Blade: A Steel Paragons MC Novel (The Coast: Book 11)

by Hart, Eve R.

  “You’re here now. You could just gut me and walk away. I know you could.”

  Another jab at me. It seemed like he just couldn’t help himself.

  I let it go because I was no longer out to get him. Not right now. My anger and rage needed to be saved for someone else.

  “She’s mine. I don’t give a fuck what you think about it,” I said as I got to my feet, standing tall and looking down at him. “And I protect what’s mine.”

  I walked to the door, gathered up my guns and tucked them away.

  “And what if he comes after her?” he asked and strangely enough, I didn’t feel his gaze on me.

  “Then there won’t be a piece of him left for anyone to worry about.”

  With that, I was all talked out. I had nothing left to say, and I guessed he didn’t either.

  I walked out of his house with a kind of rage boiling inside of me that I hadn’t felt in a while. Not since what happened with Claire and all those girls. And Laurel before that.

  I held it in because I knew the time would come when I’d get to set it free. There was no way this fuck-head would let her go.

  Men like him needed to be put down. Deserved to be rotting in the ground and floating off to meet their maker.

  And he would soon enough.

  I was damn sure I would make it happen.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Harley

  I had no choice, I at least had to tell Estelle what was going on. I might have cried a little. How could he be out so soon? How could he have served such little time for everything he put me through, for everything he did to me? I knew the answer to that, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around how fucked up the justice system was. To let something like this slip by because you had a daddy as a judge and he had friends in all the right places.

  So fucked up.

  I really shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Actually, I was downright in shock.

  “I’m going to change my plans, I’ll stay here,” Estelle told me after I’d filled her in on my uncle’s visit yesterday.

  I walked the length of my living room over and over again, my head shaking at her words.

  “No,” I told her, holding up my hand like I could stop her from grabbing onto the idea. “I can’t let this turn everyone’s lives upside down again. I won’t give him that power.”

  “Harley,” she said sternly causing my eyes to snap to her. “Shut your damn mouth. I do not want to hear that shit comin’ outta you. We are family. This is what we do. So help me God, if you try to put this on yourself I will slap you silly.”

  I smiled despite the fact that I was so scared I was shaking inside. Her arms opened and without a second thought, I marched my butt over to her and fell into them. This was what I needed, a really good hug.

  She patted my back and I felt a little better.

  “Let’s just take it one day at a time,” I told her. “Uncle Rob said he is still in Texas. So I should be safe for now.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t feel that way and I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Estelle,” I said using the same tone she’d used on me moments ago. “He has people keeping an eye on Jeffery. The moment he leaves the state, we’ll know. So until then, I need for everyone to go on like it is any other day. Please.”

  With a long sigh, she gave in. She didn’t say the words but the nod of her head told me all I needed to know.

  “Thank you,” I whispered then flopped down onto the couch. She followed suit, taking the space next to me. “Besides, I have my own watchdog anyway.”

  “You know about him sitting out there?” she asked, head cocked to the side.

  “Kind of hard to miss those roaring pipes and all,” I said with a laugh.

  “That is true.”

  “I don’t think I mind it so much,” I admitted though I was sure she already knew that.

  “What’s with this fellow?”

  “Where do I even begin?” I let out a sigh and let my head fall heavily against the back of the couch. “Why does it have to be him?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, when I imagined what would come next… I certainly didn’t picture someone like him. I figured I’d find someone a little more… timid. Maybe a hot nerd. Skinny, someone I could eat for breakfast.”

  She laughed at that.

  “No,” she said shaking her head. “You got too much oomph, you need a man that can handle that.”

  “And you think Blade can handle that?” I raised a skeptical brow at her. “He can barely give me a sentence, let alone all the things I need from a man.”

  “Like what?”

  “Um, for starters, conversation.”

  “Point taken,” she said with a chuckle. “Do you think that maybe you should tell him what’s going on?”

  That question caused the conversation turn serious again.

  “No,” I said, my lids falling closed. “I don’t want him to see me as that woman. You know, the one that is so weak she lets a man do that kind of shit to her. I don’t think I’d be able to take seeing that look in Blade’s eyes. That look that says I’m a disappointment. A letdown. I could never shatter his fantasy of me… whatever that may be.”

  “I think you’ve got it all wrong,” she told me flatly. “I think a man like that would see you for the strength you’ve shown. For the power you took away from it and the progress you’ve made after it.”

  My lips twisted as I thought about her words. I’d never thought of it like that. Inside, I wanted it to be that way. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to rise above the shit I’d gotten myself into. But I didn’t feel like I was quite at that point. Getting there? Yeah, for sure. And working hard on reaching my goals. But I wasn’t there yet.

  “What are we going to do about the convention?” I asked, shifting focus because I needed to think about something else.

  It was a few days away and while it would mean bad business if we pulled out at the last minute, it was something that might have to happen.

