Without Consequence Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chatper 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  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

  Chapter 49

  Without Consequence Playlist

  Victoria L. James & L.J. Stock

  BABYLON – BOOK 1

  A note to the reader:

  Without Consequence is book one in the Babylon series, all of which are written by both Victoria L. James and L.J. Stock.

  For more information on the authors’ work together as well as their individual projects, please visit the following pages.

  www.facebook.com/Babylonseries

  www.facebook.com/VictoriaLJamesAuthor

  www.facebook.com/LJStockAuthor

  Without Consequence© 2014 Victoria L. James & L.J. Stock

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except that of small quotations used in critical reviews and promotions via blogs.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations only. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events or any other incident is entirely coincidental.

  Front cover image: L.J. Stock

  Edited by Heather Ross and Claire Allmendinger

  Formatting: DeLaine Roberts of www.drgraphicexpressions.com

  Acknowledgements

  L.J. Stock:

  I've always been a passionate writer, but as with everything, passions are kept alight by the people who choose to support you. First, and foremost, I want to thank Victoria L. James. Without her, Without Consequence, wouldn't have come alive the way it did. Writing with Vic was a distinct pleasure and an absolute dream. Working together was like planting a seed, nurturing it and watching it grow into one of the wildest and fun things I've ever done. All I can say is thank you for writing with me, for being a brilliant friend and for being an amazing writing partner.

  I also want to thank Heather Ross, who, is not just a phenomenal editor, but an amazing friend, and the biggest cheerleader I've had. To my dad, stepmom, and two sisters Rachael and Emily, thank you for inspiring and encouraging me at every turn and never letting me give up.

  A huge thank you to my mum, for giving me her artistic side and keeping it alive, even when she couldn’t be here anymore and another huge thank you to Amy, Charlie, Fran and Katleen for their beta reading, input and encouragement. Another huge thank you to Claire and Wendy at Bare Naked Works and the work they've put in to help us!

  Lastly, thank you to our twitter followers for always being at our backs and cheering us on.

  Love you all with everything I am!

  Victoria L. James:

  It’s amazing what two people can achieve when they both share a passion for exactly the same things. I can’t begin to thank my writing partner enough for going into this with me. L.J. Stock – my little Wilma – thank you for your time, your creativity, your inspiration and above all else, your friendship. Here’s to many more years of sharing music and creating worlds together.

  As with everything in life, there are people around you who seem to offer support, no matter what.

  Francesca Marlow, thank you for always making me believe that I can do this, even when I’m absolutely, one hundred percent convinced that I can’t. Heather Ross and Claire Allmendinger, thank you for editing at the drop of a hat and for all the time you dedicate to us. To our beta readers, Charlie, Amy and Katleen, your comments were invaluable and story saving – and I’ll always be grateful to Katleen for teaching me the term ‘jerknut’. To Claire and Wendy at Bare Naked Words, again, I thank you for your time and your patience with the newbie author who doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing most days. (Copy and pasting never seemed so hard. Haha) To my parents, who I love way too much, but don’t tell nearly enough. To all my family and friends, actually.

  But most importantly, once again, my love goes to my CPCCH unit. Without you, I have no reason to do or be anything other than what I am. My world revolves around you and I love you all for loving me without preference and without restriction. One day I will learn to cook something good for you, I promise.

  DEDICATED TO…

  Emma Ross,

  Who always shone so brightly, she couldn’t wait to go and dance among the stars.

  We miss you.

  Prologue

  Drew

  One thing about the place that I’d never been able to get used to was the temperature.

  It was fucking cold.

  Even during the summer months when the sun was trying to shine through the wire on the windows, all I felt was ice. My bones ached, creaked, fucking groaned to stretch and feel anything other than pain. Maybe I deserved it. Maybe it was all a part of my penance. For every guy I’d knocked out or for every old timer I’d killed, I was served with the kind of agony that had to be endured in silence.

  I took it. I had to. It wasn’t like there was any other choice. Four years, nine months and twenty seven days inside the joint had taught me to keep quiet. A big boy on the outside I might have been, but the second I rolled in through those doors, I was nobody. I wasn’t the infamous, feared and revered Drew Tucker. I didn't have ten men around me, a badge across my chest or a weapon in my hand. I meant nothing. I was nothing. I'd been nothing ever since.

  But all that would change tomorrow.

  Tomorrow I would return to the world on the outside, a man who paid the price for some of his sins and got the law off his back for at least a handful of his crimes. I'd done my time. I'd survived with a few scars to remind me of what this place held for me if I got sloppy again.

  Now I had to get ready to take back what was mine.

