Steel: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 4)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Clearing my throat, I questioned, “What do you want?”

  He paused, hesitating more than I was used to from him. He was decisive by nature. Always had been. That’s what made his actions hard to swallow.

  Whatever he did came with a purpose, and there was no fighting that. No hiding it.

  If he wanted me to hurt, it was because he wanted me to hurt.

  Yeah, screwed up, right?

  What was more screwed up? Him doing that or me still loving him, even though he hurt me every day in ways he didn’t even know? Or, maybe he did know, and didn’t give a shit—either way, it sucked.

  I bit my bottom lip as he murmured, “I need a favor.”

  Of course he did.

  Why else would he call?

  “I’m not in the mood,” I said tiredly.

  “It’s—”

  “Let me guess? Club business?” When he said nothing, I shook my head. “Not even a ‘how are you?’ before you get straight down to it.” I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Sounds about right. Look, call someone else.”

  Steel sighed. “I didn’t want to call.”

  And even though it shouldn’t have, that made things hurt even fucking more.

  “Of course you didn’t,” I replied flatly. “So why did you?”

  “You know Ghost, Tatána, and Amara?”

  My brow puckered. “How could I forget? Are they okay?” They were the women I’d helped bring back from death’s door at the Sinners’ compound a short while back.

  “Yeah, they’re fine. Getting better every day.” Another sigh. “You know the person behind their situation?”

  My eyes widened. “Yeah.”

  “I need help with him.”

  Warily, I stared at a Chevy’s license plate. It read ‘2Hot 4Luv’ as I contemplated what was going on here.

  “I need to know how to knock someone out with ketamine.”

  A hiss escaped me, as did the air in my lungs. I felt like a balloon that had just been deflated. What with Angela and everything else that was happening here?

  This was just the cherry on the sundae.

  So, I probably stunned the shit out of him as I gave him an answer. When I heard him scratch it down, I didn’t say another word, just cut the call.

  He called back once, to his credit, but I ignored it and him, and instead, got to my feet and walked back into the hospital.

  Sometimes, somedays, you could only take so much pain, and I’d just hit my limit.

  The rest of my shift went by in a blur, and for the first time, I was grateful that I wouldn’t be staying here for much longer.

  I’d thought I’d start my career here—I knew I was good enough to be taken on the staff permanently, but something wasn’t right. Something was most definitely wrong, and the day I managed to leave this place, even if it meant I had to return to West Orange like Rex had declared he wanted the last time we’d spoken face to face, suddenly, I was glad about that.

  Even if it put me in Steel’s path.

  I’d deal with it, because the weird thing was that in this world, people weren’t supposed to be killed. Sure, I knew that sounded strange. I wanted to specialize in being an ER doctor, for fuck’s sake. I was working in NYC. One of the murder capitals of the country. But here, death was different.

  In the MC, it was part of the life, as well as being jailed for twenty-five years.

  But here I was, walking the same corridors as someone who was supposedly giving patients who didn’t need it peace.

  Maybe I was wrong. I hoped I was. But I just knew I wasn’t.

  I’d been around murderers all my life. I knew what it felt like.

  Angela shouldn’t have died today.

  She’d been responding well to treatment. Enough for her to live a little longer, for her to have more time with Oliver.

  For cancer patients, even those who were knocking on death’s door, every day mattered, and Oliver and Angela had been denied that time.

  I bit my lip to stop more tears from welling up, then I shoved my feelings aside and got back to work.

  I’d already been raked over the coals this week, and I didn’t need to be given shit from my supervisor tonight either.

  It was time to pull up my big girl panties and get on with shit.

  Two

  Steel

  The official Rex had told me about was tiny. Donavan, on the other hand, wasn’t. But that was the joy of mechanical engineering.

  There was a crate on one of those metal lifts that the small guy in an olive uniform wheeled in, one that managed to make him look even smaller than he already was, and I knew my prize was inside. Something I was grateful for, because it meant there’d be less of my DNA on Donavan’s body now that I didn’t have to manhandle him into the shipping container.

