Steel Cobras MC Complete Box Set: Books 1-6

by Evie Monroe

  I started to panic, hyperventilating.

  When they finished wrapping my arms and legs tight, they sat me up, and I started to retch. “Easy with her,” the tall one said. “She’s no help to us if she’s dead.”

  “Blaze,” the enormous one said. “What the fuck are we going to do once we get her there? They’re going to be pissed.”

  “That’s the plan. Piss them off enough to give us what we want.”

  I dragged my knees up to my chest and slumped against the wall as the elevator descended. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” I mumbled. “Please.”

  The one known as Blaze knelt beside me. From the way they were all deferring to him, I could tell he was their leader. He just had that way about him, a presence that made people take notice. He lifted the barrel of the gun, using it to push a lock of my blonde hair off my face. He ran the cold barrel down my bare arm, and I recoiled, too scared to move.

  “Hey, princess,” he said, his voice almost charming. He was the one on the phone, though, so I knew better. I spied a tattoo of orange flames snaking up both of his forearms. “I’ll try to make it as clear as possible. Your father has been working with us. And when we told him what we wanted, he said he knew exactly how to get it. Turned out, he was right.”

  I gasped. “That’s not true,” I said, even though I’d already begun to have my doubts. All the memories I’d had of him were far off, before his business had taken over his life. Now, he was a virtual stranger, so married to his business. Maybe he didn’t care about me anymore.

  “I know darlin’, it’s hard to understand that dear old dad could be such a total fuckhead to you, but that’s the way it is. And now you’re going to help us.”

  My father. The man who’d been with me since the time I entered this world. I’d always thought that he’d been indirectly responsible for what happened to me in the parking lot. But had he actually agreed to it? Had he sat there, like he did just now, nodding and consenting as these people planned to kidnap me and stuff me in a trunk?

  I stifled a sob.

  I could’ve fucking died.

  And he just let it happen. He offered me up to them. For his fucking business.

  I looked up at the man and wiped the tears from my eyes. “You’re wrong if you think I can help you. I know nothing about his business.”

  He replaced the gun barrel with his rough, callused finger, playing with the strap of my camisole. He ran a finger slowly over my skin, and I could tell he was getting off on touching me from the way his breath went ragged. “Sweetness, then you don’t know he’s looking to expand his empire.”

  I flinched from his touch. “Of course I don’t. And I don’t care,” I snapped. “Don’t touch me. I can’t help you.”

  His eyes drifted from my arm to my cleavage, lingering there. Then he moved in close until his steel gray eyes fastened on mine. “Are you really letting Phoenix Nash, scum of the earth, fuck that pretty, pristine little hole of yours?”

  My fear gave way to anger as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

  He saw the answer on my face. He shook his head. “Such a waste.”

  He slid up the wall to his feet and nodded at the men, who grabbed for me.

  It was my plan to break free, to try to run. Though I still didn’t know what role I was playing in this, I knew that I was no use to them dead. But I was frozen in fear as they carried me, not to the front of the building, but to a basement area I’d never been to. They tossed me into a small, stark white room that smelled heavily of cigarette smoke. I choked as the leader, Blaze, pressed in close to me.

  His finger reached out and lazily circled my nipple through my thin camisole as I squirmed, pressing myself against the wall to get away from him. “If you wanted a real man, you could’ve had this.”

  I swallowed the bile in my throat when I realized he was palming his cock through his jeans. I couldn’t take it anymore. “You disgust me. And I have news for you. Nix is a real man. I love fucking him. He’s the best lover I’ve ever had.”

  He straightened. “I’ve heard that before. That’s why I told your father I wasn’t sure this would work. A man like Phoenix has done half the whores in this city. To him, you’re probably just another piece of ass. I said the Phoenix I knew would never stick his neck out for any one woman. But I guess we’ll see, right?”

  “What are you talking about?” I snapped at him, holding my bound hands up to my face to shield myself from his smug expression.

  He pushed them away with the barrel of the gun. “I’m saying, Sweetness, that you’re the bait.”