  My hometown, my men and above all else, my reputation.

  Pete hadn’t died for me to throw it all away.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ayda

  “Ayda? Where are all my jeans?”

  The moment the question fell from his lips, I froze midway between the bathroom and bedroom, wearing nothing but my towel. My brother, Tate, was fifteen and ten years my junior. Our parents had met in high school, and three weeks after Mom’s sixteenth birthday, I was born. By some miracle, the two of them stayed together and decided, almost a decade later, that they were going to have another.

  Along came Tate.

  Mom said the first time I saw him, I scowled and mentioned how I didn’t know how to deal with a boy and that she should exchange him for a girl. The h
onest to God’s truth was that I still didn’t know what to do with him most of the time. He was a good kid, but what the hell did I know about a hormonal teenage boy?

  A big, fat nothing, that’s what.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t really have much of a choice. When he was twelve, our parents were both killed in a bank robbery gone wrong. They’d been in there trying to get financing for my college. They hadn’t wanted me to take out loans with an astronomical APR when they could get one cheaper and not cheat me with an excessive rate, due to my partial scholarship being pulled in my final year. It had ultimately cost them their lives and, as selfish as it sounded, it had cost me mine, too. I'd had to give up the college they’d been trying to pay for and get three jobs to support the two of us at the tender age of twenty-two. That was three years earlier, and things had yet to improve much.

  “I’m so sorry, Tate. I forgot to do laundry. I did an extra shift last night and just crashed when I got in. Do you have anything you can wear today? I’ll get them done for tomorrow, I promise.”

  “A domestic goddess you are not, Ayda,” he said, sticking his head around the bedroom door and laughing. At least he had a sense of humor about my epic fails in life, which was more than could be said for me most of the time. I just wanted to crawl into bed, cry myself to sleep and stay there for a week.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a full eight hours.

  “Don’t worry about it, sis. I’ll figure it out. If you’d show me how to use the fucking thing, I could do it myself.”

  “Language, Tate. Anyone would think I’d fucking dragged you up.”

  “You did.” He grinned, patting me on the head. He may have been ten years younger but he was built like a brick shit house and towered over my five foot four frame. I swear it looked like he was the one taking care of me sometimes.

  “The world doesn’t need to know that,” I said, flipping him off with a genuine smile. Grabbing the front of my towel, I headed to my room to dress for job one of three.

  The first was the morning shift at Rusty’s diner, where I worked for minimum wage and tips. The second job was lunch and dinner at the local fast food drive-in, where I got to roll around on skates for the afternoon, balancing a tray on my hand while I fought a constant battle against gravity. Finally, there was job number three, working the close at the local food mart, where I played enabler to old Mrs. Bridgefort’s ice cream addiction before I locked up at ten and headed home to eat, if I remembered, then fell into bed. Some nights, for a little overtime, I went back to the fast food place and worked until two am.

  It really wasn't much of a life. I couldn't have told you what had been on television for the past three years, other than crappy made for TV movies that kept me company when I couldn't sleep. I hadn't seen a mall since Christmas when I'd almost broken us to buy some new cleats for Tate, my hair hadn't been cut in years and ended up always pulled up into a tail at the back of my head, and men... Well who the hell had time for them?

  I was tired. At twenty-five, I was exhausted and bone weary.

  Tate did what he could to help, but he was running back on the school’s football team, which meant practice every night. Then he'd go and see his tutor, who was worth every penny now that he was passing algebra, before coming home and studying. School was one of the only things I got on his ass about, which was why I picked up the slack everywhere else.

  Lucky me!

  Wearing the ugly brown dress for Rusty’s, I was almost trampled to death by Tate’s big form as he rushed down the hall to the kitchen, while I went back to the bathroom to put on some make-up to cover the dark circles under my eyes. I didn’t want to look like the walking dead as I served Belgian waffles and bacon to the hungry masses of Babylon, Texas.

  I’d barely made it two steps into the room when another shout met me from the general direction of the kitchen, my own colorful roll of expletives conveniently covering the question I already knew was coming.

  I hadn’t just forgotten the laundry. I’d forgotten to food shop. The kid probably had a choice of month old leftovers or moldy asparagus to choose from… if asparagus even went moldy. These were now life's hard-hitting questions for me.

  “Take some money out of my purse for lunch, Tate. I’m so sorry, buddy.”

  I stuck my head around the door frame and gave an apologetic smile as he swung around the wall at the end of the hall that led to the front of our little house.

  “Don’t sweat it, sis. I don’t need money. I’ll share Sloane’s lunch.”

  Sloane was his vapid, whiney little girlfriend, who just happened to be the daughter of our town’s police chief. Lucky me, again. They’d only been together for a few months but she was besotted with him.

