Lawbreaker (Unbreakable Book 3) Read online

  Raised on the streets, Shay Morgan yearns for a real family, where love is unconditionally offered—even when trust doesn’t come easy. Before that day arrives, she trespasses and steals in order to provide for the few people who’ve gone out of their way to protect her.

  Born to privilege, Ben Bishop loathes his family for the despicable things they’ve done, and not done. He vows to be different, play by the rules, do the right thing. Building a thriving nightclub with those who share his values dominates his world.

  One explosive night at his bar, Loading Zone, changes everything. For both of them. Forever.

  A dance of opponents commences as they thwart with suspicion, start to trust, then sidestep to protect themselves from a fatal blow. Until they soon wonder if they’ve been fighting for the same side all along.

  As they begin to open their hearts, they up the stakes with a one-week pact. She shows him the power in breaking the law. He demonstrates the virtue of following it.

  Then a far-reaching crime is suddenly exposed—that his family committed. And for one chance moment, Shay and Ben hold the key to right the wrong, correct the injustice. But at what cost?

  Will they be able to return from the other side together? Or will their differences tear them apart?

  Flirting with danger...has never been so tempting.

  Praise for

  “This book has definitely earned its five stars and I am just floored right now. The passion is explosive, the story itself is beautiful, and the emotions are so real my heart is ready to burst. Beautiful book. Absolutely breathtaking.”

  ~ One Page at a Time

  “Heartrending, passionate, and captivating! Heartbreaker is a riveting page-turner that will leave you breathless with raw emotions, and the need to hold tight to the ones you love!”

  ~ Beneath the Covers Blog

  “This book is all about flawless writing, exemplary storytelling, f*#king insane character development. The right dose of sexy hotness...”

  ~ Love N. Books

  “The Bastions are at it again with this beautiful and heartbreaking story. You will absolutely fall in love with Kiki and Darren’s love.”

  ~ Under the Covers Book Blog

  “Heartbreaker is a phenomenal story.”

  ~ That’s What I’m Talking About

  “I loved it...wonderfully compelling, a story that touched my heart in so many ways and characters I will remember for a long time to come.”

  ~ Girl Who Reads

  Praise for

  “One of the best romantic comedies of the year!”

  ~ Agents of Romance

  “The No Weddings series is one of the best I have read that follows one couple. Cade and Hannah are both lovable characters, the storyline is real and entertaining, and the banter is fun and witty.”

  ~ Lives & Breathes Book Blog

  “I loved it, and I mean REALLY loved it!”

  ~ Orchard Book Club

  “This is an exceptional series...You find yourself fully engrossed in their world and can’t put the book down.”

  ~ Books -n- Kisses

  “The No Weddings series has a group of such amazing characters; you can’t help but relate to them and feel the emotion in every situation they encounter. It has been a long time since a story has made me feel that way let alone an entire series!”

  ~ Under the Covers Book Blog

  “The story of Cade & Hannah’s relationship is realistic, heart-warming, and filled with real-world connections that shook me in a way that few titles I’ve read this year have managed...I have loved every minute of the No Weddings series.”

  ~ That’s What I’m Talking About

  Table of Contents

  About Lawbreaker

  Praise for HEARTBREAKER

  Title Page

  Other Books by Kat Bastion with Stone Bastion

  Dedication

  1 - Bombs Away

  2 - Off the Rails

  3 - Found Girl, Lost Boy

  4 - Tempting Trouble

  5 - Into the Woods

  6 - Scrambled

  7 - Target Practice

  8 - Sweet Spot

  9 - Safe Play

  10 - What’s Your Handicap?

