So I held him as he sobbed, and I knew that somehow, we’d move on from this. We’d make it work.
Because just like the brand on his back declared to the world, Steel was mine.
It was about time the rest of the world knew that I was his.
Twenty-Four
Steel
Six weeks later
“She’s such a fucking cunt,” I heard a whiny voice mutter.
My lips curved as I peered out of the open window and saw who exactly the fucking cunt was.
Although, to be fair, it was definitely plural.
With Giulia in charge of cleaning up the MC, at Rex’s behest, Stone, who was the original club snatch hater—and gee, it didn’t take much to wonder why—had taken to the task as her sergeant at arms. The two of them were sitting outside the front stoop on deckchairs with a bag of popcorn in each of their laps as they directed the sweetbutts on how to tidy up the yard.
All along the line of the drive, there was a column of white pebbles that gleamed an unholy white in the sun. The bunnies were having to clean each of them with soap, and I had to admit, it was amusing watching the little generals directing the snatch to go back to ones they didn’t deem clean enough.
I shook my head at the sight, then grunted when Rex ground out, “I’m sorry if church is disturbing you, Steel.”
“Not disturbing me, but I can multitask.”
He strode over to me, his clomping boots echoing over the floor as he pulled up behind me.
When he saw what I did?
He laughed.
I just grinned.
“Getting those two together was a bad thing, huh?”
Not unsurprisingly, Nyx, recognizing that Giulia was involved somehow—because when trouble was down, it was either Giulia or Lodestar who was in the middle of it now—moved over to the window too, which, of course, led to Mav wheeling over, and Link and Sin joining us to see what was going on as well.
We all snickered at the sight of two mini Hitlers giving their soldiers orders, and Rex clapped me on the back and told me, “She’s looking brighter.”
I nodded, even though I wanted to hiss out the pain of him clapping me right where my bullet wounds were nearly healed but still sensitive. “Been making fucking sure of it. She wanted to go back to work too early, so getting into this tiny torture session with Giulia was exactly what I needed if I wasn’t going to throttle her. I swear to fuck, she pushes herself harder than she pushes me.”
“It’s good to have her back,” Nyx admitted, his voice gruff.
“Yeah, it is,” Link agreed. “Missed the shit out of her. Didn’t even realize it until we got her ass back home.”
Guilt hit me at the same time as, I knew, it hit us all. We shared looks, hunched our shoulders at the reminder of how badly we’d let her down, then turned our attention back to the womenfolk. It was either that or start singing ‘Kumbaya,’ and we weren’t no saints. Sinners to the core, but that didn’t mean we left a brother behind.
Stone was a brother too, but we’d forgotten that along the way—every last one of us. I knew we’d all spend a long time working to make up for the lost years, the wasted moments, and the lack of loyalty we’d shown her. Me, more than anyone, I knew. But family first was our creed, and we’d fucked up on that score.
She’d checked out on us, stopped caring as much, and that was because of how we’d treated her. Sure, she’d stayed loyal to the MC, and I didn’t doubt Rex wasn’t the only one she’d checked in with on a regular basis, but that didn’t mean she was close to us. She’d done as she said she had, back when she was in the hospital—she’d made her own life.
Now, we had to prove that we deserved for her to choose us. For her to choose to let us be in her life once more.
“She’s okay to work now, isn’t she?” Link asked, clearing his throat.
“As of today, yeah.”
My body tightened up at what that meant.
For six weeks, we’d shared a bed. For six fucking weeks, I’d been in both heaven and hell. Holding her, being close to her, reveling in her snark, loving her moods and her, and enjoying the way she never let me get away with shit, but I’d only kissed her once.
Once, because that one time? She’d started bleeding, and because that was my idea of hell, I’d nipped that in the bud.
For six weeks, that heaven and hell had kept me going, inspiring me to make her life miserable as I controlled every fucking thing she did to ensure her rehabilitation. I’d driven her to the hospital and helped her with her physical therapy. I’d groaned with her when she had the staples in her stomach removed, and had sat with her, hands folded together, as she dealt with blood test after blood test as they made sure her kidneys and liver were working back to capacity.