  “He knocked out.”

  The first words from the guy had me smiling at him as I packed away the deck of cards I’d been shuffling into my pocket. “Good to know.” I reached into my bag and handed him an envelope that was stuffed with dollars. He accepted it with a slickness that told me this wasn’t and wouldn’t be his first bribe for the night, and then crammed it in the briefcase he had plunked on top of the crate.

  From there, he also pulled out another bag. “Your Mr. Rex told me this another request.”

  I nodded when he passed me the paper bag, wondering if this was the equivalent of a soldier genie, and I peered in, saw the vial and needle, and was grateful Stone had given me the info I needed, even if she’d been weird about it as she’d done so.

  To be honest, I’d thought she’d give me more shit than she had, and I was grateful she hadn’t, while a part of me was also concerned.

  Stone was my personal ball buster, after all. Scared of nothing and no one. Capable of going toe-to-toe with any brother in the MC, but I was used to a different side of her.

  A side where she’d melt. Where all the walls would come tumbling down and I was allowed inside.

  I hadn’t expected to miss that on that call, but I had.

  Her voice hadn’t softened at all like it used to once upon a time, and even though I knew I deserved that, it still made something inside me feel like I was being gnawed on by big fucking rats.

  And trust me, I’d seen big fucking rats in this place.

  “You fine, Mr. Steel?”

  This ‘mister’ shit would have given me a laugh a few days back, but with Stone’s words and lackluster voice still ringing in my head, I just cleared my throat and asked, “You’ll be putting him on the flight for me according to Mr. Rex’s instructions?”

  The man dipped his chin. “This correct. He currently sleeping thanks to blow to head. But it not enough. He need that so sleep more.”

  I nodded. “I’ll deal with that.”

  The official grunted. “He a bad man.”

  “Very bad man,” I rasped, surprised by the statement, and even more surprised by the hand he’d put on my forearm as I strolled by him to reach the crate.

  We were in a weird ante-office that reminded me of a loading bay back home.

  There were squeaky concrete floors and lots of these crates all around me, and none of them were stacked in a way that was good for health and safety.

  On the back wall, there was a window that overlooked a small runway, but I knew just around the corner was the larger airport. One I’d be transferring to for my flight home the second this business was over with.

  “My sister,” the official rasped. “She gone.”

  I blinked. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He shook his head. “No. Not dead. Alive. Gone.” His gaze cut to the box. “He a Triad?”

  “He has ties with them.” We’d learned that much. I rubbed my thumb against my middle and forefinger, the universal sign for money. “He’s the money man.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I thought so. Looked into him. Saw much. Can’t find sister. Mother sad. Help?”

  The broken, disjointed English somehow made his reques
t all the more poignant. I hadn’t expected this, had just thought it was business, not personal, but I guessed it fit.

  This guy wore an army uniform. He was an official in more ways than one, and while I knew corruption was rife in every country at all levels, this was just a tad too unusual to be true.

  “I’ll set some people on it.”

  The soldier’s eyes narrowed on me. “Thank you.”

  I shrugged. “I make no promises.”

  “Understand that. She might be gone for good.” His nostrils flared, the pain of that hard truth hitting home, so I reached over, grabbed his shoulder, and squeezed.

  “I’ll do my best.” I cleared my throat. “You got a pen?”

  He nodded, pulled one out of a front flap on his chest, and gave it to me. On the paper bag, I wrote out my burner number, tore off the slip from the bag, and handed it to him.

  “I’ll be home in thirty-six hours. Call me or send me info then.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  I nodded, then moved past him to get to Donavan. When I opened up the box, which hadn’t been nailed shut yet, I grimaced at the smell of piss and shit. The fucker had evidently messed himself in there, which made this a real fucking blast.