  I stared at him, eyes widening. “For what?”

  “For the Cobras. They’re going to have to give us their business if they want you to leave here alive.” He leaned forward, smiling. “There will be blood, little girl. And I’ve been looking forward to this for a long, long time.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Phoenix

  For the first hour, I rode aimlessly, wondering what the fuck I was going to do.

  It was still early, hours from sunset. I didn’t want to wait until night, when Cullen got the guys together to rain some firepower on Hell’s Fury.

  Liv was out there. Somewhere. Suffering, at the hands of those assholes.

  And I knew Hell’s Fury. They would not have any mercy for her.

  I couldn’t get out of my head the way she felt, curled against my chest, the way her sweet voice sounded when she said Please, the way her big, innocent eyes begged me for protection. When I thought of her like that, I saw a beautiful angel, capable of sin and sexy times with me, but other than that?

  No. I wasn’t buying that she could be part of this plan against the Cobras.

  Though Cullen wouldn’t believe it, deep inside, something told me she was in trouble.

  And if they weren’t going to help me, I was going to have to shake something out myself.

  Problem was, I didn’t know where to start looking for her.

  I went to her apartment, knocking on the door until I saw that her mail for the past couple of days had piled up. So she hadn’t stopped by to collect it or change her clothes. I rode to the Pacific Acres Country Club and asked the valets if they’d seen someone fitting her description. I looked up the address for her father’s business online but couldn’t find a listing for it.

  After that, I was out of ideas.

  Fuck. If she’d left on her own, why hadn’t she written me a note?

  Jet and the boys could’ve been right. I’d been with plenty of woman who played sweet but had a twisted streak. Was she just playing me? Was she a plant to find out more about our business so she could hand it over to her father? Maybe she’d gotten the call from her father, and she’d gone back to him, with all the details she’d learned about our business.

  If so, it meant I’d not only fucked myself, I’d also fucked the Cobras.

  No. Not Liv. She wasn’t like that. I needed to get that shit out of my head.

  After pulling into a gas station to fill up, I picked up my phone to call Jet. He hadn’t answered my text yet, and I didn’t have time to fuck around. He was my brother, so even if he wasn’t behind me, he’d help me out. I thought I could at least get him to keep an eye out for her.

  As I was punching the buttons on the screen, my phone lit up with another call.

  It was from the number that had rung through before. The one from Michael Anderson’s office.

  I answered. “Yeah?”

  A low voice came on, rattling my insides and bringing back a shit ton of memories, all of them bad. “Hey, Phoenix. Long time no talk, huh?”

  The bright sun beat down on my forehead, making me sweat. I gripped the phone tighter. For fuck’s sake. “Blaze,” I muttered. “What the fuck do you want?”

  Blaze and I went way back. The leader of Hell’s Fury for at least fifteen years, age-wise, he had a good ten years on me. He was a mean son of a bitch, too. Ever since I got to Aveline Bay and took up with the
Cobra’s, we’d been at each other’s throats for turf, pussy...you name it. He liked to play the charming, laid-back guy, but he had a fucking mean temper. I’d seen him snap before, and when he did, someone usually ended up with a face full of bullets.

  I had to watch my shit.

  “Sorry we didn’t have a chance to catch up last night but we were both otherwise occupied.”

  “Yeah. That wasn’t your brightest move, Blaze. Coming on our turf. You must really be desperate for action.”

  “Just wanted to liven up the weekend, man.”

  Enough with the cute shit, Blaze. “Listen, you asshole. Do you have her?”

  “Now, Phoenix, that’s no way to talk to me,” he said, his voice pleasant. It grated like hell on me. “You sound agitated. Who is this her you’re talking about?”

  “You know damn well who I’m talking about and if you hurt her,” I warned.

  “Ah, you mean this princess with the nice tight pussy?” I could hear the greed in his voice. “She’s a pretty thing, ain’t she? Blonde...beautiful...she tells me she’s a ballerina. And she’s so sweet.”