There’d been a spot where they feared she might need dialysis, but it hadn’t come to pass, and her kidneys had kicked in after some meds they’d given her finally fucking worked.
The last six weeks hadn’t been easy, but she’d been with me, we’d been together, and I figured that whatever hurdle was thrown our way, we could deal with it.
In that time, the officer from Cambodia had been in touch, the guy whose sister had been snatched, and we’d managed to torture some info of the Asian operations from Donavan, but we’d found no solid leads, even though Link’s fists had been bloody for over a week as he pounded out his fury on the man who’d tortured his Old Lady throughout her childhood.
That didn’t mean we wouldn’t stop trying, of course.
Lodestar was on it, and she was determined to make sure that every woman who’d been lost was found. A fight that the MC was wholeheartedly behind, even if it was impossible to make that kind of promise.
Still, we had to try, and we were all on board.
I narrowed my eyes at the glare from the sun as I saw Keira, Storm’s Old Lady, wandering over to Giulia and Stone.
I grinned when I saw why the glare had appeared.
The metal of her deckchair had caught the sun’s rays, and she took a seat beside them, snagged Giulia’s bag of popcorn from her lap, and took a handful.
The two had a little tussle over the bag before Giulia relinquished it with a huff.
“Never thought the three of them would get on,” Nyx muttered.
“They have a common hatred,” I said dryly. “Always make alliances over mutual enemies,” I intoned, like this was a history class and I was the teacher.
Nyx snorted. “True.”
Keira had had trouble making rent, and as her boss at the diner, I’d urged her to come and stay at the compound with Cyan, because she’d been working double shifts and literally couldn’t work any more because there weren’t enough hours in the day.
I understood pride, I did, but she wouldn’t ask Storm for shit other than what he had to pay in alimony—and I knew he paid more than double what he was supposed to—and I knew he’d have lost his rag if he learned how things were for her, without us telling him, but a woman had her pride. Especially when she was trying to make a go of it on her own.
I had no idea why she needed so much money, but who was I to ask?
I’d given her as many shifts as I thought she could handle before I’d insisted she stay at the compound.
Rex had been on board because most of us had liked Keira, we’d especially liked her for Storm until he’d fucked up.
I’d fucked up years before he had, and I was lucky Stone let me anywhere near her, never mind had started to look at me like I mattered again.
The past six weeks had been hard on my dick. But they hadn’t been hard on us.
I knew she was starting to trust me again, and that was sweeter than I could have ever imagined.
I gnawed on my bottom lip when Rex muttered, “We have business to discuss, fuckers.”
I sniffed, twisted around, then, because I knew he was right, muttered, “Get on with it then.”
We had one dead brother and two people missing from the clubhouse. Shit like that
required my full attention, but even though I couldn’t focus totally, I had to try.
His lips twitched. “Someone’s got plans for tonight?”
Wryly, I admitted, “I got two plans.”
“What are they?”
I eyed Link. “Getting her branded at long fucking last, because if I have to reschedule that appointment one more time, I’ll lose my mind. Then after, I’m not coming out of that bunkhouse for at least three days.”
Nyx snickered. “You taken some Viagra?”
“No. Just never had to fuck my fist this long in my life.” My grin was sheepish, but they didn’t give me shit.
I knew why too.
This was Stone.
Stone mattered.
They all left me alone, trudging back to the table where we sat around for church, but I stayed standing at the window with my attention averted from the only person I wanted to look at.
“So, do we need to hunt them down?”
I tuned in, because hunting always got my attention.
“Nah, they didn’t do it.”
Link’s surety had me shaking my head, and Nyx grumbled, “I’d prefer not to have to kill my brother-in-law, but Dog’s dead, and they ran off the next fucking day, Link. It looks shady as fuck.”
