Fire in the Stars (Steel Souls MC Book 2)

by Nikki Groom

  “That’s it?” He shakes his head, pacing back and forth next to his bike. Two steps left, two right. Kicking up the dust under his boots at the side of the road.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what you were expecting, Prez.”

  “Nah, me either. A fucking miracle would be really great right about now.” He scrapes his hands through his hair, tugging at the knots that catch in his rough fingertips.

  “What’s the plan from here?” I ask, trying to get him to focus on what we have to do from here—on the end goal.

  “Call Tex.” His face is drawn into tight lines as he paces back and forth again as he forms a plan in his mind. “Tell him to meet us here. We need info from the dealer. Time, place, and expectation. Then we turn up. Simple.”

  “They’re gonna be armed,” I warn.

  “So are we.” He stops and pulls pistols from a holster around his waist, holding them in front of him so they’re pointing up in the air. “I’ll use every single one of these bullets, and put any man down that gets in the way of me finding her, Ram.” His nostrils flare as he sets his jaw as hard as his mindset.

  “I’m with ya. One hundred percent with ya. But remember.” I step forward, checking our surroundings before continuing, more out of habit than necessity at this point. “We need him alive. He’s worth nothing to us if he’s cold. We need him alive and able to talk.”

  I call Tex and give him the directions to meet us here. Then I sit back on my ride and survey the road around us. It never switches off, that need to stay alert. To be aware of your surroundings and what’s going on at all times. I can’t remember a time I really slept, like a deep, untroubled sleep. I can’t remember any time in my life when sleep came easily. In fact, life at HQ is probably the closest I ever get to letting my guard down, even then I feel a tenseness in my nerves that burns every scrap of energy I hold.

  JJ straddles his bike and stares off into the distance in quiet contemplation, and as the minutes pass, emotion swells in my throat. I have to get her back. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if Vaughn doesn’t come. I mean, we’re being led by that piece of fucking paper and the fact that the date correlates with someone that a dealer is meeting out here. It’s a long shot at best. But the only shot we have.

  Vaughn has to be the key to finding her. But what if we’re chasing something that doesn’t exist. What if something else has happened to her? I know Nate took her from that fucking store but was he acting alone? Does Vaughn know he has her? Every possible answer runs through my head. But it always comes back to the same thing.

  Nate took her.

  Vaughn now has her.

  I’m gonna get her back.

  I don’t know how I know this for sure. I just do. It’s a feeling. An intense gut instinct that I can’t ignore. It runs through my veins and rings true in the hollow of my stomach. I just wish I could figure out Vaughn’s game. I don’t know what drives him, motivates him, or even what the hell he wants with Sadie. What could she possibly mean to him that he has to forcibly take her back? And then crystal clarity slaps me right in the face.

  Obsession.

  Sadie is a woman you could easily become obsessed with. I have. Her presence alone is enough for me to forget every logical thought, and risk anything to have her.

  She isn’t a choice, she’s a compulsion.

  I need her in my life like I need air to breathe and without her now, I’m a dead man walking.

  “She was a beautiful kid.” JJ snaps me out of my torturous deep thoughts with his quiet voice. “She always smiled. Always so damn happy to see me. If I was having a shitty day, her little face was all I needed to remember why I was doing it all. The drugs, the violence. It was all for her.” He narrows his eyes, still focusing in the distance. The irony of it all isn’t lost on me. He provided for his kid by doing anything he could to bring in the money. It was illegal and fucked up. But isn’t it all?

  “What happened with her mom?”

  “Annie?” He questions, turning to face me. “I don’t know if I ever loved Annie. She meant something to me, but I never knew what it was. It wasn’t an arrow in your heart kind of love. More like a love of convenience. She was there at a time I needed someone, cooked my supper, warmed my bed, stood in my corner…for a while.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She left me. Packed her bags and left while I was out on a protection run. Told Tex it was no life for a little girl to be brought up in, and I never saw her again.” He pauses, scrubbing his hand over his face and pushing back the emotion of losing his daughter for so many years. It must have felt like he’d had his heart torn out. “Sadie was loved, so fucking loved, I couldn’t see that my choices might put her at risk. As far as I was concerned, there was no risk because I would have taken out anyone that so much as looked at her the wrong way. I'd die for her, no hesitation.” He pauses for a second, swallowing down the emotion blocking his throat. “Anyway, I heard a rumor Annie had been screwing around. Can’t say I was surprised. I didn’t treat her like a fucking queen. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t have that fire in my belly for her, you know? Not like I do with Lia.” He smiles. “Fuck. That woman. She’s everything, Ram.” He stops, looking away and back to me with a laugh. “I don’t have to tell you how that feels, do I?”

