Fractured brotherhood, p.1
Fractured Brotherhood, page 1
Copyright © 2022 Winter Travers
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduction, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) utilization of this work without written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these
trademarks are not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
For questions or comments about this book, please contact the author at winter@wintertravers.com
Also by Winter Travers
Banachi Family
His Reward
Devil's Knights 2nd Generation
Passing the Torch
Changing Lanes
Bucking Tradition
Reining It In
Fractured Brotherhood
Ride the Wind
Chase the Sunset
Freedom Ride
Riding the Line
Royal Mess
He Says
Wilder Presley Says He Loves Me
Charlie Beck Says I'm His
Blake Marshall Says He Needs Me
Iron Fiends MC
My Biker
My Savior
My Romeo
Royal Bastards MC
Six-Gun
Monk
Rebel
Barracuda
Jet
Jinx
Mace
Playboy
Standalone
Twelve Bikers for Christmas
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Winter Travers
Also by Winter Travers
Table of Contents
Chapter One | Zag
Chapter Two | Tess
Chapter Three | Zag
Chapter Four | Tess
Chapter Five | Zag
Chapter Six | Tess
Chapter Seven | Zag
Tess
Chapter Eight | Zag
Chapter Nine | Zag
Chapter Ten | Tess
Chapter Eleven | Zag
Chapter Twelve | Tess
Chapter Thirteen | Zag
Chapter Fourteen | Tess
Chapter Fifteen | Zag
Chapter Sixteen | Tess
Chapter Seventeen | Zag
Tess
Chapter Eighteen | Zag
Chapter Nineteen | Tess
Chapter Twenty | Zag
Chapter Twenty-One | Tess
Chapter Twenty-Two | Zag
Chapter Twenty-Three | Tess
Zag
Chapter Twenty-Four | Tess
Zag
Chapter Twenty-Five | Zag
Chapter Twenty-Six | Tess
Zag
Chapter Twenty-Seven | Tess
Zag
Chapter Twenty-Eight | Tess
Chapter Twenty-Nine | Zig
Coming Soon | Jet | Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA | Book 6 | July 29th
About the Author
Check out the first chapter of Drop a Gear and Disappear. | Chapter One | Quinn | A lady in the streets and a freak in the bed...
Sign up for Winter Travers's Mailing List
Also By Winter Travers
Also by Winter Travers
Devil’s Knights Series
Loving Lo
Finding Cyn
Gravel’s Road
Battling Troy
Gambler’s Longshot
Keeping Meg
Fighting Demon
Unraveling Fayth
Forever Lo
Devil’s Knights 2nd Gen
Passing the Torch
Riding the Line
Royal Mess
Changing Lanes
Bucking Tradition
Reining It In
Fractured Brotherhood
Skid Row Kings Series
DownShift
PowerShift
BangShift
Fallen Lords MC Series
Nickel
Pipe
Maniac
Wrecker
Boink
Clash
Freak
Slayer
Brinks
Fallen Lords Christmas
Kings of Vengeance MC
Drop a Gear and Disappear
Lean Into It
Knees in the Breeze
Midnight Wreckage
Thrill Seeker
Livin’ on the Edge
Blacktop Freedom
Ride or Die
Powerhouse MA Series
Dropkick My Heart
Love on the Mat
Black Belt in Love
Black Belt Knockout
Nitro Crew Series
Burndown
Holeshot
Redlight
Shutdown
Royal Bastards MC: Sacramento, CA
Playboy
Six-Gun
Monk
Rebel
Barracuda
Jet
VII Knights MC: Golden, CO Chapter
Iced
Sweet Love Novellas
Sweet Burn
Five Alarm Donuts
Stand Alone Novellas
Kissing the Bad Boy
Trapped with the Bad Boy
Daddin’ Ain’t Easy
Silas: A Scrooged Christmas
Wanting More
Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool
Tangle My Tinsel
Mr. Motorcycle
Oral Communications
Coasting In
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
About the Author
Coming Soon
Excerpt from Drop a Gear and Disappear
Chapter One
Zag
Where in the fuck was I?
One minute I was leaning against the back wall of the clubhouse smoking a cigarette, and then I woke up on a concrete floor with my head pounding.
The only light streamed through a window high up on the wall, and the rest of the room was shadowed in darkness.
I had no sense of time.
How long had I been here?