  11 - Wealthy or Not, Here We Are

  12 - Stronger Than Flesh and Blood

  13 - Lost in the Rough

  14 - Like a Tetanus Shot

  15 - One Day of the Year

  16 - First Dates in Movies and Other Things That Suck

  17 - Long Overdue

  18 - One Step Back

  19 - Conspiracy to Commit

  20 - Grown-up Fairy Tales

  21 - Ice Cream Wishes and Superhero Dreams

  22 - A Quiet Heroine

  23 - Playing Chicken with High Voltage

  24 - An Accessory

  25 - The Business End of a Swing

  26 - Dust Under the Rug

  27 - Stealing Time

  28 - Paved with Good Intentions

  29 - The Harder They Fall

  30 - Fly on the Wall

  31 - Illegal Representation

  32 - What Brave Girls Do

  33 - Physical Education

  34 - Imposter at the Ball

  35 - The Thing About Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

  36 - Always Something There to Remind Me

  37 - Love-abiding

  Epilogue - Extended Crew

  Thank You!

  Want to read more of your favorite characters from Lawbreaker?

  About the Authors

  Charity Support and Awareness

  Copyright Notice

  Standalone Novel

  The Espionage Effect

  Unbreakable Series

  Heartbreaker

  Rule Breaker

  Lawbreaker

  No Weddings Series

  No Weddings

  One Funeral

  Two Bar Mitzvahs

  Three Christmases

  For Valentine’s

  (a steamy nightcap novella)

  Books by Kat Bastion

  Highland Legends Series

  Forged in Dreams and Magick

  Bound by Wish and Mistletoe

  Born of Mist and Legend

  (future release)

  Found in Flame and Moonlight

  (future release)

  Romantic Poetry for Charity

  Utterly Loved

  Foreword by Sylvain Reynard

  To our beloved Helen…

  We think of you often.

  “What would Grams do?”

  Shay…

  It’s real. What I mentally repeated for the millionth time. What I’d been trying to convince my doubting self for days. Because awesome things—good and pure and decent things—didn’t happen to people like me. Only—it had.

  Finally. I’d done it.

  No more scraping and clawing and wanting.

  No more lying, cheating, conning…stealing.

  Even so, I flicked another glance at the nightclub’s front door, waiting for the inevitable to happen, expecting someone to turn my world upside down. Again. Distrust had become habit.

  No. I rejected the gnawing doubt. I had to believe. You earned this. You worked so hard for this chance.

  “It’s real.” The slow whisper fell from my lips, finally spoken aloud. “I’ve made it.” From my coveted position behind the bar, I coasted trembling fingertips over the cool metal of a brushed stainless steel bar top. Clean. Sanitized clean.

  The only rust in sight came not from decay and neglect; it had been placed with great care and intention. Ancient brick lined the walls behind worn leather booths at the far end of the room, but the ag
ed patina and rough edges lent the joint a vibe all the customers drinking and laughing and dancing within it wanted.

  Loading Zone? A world away from a dingy back alley.

  Yet…not so far at all.

  We’d both come a long way: I’d seen the decrepit old warehouse in her former state for years. Had drifted by almost every night, loitering as I stared up at her ghostly form, wondering if someday she’d shine again. For her to no longer have broken windows, rotting wood, dirty brick…derelict—forgotten.

  And then to be a part of what breathed new life into her?

  For her to be an essential part of me in the same way?

  Kicked. Ass.

  The industrial vibe continued into other areas too, like in the employee “lounge”, where roughed concrete spanned the floors, reclaimed wood beams served as changing benches, and lockers bore the perfect amount of dented and slightly rusted. Six galvanized metal stools perched under a hammered zinc worktable that served as our own bar. Cold drinks came from a vintage Coca-Cola cooler. The two generous private shower stalls had repurposed tiles and roughhewn gliding doors that had been salvaged from a barn.

  Then there was the boss’s office. Yeah, the “off-limits” one. As if that’d ever stopped me. I’d been told the revered-by-one-and-all Benjamin Bishop was away on emergency. I’d found the door that guarded the forbidden space to be locked. All the more tempting. And perfect to get to know the absent mystery man in control of my fate—my way, on my terms. Covertly.