“Katy wouldn’t have hurt Dog. She wasn’t like that.”
“So who the fuck did?”
“Me.”
The voice came from the doorway, and I rolled my eyes, unsurprised to see Lodestar standing there, her arms folded as she leaned against the doorjamb.
“Huh?” Sin muttered.
Mav rolled his eyes. “What the fuck did you do, Star?”
He wheeled toward her, but she shrugged. “He was beating her. I wasn’t about to allow that to continue.”
Rex pinched the bridge of his nose. “Star, for fuck’s sake, you can’t go around killing men because they—”
“What? Beat their Old Ladies? Make them scared of them?” She tipped her head to the side as she tapped her chin with her pointer finger. “I think if someone decided to beat the shit out of Rachel, or Giulia, or Tiff, or Lily, or Stone, or—” Her smile was false. “I think you’d be shedding more than blood. I think you’d be stringing them up by their dicks,” she sneered at us. “So, yeah, sell your bullshit to someone else.”
I cleared my throat. “She isn’t wrong.”
Nyx exhaled noisily through his nose. “She isn’t, Rex.”
The Prez looked like his jaw was made of stone, and I didn’t blame him. He didn’t like being handed his ass, and Lodestar had a habit of doing that to a man.
“We need to organize the funeral,” was all he said, surprising me by not giving her any more shit than that.
“I’m on it,” I rasped. As Secretary, it fell to me to organize that kind of thing.
“What about Sarah?” Lodestar rumbled.
Ghost, Amara, and Tatána had survived the Lancasters, but Sarah hadn’t.
“I haven’t forgotten,” I soothed her, because it was only as I looked at her then that I saw how highly strung she actually was.
Jesus, she practically vibrated with emotion.
“The cops only just released her body from the morgue,” I assured her softly.
Her chin jerked back and in, like I’d put it back into joint, and the tension in her lips lessened some.
“I’ll cover her funeral,” she stated.
“Not necessary.”
She glowered at Rex. “Very necessary. I’ll cover it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Knock yourself out.”
She huffed. “I will.”
“How the fuck did you open the door without us knowing?” Link groused.
Unsurprisingly, she and Mav both sniffed, which prompted us all to grunt.
Sneaky spy shit, that was how.
We’d never actually found out what the fuck Mav and Star had done for Uncle Sam, but their time served had sure as hell sent them out into the real world with a lot of skills that had little to no real-world applications.
Unless, of course, they were involved in crime.
I rubbed my chin, discounting the idea that the government was training soldiers to be top criminal masterminds, as she turned on her heel, sniffed at us once more, then wandered out.
I shook my head, muttering, “Why the fuck do we put up with her?”
Mav snorted. “Why do you put up with me?”
“You’re a brother,” Nyx answered instantly, stalwart to the last.
Mav’s grin was sheepish, and it was so disconcerting to see a grin like that on his face that you could have knocked me down with a fucking feather.
The sight of him even smiling was such a fucking change of pace that, I had to admit, it was pretty epic to behold. He’d been so miserable for so fucking long that we were all just used to his misery.
Sure, we wanted to help, but he wouldn’t help himself.
He refused rehab classes, scoffed at the idea of physical therapy, and getting him to talk to a frickin’ shrink? We might as well have asked him to talk to a fucking demon.
Ghost had to be behind this.
Shit, it was always a woman, wasn’t it?
I wanted to shake my head at us all. Fucking tough bikers, killers the lot of us, all melting because we suddenly had the right pussy in our beds.
A laugh sounded behind me, reaffirming exactly who was pussy whipped, and you know what?
I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.
Decades of misery suddenly felt like they were on the road to changing into contented ones, and I could no more stop myself from turning around to watch my woman than I could stop my lungs from needing another gulp of air a second later.
“We put up with her because she’s a fucking genius,” Rex muttered grimly, telling me he believed every word he said but he didn’t damn well like it. “Even if she’s a severe pain in my ass.”