  I let out a breath. If he fucking laid a hand on her, I’d fucking kill him.

  “She’s really nice. And she smells so damn good, too. All flowers and sunshine. Mmmm. I’ve just been telling her how you’re not usually this discriminating. She’s a definite step up for the great Phoenix Nash. Well played, boy.”

  I clenched my fists and kicked the curb with my boot. This was not fucking good. “Cut it out, Blaze. She’s nothing to you. Let her go.”

  “Well would you look at that. So you do care? And here I just got done telling her that you’ve seen so much pussy in Aveline Bay that you probably wouldn’t remember her. No matter how good she smells or how tight her juicy cunt is.”

  I straightened up and looked around. “She has nothing to do with what’s going on between our clubs. Leave her out of it.”

  “She has more to do with what we want than you know, man.” He paused. “So we’ll keep her right here for now. She’s making herself very comfortable. And you know, Phoenix? We kind of like the looks of her. So take your time, if you want. I think she’ll look even better, bouncing on my cock.”

  My blood boiled, thinking of her there, with their hands all over her. She may have been playing me before, but she had to be scared out of her mind. “All right. What do you want?”

  “What do you think? We want you and the Cobras to surrender your businesses to us.”

  I gritted my teeth. Of course. I muttered a fuck under my breath.

  “Phoenix. You there?”

  I frowned, pressed my opposite ear closed to hear him over the roar of the traffic speeding by on the highway. “Yeah. I want to hear her. I want to know she’s all right.”

  Blaze laughed. “You’re breaking my heart, Phoenix, my boy. So you finally found a woman you don’t want to kick to the curb, and she’s eyeing me up right now like she wants to swallow my dick whole. Mmmm, I bet she sucks some good dick, I might have to take her up on that offer. That’s poetic justice, man.”

  The motherfucker. Trying to get in my head. I knew Liv. I knew she wouldn’t do that. But I knew she had to have been scared to death.

  “Put her on,” I said, voice steel.

  “You know,” he said, his voice light. “I don’t think so. You’ll just have to wait on that, lover boy. I think I’m going to take that time to find out just what makes this little girl of yours so memorable.”

  I squeezed the image of him touching her out of my mind. “Blaze, cut the shit.”

  “You’ll get a call from us later. Just know, if you’re not prepared to hand over all your contacts for the car business overseas, your pretty little piece of ass is going to get it. And you’re not going to like it.”

  “You know her father will skin you alive if you touch her,” I growled.

  “Didn’t you know? Her dear old dad is our partner. We’re running a good part of his gambling ring now.” He laughed. “He could give a shit about her. In fact, he’s the one who helped us lure her out of your house. Unfortunately, she still cares about him. She fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.”

  I looked up at the sky, my veins pumping with fire. “Goddammit! She’s innocent. Leave her out of this. She has nothing to do with his business or the Cobras.”

  He laughed harder. “She might not have anything to do with the Cobras, or with her father. But she has plenty to do with you. And if you want to see her alive again, when we say jump, you’d better start jumping, boy. Contacts. Names, numbers, anything you have for all your overseas business. If you don’t have them right now, you’d better start putting them together. Don’t leave anything out, or we’ll find you. Got it?”

  I let out a breath, slowly, then dragged a hand over my face.

  The last thing I wanted to be in this world was someone else’s puppet.

  But if I wanted to see Olivia alive again, I had no choice. For now, anyway. This wouldn’t last long. Not while I was still breathing. I swallowed the sour taste in my throat and looked at my boots.

  “Got it,” I said. “You goddamn motherfucker.”

  I ended the call, tilted my head toward the sky, and unleashed a torrent of curses into the air, until I was sick in the head and out of breath and ready to draw some serious Hell’s Fury blood.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Olivia

  I sat in an uncomfortable metal chair in the small stark room, the wrists and ankle ties digging into my skin, watching as two men with guns volleyed looks at me.

  They were Hell’s Fury, too. So far, I’d counted at least eight men from the gang, here, in this basement under my father’s building.

