Spark in the Ashes (Steel Souls MC Book 1)

by Nikki Groom

  “Yeah, well as long as this place keeps running smooth,” Ramsey says abruptly, tapping my waist with his thumb and raising his knee to indicate for me to stand. He grabs the glass and downs the contents, something that I’m not able to do or I’ll puke all over dear Len and the bar.

  “You got it, boss.” Len straightens and salutes before taking Ramsey’s glass but not offering him another. This conversation is over.

  Len nods a goodbye in my direction, and Ramsey takes my hand, stalking out of the bar with me practically skipping behind him to keep up.

  As soon as we’re outside, Ramsey’s on me, grabbing my wrists and capturing them, pressing them hard against the concrete above my head.

  “Wha—” I try to speak—to ask what’s going on, but he forces his lips against mine, urgent and unforgiving, and as I gasp, he wastes no time and invades my mouth with his tongue. Instinct has me twisting my body and pushing him away with my hips, but it’s half-hearted. I don’t want him to stop. In fact, I wouldn’t stop him if he tried to take me right here against this rough, cold wall. He drops one of my wrists only to clamp his huge hand around my breast, kneading roughly. I wrap my free hand around the back of his head, pulling him closer to me, hungrily tasting and feeling him, unable to get enough to satisfy the desire burning through me. A groan rumbles in his throat and meets mine where our lips meet feverishly. Anger pushes through him, frustrations manifest in a passionate, forceful exchange. Then he pulls away abruptly, dropping my wrists and clamping a hand over my mouth before I have a chance to ask what the hell is going on.

  “Don’t say a word,” he mouths quietly, his eyes blazing with tumultuous emotions. He slides his hand away and replaces it with a polarizing tender kiss to my lips before breaking away and leaving me breathless.

  His withdrawal leaves me confused, frustrated, and throbbing between my legs. I've never experienced such a burning desire, such an intense physical connection with someone like I do with Ramsey. But before I have the chance to analyze whatever this is between us, if indeed it is anything at all, he drags me through the alley next to the bar and into the back entrance. I open my mouth to speak but think better of it when I see the intensity and concentration on Ramsey’s face. Now is not the time to ask questions. He presses his back flat against the wall and gestures for me to do the same, pressing a finger against his lips, telling me to be quiet. He listens in the direction of voices coming from the office.

  “I told you to keep your girls fucking quiet. They want the fucking good shit at half the price then you had better put the pressure on and find out who the fuck’s been talking,” Len spits. It's easy to recognize his voice, and to my knowledge, there was only one other person working in the bar when we went in, and that was a dark-haired waitress who made herself scarce as soon as we walked through the door. “I don't need that jumped-up bastard sniffing around and finding out any more than he already knows. Do you understand me? I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” he yells, his voice bouncing around the room before a thud echoes against the wall next to us. Ramsey drops my hand immediately and rushes into the room. I follow as fast as I can behind him, in time to see him launch Len into the air, leaving the girl to drop on the floor clutching at her throat and gasping for breath. Ramsey heaves Len up and slams him flat into a desk.

  “Don't let her leave,” Ramsey yells over his shoulder in a growl, before focusing his attention on Len. He has his hands around his throat, tightening and releasing in quick succession. Len knows not to fight back—the power and rage coming from Ramsey is enough to terrify anyone. “Tell. Me. Everything,” he says to Len. “NOW!”

  “I-I-I don't know what you want me to say,” he rasps out under the strain of Ramsey's tightening, dangerous clutches.

  “What are you keeping from me, Lenny boy?” he asks, gritting his teeth and tightening his vice-like grip on Len’s airway.

  “Arghhh,” Len yells as his feet kick up off the floor in response to the severe pain being inflicted on him. It's then that the woman jumps up off the floor and makes a move for the door.

  “Oh no you don't,” I mutter under my breath, and I grab her hair as she tries to dart past me. Her head snaps back sharply, and she lets out a scream. I maneuver her in front of me, drawing my gun and pushing it into her temple. She wasn’t expecting it, and her panicked breaths come fast with little whimpers of fear showing how out of her depth she really is. I tighten my grip in her hair, clutching closer to the skull and gaining a better hold. “Don't even think about leaving, sweetheart. I'm a crack shot, and I sure wouldn't want to have to deflate those massive fake tits of yours before I stop your heart.”