  The place had no AC, not outside of my hotel room, and the fetid odor was even worse than what I’d dealt with when I’d gone into that pit of hell where we’d found Amara, Ghost, and Tatána.

  I’d been with Link, Nyx, and Giulia that night as we rode into the dark, potentially on a wild goose chase that had led to this moment in time.

  The bastard was definitely thinner than the pictures I’d seen flashing on the screen of late. He had warrants out for his arrest, now that Ghost, my brother Maverick’s woman, had gone to the cops to end him, and the stubbled gaunt cheeks, the thinning hair, the lines on his face, and the sunburn that randomly stained his skin, all spoke of a man who’d gone from an easy life to poverty.

  That pleased me.

  After what I’d seen in that fun box of his, I figured a man like him deserved such a fate.

  “Smells bad,” the official grunted.

  “Yes.”

  A bag crinkled, and I peered up and saw that he’d opened up his briefcase. The thing was like a fucking carpet bag, Mary Poppin’s style, because he pulled out ten bags of what I recognized as moth balls.

  My nose twitched, unsure which scent I fucking preferred. Determining that Link owed me a shot of tequila every day until I died as the guy started opening bags and tossing moth balls to neutralize the stench into the crate, I roughly calculated Donavan’s weight—he looked to be about one-seventy with how emaciated he was—and then I did the math Stone had given me.

  With the dosage calculated, I went a little heavy by five ml and dosed up the syringe.

  Leaning into the crate made it even harder to do as Stone had directed.

  If I took this too fast, he’d go into respiratory arrest. I needed to stick him in the thigh, which meant getting way too close to all the nasty, so I sucked it up, held my breath so I didn’t breathe in too much of his shit, and I did my thing, letting the drug fuck with his system and not his heart.

  I wasn’t sure how long he’d be out of it for, but with the concussion he already had—he had a goose egg the size of my face, and it was cracked and bleeding, which added to his currently rakish appearance—I figured both would work together to keep him asleep.

  Fingers crossed.

  Or we were fucked.

  I wasn’t a religious man, not at all. You couldn’t live in my world, do the shit I did, and think God existed.

  But at that moment, I really hoped he did. Not to save my ass, but so that Lily could get her own back. She deserved that, and God, after putting her through all the stuff she’d gone through, owed her that much at least.

  And that wasn’t anything compared to what Ghost, Tatána, and Amara owed him either.

  I plucked my lip between my teeth as I helped the soldier, whose name I genuinely couldn’t read on the stitching on his uniform, and we carried on pouring mothballs in there until he looked like he was in some kind of Gulliver’s Travels kiddie ball pit.

  The sight of him, this billionaire magnate, so disheveled, amused me, and I wanted nothing more than to take a photo, but fuck, that led to prison and I wasn’t an idiot.

  The official pulled out a hammer and some nails, apparently uncaring that Lancaster might choke on whatever the fuck was in moth balls—not that I blamed him—and we put the lid back on and started to nail him in place.

  It felt very much like I was nailing him in a coffin, and I actually thought that might be a fitting end.

  Link wanted Lily to be the one to end him. I wasn’t sure if she was strong enough for that. Sure, she was strong enough to deal with what her cunt father had done to her, but outright murder?

  Naw.

  That was hard.

  Burying him alive though?

  What a way to end this fucker.

  Humming at the thought, I said, “Thank you for your help.”

  The official shrugged. “You paid me for it.”

  My lips twitched. “Above and beyond the call of duty.”

  The other man’s smile was small. “True.” He bowed to me, and though I was awkward, I bowed back, and he moved over to the handle of the pulley and started walking toward the door.

  Well, that was business accounted for.

  I strode out the other way, the way I’d come in which was like the customer entrance, and as I peered back at the warehouse once I was outside, the scent of filth still in my nostrils, I smirked as I climbed into the cab that would take me to the airport.

  This wasn’t my idea of a good vacation, but it sure had ended sweetly.

