Beyond Forever Read online

  Table of Contents

  O'Kane for Life

  Blurb

  Opening Night

  The Safe

  Nessa

  The Broken Circle

  The Legend

  The King

  Inked In

  Queen

  Grand Reopening

  Before You Leave Sector Four

  About the Author

  Copyright Information

  O'Kane for Life

  You're holding a novella set after the end of Kit Rocha's bestselling Beyond series. If you have not read the series yet, please be warned: this novella contains massive spoilers. It is intended for readers already familiar with the series and characters, and if you pick it up without context you may find it confusing and unsatisfying! Please proceed with caution!

  THE BEYOND SERIES

  #1: Beyond Shame, #2: Beyond Control, #3: Beyond Pain, #3.5: Beyond Temptation, #4: Beyond Jealousy, #4.5: Beyond Solitude, #5: Beyond Addiction, #5.5: Beyond Possession, #6: Beyond Innocence, #7: Beyond Ruin, #8: Beyond Ecstasy, #9: Beyond Surrender

  Blurb

  Before they were the King and Queen…

  Six years before the Beyond series started, an ambitious bootlegger named Dallas O’Kane caught a very pretty thief named Lex with her hand in his safe.

  The rest is very sexy history.

  In Beyond Forever, follow Dallas and Lex through the turning points in their relationship, from the night he caught her trying to rob him, through his rise to successful bootlegger, to legend, to Sector Leader—with Lex always there, willing to give him the push he needs.

  Beyond Forever is a prequel novella that jumps through time to tell the story of the biggest moments in the formation of the O’Kanes and their King and Queen. It will be far more enjoyable if you’ve already read Beyond Control, and contains spoilers for the entire Beyond series.

  opening night

  After nine months of rebuilding and weeks of planning, Dallas did his final walkthrough of the new Broken Circle alone.

  Most of the others had scattered for the final couple of hours before the official opening. Over in the barracks, makeup was being applied, and silk and leather donned like pieces of armor. Tonight, the O’Kanes would be on display like never before. The triumphant heroes of war. The indomitable, undefeatable hedonists. The demons who lurked just beyond what was left of the wall encircling Eden—demons that brave souls could venture forth and see firsthand, if they dared.

  Tonight, Dallas expected a lot of people to dare.

  The bar gleamed just the right amount as he ran his hand over it. The wood had been polished to a glossy shine, but beneath the shine were scratches and dents, signs of hard living and rough handling. He’d won that battle with his contractors, demanding recycled materials with a familiar edge of grit instead of new and shiny.

  They could drag him into Eden and make him sit on their fancy fucking councils, but Dallas had no intention of letting the city tame him. His hard edges would always be proudly on display—a reminder and a warning.

  Tables clustered around the new dance floor, surrounded by sturdy but mismatched chairs. The VIP booths had expanded to accommodate his growing family, and it didn’t take much imagination to envision a hundred nights to come, with everyone gathered around him, laughing and drinking and teasing.

  Living. Because what the fuck good was money if you couldn’t enjoy it?

  He heard footsteps only a moment before Cruz stepped through the door marked STAFF ONLY. “It’s done,” he said. “Jas and Zan already left to get ready. I’ll head out, too, if you don’t need anything else.”

  “I’m good,” Dallas assured him. Cruz inclined his head, still so very serious, and disappeared back down the hallway.

  Dallas took one last look around the empty main room and smiled. They were ready to write the next chapter in the legend of the O’Kanes.

  And he was ready to revisit the first.

  The staff hallway was lined with offices. Noelle had her own now. So did Noah, a claustrophobic room filled with computers and wires and so much tech it gave Dallas a headache.

  But the largest office by far was his own, marked by a solid oak door at the end of the hall. Ace had burned the O’Kane logo into the wood before staining it a deep brown, and when Dallas pushed it open he exhaled with a sigh of pleasure.

  His desk matched the door, and so did most of the furniture, done in dark woods and luxurious leather. A round table with six chairs sat on one side, enough room for a friendly game of poker or a quick strategy session over a meal. The couch on the opposite side of the room faced a stone hearth with wood stacked inside, just waiting for a romantic fire. And there were plenty of plush pillows on the expensive rug, enough to cushion Lex’s body when he stretched her out in front of the flames and took his time.

  There was even a cabinet on one wall with leather cuffs and silver chains and shelves waiting for all the other little toys he might collect. He had a lot of possibilities in mind.

  But the prize was behind his desk, rescued in secret and restored at an expense so extravagant that the first crafter had looked at him like maybe his injuries during the war had damaged his brain.

  No one who looked at it could understand why a battered old safe had been worth the effort of digging it out of the rubble of the original Broken Circle and lovingly, carefully repairing it.

  No one who hadn’t been there that night...

  six years ago...

  The Safe

  There was a broken spring digging into his back.

  Dallas shifted his weight on the sad, sagging mattress and chided himself for getting soft. Sure, the bed was a piece of shit, but he had a bed, which was a vast improvement in his general living conditions. When he’d first landed in the sectors, he’d slept on naked cement more nights than not, and had considered himself lucky to be under a roof. It was more than a lot of people had in the crap-heap of Sector Four.