  I smile back, sighing when I think of Sadie and how she’s so deeply embedded in my head, I couldn’t shake her out if I tried. “She’s the beat of my heart, man.”

  “Yeah, mine too.” He nods. “We’ll get her back.”

  “We have to,” I tell him. “There’s no other option.”

  We settle back into silence. Both aware of what’s at stake and not needing words to confirm it.

  A short while later Tex pulls up beside us, and Vinny hops out before the truck even comes to a standstill.

  “What’s happening?” he asks, squaring his shoulders and propping his hands on his hips.

  “Nothing so far. Who do you have in there?” I nod my head toward the truck.

  “The dealer,” Tex answers, coming around to stand next to Vinny. “The cocksucker is hurt, starved of food and water, and ready to do whatever the fuck we tell him to.” He nods with a determined look in his eyes.

  “Good. Get him out,” JJ orders, and Tex and Vinny waste no time in dragging him from the rear seat. With his hands bound behind his back and his mouth taped, they shove him to his knees in front of JJ. He stinks of sweat and piss, and I have no idea how Tex and Vinny managed to travel for hours in the truck with him suffocating them with the stench.

  JJ steps forward, slamming his hand against his face and squeezing his cheeks so hard his skin starts to turn purple. “I’m gonna take off this tape, and you are gonna tell me everything you know, or I’m gonna gut you like a fucking fish, and leave you here by the side of the road for the crows to eat, do you understand me?”

  He nods furiously, fear almost making his eyes pop out of his head. Then JJ rips at the tape across his mouth, and he cries out in pain as much as relief as he takes in lungfuls of air.

  “Where and when are you meeting your supplier?” JJ asks, and the guy starts to stutter and panic.

  When you’ve been kept in a dark, cold basement and fed just enough to keep you alive, your brain efficiency is severely compromised. But that’s not good enough in this situation, and JJ backhands him across his cheek, slapping him sideways and into the ground. He cries out as he lands with a thud, but Vinny grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him back upright, still on his knees. JJ draws a knife from his belt and lowers it slowly to the guy’s throat, pressing hard enough against his Adam’s apple that when he swallows hard, it digs in just enough to break the skin. “Where?”

  “In the hangar on the private airstrip,” he blurts out, his face pulled tight with fear. “Midnight. You gotta go through the guard at the gate.”

  “How?”

  “He knows me. I don’t know how—”

  “How many men will there be?” JJ presses the guy harder.


  “Two on the gate. Only one in the hangar,” he says, flinching when JJ slams his boot into the ground in the space between them. “It’s the truth. I swear. He turns up, swaps the package and then leaves.”

  “He ride or drive?” JJ asks, getting as much of a picture as possible.

  “Rides, usually. Just him.” the guy says, pleading with his eyes for JJ to believe him. Desperate to be given a chance to live.

  JJ exchanges a look with me. If whoever he’s meeting is on a bike, and he’s supplying someone to deal in my bar, the likelihood is, it’s a rival gang. And right now there’s only one rival gang that wants in on our patch.

  I should have seen it before.

  The Wolves have been working with Vaughn.

  I can’t be wrong about this. There are too many coincidences…no, not coincidences, cold, hard facts.

  “What’s your name?” JJ asks the guy, his voice booming up between them.

  “M-m-mark,” he answers, almost breaking into a sob, and losing any sense of composure he thought he had. As if he didn’t already smell bad enough, a strong smell of urine fills the air in the small space between us, and JJ curls his lip, turning away momentarily.