  What had I discovered?

  Blown-up pictures of challenging golf course holes hung at eye level. All had breathtaking scenery. Two captured ocean waves as they’d crashed against black rocks behind vibrant manicured greens in the foreground. Most had the same handsome dark-haired guy with a golf club in hand and a wide grin on his face. Some featured him alone. One had been posed with a few other guys, arms slung around each other’s shoulders.

  A massive polished ebony desk spanned the larger sidewall. On it, a square paperclip holder had been positioned exactly two inches from each side of its back-left corner. Two exposed vintage Edison bulbs stuck straight up from a funky galvanized steel light which stood perfectly centered along its back edge.

  One wide-barreled pen, made of wood that had light-and-dark stripes running lengthwise, rested off to the side, parallel to the desk edge. But it laid within reach of a man who would sit in the sage-green ergonomic work chair parked under the desk, dead-center in the middle.

  Ordered.

  Perfect.

  So damn perfect, my fingers had itched to knock its owner off-balance.

  I’d left my mark before leaving: nudged the pen a little to the left, rotated the lamp a few degrees off-center. Had done both with the side of my thumb, not a fingerprint left behind—not my first time breaking and entering.

  I smiled, remembering how, as a final parting, I’d bumped the chair’s arm with my hip, swiveling it from its neatly tucked position.

  “Racked, Shay?” A solid smack echoed out. Five frosty pink manicured nails drummed once, pinky to thumb, on the shiny stainless steel of the servers’ station to my right.

  I blinked back into the here-and-now, then moved, my hands blurring as glasses clinked, liquids poured, and drinks loaded onto her tray beside the order screen: dirty martini, beer, scotch, three screaming-orgasm shots.

  After a quick once-over, I gave a firm nod. “Locked and loaded.” Staring at the mash-up of drinks, I flung my bar towel over my shoulder, then met Jillian’s impressed gaze to hazard my usual expected guess. “First date?” Yep. Smartass, through and through.

  “Nope.” She half-rolled her eyes, then kept her gaze stuck at the ceiling for a prayerful beat. “Bachelorette party.”

  “Ah. My condolences.” Our nightly joking came as easy ritualistic banter for me. What I’d learned from observing the privileged for years. How I’d gotten skilled at fitting in, climbing up, staking my claim in a world that didn’t hand out anything to anyone who didn’t fight hard for it.

  She winked long black lashes at me. “Piece o’ cake.” A veteran server. No doubt she had the challenging group in the palm of her hands.

  I knew the feeling–had learned my craft well. How to read people, play their weakness, manipulate a situation just enough to get what you want without their realizing they’d been played. How I’d survived. How I’d made it.

  To get here…

  Unexpected tears sprung to my eyes. Ugh. Annoying. Doing my damnedest to be normal, to blend in, I blinked the irritating moisture back and sucked in a strengthening breath. Then I soaked in the fleeting moment; I knew how rare and precious the good ones were.

  What we’re lucky to get in our sucky world. Scraps of joy between all the suffering. Words echoed from ages ago on a bitter cold night, stomach clenched in ravenous hunger.

  But all that suffering and despair had changed, little by little. And the pinnacle to my arduous climb? Only a few short days ago, when I’d stepped foot on the hallowed ground beneath my feet...when I’d vowed to go legit.

  I’d used the last few dollars I’d squirreled away for myself to buy vintage jeans that hugged my hips under the tight T-shirt provided by Loading Zone, their bartenders’ uniform. My shoes had been worn only once on a one-night con job: black distressed-leather mules with a three-inch heel, comfortable and stylish.

  The new getup? All for a standard paycheck. The kind with acronyms like FICA, where the government apparently dipped invisible hands into what I’d toiled for. Long hours in exchange for far less pay than what I’d pinched with little sweat in the past. But working aboveboard was safe, one step closer to real…normal. And the renowned bar that I stood in wrapped itself around me like the pseudo-family it had long been rumored to be.