  Rex

  I was nervous.

  I’d admit it.

  So much could have gone wrong, and Steel was my brother. Not just the MC variety either. He, Nyx, Link, Maverick, and Storm were like my fucking kin. Sin was too, but he actually was blood. We were tied in other ways, but the strength of my links with the other guys was tight enough to be blood too.

  The idea of sending Steel off to another country, risking him being caught up in a human trafficking ring when that was the exact opposite of our intention, had me gnawing on antacids every night of the three weeks he’d been away.

  Until he was here, until the crate was on the back of our truck, my stomach lining would be attacked by my gut.

  I grunted when Nyx muttered at my side, “Wonder how long this is going to fucking take.”

  I shrugged. “No idea. As long as it needs to, I guess.”

  We were outside JFK, waiting on Steel with his bike on the back of the cage that Hawk, Giulia’s brother, was driving.

  We’d switch that out for the crate when we maneuvered to the cargo area of the airport the second Steel was back with us.

  Truth was, we weren’t going to be hitting a home run until we were on Sinners’ territory. Only then could I breathe a deep sigh of relief.

  It was shitty of me to put Hawk in the position of driving around with a man in a crate on his truck bed, but it was three AM and I was hoping we’d be left alone.

  The Five Pointers had helped bribe their people until we hit the state line, and then our own markers with the state and county police would see us through when we rolled across Jersey.

  Still, sometimes someone got greedy, and now wasn’t the time for that.

  What we were doing was stupid.

  So fucking stupid.

  I shouldn’t be here. Neither should the rest of the council, but we were because this was personal.

  This fucker had hurt our women, and we needed to make him pay.

  The only person who wasn’t here, which filled me with some comfort because he could take over as Prez in a heartbeat, was Maverick.

  He’d refused to come, but I knew he’d be waiting, knew he wanted to get his licks in too.

  That he was starting to feel again was a relief. I just wishe
d that things were simpler for him and Ghost, because I was beyond ready to get my brother back.

  Eyes scanning the front of the airport, I almost missed Steel until I caught sight of him strolling through the doors like he owned the fucking place.

  The fucker wasn’t dumb enough to wear his cut through the airport, so he just wore a wifebeater, jeans, and boots with a satchel on his back. I wasn’t used to him looking so normal, so I’d almost missed him.

  Around me, my brothers stiffened, straightening up on their rides as we watched him look for us.

  I hadn’t told him we’d be waiting—I didn’t need to.

  Some shit went unspoken.

  When he saw us, he directed his path toward us. As he approached, he clapped hands with Sin, Link, and Nyx before he headed over to me. We butted shoulders in greeting, and I asked, “Everything go okay?”

  “I’m not in cuffs, so I figure that’s a yes,” he replied wryly, but he peered up at the sky then popped his neck. “Fuck, it’s good to be home.”

  “You just flew in first class,” Link grumbled. “Only you’d be happy for it to be over.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, and it was fucking fine too. But still, even if one of the stewardesses sucked me off, I’m sick of fucking sweating.”

  My lips twitched at that. “Trust you to join the mile-high club.”

  He winked. “You bet your sweet ass I did.”

  “Thanks. My ass is still sweet. I was so nervous you’d stopped loving it.”

  He grinned at me, slapped me on the arm, then dumped his bag on the floor before rummaging around and grabbing his cut.

  When he dragged it on, he sighed. “Now that feels better.” He peered at the truck bed, strode over to it, and muttered, “Let’s get Baby on the road.”

  I rolled my eyes at the nickname for his ugly ass hog that had bright orange flames on top of a burnt orange background. It wasn’t even sexy, just tacky.

  He never had much taste for his rides. Though it was tuned to perfection, it definitely wasn’t classy like my sweet black hog.

  I hummed as Hawk and Nyx got the bike down with Steel’s help, and when he was on the back of it, he grinned.