  “What do ya mean?”

  “Well, should we not go? Should I stay here? I just don’t know. This changes everything.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Don’t let that fucker do that to you again,” she told me with a firm hand on my knee and a squeeze that told me it would all be alright. “You go. You have a good time. You make that convention your bitch.”

  “Okay,” I said agreeing but not sure why. It could have been the passion she put behind every word and the way it pumped me up.

  If anything, I could let Darlene and Wade go. There was no sense in being there when they could handle it. And since Didi had decided she wanted to go too, they would have her to help out with the small stuff. But I knew I’d disappoint everyone if I stayed behind. Plus, it probably wasn’t the safest thing to be here alone.

  The thought that I’d have to tell them everything soured my stomach, even if I knew they’d understand. After all, this sort of thing was what had brought us together. All of us having gotten out. That was how our friendship had started, the shared strength of surviving an abusive relationship, shitty coffee, and a building we could feel safe in.

  It was stupid not to tell them. I had to let them know that there was possible danger out there and that they might get caught up in it.

  I hated that thought. If anything happened to them I’d be crushed. But if something happened to them because of me, I don’t know how I could live with that.

  “I’m supposed to be at my uncle’s soon. I agreed to dinner,” I told her.

  Yes, I was possibly trying to get out of talking about this any further. And, yes, I wasn’t all that thrilled about going over there. I knew it was time, and like Estelle had told me multiple times before, he needed this as much as I probably did.

  We were family.

  And that was important.

  All the shit I’d been through. All the shit he’d been through. Well, it made us who we were. And if we could
n’t look each other in the eye and accept it, then we weren’t really family, not in the way that I felt we should be.

  “Good,” she said happily.

  “And I told him you would be there too,” I said smugly as I walked toward my bedroom to change.

  I heard her cuss under her breath.

  I smiled harder.

  An hour later, we were walking into my uncle’s house. The smell wasn’t something homemade, but at least I could tell that it was some kind of food. Greasy, for sure.

  He hugged me, it was strained but I returned it as best as I could.

  Then he offered Estelle a beer, walking her into the kitchen as he tried to make awkward small talk.

  Grown-ups were so weird.

  I walked to the windows. Leaning over the desk, I peeked out and scanned the street. I wasn’t sure why I had the urge to. Paranoia and all that.

  “He’s not here,” I told myself under my breath as I let the curtain fall back into place.

  Leaning back, something on the desk caught my eye.

  A couple of files sat there, which wasn’t that big of a deal because of my uncle’s job and whatnot. But the name written on the top one was what grabbed my attention.

  “Marcus Allen,” I mumbled.

  The name struck me but it didn’t feel familiar.

  Knowing I shouldn’t, I flicked the file open with the tip of my nail.

  There were a dozen or so images stacked neatly.

  The first one showed a boy. Nine? Ten? Somewhere around there.

  I didn’t recognize him.

  Checking over my shoulder to make sure that Estelle and my uncle were still engrossed in each other, I moved the top picture out of the way.

  I nearly gasped at the next image.

  A brutal murder scene. I wondered if these were the little boy’s parents. I kept flicking through the pictures.

  It was horrible, and that was the only way I could put it.

  I stopped after I’d seen the first five images, gathering them up and trying to put them back like I found them.

  The last one remained in place and I stared down at it.

  This one wasn’t like the others.

  A different crime scene.

  A different murder.

  That was clear by the way the guy had been carved up and left there. And I mean carved up. There was hardly a spot on him that didn’t have a gash or blood splattering it.

  I shook my head, trying to rid the image from my mind and all the thoughts that came with it. Then I scooped it up with the rest.

  I froze, the pictures clasped in my left hand.

  The paper behind them held my attention now.

  A name that I did recognize was printed right there in front of my eyes.

  Blade Marcus.

  Marcus Allen… Blade Marcus…

  No…

  It couldn’t be.

  I looked at the picture of the boy in my left hand.

  A younger Blade stared up at me.

  A gasp escaped me as I dropped the images and stumbled back a few steps.

  “Har, you okay?” I heard Estelle say and then I felt them right behind me.

  “Fuck,” my uncle said sounding as if he hadn’t wanted me to see that. “Harley—”

  “Why the fuck do you have these?” I roared as I whirled around and faced him “What the fuck is this?”

  “I told you to stay away from them,” he said.

  My eyes closed, my fists clenched tight at my sides.

  “Blade… he did this?” I asked, a tear making a wet track down my face.

  “I can’t talk about it,” he told me flatly.

  “No,” I barked. “I need to know. You don’t get to do this and not tell me. You have this because you are keeping tabs on him, yeah?”

  “Yes,” he admitted as he walked over to the desk and snapped the folder closed. “I really didn’t want you to get mixed up with them. If you just had found a different building…”

  “This is why?” I pointed down to the file.

  “Yeah, among other things.”