  “You okay over there, darlin’?” Ram asks over his shoulder, a smirk on his face.

  “Oh yeah, you know me, babe. Never better than with a gun in my hand,” I reply, pressing the metal just a little harder to the girl’s temple.

  The momentary interaction gives Len a second’s grace, and he breaks loose from Ramsey's grip, slamming the back of his clenched fist into Ramsey's head and knocking him to the side. He runs forward, heading right at me and reaching around to the back of his waistband. I hesitate for a split second until I see the glint of his gun, and I know I have no choice. I pull my gun away from the girl’s temple and shoot.

  The force of the shot hitting his shoulder throws him back, giving Ramsey time to right himself and leap onto Len, trying to restrain him. I resume the position with my gun at the girl’s temple, trying to hide the nerves shaking through my hands, rattling the barrel against her skull. Ramsey and Len are a tangle of arms and legs. Although Ram is strong and has years on Len, Len’s survival mode is kicking in which makes him reckless and dangerous. They grunt and groan as they grapple at each other, then a searing cry of pain breaks through the room as Ramsey forces his thumb in the fresh, raw, bullet wound in Len’s shoulder. “Give it up, Lenny boy,” Ram grits out breathlessly.

  Len stills, eyes wide, breaths heaving in his chest, looking like he’s finally seen the light and he knows resistance is futile.

  The next few seconds play in slow motion.

  He draws his gun from nowhere, aims it toward me and fires until every bullet has left the chamber.

  Searing pain tears through my bicep as he fires the shots, my body jolting with the impact, as each bullet hits.

  But they’re not impacting me.

  The girl that just three seconds ago was at my mercy jerks with each hit as her body becomes too heavy for me to hold up and she drops to the ground in a heap of fake tits and bullets.

  “NO,” I hear Ramsey yell, before covering Len with his body, taking his head between his rage-fuelled hands and slamming it against the cold, hard ground over and over until Len’s body goes limp.

  Silence fills the room. Adrenaline is buzzing through us, and the shaking in my hands now seeming almost uncontrollable as I try to maintain a safe hold on my gun. Ramsey is at my side in a blink. “Are you hurt?” he asks, running his hands over my shoulders and clasping them on my cheeks to force me to look away from the girl’s body and into his deep brown eyes instead. “Sadie. Sadie,” he says over and over until I look at him instead of through him. “Are you hurt?”

  “N-No,” I stutter quietly. “Is he—”

  “Dead? No. But he ain’t waking up for a while.”

  “The girl …”

  “She’s dead,” he says as if he were giving directions. “Your arm, is this your blood?” he asks, inspecting me closely all over. As he eyes me up and down, I follow his path and survey what looks like the chainsaw massacre. So much blood, most of it not mine, and the tremors in my muscles start to become uncontrollable. My throat tightens, and I gasp to feed air into my lungs. “Sadie, you have to breathe, slow and easy, okay? Breathe with me. In…and out.” I try, but struggle to regulate my lung function while my mind is in meltdown, and I can still see the bloodied bodies around us. “Sadie,” he says, making me focus on him. “Breathe in … and out. Again.” He repeats this until I sta
rt to calm and can breathe on my own. “Come here,” he orders, taking my hand and dragging me to the bar area.

  He pours us each a large shot of something very strong, and I knock it back fast, relishing the burn, welcoming the fiery distraction and using it as a foothold back to composure. Ramsey calls someone on his cell and talks in clipped sentences as he paces back and forth in the bar. He turns the ‘open’ sign on the door to ‘closed’ and bolts it shut. As he paces past me back to the bar, I grab his forearm lightly until he stops and looks at me. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I don’t know what happened, I—”

  “Enough. I didn’t bring you here for that, and I never want you to be sorry for something that a lowlife like Lenny or his Jezebel whore girls have done, understand?” I nod and eye him curiously as he licks his thumb and rubs it firmly over my lips, removing any traces of blood before giving me a lingering kiss. “Now, let me look at your arm.”