  “Don’t do that,” I said, just before pushing the toothbrush into my mouth.

  “Do what?”

  I rolled my eyes, leaned back into the bathroom to spit out the excess, and returned to where I had been. “Depend on a girl, or worse, appear like a charity case. It’s unattractive and makes me feel like a complete asshole. I can feed you, Tate.”

  “Relax, A. She always offers anyway. I normally eat my sandwiches on the way home from practice. Don’t sweat your make-up off.”

  “Smartass. Go find yourself something for breakfast or you’ll be walking to school.”

  Putting his hands up in surrender, he shrugged before he disappeared again, leaving me in peace to bang my head against the wall in frustration.

  My daily curses at the world started early, and they didn’t stop again until I’d dropped Tate off. Then I hit the road to drive my usual ten miles out to the freeway, the one that passed around the edge of town and was home to Rusty’s diner.

  “Ayda, you’re late again,” the gruff voice of my boss rasped as I slid inside, the screen door slapping closed behind me.

  Looking up at the clock, I saw he was right. I was a whole thirty seconds late. Rolling my eyes, I pulled on my apron and pushed my order book and pen into the front pocket before starting on a fresh pot of coffee in silence.

  “Sorry, Rusty, had to stop for gas.” I hadn’t but I always gave him some kind of excuse that wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass. He asked me for a receipt once, and I stared at him dumbfounded until he rolled his eyes and waved a spatula at me.

  “Sorry. Not my problem, kid. I make enough allowances for you. You’re the only one who isn’t flexible, you know. You have fixed hours that never deviate-”

  “And I’m damn lucky that you respect my work ethics or I’d be out on my young, smart ass,” I finished for him with a grin. He was already mumbling and waving the spoon for the grits around in the air.

  “Leave the girl alone, Rusty. She works three jobs and is a full-time parent. You can cut her some slack,” said a voice from behind me.

  “Is that right?” Rusty asked, spinning on his heel and staring her down.

  Janette looked over at me and made an exasperated face. She’d been married to Rusty for almost thirty years. He liked to act as though he was in control, but it was easy to see who held the reins in their relationship. She could correct him with one simple look. I loved them both. No matter how many times I rolled my eyes at them. This was the first job I managed to get after my parents died, and Rusty and Janette had done everything short of adopting us.

  “You’re an old fool. You don’t let him get to you, Ayda.”

  I gave her a sly grin before putting all the napkins and condiments on the tables. We had ten minutes before things got busy and, as though on cue, the bell rang over the door as the coffee finished brewing and the first of our regulars filtered in. I knew most of the faces in the place. They came in every day, ordered the same things and spoke about football, baseball or anything new that happened in town, which was, admittedly, rare. The regulars were followed closely by a group I only saw on occasion.

  The Motorcycle Club from town had rolled in.

  It was normally too early for them to be out and about.
They were generally nocturnal. I only ever saw them at night when they rode through town, the sound of their bikes giving them away as they passed. They were always polite and respectful when I saw them, so I had nothing against them, but I didn’t miss the murmur from the regulars as they seated themselves in a booth at the back of the diner.

  It wasn’t difficult to see the divide in the place. Even if they hadn’t been wearing their leather vests with the club name emblazoned over every inch, their style would have given them away. They were, for lack of a better term, organized chaos. Their hair was windblown and their skin weather worn. Black ink crept from under their sleeves and covered most of the skin that sat exposed. If that wasn’t enough, they looked in control, all of them leaders filled with confidence as they draped themselves over the plastic-covered seats, their laughter a mixture of depravity and humor.

  Approaching their table and offering a smile, I pulled the pad from my apron, one foot crossing the other and resting on the toe as I waited for them to acknowledge me.

  “Hey, sweetheart. Six coffees for now. Regular, not decaf. We need to keep our asses awake.”

  “You got it,” I said lightly, turning my foot to spin me away from them. Coffee was easy, and I made the best brew around, or so I'd been told.

  “Hey, wait. Didn’t I see you down at roller freeze the other night?” the youngest of the group asked.

  There was something about him that reminded me so much of Tate, I found myself genuinely smiling as I responded. “Yeah, I work lunch through dinner and close sometimes.”

  I turned to go get the coffees, but their laughter threw me off, forcing me to look over my shoulder at them. The word “what?” sat on the very tip of my tongue, but was swallowed back down as the young one raised his strange zigzag eyebrow at me. I honestly didn’t want to get into a conversation with these guys about my personal life, so I took off and got them coffees, before I took care of everyone else, falling easily into my routine.