Below the Line

By Chelsea Camaron

The bastard boy was left alone when his mother was murdered, her killer never found. The domino effect of one person’s crime going unpunished is everlasting.
He’s no saint.

Owen ‘X’ Gallow has never known a real home. Groomed by the streets, he now has a life with the Devil’s Due MC that gives him the only comfort he has ever known. Family comes by blood and by choice. All Owen has left is his by selection. He keeps his circle close and doesn’t care to have a future.

She’s not afraid to call herself a sinner.

Hadley Combs doesn’t ask questions, and she has never had anyone to cover her back. She was born alone and will die alone. Or, at least, that’s how she views her life. In order to get by, she has a job to do—get them off and get herself paid, no talking necessary. The life of a hooker isn’t easy, but she gets by.

However, danger climbs into her bed.

Will Owen find a way to let Hadley in? When faced with the dangers of her lifestyle, will Hadley let Owen and his brothers keep her safe?

Love, hate, anger, and passion collide as the time comes, and the devil demands his due.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chelsea Camaron
• Release date: Feb 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370887057

Chelsea Camaron

USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Chelsea Camaron is a small town Carolina girl with a big imagination. She’s a wife and mom, chasing her dreams. She writes contemporary romance, erotic suspense, and psychological thrillers. She loves to write about blue-collar men who have real problems with a fictional twist. From mechanics to bikers to oil riggers to smokejumpers, bar owners, and beyond she loves a strong hero who works hard and plays harder.

Book preview

~Owen~

"One day, we’re gonna find our way outta here, Owen," Hadley says with a sweet smile on her face. The beautiful girl who has come along brightens the darkest of my days with her dark hair, ebony eyes, and smile that can chase away any bad dream.

You really believe that? I ask as I settle in beside her on the concrete slab under the overpass.

The cars rush over us in a whooshing sound. It’s so loud, yet soothing. I guess, at this point, we have gotten used to it. If I close my eyes tightly enough, I can almost imagine it’s the sound of waves crashing against the beach. As least, that’s what I tell Hadley to help her fall asleep.

Gotta keep hope. No matter how dark the nights get or the days, we gotta hold on to something, Owen Gallow, she explains before tucking herself into my side as we stretch the scrap of fabric that was my coat last year over us.

New Orleans, Louisiana doesn’t get too cold often, but when it does and your bed is made of cement, it can chill you to the bone.

You hold on to hope for both of us, Hadley, I whisper as I tuck her closer to give her more of my body heat.

Owen, we’re gonna get out of this, and we’re gonna have a great life together.

You believe in us? I ask, wondering how this fifteen-year-old girl can believe in anything after the shit hand life has dealt her.

I believe in you, Owen Maximus Gallow.

Get some sleep, Hadley, I tell her on a sigh while I feel the weight of the world on my sixteen-year-old shoulders.

She didn’t ask to live on the streets. A mom who was high more than she wasn’t and a stepfather who was a little too handsy left Hadley with a better life on the streets than her own home.

My story is no better. My mother was murdered when I was fourteen, and life in foster care wasn’t for me. When the good old boys with the badges didn’t care to find out who killed my mom, I spent every spare moment I had trying to find out for myself. Only foster parents set one and three didn’t like my constant time out on the streets investigating and quickly said I was unruly since I wouldn’t find my way back before curfew. Foster family number two didn’t like my aversion to falling in line with their religion. By sixteen, I’d had enough and found living on my own better for everyone involved.

It’s how I found Hadley six months ago, and we haven’t had a night apart since. We aren’t together in a romantic way, but we are together. She’s mine and I’m hers in a way that works for us both. We are tangled up in the shitstorm life has dealt us together.

There is something about her that calls to me. Since I lost my mom, I hadn’t felt whole until Hadley came along. She gives me a reason to do more than seek vengeance against a man in expensive shoes and a star tattoo on his face. She gives me a reason to keep going, and a reason to do better for myself and both of us.

I have a job at a local restaurant washing dishes. It gives me a discount on meals so I can keep Hadley and I both semi-healthy and clothed, as we both seem to keep growing. During the day, she occupies the corner a block away with her guitar, singing for spare change like all the other street performers. The tourists eat it up and don’t question her age, too blinded by the life that is NOLA.

We’ve managed, Hadley and I. Despite the odds, we’re getting by.

Hadley sleeps soundly against me while I lay still with my eyes closed and my ears open. We aren’t safe out here like this. I’ll rest my body but never my mind.

~Three Weeks Later~

Owen, we need to get you to the clinic, Hadley pleads. You’re burning up.

I just need to rest. We have the tent now, Hads; we’re gonna be fine. I just got stuck walking home in the rain. It’s gonna be all right. Just need sleep, I say in agony as each word only scratches my sore throat even more.

I’m sick. I know it, she knows it, but there isn’t anything either of us can do about it. I have no insurance and can’t afford to go to a clinic.

Needing to sleep it off, I close my eyes, drifting in and out.

Hadley sits up in the small two-person tent I was able to purchase for us two weeks ago, while I lay in my sleeping bag. We actually have a duffle bag each to hold our clothes, and they won’t get wet anymore inside the tent. I even got a small lock for the zippers on the door for Hadley to lock herself in when I’m at work. It’s not the safest of measures since anyone with a knife could slice the material, but it’s something. It’s not much, but it’s something.

When you get down to nothing, you find holding on to something … anything really does help.

Besides, for the most part, the thing about life on the streets is, if you keep to yourself, no one will bother you. Most people out here aren’t thieves looking to take from someone like them. Rather, they are regular people who, for whatever reason, life served them a serious can of whoop-ass, landing them on the streets.

