Fire in the Stars (Steel Souls MC Book 2)

by Nikki Groom

  “They’re good,” I comment, admiring their ability, but not once feeling even a tiny throb of desire. They’re just bodies—earning me and my club money.

  “They’re more than good, Ram. They’re the best.”

  “Ruck, you approve?” I ask him, tipping my bottle in the dancer’s direction.

  “Yeah.” He nods his appreciation, swigging his beer. “The blonde has great titties.” He grins, making us all laugh. Ruck is still in there. I just gotta make sure I bring him to the surface and keep him there.

  I bang my hand down on the bar, drawing Vinny’s attention. “Tomorrow night, Vin. Can you put together something at short notice?”

  “What d’ya have in mind?”

  “Prez wants a club party. Beer flowing freely, your best girls on the stands, and men on the door so we don’t get no trouble.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. What’s the occasion?”

  “There isn’t one that I know of. It’s been fucking tough around here, and we all need to let loose. Have a little fun.”

  “Consider it done.” He thrusts his hand into mine, and we shake on it.

  “Here.” He pops the caps on two more bottles of beer and slides them onto the bar in front of me. “Enjoy the beer, the women too if you want. I’ve got shit to do, but you need anything, shout. Got me?”

  “Yeah, man.” I nod my appreciation and Ruck and I settle on a couple of bar stools.

  “You doing okay?” I ask quietly, hating that he looks so tired and pained.

  “Yeah.” He shrugs, exchanging his now empty bottle of beer for a full one.

  “Go easy, man. You’re on a ton of painkillers, most of them have been fed intravenously for the last twenty-four hours, so they’re racing nicely around your system.”

  “Good shit that was, too. Made me forget who I fuckin’ was there for a while,” he grumbles dryly. He glances at the guy who just sat next to him and turns toward me with his back to the man.

  I lean in closer and lower my voice. “You know him?”

  “Nah. Just can’t be dealing with people,” he sneers, picking at the label on his beer bottle.

  “You know, I never got the chance to say thank you, for…you know, getting Sadie out of there, and—”

  “Don’t,” he warns.

  “Ruck, I know I gave you a fucking huge responsibility getting her out of there. I had to stay behind with Dev. I needed to stop the rest of you being arrested. You see that, don’t you? I mean, Sadie, she…Well, she shouldn’t have fucking gone there. I told her to stay back at HQ, and as much as I love her independence and her sass, fuck, it’s gonna give me more gray hairs than JJ.” Mentioning JJ in the same sentence as Sadie, and sitting here looking at Ruck, reminds me that he doesn’t know. It would have been so easy to slip into a conversation about them, about how it came about, and about how it blows my fucking mind that when you strip everyone back, we’re all connected somehow, somewhere down the line. I need to tell him. I need to talk to him like we always have, about everything that’s happened and about nothing in particular. I hate that we have this fucking big secret between us, and from my perspective, it’s hanging heavily in the air. “Ruck…” I say, ready to lay it all on the table, but he’s sitting there, concentrating intently, with his brows knitted together.

  He raises a finger to his lips. “Shhh.” He raises his head, turning slightly to listen in to the guy’s conversation behind him. I don’t question him further. If Ruck’s listening to something someone else is saying, you can be sure it’s worth listening to.

  He places his beer bottle on the bar top carefully and raises himself off the stool, moving slowly. His gaze is focused, intense, and I wonder what the fuck is going on in his head. For a split second, I question if he’s thinking straight after everything he’s been through, but I have to trust him. I look around where he’s now standing in front of me, and see nothing out of the ordinary, just a guy, arm propped on the bar, talking to another guy. But within a second, that all changes.

  Ruck walks around so he’s facing the two men that are having a conversation.

  “Can I help you?” the guy asks, and in that second I’m up and by Ruck’s side. Ready for whatever the fuck is going down. Ruck’s jaw tightens, and I’m about to put my arm out between them, when Ruck tucks his hand into his waistband, pulls out a blade, and drives it through the back of the man’s hand, pinning it to the bar top before anyone can figure out what the hell is going on.