  My arm stopped hurting when I had Ramsey’s attention. His soothing words, his reassuring gaze, his heated lips on my skin, it all erases the pain, both physical and emotional.

  In this second I know, he could be my savior… and my downfall.

  Chapter 16

  All the time I was wrapping her wounded arm with a bandage, I was berating myself for putting her so close to danger. I pretty much offered her up for sacrifice by taking her out the back like that. The whole ride back to HQ, I don’t think about Lenny, or the shit he’s got us into, or even what the fuck we’re going to do about it. I think of her. Wounded, confused, but still with total acceptance of the way my life is and not even close to bolting.

  What the fuck was I thinking?

  I wasn’t thinking, and that’s the problem. JJ was right. Women make you lose your fucking mind. The lines blur, your focus wavers, and consequently, lives are threatened. Like hers was today. But fuck if she didn’t hold her own, which puts my mind in turmoil even further. Having her by my side, covering my back with skill and ease, and total acceptance is by far the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced. The resulting panic attack just showed she’s still human under that steely exterior, and it felt good to help her calm.

  It felt good.

  Fuck.

  Usually, I wouldn’t give a shit what’s going on in a chick’s brain. Normally I would have her bent over a table or pressed up against a cubicle wall, and I wouldn’t care if she was laughing or crying because I’m an asshole like that.

  She deserves better.

  “Ramsey,” JJ bellows as soon as we walk through the doors. “My office. Now.”

  “I’m busy,” I answer, squeezing Sadie’s hand and puffing my chest out, readying myself for yet another dressing down.

  “The fuck you are.”

  “Prez …” I say, thinking maybe I can hold this off.

  “Leave the girl at the bar with Mo,” he gestures over to the bar area where Mo is refilling the optics. Mo gives a small shrug and a sympathetic smile, and I know I had better get this over and done with. I trust Mo implicitly. He’s a weird fucker, and that nervous tick of his makes me more nervous than him, but he’s a good guy and very devoted to his wife, Marnie. I lead Sadie over and sit her on a bar stool.

  “This is Mo, he’ll get you anything you want, just ask, okay? But don’t go far, I’ll—”

  “Ramsey,” she says softly, and the tenderness in her voice makes me exhale deeply. She brings her hand up and presses a finger against my lips. “I’m a big girl. Go. Sort out your shit. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

  I close my eyes for a moment, focusing on the only part of her body that’s touching me, but knowing that she’s touched far deeper than I expected. She’s warming the cold, long forgotten corners of my dark heart. Corners I never knew could come alive again. And although I know this is dangerous—for me, for her—for everyone if my head’s not in the game, I don’t care. I don’t care because I want her. I want to own her smile, her kiss, and God knows I want to take her heart and hide it away from the rest of the world and make it just for me. I want her to be mine.

  “RAMSEY,” JJ yells impatiently from his office. I kiss Sadie’s finger, earning a smile before she removes it from my lips and nods in the direction JJ’s voice came from.

  “Go,” she whispers.

  I take a breath. I’m not nervous. I’m not scared of anyone, and that includes JJ. But I am tired. Tired of chasing my tail and explaining myself. Tired of watching my back and living like every day is groundhog day.

  ‘Look, JJ, I know what you’re going to say …” I sound off as I cross the entryway.

  “Do you?” he asks, turning towards me. “Come on then, if you’re so fucking clever, tell me what I’m going to ask you.” He opens his arms in a gesture that tells me to tread carefully.

  “I can explain, just give me a couple of minutes.”

  “Sure.” He settles in his leather swivel chair and folds his arms across his chest with a narrowed gaze and a displeased smirk on his face. “Explain why I have a man that works for us, that has worked loyally for us for many, many years, half beaten to death and shot in the shoulder by you, and your …girlfriend.”