  “Other things? Like what? Has he done more?”

  “Look, Harley,” he said holding his hand up making me feel like a child. “I honestly don’t know what to think anymore.”

  I could tell that wasn’t what he’d meant to say. For some reason, he had changed his words at the last minute.

  He suggested I take a seat. After both Estelle and I did, he told me a story about a little boy that lost his family right before his very eyes. And how that boy grew up to carry out revenge on one of the men that had killed his parents.

  I cried.

  I couldn’t help it.

  The tears, they seemed to come out one after the other as I listened to my uncle tell me the little details he knew. He hadn’t been there, this hadn’t been his case. That much was clear. Which led me to think that he’d dug hard to get these details. He had a personal reason to have that file.

  “What do you mean you don’t know what to think anymore?” I asked him once he was done.

  “I can’t prove it, but I think that club is up to no good.”

  I was a little shocked that he was being so honest with me.

  “You’re going to have to explain that,” Estelle said taking the words right out of my mouth.

  I studied my uncle closely. His jaw ticked and this brow was thick with anger.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted with a defeated sigh.

  “You think you’re going after them because of what happened to you?” she asked pointedly, sounding a bit angry.

  I wondered that too. And it was clear that his past was tied up in this. But it wasn’t like you could really blame him. Not when he’d lost his wife and child when two rival motorcycle clubs started a shoot out right there on the street.

  “Fuck, Estelle.” He looked at her with hard eyes. “Just can’t stay out of it can you?!”

  I felt a fight rising and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with this. I understood that he was angry, that he was hurting, but he better not fucking take it out on Estelle.

  “Stop!” I screamed. “Enough of this. Tell me the truth. I mean the real truth. Leave your judgment out of it.”

  His eyes met mine and I could see the war inside them.

  “I think that life isn’t as black and white as I want it to be,” he told me. His head dropped and I could see the fight leave his body. “I think they live in the black but they wear a lot of white.”

  Yeah, that was how I felt too, even though I didn’t know much about Blade’s club. Hell, I didn’t know much about Blade, period.

  And that was on me. I hadn’t really tried to reach out and get to know him. I hadn’t pushed enough because I was scared.

  Blade was a good man.

  Scary as hell, but good on the inside.

  “I think he has a thing for you,” my uncle said as his gaze lifted to meet mine. There was something there he was trying to tell me. “I think he’d do anything to keep you safe.”

  I felt that too even if I didn’t want to see it.

  Something about the way my uncle had said that made me think he’d had a sit-down with Blade. I wanted to ask but maybe it was best if I didn’t. At least not now, not when we were all hanging on by a thread and ready to snap.

  “Okay,” I said. It was out there. I had enough answers for now. Any more and I might explode. “Do I smell pizza?”

  My uncle suddenly looked tired. Exhausted, really. Like he’d been fighting a war for so long and now he realized it had come to an end.

  There were no winners, but there had been some kind of white flag raised.

  I could only hope that whatever had come to light tonight, made his life a lot easier.

  And me? I had realized that I needed to try harder. Because it was clear that Blade was somehow meant to be in my life.

  It was time to stop fighting and figure out how to break through the walls we had between us.

  CHAPTER EIGH
TEEN

  Harley

  I swore to everyone that I was fine.

  But I wasn’t.

  The next few days went by and the stress started to get to me.

  I was at the gym when I wasn’t working or sleeping.

  Which, since I wasn’t sleeping all that well, was more than what could be considered healthy. I worked the heavy bag, making sure to keep my punches controlled and precise.

  I went until I felt like my arms were going to give out and there wasn’t a spot on me that was free of sweat.

  I ran. I lifted weights. I pushed myself as far as I could go, and then I pushed some more.

  Estelle hesitantly left, but she’d called me a handful of times to check on me. I tried to be convincing when I told her everything was fine. She was getting ready for the convention and I didn’t want to put more on her shoulders. Especially since I knew she had two shops that would have tables set up there. My uncle stopped by a few times as well, mostly to inform me that he hadn’t heard anything and that I would be alright.

  There was something in his eyes that told me he wanted to believe him, even though it felt like it was a lie.

  So, no, I wasn’t really okay and I kept waking up in a cold sweat thinking that he was coming for me.

  He would. I could feel it in my bones.

  Jeffery wasn’t the type of person to give up that easily.

  The past three years, I’d tried to see things that I couldn’t see in the beginning. You know, when everything was good.

  I thought I’d finally put that to bed, but I hadn’t. I’d just pushed it down for a while, and now it was back with a vengeance. I blamed myself, but then felt stupid for doing that. I knew better, I did, but it didn’t stop me from beating myself up. From taking the blame even a little. From feeling like I’d failed myself for being so naïve and blind.

  Paranoia took over, tricking me into thinking that I was seeing him when I knew there was no way I could have been. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be because as far as my uncle knew, he was still in Texas.