  “Ruck!” I yell. But he’s so focused he doesn’t hear me, and turns toward the man’s friend, head-butting him with a crack of bone and an explosion of blood as his nose is flattened against his face and he drops off his bar stool.

  “What the fuck, bro?” I yell, not knowing which one of them to grab a hold of first.

  “This fucker,” he turns back and slams his hand around the man’s throat, “is dealing cocaine.” He squeezes tighter, choking the man so hard he can’t make a sound. “I heard ya. Purest shit in town, huh?”

  “There a problem, boys?” Vinny’s huge frame creates a barrier between us and everyone else here in the bar.

  “Yeah, we got two problems.” Ruck sucks in a breath between his teeth, and I can see he’s battling pain from his hand and pent-up rage from not only this situation but the last week’s problems too.

  “Get them into the fucking office, now.” I grab the guy by the back of his collar, and Vinny heaves the other one up from the floor. Ruck grabs his knife and pulls it out of the guy’s hand, making him cry out as he does. “You okay, bro?” I ask, indicating to his bandages with a nod.

  “Never fucking better.” He wipes his knife on the guy’s shirt, leaving a stripe of blood down the front, and slides it back into the sheath that’s secured on the waistband of his jeans.

  We march the men into the office and seat them next to one another. Ruck stands to one side, I stand to the other, and Vinny stands square in front of them.

  “You know him?” Vinny asks the guy that was planning on buying the drugs. His voice is low, calm, and controlled.

  “No, uh, I mean, I just…”

  “Spit it out, for fuck’s sake,” Ruck barks impatiently, pulling his knife out and placing it again the guy’s throat.

  Vinny and I exchange a look. We need to get Ruck under control.

  “I was just told to meet him here,” the guy stutters nervously.

  “By who?”

  “Billy Hagan. He said it was the best shit around.”

  “Oh, he did now, did he?” I step forward, into their line of vision, while piecing everything together. There were rumors Billy Hagan had hooked up with a new dealer, and I think he needs to be paid a visit. “What’s your name?” I ask the dealer.

  “I ain’t telling you shit,” he sneers, raising his chin. Ruck jumps to move in on him, but I hold out my hand to stop him. I’ve learned my lesson. We need him alive if we’re to get information. With Lenny still in a coma at my hands, this guy could be the only key to more information.

  “Who’s your supplier?” I bark.

  “Suck my dick,” he replies with a sneer.

  “Vinny,” I call over my shoulder.

  “Yes, boss.”

  “You got a spoon?”

  “A spoon?” he asks. “Matter of fact, I got one here.” He takes a teaspoon from the coffee cup sitting on his desk and hands it to me.

  “Hold him,” I order, and Vinny is behind the guy before he can try and run, pulling his arms behind his back and holding him so tightly he can barely move. I grip his hair and yank his head back with one hand, before lowering the spoon to his eye socket and pressing it into his eyelid. He blows uneven breaths through his nose, trying his hardest not to make a sound, but as the spoon starts curving deeper around his eyeball, he starts to lose composure. “Your supplier…”

  “Mmm.” He presses his lips together tightly, forcing himself to keep as quiet as he possibly can.

  “You know what happens as I push this spoon
harder, your eyelid will eventually fold inwards, and your eyeball will just pop right out. But it’ll still be attached, and—”

  “Okay, okay!” he yells desperately, coughing out a lungful of air.

  “Okay, what?” I tighten my grip on his hair.

  “I don’t know who he is exactly. I meet his men once a week at the airstrip in Salinas.”

  Salinas. The paper in Vaughn’s waste basket…

  “Who are his men?” I grip him tighter, almost shaking the words out of him.

  “I don’t know who they are. I’m telling the truth, honestly.”

  I push the spoon harder into his eye, past the eyelid, and the curve of the spoon cups his eyeball. “When?” I growl, getting more than impatient now.

  “Next week. Tuesday, at midnight.” His voice trembles as he forces the words out around heavy, pain-filled breaths.

  I pull the spoon from the guy’s eye, and he cries out with relief. “Tie ‘em up. Take them to the basement,” I tell Vinny and Ruck. “We got ourselves some guests until Tuesday.”