  The one with short, platinum blonde hair couldn’t have been older than twenty. He had a smug, superior snarl on his scruffy face and tattoos up both arms. “That asshole Phoenix Nash has had you?” he asked, disbelieving as he mentally undressed me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  I looked down at my lap.

  “Must have a really big dick,” the other man, a bearded ginger with a backward baseball cap covering stringy hair, said.

  I let out a breath. I loved how men always thought women were so obsessed with cock size. Big cocks were great, but they didn’t make the man. These guys were probably the same type who thought sending a good dick pic was the way to get a girl. I was fully prepared to let them talk and talk and not contribute a word. Then the blonde one asked me a question. “You like sucking his cock?”

  I rolled my eyes and stared at my lap, pretending not to hear.

  He came up and kicked the chair leg. “Hey. You hear me?”

  I continued to ignore him.

  He leaned over and put his gun in my face. “Hey, bitch. You hear me?” he screamed in my face, his breath stinking of old whiskey. “I’ll give you a cock to suck!”

  He reached for his jeans as the man behind him said, “Yo, Bull, give it a rest.”

  The kid frowned, pushing off my chair and glaring at the older man.

  The man said, “You know Blaze’ll have your ass if you touch her.”

  That was the kiss of death. Whoever this Blaze guy was, it was clear his men were afraid of him. He walked the halls in the direct center, and everyone stepped out of the way to let him pass. He barked orders, and they listened. He acted charming and nice to me, but I didn’t trust it. He was an asshole on the phone. I knew from the way he talked about Nix that there was some bad blood between them.

  I’d like to think Nix could kick his ass. He was taller, definitely. More built. A hell of a lot manlier.

  The smug smile wiped off his face by the older club member, the kid retreated to his corner, tail between his legs. “Yeah. You’re right. Fucking hell.”

  I’d been in here for two hours at least, staring at the gray door, waiting and wondering who would finally come through it. I was starving, thirsty, and had to pee. Not to mention, I felt like an idiot. I was so stupid, dropping everything an
d running for my father when he’d never done the same for me. Why did I have to be so desperate for his love? Why couldn’t I have accepted that it didn’t exist, that he didn’t care about me?

  No, in fact, the only time I’d ever even come close to feeling truly cared for, was...Nix.

  I thought of him, probably wondering where the hell I was. I wondered if Blaze had gotten in touch with him and if he was on the way to negotiate things right now. Or maybe, like Blaze had said, he didn’t care. Maybe I was just a piece of ass to him, and the Cobras, like my father, wouldn’t give up their business to save me.

  Maybe no one thought I was worth saving.

  I let out a sigh, thinking of Nix. All my memories were back now, and I could truly say I’d never felt as wanted, than when I was with him. Yes, I’d had boyfriends, long-term, real boyfriends that at the time I could see myself settling down with. But even though I couldn’t see myself settling down behind a white-picket fence with Nix, I’d never before connected with anyone like I’d connected with him.

  Maybe he did have a lot of women. Maybe I was just one in a long line of them.

  But even now, I didn’t regret it.

  I maybe even loved him.

  No, I definitely did. To me, he wasn’t just some meaningless fuck. Even if he didn’t feel the same way, I cared about Phoenix Nash.

  And now, a war was starting. He could get hurt. Killed, even. And if anything happened to him, I’d never forgive myself.

  With my chin dropped to my chest, I started to nod off, dreaming of last night, when Nix and I had made love again and again and I slept in his solid, muscled arms. I ached to be back there. God, I’d been so safe.

  I came out of my half-sleep to the sound of the doorknob twisting.

  When the door opened, my father filled the space, his eyes full of sorrow. He clasped his hands in front of his chest, as if begging for forgiveness.

  I’d just about had enough of him.

  “Get. The. Fuck. Out,” I mumbled, kicking my bound feet in front of me to tell him where to go. “I don’t want to see you.”

  He looked at the two men and waved them away. “Leave us,” he said, his voice authoritative.