Chapter 10 Nic
TEN
NIC
The next afternoon, I’m locked in my office, scouring through every fucking contact I have. Diesel’s still no closer to finding out who Blade was talking to on the end of that phone, and it feels like there’s a huge clock ticking over my head.
Information is power, and right now I don’t have either. It’s been nine days since I pulled Keeley out of that cage. Nine fucking days of silence.
It’s making me twitchy.
I don’t like having an enemy I can’t point at. Shadows I can’t shoot. Every hour that passes is another where Keeley’s life hangs in the balance.
Worse still, I had yet another chance to tell her that her brother’s dead and I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I have to tell her. I know I do, but not yet. Not while her hands are still trembling. Not while she’s bleeding from other wounds.
When I brought her the food yesterday afternoon, she looked tired, and small, chipped at the edges.
She’s only just learnt her brother used her as capital and the fucking horror that comes with that. Telling her he’s dead? That’s another cut. Another wound. Another thing she can’t unhear.
And it’s not just grief I’m keeping from her, though I doubt she’ll mourn him. The second I tell her Blade’s dead, she’s going to understand what it means.
Blade didn’t deliver his end. And whoever he was working with will come looking for their payment.
Her.
I’m not ready to see that fear hit her face. Not after already watching her shatter. Not when I still don’t know what this game is and who the players are.
And how far they’ll go to collect.
A sharp knock punches through my thoughts. I stiffen. That’s not one of my men.
It’s too quick, too angry. Too emotional.
Before I can say a word, the door swings open and Chloe storms inside. Her shoulders are tight, her eyes blazing with sharp fury. I bristle, ready to snap at her. Then I clock the way her shoulders are drawn tight and the fear vibrating through her.
My irritation shifts into something softer as Chloe comes to a stop in front of my desk, her arms folded.
“Why’s she still here?” The words get caught between her chest and throat, scraping out of her like glass shards. “It’s been over a week. It’s not right that she’s sitting in our clubhouse.”
The bandages on her wrists peek out from under her sweater and my jaw locks. Blade slashed her wrists and then walked away while she bled out. But Keeley wasn’t the one who gave her nightmares.
She’s not Chloe’s monster.
“Sit.” I gesture to the chair in front of her. When she doesn’t move, I add quietly, “You want me to listen to you, then sit the fuck down.”
Chloe resists for half a second before she drops into it, stiff and tense. Tears gather at her lash. “I can’t sit across from her every day and pretend it’s fine.”
“I get that,” I say. “But you’ll have to figure it out. Keeley ain’t leavin’.”
Not while she’s got a target on her. Not while I don’t know what’s coming for her. Not while I have the image of her falling apart fresh in my head.
Not while she makes breathing feel easier.
“Her brother tried to kill me. Do you remember that?”
I want to shield Chloe, I do. Most of what happened to her with Crank and Blade, I didn’t stop and I should have. That’s something I’ll carry with me for the rest of my days. But that guilt and shame is mine. It ain’t Keeley’s.
“Chlo—”
“No,” she cuts me off. “You promised I’d be safe here, Nic. You. Fucking. Promised. How can I be when his blood sits two tables over from me every fucking day?” Her voice cracks and it cuts through me, but her safety and Keeley’s protection aren’t the same thing.
I stand and step around the desk. Chloe’s head lifts as I plant myself in front of her, steady and firm.
“You are safe,” I say evenly.
“Not with her here—”
“Even with her here.” I lower my tone. “If I thought she was a threat, she’d be gone.”
The breath Chloe exhales is sharp and shaky. “She’s not one of us. You don’t owe her help, Nic.”
No, I don’t, but this stopped being about guilt or responsibility days ago.
“I don’t owe help to anyone under this roof except the people wearin’ my patch.” She flinches, but I don’t back down. She needs to hear it. “Keeley needs savin’. Just like you did.”
Her throat bobs and her shoulders cave in just a little before she finds steel again. “Every time I see her face, I remember his hands on me.” She chokes over the last few words.
Yeah. That gets me. I’m not a heartless bastard.
I sit back slowly, curling my fingers around the arms of the chair. Chloe’s not malicious. She’s traumatised.