  I train my gun on them as Vinny and Ruck cable tie them. Ruck still has that wild look in his eyes, and I’m not sure if we are sitting on a ticking time bomb or waiting for him to simmer back down. He’s never blown. The rage threatens, bubbling beneath the surface, but underneath the pain and anguish, there’s a quiet, easygoing version of my brother and I’m gonna do everything it takes to get him back. While Vinny and Ruck take the men down to the basement, I pour a shot of Jack in the office and sit in Vinny’s huge wingback chair.

  Salinas.

  Tuesday.

  Vaughn.

  Fuck.

  The piece of paper from Vaughn’s office. I pull the calendar off the wall behind me and look at Tuesday’s date. May twenty-seventh. 5/27.

  It looks like Vaughn has his hand in more than mergers and acquisitions.

  Chapter 18

  I sit cross-legged on Ramsey’s bed and fire up the laptop. Despite everything being so up in the air, I feel surprisingly calm knowing that I’m where I’m truly supposed to be. I feel settled in all the chaos. At home with all the violence and uncertainty. Because now I have two things I never had before.

  Blood family. My dad. I never imagined I would ever find him again, let alone be thrown into his world without even realizing it. I had resigned myself to Vaughn being as close to family as I was ever gonna get, and I didn’t know it at the time, but it wasn’t enough for me. There was always something missing in my life, until now.

  And love. I know I’m falling in love with Ramsey. I know this because I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I’ve never felt alive. But although I’ve lost so much in my life, my heart seems full. In fact, he’s touched dark, cold corners of my heart that I never knew existed until now. He’s awoken parts of my body, found desire so deep that I never knew it was there. Only love could do that, couldn’t it?

  But I won’t lose myself for either of them. I will not be an old lady that sits back and lets her man do all the work. I refuse to lose my voice, my independence. Ram didn’t fall for a weak woman that won’t put up a good fight. He fell for me, and I have no intention of losing who I am.

  So, I work. I sit here for several hours, staring down at the screen. Coding and building the website I was commissioned to do last month. A website that’s due to be complete and live next week. I intend to earn my own money and pay my own way, and they might try to fight me on it, but they won’t win. What would I do if I didn’t work? Can’t see that I’d be happy as the little housewife. I laugh to myself. A little housewife with an arsenal hidden under her pinafore, ready for anything, while baking cakes and casseroles.

  My neck aches from looking down for such a long time, and I circle my head, easing out the cricks as my bones rotate, stretching my back out. Then I hop up off the bed, needing a drink, and knowing Ramsey keeps some kind of liquor in his cabinet, I look there first in the hope of finding a soda or something to quench my thirst. But there’s no soda. Just three and a half bottles of Jack. I know if I go up to the bar to get a drink, I’ll most probably not come back down, and my head’s in the game, so if I don’t get distracted, I could have this website up and running by the end of the day.

  I pour out a double measure of bourbon into a tumbler and take a sip. It burns my mouth, but the sweet aftertaste settles on my tongue, and I take another sip. I guess now that I’m living with a load of bikers, I’ll have to get used to bourbon and shots, as it seems they do a lot of drinking around here.

  I cross the room, going back to the laptop with my glass in my hand and with the intention of working while I slowly drink.

  But something catches my eye. The light glints off a silver chain which sits on Ramsey’s chest of drawers, and I move closer to see. A tightness pushes across my chest and dread fills my nerves, weighing them down and causing everything to happen in slow motion.

  I pick the chain up between my thumb and the forefinger of my free hand, letting it swing in front of my eyes.

  It’s Nate’s chain.

  I noticed it was missing. He said he had lost it. What the hell is it doing here? Why does Ramsey have it?

  I shakily drop the tumbler onto the cabinet and take the chain between both hands, holding it up at eye level in disbelief. I don’t understand why Ramsey has this.

  It’s…all too close.

  The situation. I thought I was coping with it.

  The air around me—I’m struggling to breathe.