  “You workin’ or daydreamin’?” The loud crack of a bar-towel corner snapped a scant inch from my chin.

  “Workin’.”

  Definitely workin’.

  Worth it.

  Dropping my gaze with steady focus, I busied myself behind the bar, filling orders from customers packed two rows deep at the barstools. But I shot a quick glance at my towel-snapper and fellow bartender for the night.

  Cade. Good guy. Wicked smart. Master fighter and manipulator, but with a different moral code. He wouldn’t break the law. I would.

  “Stop,” I growled to myself under my breath, pissed at my runaway thoughts. Ingrained, my brain had randomly locked on to Cade, analyzed, filtered, and spat out gut instincts. Like I’d done with every mark. Only Cade wasn’t a mark. None of the new family surrounding me were.

  I berated myself with another needed self-correction. I had broken the law. Had. Past tense. Often. But that was before. “You’re done now.” I sharpened the harsh whisper with finality.

  My thoughts zeroed back in on the here-and-now. Family. Such a strange concept. Mine—the ragtag few who truly cared about me—protected me, had been pieced together from chance encounters, earned through selfless actions, trusted only to a point: all I’d ever allowed, with anyone.

  “Bomber,” Cade called out from the other end of our shared territory, his voice clear to me over the pumping music and shouted conversations.

  “Trick question.” They always were, the nightly pop quizzes he’d been drilling me with since day one. Not because Cade doubted my abilities, but because, as he’d explained on my first shift, he wanted to see me succeed, thrive. I wanted that too. “If you mean, the B-52 Bomber...”

  I glanced his way for clarification.

  He folded his arms, expression blanked.

  No clues. Because custom drink orders might not have any either. We had to decipher them. No server wanted to hump back to a customer through a dense and thirsty crowd for clarification.

  Yep. The B-52. But I didn’t need to take the easy way with my answer. Anyone could rattle off three ingredients. And he’d stumped me on at least one drink puzzle every night since I’d been tending. So, he wanted to test my abilities? Fine.
<
br />   “I know you don’t mean a Cherry Bomb, which is cachaça, Brazil’s premium liquor distilled from sugarcane.” Yep. He asked? I provided the mountain of information I’d been studying. “Plus an ounce of kirsch also known as kirschwasser, a German cherry brandy, a splash of fresh lime juice, and topped with club soda.”

  I paused for effect, then raised my brows as I continued on with my explanation while still filling drink orders. “You might’ve tried to con me into thinking an Irish Car Bomb, also known as an Irish Bomb, but I doubt it. We don’t have it on our menu; it’s insulting to the Irish.” And some bars got into trouble with it. Got nothing to do with the Irish. It’s an American-invented drink, with the only thing Irish about it its ingredients. “But if a customer wanted one, I’d layer the shot glass with Jameson Irish Whiskey poured over Baileys Irish Cream, all to be ‘bombed’ in front of the customer into a glass of Guinness Stout.” The resulting eruption of foam? Guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

  I tilted my head. “Incidentally, if we had ice cream—”

  His brows hiked a fraction. “We don’t have ice cream.”

  “If we did...I make a mean Irish Bomb Float. A long pour of Jameson into a pint glass, add two scoops of Ben & Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide, topped off with twelve ounces of Guinness Stout.” Deadly calories. Maximum yum.

  “But you said ‘bomber’, so I’m thinkin’ you want the B-52 Bomber, which, according to my education” —and he had no idea said education was my own brand of bartending self-training— “is a layered shooter supposedly invented by a bartender-fan of The B-52’s band.”

  Cade’s eyes sparked with amusement.

  Knew it. “Kahlúa.” For the dark coffee liqueur support at the bottom. “Baileys.” The creamy pillow in the middle. “And Grand Marnier.” The decadent aged orange liqueur capped on top. “In that order.”