  He curls his lip at the mention of Sadie, and I lunge forward, slamming my hands on the desk between us, with rage pulsing through every part of me. JJ sits there, unwavering, calm as you like, and raises a brow at me. “You need to think long and hard about what you want, Ramsey, my boy.” He leans forward in his chair, placing his elbows on the desk and pressing his hands together. “Your judgment has been way off ever since you met that girl, so you had better start proving to me that you’re worthy of wearing that VP patch.”

  “You don’t trust me?” I ask him, stepping back from the desk. His words throw me off balance. He’s never before questioned my dedication or decisions, and it stings like a motherfucker.

  “Not over the past few days, no.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my judgment. The Wolves needed a message. Spice and Dago were the perfect opportunities. If I hadn’t sorted it, we would be sitting here like ducks in open season.”

  “And we’re not sitting ducks right now?” He tilts his head, looking at me through narrowed eyes.

  “I don’t remember a time we weren’t waiting for death to knock on the door, do you?” I bite back at him, frustration showing its face.

  He shrugs. “It’s all part of this world, Ramsey.”

  “I know. I know we roll the dice of death every second of every day. It’s what saved me from looking back at my past all those years ago. It excites me, keeps the blood moving through my veins. But sometimes, you have to weigh up the odds and throw the dice in a different direction.”

  “Calculated risks, Ram. Not reckless ones.”

  “I wasn’t reckless!” I raise my voice, infuriated at his counter comments. “I never went there with the intention of beating the stupid fucker to a pulp. I only dropped in to see how things were running. Something wasn’t right there, I needed to scope it out for myself, and the fucker was acting sketchy. He had a look in his eye.” I step back and run my hands through the shaggy mess that is my hair. “When have I ever been wrong about a hunch? I left and went out back to see if I could hear anything. He pretty much let the cat out of the bag.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s using another dealer. Supplying the girls, and using the girl that got shot to distribute to all of them. But shit happened, and Sadie shot him before I could get more info.”

  “Ah, yes. The lovely Sadie.” He sits back deep into his chair and cocks his head curiously with his hands clasped in front of him. “Hell has broken loose on more than one occasion since she showed up …”

  “You got something to say, Prez?” I place my hands on my hips and tap my foot impatiently. I don’t like people insinuating shit that’s not true, and I don’t like someone questioning her place in my life right now. I don’t know what that place is, but it’s not for anyone else to query.

  “Your head’s n
ot on straight. She’s a distraction, and one we can’t afford right now.”

  I breathe deeply through my nose, chewing on the inside of my cheek while I try to calm myself enough to think and speak rationally before I drag him over that desk and beat the fuck out of him. Prez or no Prez, I don’t have to like what he’s saying.

  “You don’t think Lia is a distraction for you?” I ask, noting the tic in his jaw at the mention of her name, and as he straightens in his chair. “Would you listen if I told you she was bad for you and the club? Because there are times I’ve thought you’re too deep in love to see the danger ahead. But we’ve got your back, and you’ve still got your old lady.” I watch his nostrils flare at the mention of Lia and realization crosses his face. “You see, you’ve got everything you could possibly want, so stop trying to prevent us having it too. My dedication is to this club. With you and my brothers. Don’t ever question that. But it doesn’t mean I can’t have both, or at least try to have both. The last few days would have happened with or without Sadie in the picture. In fact, what happened earlier in the bar could have been a monumental fuck-up if I had gone alone. So let’s secure a plan, and move forward, yes?” I raise my brows at him in question, and the air between us is tense as he holds my gaze but doesn’t speak. He stands, moving around the desk slowly and matching my stance directly in front of me.

  “I get it,” he says with a slow nod, placing his hand on my shoulder. “But don’t ever throw Lia at me again. Understand?”

  “I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up.” I give a curt nod, standing my ground, not intimidated by his warning, and hoping that he’s holding at least some respect for me and my choices. “So what are we going to do about Len?”

  “Well, dickhead’s only got a hole in his shoulder, so that doesn’t affect his ability to talk and give us the lowdown on what’s happening.” He sighs and rests on the corner of the desk. “But unfortunately you’ve beaten his head into the ground, and he’s struggling to string more than two words together right now.”