  But that fucking spring was driving him nuts.

  Sighing, Dallas rolled upright and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. His boots were right where he’d left them, ready for him to shove his feet into them at the first sign of danger. He tugged them on and retrieved his shirt from the floor.

  If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well make his nightly check of the stills.

  The spring was a temporary annoyance. So was the hole in his jeans, the worn sole on his left boot, and the irritating squeak the door gave as he pulled it open. They were all living lean right now, trimmed down to the barest of essentials. The payday from their first quality batch of rum may have filled his pockets, but Dallas wasn’t about to blow that cash on meaningless luxury.

  Dallas O’Kane had a goddamn plan.

  The warehouse was silent and dark except for the hum of the generators that kept the stills and vats running, but the dials and displays and indicator lights provided enough illumination for Dallas to navigate the metal staircase down to the first floor. Ace always claimed the glow from the equipment cast the cavernous space in hellish reds and menacing shadows, but Dallas liked the eerie effect.

  Lights meant they were in business. Business meant money. Money meant power.

  Eventually.

  Dallas navigated the crates of liquor branded with his newly designed logo with a swell of satisfied pride.

  Ace hadn’t been the obvious choice for a man looking for hardened recruits to build his gang’s reputation. Sure, Ace could throw a punch when he needed to—and he was even deadlier with his guns—but Dallas could have found a dozen hulking street toughs to fill out his growing army. It wasn’t enough. Intimidating fellow criminals would only get Dallas so far.

  True business dominance was going to be about branding. And Ace wasn
’t just an artistic genius. He’d also banged the wives of half of the fancy fuckers running Eden during his brief but illustrious career as an extremely expensive hooker. Ace knew how to get the rich assholes in Eden to open their wallets.

  Dallas planned to clean those wallets out.

  Checking the stills didn’t take long. Everything was running smoothly, churning out subpar moonshine—hopefully their very last batch of it. Everything was about to change.

  He stopped in front of the door to his office. Most nights after he checked the stills, he spent the next few hours locked in there, drawing up plans for the future, guessing at yields and prices, trying to make the math work faster. But he didn’t have the patience for numbers tonight, not with nervous anticipation buzzing through him. He could go out back and build crates, maybe. Burn through some of this extra energy.

  Or he could grab his jacket and head out into the sector, find a better way to burn through it. Maybe not a fistfight—Bren and Jas would never forgive him if he went out and got into a fight without them—but the pretty black-market dealer who supplied their liquor bottles had been dropping hints along with her shipments for the last few weeks. A good, enthusiastic fuck might clear his head.

  And he’d bet her bed didn’t have any broken springs in it.

  Eager now that he’d made his decision, Dallas took the stairs back to the second floor two at a time and swung open the door to his bedroom—

  All of his warm feelings fizzled.

  His safe was open. And a thief had her fucking arm elbow deep in it.

  She froze, then slowly turned to face him. “Well. This is awkward.”

  It was sure the fuck something, but he didn’t know if awkward covered it. He hit the light switch next to the door and squinted at his intruder through the sudden brightness. The woman looked all of twenty-five—probably not even that—and woefully out of place in his shitty little bedroom.

  Because she was stunning. Not pretty, not hot, not even of this fucking world. Her dark brown eyes watched him with amusement, like he was a curiosity in some traveling circus, and her full, perfect lips looked poised to smile.

  He’d bet men had killed each other to earn that smile.

  Yeah, no doubt about it. This one made men stupid. Dallas refused to fall for it. “It’d probably get less awkward if you took your damn hand out of my safe.”

  “Right.” She complied, still moving carefully, like she was trying not to spook a wild animal. She rose and stood there, both hands raised. “I surrender.”

  She said it low. A little sultry. Dallas couldn’t tell if that was just her voice, or if she knew what the word surrender could do to a man when she wrapped her lips around it all soft and loving.

  Either way, he raised his estimation of her danger level another few notches. “Somehow I doubt it.”

  She displayed her empty hands. “I didn’t take anything.”

  He let his gaze slide from her hands down her body, which was clad in black, skin-tight clothing. The curves were killer—even beneath her jacket, he could tell her tits were amazing—but Dallas’s attention lingered on the sleek muscles. Her obvious strength.

  If he got close enough to pat her down, she might try to murder him.

  That shouldn’t be hot.

  He jerked his chin at her. “Take off the jacket.”

  With a quirk of one eyebrow, she obeyed. Except obey wasn’t even the right word. She made it look like it had been her idea all along as she peeled off the scuffed leather and held it out. When he reached for it, she dropped it on the floor.

  So much for his intimidating bootlegger presence. Scowling at her, Dallas bent to snatch the jacket off the floor and rifled through the pockets. After coming up empty, he tossed it onto the rickety table beside his safe. “You know I’m gonna have to check you, too, right?”

  “By all means.”

  She was still looking at him like he was an amusing bug she hadn’t decided whether or not to swat, but when he stepped closer, her muscles tensed, and her gaze flickered toward his bed.

  Fear.

