” Raze says. “Long time ago, wasn't it?”

“Twelve years.”

The answer comes too fast and Raze notices. His gaze moves over me again. “I figure twelve years is long enough for you to have a drink with me.”

“No.”

He smiles. “I haven't asked yet.”

“You didn't need to.”

Dad makes an irritated sound. “It's just one drink, Jayne.”

“I said no.”

Raze gets to his feet and I wish he wouldn't. Sitting down, he's a man I don't want in my house. Standing, he's imposing and a reminder of why. He comes closer. Not enough for me to step back, but enough that I know he expects me to.

“You know, I do like a woman who knows her mind.”

“Then this should be easy for you.”

His smile barely moves. “It'll make changing it much more interesting.” My skin goes cold. Dad either doesn't hear that or more likely decides not to.

“Raze is VP. He's not just some asshole off the street.”

“I don't care what patch he wears. I said no.”

I walk toward the front door. “We're done now.” Dad swears, but Raze moves before I reach it. He doesn't block me. He just gets too close and lowers his voice.

“Your daddy says Colt was the first biker who got between your legs.”

My stomach turns.

“Go.”

“Maybe you just need to know what it's like to be with a real man from a club like Perdition.”

I look straight at him. “Get out of my house now.” His eyes sharpen, then his mouth curves. “I'll get that drink eventually.” Something in the way he says it makes every instinct I have start screaming. I open the door.

“Get out.” I keep my voice firm and controlled.

Dad follows him, and it's obvious he's furious with me.

“You didn't have to be fucking rude to him, Jayne.”

“What if I told you he scares me?”

“He's fucking with you. He likes you.”

“That is not at all reassuring.”

“You don't even know him.”

“Neither do you.” The words hit. His whole expression hardens.

“I know who I'm riding with.”

“Do you?”

His eyes turn flat. For half a second, I think he's going to say something I won't be able to forget. Instead, he steps outside. “You always thought you were better than this life.”

“No.” I grip the edge of the door. “I just knew I didn't want it.”

He walks away and Raze gives me one last look before following. I shut the door and lock it, then stand there with my back to the door relieved that Raze is gone. For several seconds there is nothing but distant traffic and my own breathing. Then voices come muted through the door.

I move to the window without getting close enough to be seen. Dad and Raze are beside their bikes, Raze holding a phone to his ear. I can't hear whoever is on the other end, but I can hear Raze.

“Cyrus knows he'll come.”

Dad says something I miss. Raze turns slightly. “Kane won't come alone.” My hand tightens around the curtain. Another pause.

“Judge.”

Dad says something. Raze laughs.

“And Colt.”

Everything inside me stops. Dad's voice carries more clearly this time.

“He'll take the same route.”

Raze says something I can't make out, then his next words reach me perfectly.

“Doesn't fucking matter. They won't make it to Cyrus alive anyway.”

The blood drains from my face. One motorcycle engine starts, followed by the other.

I stay behind the curtain until they pull away from the curb.

I don't know where or when. I don't even know exactly what I heard, but I know what it sounded like and I know one of the names.

Colt. I haven't said it aloud in years. I've barely let myself think of him.

I was nineteen the last time I told him I loved him, and nineteen when I told him I couldn't do it anymore.

I couldn't wait for every late-night phone call to be the one telling me he was dead.

Couldn't build a life around a club that terrified me.

Couldn't love a man and spend every day wondering whether his patch would be the thing that took him away.

He was twenty-two. He hadn't shouted or told me I was wrong and that almost made it worse.

I'd asked if we could still be friends and he'd said yes.

But then he'd vanished from my life so completely I spent years telling myself that must mean losing me hadn't hurt him the way losing him hurt me.

Before he left, he'd made me one promise.

If I was ever in trouble, I could call him.

It didn't matter how long it had been or what time it was.

I walk to the kitchen and pick up my phone.

My hands aren't shaking, not yet. I open my contacts and scroll.

There are some numbers you delete because keeping them hurts, and others you keep because deleting them would hurt worse. Colt. Twelve years.

I stare at his name, then press call.