  “Ah, fuck. Why do they always piss themselves?” JJ asks, glancing over at me, and I shrug. When his gaze lands back on the guy, I notice his jaw is set hard, and his lips are set in a thin line as he jerks his arm, slicing the knife clean through the guy’s throat, exposing flesh and blood, and ending his sad fucking existence.

  “Prez!” I call out in disbelief, grabbing the sleeve on his upper arm and balling it up in my fist. “We needed him. We fucking needed him!”

  “No, we didn’t.” He sneers down at the body that’s bled out at his feet. “We had everything we needed from him. Fucker was useless, and a liability. He wouldn’t have held it together long enough to get to the end of the road.”

  “What the fuck are we gonna do now?” I shove him hard in the chest, making him step back to regain his balance.

  “Don’t fucking push me, Ram,” he warns, striding forward into me. Then he grins. “Vinny’s gonna go in his place.”

  “I am?” Vinny steps forward. “Hey, man. I’ll always help ya out, but this? I’m tryin’a keep my head down and my nose clean.”

  “Vin.” JJ steps into him, placing his hand on his shoulder. “My daughter is missing. This is the only lead we have, and I am about fifteen minutes from losing my shit. If you don’t wanna—”

  “Look,” Vinny interrupts, his gaze never wavering from JJ. He squares his shoulders, which makes him look even taller than before—at least four inches over JJ. “Don’t fuckin’ order me around, big man. You ain’t my Prez. I’m here as a favor. If I choose to help you, it’s on my terms…”

  I hold my breath as the tension between them ticks like a fucking time bomb. It takes a really brave or a really fucking stupid man to speak to JJ like that, especially given the circumstances.

  “I need your help, Vin…” JJ blows out a breath through his nose, letting his shoulders drop slightly. It’s his version of an apology and a show of respect for Vinny who’s helped us out many times, not least recently with the Liquor Box.

  “I’ll go. But you need to be there, in the background, ready on that trigger finger, cos I ain’t ready to die tonight if it all goes belly up.”

  “You got it.”

  “I ain’t scared of a gunshot wound, and that fucker can throw as many punches as he likes and I’ll take it, but I ain’t ready to be nailed down tight in a box. Got it?” he reiterates, nodding as he psyches himself up for the task ahead. He’s used to going into unknown situations—more than capable of working on initiative, but he’s also used to having a team behind him should shit go bad.

  “We’ll have your back, Vin.” I clasp his upper arm firmly with a nod, and Tex plants his hand between his shoulders.

  “You fucking better.” He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. I know it’s asking a lot of him seeing as he’s not a club member. But we’ve asked time and time again, and he ain’t interested. He’s a rule unto himself, and that’s the way he likes it.

  “Good.” JJ steps back, checking his holsters. “Tex, move him out,” he orders, indicating to the dealer on the ground.

  “Ah, fuck. More dead bodies in my truck, Prez?” Tex drops his head back dramatically. “Look at him. He’s bleeding all over the fucking place.” He throws his hands up, and JJ raises his brows in warning. “Fine,” Tex grumbles. “But you can clean it up when we all get back to HQ.” Tex curses under his breath, dragging the dealer away.

  “We’re wasting time standing around here,” JJ says, jumping on his ride. “Let’s go.”

  “How do we get in?” I ask JJ as we slow down on the approach to the gate.

  “Easy.” He jerks his chin up and pulls away from me steadily. I hang back, watching and waiting as Tex and Vinny crawl up behind my bike in Tex’s truck.

  Ahead, JJ jumps off his bike, approaches the kiosk, and two shots echo around the airfield as he shoots the guys behind the desk.

  “That’s how we’re getting in then,” Tex states from the open window of the truck. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath and readying myself for what’s ahead.

  JJ leans through the window of the kiosk, pressing a button, and raising the barrier for us to ride through with a sweep of his arm and a bow. He has a grin on his face, and that grin says that he’s not messing about tonight. He’s here to get his daughter back, and he’s taking control of the situation and doing it his way.

  “They dead?” I ask, and he glances over their switchboard to where they lie in a heap on the floor and nods his head.

  “I’d say so,” he confirms.

