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

by Serena Akeroyd

  Indy sighed. “I told you they didn’t tell me how it went down.”

  “It wasn’t a question. I’m telling you that he did.”

  “And how can you tell? Because of the bandages?” She snorted. “That doesn’t make any sense. I got a bandage that size on my arm, and I wasn’t shot.”

  “No, you got a tattoo.” I rolled my eyes, but then I realized I was joking while I was at Steel’s bedside.

  His hospital bedside.

  Where he was fighting for his life.

  Apparently sensing how inappropriate our conversation was, Indy whispered, “Do you think he’ll recover?”

  “I hope so.” I gulped at the thought of him not recovering, and even as I was surprised at him being alone, without one of the MC here, requested, “Do you think you could pass me his charts?”

  She did as I asked, even though she warned, “If you get upset, we’re out of here.”

  “I know.” I made a ‘gimme’ motion with my fingers, then started reading through the information on his stats.

  He was stable. Now.

  I flinched as I recalled the treatment he must have gone through, and I knew if I didn’t compose my features, then Indy really would make good on her threat.

  Trouble was, I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Trouble was, it was only a twist of fate that we ended up in the same ICU and that I got to see him like this.

  Vulnerable.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever known him to appear this way.

  I’d seen him sleep, and I’d seen him sick before, but not like this.

  He was sedated, and would be for a few days to keep him still so his body could heal.

  But the truth was, just looking at him made my heart ache.

  “You’re never not going to love him, are you?” Indy rasped.

  I glanced at her over my shoulder with sadness in my eyes, a matching one in hers as I shook my head.

  “It’s too deep inside me.”

  “Like cancer.” She huffed. “Anyway, we need to get you out of here before we get into shit. I mean, some of the nurses here are cuties, but I don’t want to get kicked out and get the one who helped us sneak in here into trouble.”

  I didn’t disagree, but being wheeled away from him left a physical pain in my being.

  I wasn’t sure if I could sustain that pain and all the rest of the aches that were going down in my body at that moment, but I’d deal with it. I had to.

  Just as I’d deal with the distance I was going to put between us.

  Even if we were going to be in the same town once more, that didn’t mean he’d catch sight of me again.

  I bit the inside of my lip then whispered, “I’m ready to go.”

  She sighed. “Okay.”

  When she wheeled me out of the ICU and toward the department where I was staying, I pointed at the nurses’ station as we passed it. “I want to go there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to get out of here. I want to go home. There’s nothing more they can do for me. I’ve been here thirty-six hours, I’ve had more fluids put in me than I know what to do with, and I’m ready to go home.”

  Indy, knowing better than to argue, just grumbled, “I’ll warn the guys.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re packing up your apartment, chica. That’s why no one was sitting with Steel. They’re all busy right now.”

  “What?” I burst out, and my declaration was really fucking loud in the silence of the night ward.

  “Yeah, what. I told you they were intent on getting you out of the city and back to West Orange. Rachel had to strong arm the police, too, because they wanted to keep you nearby, but you’re only a person of interest, not a suspect.”

  My eyes widened at that. “Well, that really makes me feel better,” I grumbled. “Only a person of interest? Great!”

  She snickered. “If you could see your feathers all ruffled right now, you’d have a giggle.”

  I squinted at her. “Bitch.”

  She smirked back. “Cow.”

  We both snickered until the amusement waned, and I was left dealing with the fact that Steel was back in a room I wanted to be in, and my apartment was no longer my own.

  I gulped, wondering what was happening, how my life had taken a turn for the worse, and then I decided not to think about it, and just get things moving along.

  “To the nurses’ station, MacDuff,” I rasped, and Indy, thankfully, didn’t argue.

  When I got there, I smiled at the harried night team, and told them, “In the morning, I’d like to begin the process of being released.”

  I’d been transferred out of ICU, and only speaking with a nurse who was friends with Raina, a nurse back at High Lidren Hospital, had helped get me back in after hours.

  I’d needed to see Steel before I left.

  When he didn’t know I was visiting.

  At a moment where I could let my love for him show, before I tucked it back in the deep-freeze of my chest, and moved on for good.

  All these years, I hadn’t been pining for him. I’d lived my life, had tried to find someone else, but it had just never panned out.

  It was time to let him go though, because I’d evidently been clinging onto him, and I shouldn’t have. I’d been in love with Robin, the boy I’d known since I was a child, and that love was a cancer. But it was time for chemo.

  The nurse’s grumble brought me back to the here and now. “You’re still under observation.”

  “The drugs are either going to fade out of my system, or they’ll kill me.” At this point, it wasn’t like being here would do much else.

  “You’re comfortable with the latter being an option?”

  “I’m not comfortable with being in a hospital right now.”

  Her gaze softened. “Well, I can understand that. The news has been going crazy with what happened at HL.”

  I nodded, understanding her wide eyes because I’d been watching it all day too.

  Wincing as a sudden pain in my side speared me to the quick, I muttered, “I just want some quiet, that’s all.”

  “Understandable. The second I can, I’ll get a doctor in there to sign you out, but it will probably be around seven or eight AM.”