“All our asses,” Link corrected. “And not in the way I like either. The fuck? She can’t go around killing brothers.”
“Dog was a schmuck,” Nyx said unapologetically as he traced shapes on the beat-up dining table we used as a conference table. “He was on my shit list a long ass time, and the truth was, if I’d seen him beat his Old Lady, I’d probably have strangled him myself. Especially after watching him go for Giulia. A dick that handy with his fists is no brother of mine,” he finished grimly.
I rubbed my chin at his statement, accepting it as fact, even as I accepted that murdering brothers wasn’t the best way to go about business.
“A shit-kicking,” I concurred. “But to kill him? Seems a bit…extreme.”
“Lodestar is a woman of extremes,” Mav rasped. “And she must have seen something that told her it was needed. Anyway, you saw Dog and Lizzie back in the day. They were always bruised and beaten from pounding on each other.”
“We can’t sanction Dog’s killing,” Sin muttered uneasily. “We can sanction a lot, but that ain’t one of them.”
“What do you want to do? Kick her out when she’s helping us?” Mav scoffed.
Rex shook his head. “No. I don’t want that. She’s safe here, and we need her to stay that way, as well as for Katina’s sake. I don’t think Ghost is ready to be dealing with her sister full time, and I can’t blame her. Katina is a lot to handle, but also, she loves Star—anyone with eyes can see that.
“We just need to make sure she’s contained.”
“Like Ebola?”
Rex grimaced at Link’s snarky retort. “Yeah. Like Ebola.” He blew out a breath. “We need to make sure if there are any brothers beating their Old Ladies—” He grunted. “I can’t even believe I’m going to say this, but fuck. We need to strike preemptively. You hear of an Old Lady even complaining about a bruise, you go to the brother, you give him the shit-kicking of his life, and then you warn him because, fuck, if she does it one time, she’ll do it again, and we’re seriously short of brothers. The last thing we need is to limit our numbers at a time like thi
s.
“Evidently, Star doesn’t believe in fucking rehabilitation, and that’s fine, once. Now we know she’s a psycho, we can adapt.”
“Good thing she’s fucking worth it,” Nyx rumbled.
“She is,” Mav confirmed, and I wasn’t sure if that was loyalty to a brother-in-arms or if that was him being sentimental—if that was even possible.
I ran a hand over my chin, pondering that.
Lodestar might look put together, but she was definitely on the edge. I’d never seen that before.
Mav wore his broken scars on his face, in his body. They were clear to see, clear for everyone to behold because he did it on purpose. He wanted you to know he’d been to war so that you’d leave him the fuck alone. And the truth was, I was used to that.
Because Star looked so goddamn normal, it was easy to think she was exactly that.
Ordinary.
Except she was anything but ordinary, which was dangerous.
I already knew how far her machinations had helped us, and while I was cleared to know every aspect of her input into our work, I’d been out of it the past six weeks as I focused on making my girl better.
Somehow, though, Lodestar had managed to tear down a Famiglia-owned drug ring in Chicago by cracking some firewalls that even had Mav sporting wood, and I was well aware that the gambling operations the Famiglia managed in NYC, where Nyx and I had made a real splash? She was on the cusp of tearing them down too, which was putting us in the Five Points’ good books.
Always a plus.
Especially when we’d had two runs in the past eight weeks, and had another coming up next week. The money was really rolling in.
“While we’re talking about crazy women,” Link muttered a few minutes after we all agreed to monitor the men, make sure there was no domestic violence going down in their homes, “I have a suggestion.”
“What kind of suggestion?” Rex asked, eying him warily. “If it has to do with your ass, Link, then you can just go fuck—”
“No, it isn’t.” He grunted. “I don’t know how much you want the women getting involved in shit, but Lily is going to go insane soon. She needs to do something. Anything. To keep her mind off what’s going down.” He pursed his lips. “They’re all staying close to the clubhouse, and she understands that and agrees with it, but I can see it’s killing her—”
Steel: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 4) Page 28