I wake an undetermined number of hours later to find myself drenched in a cold sweat, my face covered in blood, and my head pounding. Reaching up, I wipe the liquid covering my left eye, only to feel more fall from my nose. There is a draft.

Using the blanket we just bought at a thrift store two days ago, I wipe my eyes to find the front of the tent open. With my head pounding, I reach up to find a lump on my forehead. Then I look over to find Hadley is gone. In her place is only a bloody blanket.

In a rush, I jump up and take off, pounding away at the pavement, looking for her and heading straight to the hospital.

The woman at the emergency room reception desk looks up from her papers with a smile that quickly turns into a frown.

We can get you seen, son, she says softly.

I don’t need to be seen, I retort, even as I feel the blood still dripping down my face and the burn from the air hitting my open wound under my nose all the way to the top of my lip. I have to think fast. My sister, Hadley Combs, has she been admitted?

Were you in some kind of accident? she asks calmly. Too calmly.

Hadley’s gone, and I’m struggling not to barge beyond the doors without a second thought to security. How can this lady be so normal, so calm, like this shit happens all the time? Job or not, Hadley is missing and probably hurt.

No, I reply, to which the woman raises an eyebrow at me.

Why would you think your sister was here?

Just tell me if she’s here, please. I’m ready to drop to my knees and beg.

I can’t disclose any information. She studies me. I can get you to the back to be seen, okay?

I nod, and not because I want to get checked out, but because if Hadley is being seen, I can find her behind the locked doors of the emergency department.

Four hours later, I have been triaged, thoroughly checked, my wounds cleaned then stitched, and have been told I suffered a concussion from a trauma to my frontal lobe. Whatever. I don’t give a fuck about any of it.

I can’t find Hadley, and that’s a problem because child protective services are on their way, according to the hospital social worker. I won’t go with them. I won’t go back to foster care.

I need to get out of here and fast.

I’m pulling on my pants when a man in scrubs enters my room.

Where you goin’, boy? he asks me sharply, wheeling in a janitor cart.

Looking for my sister. You seen a young girl in here tonight? I ask, continuing to put on my clothes and not giving a shit that he could try to stop me from leaving.

She has long dark hair and a mole above her lip like Cindy Crawford? the man asks with a smirk.

Yeah, I reply, feeling hope.

The man pauses and studies me. I shouldn’t tell you this.

I won’t say a word. I just want to find Hadley and get outta here.

She’s not leaving. She came in a busted mess. Didn’t make it, man, he says with a straight face and no emotion.

Busted mess. Not leaving. I feel like I’ve died a thousand deaths in these few seconds.

At his words, my life forever changes.

She believed in me, and I failed her.

The need to leave hits me like a train barreling down the tracks, and I rush out of the hospital, never looking back.

Taking a freight out of New Orleans, I leave town, and spend years moving from one place to the next.

They say some things stay with you. Hadley stays with me. My mother’s murder stays with me. No matter how far or fast I run, they both find me in my sleep.

Chapter One

~Owen~

"Get some rest. We’ll hit the road tomorrow," Deacon says before stepping into his hotel room.

Another shit-hole in another small town. I shouldn’t complain. It’s better than crashing on a pop-up cot at Sonnie’s shotgun, one-bedroom house, listening to Trapper talk to her damn fish like they can talk back.

Rowdy leans against the side wall, smoking a cigarette, while I contemplate whether I need another one right now or if it can wait.

The air tonight is still in a stark way, making time feel like it’s dragging on painfully slow. Another town, another lifetime. Really, since losing Hadley, nothing matters. I have been a piece of driftwood, floating along in life going where the tides take me.

She was this tiny piece of good in every single day. She was something to push for, fight for, and work harder for. I could get by with less, but after having Hadley in my life, I wanted more.

So much more for both of us.

She came into my life and gave me a different purpose, other than seeking vengeance for my mother’s death. Then it was over before it could really begin. All hope for a future for me, for her, for us was lost. It was left at the hospital that night.

We’ll find her, man, Rowdy says confidently, while I simply roll my shoulders back. Took years to solve Collector’s shit. We did it, though. He studies me, watching my reaction. Look how that turned out. Sure, we lost Old Dog and that shit cuts deep, but Collector got Sonnie. Happily ever after, and all that shit.

I get you had a woman and you believe in that romance and love—all the lies people spew, I say, knowing the love he has for the woman he lost runs deep. Looking at him, watching the man who is a brother to me, I give it to him honest. Happily ever after is more like happily never ever for a guy like me.

He huffs before tossing the cigarette butt down and stomping it. Yeah, I believe Collector and Sonnie thought that very same shit, too. Look where it landed them. I’m pretty sure Collector would argue with himself and his woman about it now. Rowdy brushes past, making his way to his hotel room while I take a deep breath of the night air.

Tennessee. The volunteer state. I lost nothing there and gained nothing there.

Alabama. Some call it the heart of Dixie. Me, I have no heart and didn’t find that shit in Bama, either.

Is Hadley going to drag my sorry ass back to Louisiana?

The place I left in the rearview the night I was told she died—New Orleans, the city of second chances, they say. However, it’s the place that cost me everything I ever held dear.

People believe in the ability to rebuild in New Orleans. The city always rises after each fall. Well, I fell to my knees the first time when my mother died, and Hadley gave me a reason to rise again. I fell the night she was taken from me and haven’t stood all the way up since.

Hadley Combs is still alive. It’s too much to process.

Should I have stayed and looked longer, harder? What has she endured during my absence?

I wouldn’t believe it if the cryptic emails hadn’t kept coming to the club.

Devil’s Due Motorcycle Club, it’s my home without a home, if that makes sense. We are a group of Nomad bikers. The six of us ride together with no zip code to claim as our own.

I met Dover Collector Ragnes at a dive bar in Mississippi a few years ago. He was belly up to the bar with