  “I know how it works,” I replied quietly. “Don’t worry.”

  She smiled at me as Indy rolled me away, and I heard their whispers as the team discussed what had gone down, what had happened to me, and all the other crazy shit that my life had developed into.

  “What about Mrs. Biggins?” I inquired.

  “What about her?” Indy asked.

  “They’re packing her up, aren’t they?”

  She snorted. “No, Stone. They’re not. They’re going to leave your eighteen-year-old cat in the apartment you rent here.” She hissed out a sigh. “I swear, you come out with the craziest shit.”

  “I try,” I mumbled, but still, the prospect of having my hands on Mrs. Biggins made me want to be signed out even sooner than I already was.

  My eyes grew wet with tears as we entered my room again, and I stared at the mess of the sheets I’d left behind with blurry vision.

  “Did she mean that?”

  Indy’s question had me arching a brow. “Mean what?”

  “What she said about you dying?”

  I shrugged. “We can all die.”

  “That’s not helpful, Stone,” she countered.

  “No, it wasn’t, but it’s true nonetheless.” I arched my brow back at her. “Do you want to hear the damage the drugs did to me?”

  “No. Not if I’m not going to be able to convince you to stay in here.”

  My lips twisted. “If I had to stay in here, I would. I’m not stupid. But I want to go home, and then, after, I want to get my life back on track.”

  The second I said that, of course, was the second I felt something in my body snap.

  Swallowing through the pain, I winced as I stared up at Indy, who was talkin
g to me, saying shit I just couldn’t understand.

  Her words weren’t penetrating the sudden fuzz that surrounded my brain, and when I looked at her, trying to translate that to her, I registered that she got my predicament.

  A horrified gasp escaped her, and when I looked down, I figured out why.

  My head plopped forward, showing me a lap that was stained with blood I’d just puked up.

  Before I knew it, I didn’t even see that.

  I saw shit.

  Just knew that my overconfidence had led me to push it, but if this was my last night on Earth, then I was grateful I’d seen Steel.

  He was the last thing I thought of before I passed out, unsure if I’d ever wake up again.

  Sixteen

  Nyx

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Look, marriage hasn’t changed me that much. When do you know me to joke? Especially about shit like this?”

  Because he wasn’t wrong, I rolled my eyes, even as I reached up to rub them—fuck, I was tired. “She did what?”

  “Some torture maneuvers that are definitely illegal in most civilized countries.“

  Fuck if the bastard didn’t sound impressed.

  I grunted. “Is he alive?”

  That was the priority.

  After all, I knew Rex had some plans for him, and I couldn’t blame him.

  The bastard had cost us a lot of money, and it was an investment worth spending if we could get him to sing like a bird.

  Our beef with Lancaster wasn’t just personal. That would end things, but every ending had a beginning, and Lancaster’s involved ratting out his allies. As I thought about the repercussions of what Lodestar had done, I asked, “Did she say what she discovered?”

  “No.” Mav huffed. “The bitch of it is that she didn’t even make him bleed! I swear, you could hear him screaming all the way over at the compound! Jesus. When we rolled over there, I wasn’t sure what I’d see, and to find her standing there smiling at him as she tortured the shit out of him wasn’t what I thought I’d be looking at today.”

  “What did she do?”

  “What didn’t she do?” Mav hissed. “Broke him. Utterly broke him.” He heaved another sigh. “On the good side, he’s talking like a kookaburra on cocaine. If you want to get Rex over here, if he has questions to ask, you let him know that now’s the time to do it. All you have to do is mention Lodestar’s name, and he starts squealing like a shit-covered baby.”

  My nose crinkled at that. Fuckers always had to shit and piss themselves.

  Didn’t they realize it was unhygienic?

  Grumbling to myself, I questioned, “You’re getting involved, or are you staying out of it?”

  There was a little white noise on the end of the line, then Maverick slowly muttered, “I haven’t been getting involved. Someone needed to calm the women down, and for some reason, they listen to me. When he started screaming, I swear to fuck he scared the shit out of me, never mind them.”

  My lips curved. “I highly doubt that’s true,” I rumbled. I knew it took a lot to ‘scare’ Maverick, and I knew it wouldn’t be the torture of a man he loathed.

  I rubbed my chin as I watched Rex conferring with one of our allies in the city.

  Five Points were our main crew, but we had some allegiances with the Demonios Bandidos.

  Juan Alonso wasn’t as much of a prick as might be expected, even if the fuck had most of his face covered in godawful tats—because I was covered in tats too, but fuck, they were on my back—he was actually a shrewd businessman.

  I tuned out of that side of things, not really interested because I knew Rex and the Bolivian were discussing the cops that were involved in the investigation of Stone’s kidnapping.

  After Rachel had told Rex what a prick one of the officers had been to Stone, he had decided to get in the bastard’s face.

  Not that I could blame him for getting angry.

  I didn’t like the idea of Stone being interrogated either, especially not when she was ill and still on her sick bed.

  That was the pigs for you. Never knew when to shut their traps.

  We’d accepted the need for an investigation, but to treat our girl like she was a piece of shit?

  He definitely had some bad juju coming his way.