“Keeley ain’t Blade,” I say softly.
“She’s his family.”
“Still don’t make her him,” I repeat.
Her head turns to the side to hide her tears, but I see them anyway. “I don’t know how to separate them.”
I let out a slow breath. “By rememberin’ Blade hurt Keeley too.” Her gaze lifts to mine. She’s seen the bruises on Keeley’s face. Seen the limp when she walks. Chloe’s not stupid. She knows what inflicted pain looks like. Knows Keeley walked in here hurt by someone.
I sigh. “Ain’t askin’ you to like her. I’m just askin’ you to let her breathe easy while she’s here.”
For a long moment, she says nothing, then she stands. “Fine.”
She slips out of my office, closing the door behind her, and I’m left staring after her.
Then my phone rings. The screen flashes ‘unknown caller’ and every instinct in me flares sharply. I don’t usually pick up these kinds of calls, but something pushes me to answer.
“Yeah?” Silence answers back, and my nape prickles. “Who is this?”
“You have something that belongs to me, da?”
My whole body goes still as a heavily accented voice fills my ear. The thick lilt of it curls around the edges of his words, the cadence unmistakable and sharp.
I know exactly who it is. Blade’s contact.
The room blurs at the edges and a red film creeps into my vision. “This is my city,” I say, my voice ice, “and everythin’ in it belongs to me.”
A low, mocking laugh crackles through the speaker and burrows into my skull. “Before, yes. Now? Nyet. Birmingham needs new blood. Your club is… how do you say it? Past its date.”
I straighten, anger coiling hot and vicious. “You come at my club and I’ll put you in the ground.”
“Phoenix.” He uses my name like a fucking leash. “We both know you couldn’t dig a ditch, let alone a grave. Your club is weak. Slabyy. Return my property, and I won’t cause problems for you.”
Property. The word scrapes down my spine.
All I see is Keeley in that cage, boneless and bruised.
In my clubhouse finding the first hint of safety.
Looking at me across the room like I was the only steady thing she had.
I peel my lips back from my teeth, even though this fucker can’t see me. “She ain’t yours to claim,” I grind out, “and she sure as fuck ain’t property.”
“But she is. Your club gave her to me.”
Fucking Blade. I stare at the wall as I force air into my lungs. “That cunt ain’t part of the Sons. He wasn’t speakin’ for us and he sure as hell didn’t have any authority to make deals with anyone. Whatever handshake he gave you wasn’t real.”
He clicks his tongue like a disappointed parent scolding a child. “I don’t care about your politics. You understand how business works, da? A deal was made. The girl was the cost. I do not care who made it. I only care that you walked into my warehouse and removed my property.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t burn that fuckin’ shit hole place to the ground.”
He chuckles, and it’s cold enough to freeze bone. “You don’t know who you’ve crossed, do you?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Let me enlighten you. I’m Demetri Morozov.”
I wait for recognition, a spark of memory, but I’ve never fucking heard of this prick.
He pauses, waiting for a reaction. He gets nothing.
“Remember my name, malchishka.” Morozov drops his voice to something cruel. “It’ll be the only one on your tongue before I cut it out. Then I’ll rip Birmingham out of your dying hands and drag that bitch out of your clubhouse by her hair.”
My vision tunnels and not because he threatened my club. It’s his threat toward Keeley that sends a cold, lethal stillness over me.
No one touches her.
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth.” My voice is barely recognisable beneath the uncontained anger.
Morozov hums, amused. “You protest too much for a girl who is a transaction, Phoenix.”
Is this guy for real?
I grind my teeth together as my thoughts flash to Keeley sitting in the bar a few nights ago, trying to pull a joke out of her fear.
Or yesterday when we were on the floor talking about leftovers.
I think about her hands, the way her eyes track me when she thinks I’m not looking.
I think about her bruised and terrified, asking me if she could trust me.
The taste of metal floods my mouth.
“I’m comin’ for you, Morozov,” I say, each word slow and sharp, like the edge of a knife, “and when I’m done, no one will ever find what’s left of you.”
A soft laugh crackles down the line. “Then I guess the game begins,” he says.
And the line clicks dead.