  Tex leans out of the window and shouts. “Don’t even think about dumping them in my truck, too. Fuckin’ thing will stink of the dead forever.”

  “Someone’s gotta clean them up.” JJ laughs, lightening the moment, but still aware of the weight in the air. “They ain’t gonna fit on these bikes. Gimme a hand,” he orders, and Tex complains about the smell of the dead the whole time it takes us to load them up. The last thing we want is to leave two dead guards at the barrier and alert whoever is coming of our presence. We jump back on the bikes, and JJ turns his body back so he’s facing us all. “There’s the hangar. Let’s get in there. Then all we’ve got to do is wait.”

  We glide into the open hangar, tucking the bikes away in the corner as Tex and Vinny park behind the doors, out of immediate sight. Whoever turns up isn’t gonna get as far as to investigate Tex’s truck without having a bullet in the back of their head.

  We’re all hyperaware of anyone and anything going on around here. It’s quiet. Almost too quiet, and I remember the time on the note. 9.04.

  “It’s only eleven. We’re early, and the flight is scheduled for the morning,” I say quietly under my breath.

  “How do you know?” JJ grumbles, constantly scanning the area outside.

  “The note. It said nine o four. I’m putting all my money on it that’s the time of the flight.”

  “Then we’ll wait. I’ll wait all fucking night and day if I have to, Ram. I ain’t leaving until I have answers and my daughter.”

  Tex is lying low in the back seat of the truck, and Vin will be the one to get out and try and make the deal.

  Fuck, this can’t go wrong. This is everything. The only lead we have. The only sliver of insight we have to get my woman back in my arms.

  Once I’ve got her. Her skin against my skin. Her breath against mine. Her eyes to drown in. I’m not letting her go. Ever.

  “We should’a fuckin’ kept him alive.” My frustration grows and I growl under my breath. “We don’t even know if they’re in the right place.” I’m fidgeting like an addict without a hit, a feeling of dread and foreboding knocking on the door of my soul and waiting to be let in.

  “Stop fuckin’ bitchin’,” JJ snaps. “There’s only one private airstrip here that I can see, and this is i
t.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” I retort, clenching my jaw together the second the words leave my lips. I’m anxious, and for the first time in my life, I don’t know how to channel that.

  “If you say one more word I swear—” JJ moves toward me with fury blazing in his eyes. An engine breaks the silence, and both of us snap our head around to see who it is.

  A van roars down from the gates and screeches to a halt at the hangar, blowing dust carried by the warm midnight air up into our faces.

  “He’s early.” His eyes harden, settling on the van that’s just rushed in. “It’s on.” JJ glances over to Vinny, and both of us step back into the shadows.

  “I thought he said the supplier always turned up on a bike?” I whisper.

  “Well, this time he hasn’t. Whoever the fuck he is, is bang on time, and in a fucking hurry.”

  The van door slams and a figure emerges in the expanse of the open doorway. JJ and I both draw our weapons, studying the silhouette, recognizing the stance of the man standing in the way of what’s ours, but not fully registering.

  Vinny slowly moves toward him with his head down and hood up, and the figure steps into the dim light of the hangar. It takes a couple of seconds for my head to register what my eyes are seeing, and realization slams into me full force, but a fraction of a second too late as he draws his gun, blasting a shot into Vinny’s chest and knocking him off his feet.

  Rev.

  The elusive President of The White Wolves MC.

  I knew him and Vaughn were linked somehow, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before we came face to face.

  His laughter echoes around the hangar and his footsteps thud on the concrete as he starts to walk toward Vinny.

  “Knock, knock, little pigs. The big bad wolf is here to eat you all up,” he sings, chuckling to himself at his humor. I blow out a frustrated breath through my nose. My whole body is shaking as I try to suppress the rage and hatred I have for this man and everything he stands for. I go to step forward, but JJ grabs my arm and shakes his head for me to hold back. “You think I’m stupid enough to fall for your little runner here?” He stands directly above Vinny, looking down over him as a bloom of red spreads on the ground beneath him. “Hmm, no cut. Not one of yours then, so you won't mind losing him.”