  Perversely, that irritated him. Her brazen lack of fear might be a little damaging to his ego, but he didn’t like the way she stiffened as his hands touched her shoulders. Like she was waiting for him to slide his hands all sorts of places they didn’t need to go. Like he was the fucking bad guy here.

  As if he needed to grope an unwilling woman. “Cut it out,” he muttered as he patted his way down her sides and over her hips. “Your tits are nice, darling, but I can get better without all the backtalk.”

  She stifled a yawn.

  Impertinent little bitch. He would not smile. He kept up his grumbling as he checked the waistband of her pants and down her legs. Strong legs—he’d have to remember not to let her kick him anywhere sensitive. Because when he glanced up at her eyes, the fire burning there made it clear she was envisioning the heel of her boot crushing his balls.

  Good.

  He almost avoided her tits entirely, but a slight bulge between them ruined the line of her shirt. When he slid his fingers over it, he knew exactly what she’d pinched.

  Without releasing her gaze, he dipped his fingers under the neckline of her shirt and came out with a rolled up wad of cash—the entire payroll he owed his boys. “Didn’t take anything, huh?”

  She flashed him a disbelieving look. “You caught me burglarizing your bedroom, and you’re surprised that I lied?”

  “Honor among thieves, darling.” He tucked the cash into his pocket and reached for her coat. Being this close to her was dangerous. After all, he’d lied too—he was pretty sure better didn’t exist inside the sectors or anywhere else. And his body was taking a distinct interest in making him stupid. “Get your ass out of here, and don’t come back. I won’t be nice next time.”

  Her fingers brushed his as she took her jacket, and she smiled. “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone.”

  “Probably,” he agreed with his most dangerous smile. He’d sent criminals scurrying for cover with it, but she just kept grinning. “I do love crazy things that’ll most likely get me killed.”

  She edged past him, nudging his shoulder with hers, and slipped through the door. “See you around, O’Kane.”

  She vanished into the darkness, and Dallas followed just far enough to make sure she really did leave the warehouse. The last thing he needed was her trying to pull another job—they still hadn’t managed to smooth the Special Tasks edges off Bren, who was likely to pull the trigger on an intruder before he even woke all the way up.

  It would be a shame for that face to end up shot.

  When Dallas got back to his bedroom, his safe was still hanging open. He crouched down in front of it and tossed the roll of cash back in on top of a stack of files and recipes and plans.

  Then he froze.

  Even with the lights on, the room was dim, and the shadows were deep. He slid his hand into the safe and felt around every fucking inch of it, inside and under the paperwork and around the edges in case it had gotten knocked aside.

  The credit stick was gone. Their entire fortune from the rum, all those carefully squirreled away credits, all the sacrifice, all the shitty nights on his lumpy mattress, staring at the ceiling...

  He was meeting the rep from the illegal farm in three days. This shipment of grain was supposed to be the one—the good stuff. The first batch of high quality whiskey. Their future.

  And that bitch had stolen the payment.

  »»» § «««

  Lex didn’t slow down until she made it back to Sector Three.

  She felt naked, unnerved not only by getting caught like a fucking amateur, but by the encounter that had followed. She was painfully aware of the stolen item she’d hidden in her left boot, and the urge to go to ground as quickly as possible almost overwhelmed her. She forced herself to be smart instead. She took a winding, circuitous route back to her apartment, doubling back once or twice, primed to run at the first hint of trouble.
r />   But there wasn’t any, a rare goddamn occurrence in Three. She had to dodge a few drunks and a couple of roving gangs of assholes looking for trouble, but she could do that in her sleep. She slipped past them, finally reaching the pitted brick façade of her building.

  No electricity tonight. The landlord turned it off whenever someone hadn’t paid their rent, and there was always someone who hadn’t paid their rent. Still, intermittent power was better than none at all, and the place was solid, relatively speaking. It had walls and a roof, and that was more than many tenements on the block could boast.

  Lex hurried up the stairs and finally—finally—bolted the door behind her, and she could breathe again.

  Shake it off, Parrino.

  She lit a battery-operated lamp and peeled off her clothes. When she’d laid them carefully over the back of her chair, she regarded her prize.

  The tiny credit stick didn’t look like much, but they never did. That was the beauty of them, part of the gamble. What was on it? It could be barely enough for a meal or two at the grubby cafeteria down the street—or it could be thousands, so much she’d have to launder it through a broker so O’Kane couldn’t trace it back to her.

  She stretched out on her bed, flipping the credit stick between her fingers. Dallas O’Kane already had a reputation. He was smart, ruthless, with a growing number of dedicated members in his organization. Not someone you wanted to cross, because he didn’t need his men to handle his shit for him. If he wanted you dead, he’d pull the trigger himself.

  The thought set off a flutter in her belly. He could have killed her tonight. He should have. The fact that he hadn’t even hurt her was...incongruous. And it made her curious. Suddenly, she caught herself remembering all the other words people had used to describe him—determined, stubborn, capable.

  Words that would make him damn good in bed.

  Groaning, she squashed that thought and reached for her handheld scanner. Even if she wanted to see him again, it would be suicide now. She’d made it out of his place unharmed, but once he figured out she’d robbed him, after all...