An hour? Six hours? Maybe even days?
I managed to sit up and crawled over to the sliver of light. My eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, but I couldn’t make out much of where I was. I held my hand out and walked until I touched the cool cement of the wall.
“Basement?” I whispered. The floor was concrete, and so were the walls. There weren’t many places like that.
But what basement and why was I here?
All I wanted to do was smoke a cigarette and then meet up with Zig and Frost to go over inventory for the shop. Even though I didn’t know what the hell time of day it was, I was pretty sure I had missed inventory.
But that also meant the Knights had to be looking for me.
I had been known to disappear from time to time, but at least one of the guys knew where I was. Normally that was Zig, so I was hopeful he had sounded the alarm that I was missing, and they were looking for me.
I patted my pockets, hopeful my phone was in one of them, but they were empty except for a receipt for gas and cigarettes. A lot of good that was going to do me.
“About time you woke up.”
The voice echoed around me, and I spun around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. The room was still dark.
“Who are you?” I demanded loudly.
“You know me,” the voice called.
I knew him? The voice wasn’t familiar, but it wasn’t like it was a distinctive voice. “Where am I?”
“Where you belong.”
I slowly turned around, praying I would be struck with night vision. “What the fuck is going on?” I shouted. “What the fuck do you want?”
A loud cackle bounced off the walls. “I’m giving you what you always deserved. You thought you had the last word, but you don’t.”
“WHO ARE YOU?!” My words echoed, but he didn’t answer. “AHHH!” I spun around toward the small sliver of light and took three steps toward it. My foot collided with something on the floor, and I fell to my knees. I reached out to feel what had tripped me and scrambled back when I felt warm flesh.
I wasn’t alone.
Chapter Two
Tess
My heart pounded frantically in my chest, and I willed it to slow.
The man had been passed out for hours, and I had been starting to worry that he wouldn’t wake up. I had checked his pulse a few times through the night when I couldn’t hear his breathing, but other than that, I had kept my distance from him.
I didn’t know who he was or why he was there.
He was obviously someone who had pissed off Malcom, but I didn’t know any more than that.
His fingers curled around my wrist, and they pressed against my pulse.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
A whimper left my lips, and I tried to yank my arm away from him.
He tightened his hold and moved closer.
I folded my legs under me and pressed them into the hard concrete floor.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised. “I can’t see you.”
My eyes had assimilated to the darkness more than his. I could see the outline of his face and that he was kneeling in front of me. He kept a hold of my arm and blindly reached toward my face with his other hand. I shifted to the side and dodged his hand.
His hand smashed into the concrete wall. “Fuck,” he grunted. “I can’t see shit,” he grumbled. “I thought you were right in front of me.”
I had been.
His hand moved up my arm, and he grabbed my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
I was alive. I nodded my head but remembered he couldn’t see me. The word yes was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t get it out.
Most times, I couldn’t get any words to come out of my mouth. “Ye-ye-ye,” I stuttered. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for the floor to swallow me whole.
Every doctor my mother had taken me to had diagnosed me with Select Mutism. They all said I could speak, but I chose not to. So, every time we would leave the doctor, my mom would be mad because I chose not to speak.
I had spoken the first few years of my life, but I stuttered every fourth or fifth word. At least, that was what my mom had told me. Did anyone really remember when they were two or three?
She had said there were days I wouldn’t stutter, but then somedays I couldn’t get a word out without tripping over my own tongue.
When I was five, I remembered, though.
On the first day of preschool, I had bopped into class thinking this was going to be the best day ever, only to have Heather Chonk and Devin Smith ruin it all.
Kids could be mean, and those two were exactly that.
Heather had ridiculed me ruthlessly on the playground and had even managed to get all of the other kids to call me Re-re-repeat Tess.
From that day on, I didn’t speak out loud.
I couldn’t. My voice had been taken from me whenever I was around people—even my own family.
The thought of being ridiculed and made fun of was too much for me to handle.
This wasn’t my choice. Anxiety robbed me of my words. I was too afraid to speak because I didn’t know what would be said back to me.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t get the words out.
I knew what I wanted to say, but the fear of saying the words was too much.
I had learned sign language and got used to being treated like a mute. I had made it through school and managed to find a remote job I could do from home that didn’t require any talking. As long as my work was done on time, I barely ever talked to my boss.