  My past and my present are colliding in a messy war of uncertainties, and we’re just waiting for the casualties. Because there isn’t such a thing as a war without loss.

  The door bursts open as I clutch at my chest and gasp for air.

  “Sadie?” Tex frowns, moving quickly toward me. I hold out my hand to stop him. I don’t want to do this in front of a stranger. I mean, I know Tex is one of the Souls, but he’s still a stranger to me. “Shit,” he snaps. “I’ll get help.”

  He dashes back out of the open door, and I feel my way along the furniture. My vision is blurred by panic. The walls are closing in on me and widening again, but it’s all distorted, and nothing feels level or real. Dropping to my knees by the bed, I put my head in my hands, screwing my eyes tightly shut and searching desperately for Ramsey’s voice that has helped me calm myself before.

  But it doesn’t come.

  This attack is bad.

  I can’t hear Ramsey, but the noises echoing through my head are deafening. I can hear Vaughn, my mom, Nate…

  “Sadie?”

  Whose voice is that? I turn my head to the calming presence, my blurred vision making out JJ at my side, kneeling next to me.

  “JJ…” I pant.

  “It’s okay, princess.” He rubs my back in a soothing, circular motion and holds my gaze while he talks to me in hushed tones. “It’s going to be fine. You’re okay. Just breathe. Deep breath in, that’s it…” He reassures me with his eyes, a soft, familiar gaze. Seeing him look at me like that again reminds me of how he made me feel as a small girl. I was happy. Innocent, carefree and…happy. After my mom took us away, I don’t remember that kind of carefree feeling. It was hard, stressful, and most of all, lonely.

  “Sadie, look at me, sweetheart. You’re okay. You’re with me. I’ll make everything okay,” he says, as the breaths slow down in my chest and he guides me off my knees to sit on the edge of the bed with him.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t ever apologize for something that’s out of your control, princess. It should be me that’s apologizing to you.”

  “Why?” I frown.

  “I should have fought harder for you—searched wider…fuck, I should have kept searching and never stopped until I found you.”

  “Don’t be crazy, how could you have known where we were?”

  He hangs his head, shaking it gently from side to side. “That’s not a good enough reason, Sadie. I gave up too easily, and you suffered because of it.” />
  “That was certainly not the reason I suffered.” I turn to him, placing my hand on his shoulder. “She took me, without a word. You could have ridden out every day for the rest of your life and not found us.”

  “But I didn’t, and I’m truly sorry for that, Sadie. I really am.”

  “I know. But I’m here now.” I smile, and he turns his head to look at me, mirroring my smile. I love the way it softens his features. It creases into little lines around his eyes, life lines. Stories on his skin. I want to know everything about him. His life in the Steel Souls. His relationship with Lia. I want him to tell me every story behind every line that paints his handsome face. I want to make up for all the years we’ve missed out on with each other. And as if he knew how to calm my troubled mind, by changing the subject, getting me talking, and by listening to him, the panic subsides.

  “You’re here, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am. I know I don’t deserve your time, but I want to know you, Sadie. I won’t let you go again. It was the most painful thing to have ever happened to me. I would like to say I was glad she took you—away from me, away from this life. What kind of life is it with all these guns and violence on the doorstep? Your mom, she…she was doing what she thought was best for you at the time. She was trying to find a safer life, a happier world for you to grow up in.”

  I shrug and smile sadly. I know she was doing what she thought was best for me. I know everything he’s saying is right. How could he have been responsible for a child amongst all this madness? Would my mom and I ever had come above his duty for the club and his desire to one day become the President, which he is now? But I wasn’t protected, was I? I wasn’t safe, and I wasn’t kept from harm.

  “What happened, Princess?” he asks as if he can feel the pain from my thoughts. “Your mom…how did she die?”

  I straighten my shoulders and take a deep breath. “She was murdered, along with my brother.” Those words never get any easier to say. They’re like shards of glass on my tongue as I push them past my lips. But this is something I have to tell JJ. I need him to know everything. Not because I want him to feel guilty, but because I want him to see that his life, this life is good enough for me. I want him to know that a life with him in it, no matter where it is, is much better than a life without him.