  Knowing all was well with my Prez, I retuned into the conversation with Maverick, but as I did, I felt my cell buzz in my hand, and I muttered, “Hang on a sec, Mav.”

  “Sure,” he told me, and I lowered my cell to read the message.

  The text from Indy had my heart sinking.

  “Gotta go, Mav. Stone’s heading into surgery. I need to key Rex in.”

  “Fuck. Surgery? Yeah.” He sighed. “Speak later, brother.”

  “Yeah, later. I’ll keep you in the loop.” Cutting the call, I strode over to Rex, nodding at Juan as I did so, then I leaned down and muttered in his ear, “Stone needs us. She’s going into surgery.”

  He flinched, and to be honest, I could understand why Steel had lost his shit the other day.

  Rex was a closed book a lot of the time, and even though I’d known he stayed in touch with Stone, I hadn’t realized how close they were.

  But then, I’d been learning all kinds of shit these past few days.

  Like Indy… Apparently, she and Stone were a lot closer than I’d thought.

  Places like the MC were a dysfunctional sort of family, a hotbed of lies and truths, some out in the open, some tucked under the surface. A volcano waiting to erupt.

  I was pissed that Steel had been dealing with his own Yellowstone and hadn’t told us. I considered the men in the council to be more than just brothers. They were family. By choice. I’d elected each and every one as my kin, and that was a powerful choice to have made.

  Especially for someone like me.

  Saying I had trust issues was like saying Betty White was an old bitch.

  Although, I’d probably say that shit quietly around Giulia because she loved the old cow.

  My family was being shaken at its core, and the truth was, I didn’t fucking like it.

  Not one bit.

  Rex’s tension had Juan raising a brow at me when I glanced over at him.

  “Bad news?” he inquired softly, his tone faintly tinged with a Spanish accent.

  In contrast to the face that looked like it belonged in a cartoon, his two thousand dollar suit was sharp as fuck. He could head into a meeting at the White House in that slick outfit.

  That was why I didn’t understand his tats.

  When you made it that far up the ladder, there was no hiding in plain sight.

  I wasn’t sure if that made me trust him more or less.

  There was no evading what he was, no hiding from it, and that meant he was as much of an open book as someone in our position could be.

  “Our brother’s Old Lady,” Rex rasped, “she’s taken a turn for the worse.”

  Juan’s mouth tightened. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He sounded it too.

  These fuckers—so genuine where family was concerned. It was surreal.

  I’d dealt with the Demonios Bandidos only twice in my tenure as Enforcer, and I was glad I was passing that shit off onto Sin. He’d be the liaison, just like he would be with the Five Points, and because I couldn’t exactly be called a people person, I figured that was all for the good.

  “I need to get going, Juan,” Rex muttered, his tone a little strained, like he was stoned or something.

  “Of course, mi amigo. Family first.”

  Rex dipped his chin, then he questioned, “You gonna make that Granger bastard pay?”

  “I already promised I would, but if he exacerbated the…Old Lady’s illness, then I’ll be more than happy to make a visit to him myself.”

  Rex gritted his teeth. “I think we can safely say that he didn’t help matters. I’d appreciate you showing your face, letting him know how the land lies. In the next couple of weeks, I’ll have some shit for y
ou if you want to ride over to Jersey.”

  I arched a brow, but decided to ask what he was talking about later. I figured it had to do with our laundering operation. We helped the Demonios launder their cash, they helped us launder ours.

  Juan grinned, revealing a bottom row of gold teeth, then he held out his hand and shook Rex’s, then mine.

  As we left the garage, I glanced up at the sky, squinting at it with strained eyes.

  We’d been in the black hole of Calcutta for a few hours as the two leaders talked business, and I was ready to get out of there, ready to get on with shit.

  As we moved out toward our bikes, I told Rex, “Lodestar jumped the gun. She’s spoken with Donavan, managed to break him by the sounds of it.”

  Rex froze at my words, his back stiffened with tension as he hissed out a breath. “Fucking woman.” His hands balled into fists. “What is it with the bitches at the compound and following orders?”

  I snorted. “You know Lodestar is a loose cannon. Fuck, she’s a bomb just waiting to explode.”

  He heaved a sigh. “Truer words, brother, truer words.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, then mumbled, “I want to go to Stone.”

  I shrugged. “Never thought you wouldn’t. That’s why I brought it up. Shall I go home, take point on the interrogation?”

  He blew out a breath. “The last person I wanted in charge of that was you, Nyx.”

  I grinned, unoffended because I got it, but also, I didn’t… Honest to the last, especially with him, I informed him, “You have no reason to worry where he’s concerned. Physically, he didn’t hurt Giulia. If he had, it would be another matter entirely.”

  He hummed. “True. I don’t want him dead.”

  The finality to that statement had my brows rising. “How long do you intend on keeping him alive?”

  “As long as we can keep pumping information from him.”

  “That could be a long time,” I murmured. “I don’t think Link will sign on for that.”

  “When isn’t there a method to my madness, Nyx?”

  “I know, Rex, but fuck, it ain’t me whose woman was raped since she was a kid. And that isn’t taking into account that Mav is gonna want blood too.”