My mom had died three years ago, and up until that day, she tried to get me to talk more freely.
“Shh,” the man in front of me cooed. “You’re safe with me.”
This man had no idea who I was, and he was trying to comfort me. Who did something like that?
“You got any clue who did this to us?” A flat laugh rumbled from his chest. “A name to go with the voice coming from the ceiling?”
For the past twenty-eight years of my life, I had managed to make it through without speaking much. I could motion, write, or sign my way out of anything.
Not now.
Not when this guy couldn’t see past his own nose.
I needed to speak to help us both get out of here alive.
My body tensed, and I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“Sugar,” the man called. “I need you to talk to me. I swear I’m not going to hurt you.”
I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. The psycho upstairs was another story, though. I closed my eyes and willed the words to come out of my mouth. They had to. “I-I-I am fi-n-n-ne.”
“What’s your name?” he asked. He didn’t hesitate or make a snide comment.
“Tess,” I managed to say clearly.
“I’m Zag, sugar. You happen to know who the voice in the ceiling is?”
What kind of name was Zag? “He is m-m-my step-b-b-brother.”
“Your stepbrother is keeping you locked up in a dark basement?”
Normally, no.
Hell, I hadn’t even seen Malcom for the past eight years. My mother had divorced his dad when I was twenty, and I hadn’t seen him since. “S-s-s-so it would s-s-seem.” The urge to clamp my lips closed was overwhelming. I didn’t want to talk anymore.
I didn’t understand why Malcom had kidnapped me from outside the gas station and brought me here. He hadn’t spoken a single word to me other than to tell me what to do.
Zag shifted next to me and sat on his butt. “How long have you been here?”
“The sun has set eleven t-t-times.”
Zag grunted. “Fucking shit, babe. Have you been here for twelve days? Isn’t there someone looking for you?”
I wish there were, but there weren’t. Mom was gone, and my dad had died years ago.
Kit would be missing me, but only because his food bowl would be running empty. It wasn’t like my cat would be able to alert the police I was missing.
I shook my head no and leaned back into the wall.
“Sugar?” he called. He blindly reached out and placed his hand on my knee.
He couldn’t see me shake my head. Duh, Tess. “N-n-no.” I moved back from him and scooted further down the wall.
“No friends, family, or boyfriend? Or girlfriend?”
How nice of him to be inclusive, but I didn’t have any of those. “No.”
“Well, I can’t say the same, thankfully. Hopefully, King and the club are moving heaven and hell to find me.” Zag sighed heavily.
That was nice for him. I wouldn’t know what it would feel like to have a family and friends who would do anything to find you.
Zag shifted next to me and got on his knees. “There has to be a way out of here,” he muttered. “He can’t be watching us all of the time. He’s a fucking coward for not even coming down here. Who kidnaps someone and doesn’t even show their face,” he mused.
He moved slowly around the basement until he was back next to me. “You don’t talk much, do you, babe?”
I grunted softly. That was a yes.
“Well, you’re gonna find out I talk a lot. Zig always tells me I always need to fill the silence. I just think I have something to say, so I’m going to say it.” He flopped back next to me and sighed heavily. “My fucking head hurts.”
He could talk all he wanted, and there wasn’t anything I could do to help him with his headache. “I-I-I’m sorry.”
He chuckled low. “Nothing to apologize for, babe. You’re right in the shit with me. I need to figure out how to get out of here, but right now, I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“C-c-con-c-c–”
“Concussion,” he softly interrupted. “I think you are right.”
Most times, when someone cut me off to say the word I was struggling with, it would either embarrass or infuriate me. I was too dumb to talk, which made me mad at myself.
I didn’t have that feeling when Zag helped me. Most times, I can hear the distain and disgust in people’s voices when they correct me.
Not with Zag.
But that might have just been a fluke. He was exhausted and suffering from a head injury.
“I think I’m going to take a nap, Tess.”
That was probably the last thing he should do, but it wasn’t like I could keep him awake.
“O-o-okay,” I stammered. I couldn’t even say one word without stuttering like an idiot. I wished that my mom had been right in that instant, and I was faking my stutter.
I wasn’t.
There had been a few select times in my life that I would have done anything to have just one conversation without stuttering.
Just one time, but it never happened.
“We’re gonna be okay, Tess,” he whispered to me in the dark basement. “I’ll make sure of it,” he promised.
