Chapter Twenty-One
Steel
Those tears tug at me. All I can do is drop to my knees and gather Leah’s small form up, tuck her against my chest and offer her the shelter and protection of my arms. The thought that I’ve done this, that I’ve broken her somehow, fills me up with regret so bitter that I nearly choke on it.
“What is it, darlin’?” I stroke her hair, rubbing the strands between my fingers. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry. I knew I was too rough. I—”
“No.” She shakes her head, then looks up at me with tear-stained eyes and swollen cheeks. “No, you didn’t hurt me. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me.” She swipes at her tears and pulls away. “I’m the betrayer. I’m the one who was supposed to hurt you, but I can’t do it.”
Rage begins to coil in my chest, but I swallow it back. “Tell me.” It is a gentle command because the destruction of her beauty, the sorrow in her eyes tell me all that I need. She’s broken herself for me, and my anger is misplaced in the face of that tremendous sacrifice.
“I…” she dips her head, and more tears course down her chin. “I need to get dressed first.”
I want to take her by the arms and tell her to look at me, tell me what is so bad she can’t even face me, but I let her scurry around the room, tugging her clothes on.
She dresses shockingly fast and then she gathers up my jeans and T-shirt and hands them over.
I arch a brow, but I take them silently and slip into them.
I have to admit, she had the right idea. It feels good to be a little less vulnerable, and those few minutes give me time to breathe, to pull back from the edge. It isn’t going to help either of us if I lose my shit.
Her eyes are still watery, but she’s managed to stem the tide of tears. She inhales sharply, a shuddery breath that rattles in her lungs and echoes in my chest. She clenches and unclenches her hands over and over, and I can practically hear the cogs in her mind working.
“Steel, I-I… I don’t know what he’s planning.
My father… He’s… I know it’s terrible. He wants me to betray you.
To… to lure you into a trap. He told me if I didn’t do it, he was going to take my mother and put her in some kind of institution.
I believe him too. He has money. Connections.
All of it. He can do whatever he wants.” She pauses to wipe her eyes on her sleeve.
“We’re like puppets to him, and he’s standing there, pulling all our strings.
She’s never going to get out of there if he puts her in it.
He’ll make sure of it. You’re the one person in his life who has ever told him ‘no’ that’s why he hates you so much.
I always knew he was a cold man, not how a father should be at all, but I never knew he was a monster like this. Please… Steel, I—”
I can’t take the pain and fear contorting Leah’s beautiful face. She shouldn’t have the weight of the world on her shoulders. She should be living free. That was never her destiny though. I’m her destiny the same way she’s mine, and she’s suffering for it.
For knowing me. For wanting me. For being brave enough to make it known to me that I’m the only man in the world for her.
“Leah…” I gather her into my arms again.
“Do you hate me now?” Her muffled voice rises from my chest. “Do you hate me that I told him I’d do it? That I had to?”
“No.” My gut churns. “No, I don’t fucking hate you. I take back what I said about you being too young to know what it means to be my queen. You’re a fucking woman who knows her own mind and her own heart. I can promise you this, we’re not going down without fighting.”
“W-we?” She pulls back just a little to look up into my face, her eyes huge and luminous like two pristine pools that I could sink into and drown in.
“Yes. We. I’m not gonna let him do this to you. Or to your mother. Harris might have connections. He might have money, but so do we.”
“We?”
“The club. Me. The brothers. You’re part of us now. As my old lady, they’ll fight and die for you the same they would for me. You’re my woman. My choice. And they’ll respect that, no matter who you are. They’ll go to war for you if they have to.”
“No! I don’t want them to have to go to war.
I don’t want there to be a war at all. That means that they’ll get hurt.
I don’t know what my father’s planning. Of course he’d never tell me that.
He just told me he’s setting a trap and it’s my job to deliver you.
He’d never get his hands dirty though, he’ll be using someone else.
I don’t know who. I’m sure whoever he’s paid to do this, it’s not legal and that it cost him a lot of money. ”
I nod slowly, watching as the panic bleeds out of her eyes and she stares up at me, trusting me fully. She’s laid herself bare, had the courage to trust me to love her enough to do the same.
“I’ll do everything I can to avoid a war, but if he’s got any of our enemies involved in this, they’re always hungry for blood.
This is bigger than you. You didn’t cause this.
Harris has been putting this together for a long time.
It’s inevitable, and if we have to fight, we’ll fight.
It’s the kind of life you’re a part of now.
There’s been peace for a long fucking time around here, but it can’t last forever. ”
“Maybe you… Can’t you talk to them? Come up with some kind of deal? Tell them that my father would just as soon screw them over as he would pay them out and make good on whatever else he promised?”
I don’t laugh at her naivety.
“It’s worth a try,” I admit. “Setting up a meeting. I need to find out who he’s paying though, I think it’s the Black County Sinners.
They’re a different type of club to us. They don’t give a shit about murdering and even raping.
They don’t give a fuck that they ruin people’s lives with the drugs they sell, about running women at their clubs.
To them, people are just a commodity. They’re brothers but bound up by fear and loathing.
The only way out of their club is to be put to ground. That’s the way Wraith runs his men.”
“And you don’t have anything he wants?”
“No. He’s not afraid to try and take us down. He doesn’t give a shit about the town. To him, we’re just another roadblock in his way of getting to whatever your father promised him.”
Leah slowly shakes her head. “I can’t believe we’re standing here, talking about a man who is my father doing these kinds of things.
How could this man actually share DNA with me?
I-I can’t believe he’d do these things. Hate someone so much, a group of men so much, that he’d want to obliterate them, their women and children even, and use his own daughter and wife as bargaining tools to do it. ”
I wish I could offer her something, some kind of assurance, and I’m still trying to think about what the hell to do when a sharp knock splits the silence in the house.
Leah’s whole body tenses and since my hands are still gripping her arms, the shiver that passes through her rips up my forearms.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s only Edge.”
I have no idea what the fucker is doing outside my house, but whatever it is, it must be serious if he is here unannounced.
“How do you know who it is?” she asks, her brow pulled tight in confusion.
“The knock. I’ve been putting up with the asshat for a decade.”
Despite everything, a twinkle of humor dances in her eyes, a shadow of a smile also playing over her lips. Lips still swollen from my kiss. I take one last look at her, and I fucking vow that nothing is going to happen to her.
Ever.
“Stay here, darlin’. I’ll be right back.”
She nods solemnly. I wait until she sits down on the edge of the bed, her arms folded around herself protectively, as if she could ward off all the evil shit going on around her.
I leave before I have time to dwell on that because it only makes me see red, and when I see fucking red, I want to storm that piece of shit’s house, his office, whatever I have to do to find him, drag him out, and beat him fucking senseless for using his daughter like this.
A few moments later, I yank the door open to find Edge waiting on the porch. His face is shadowed, and when his lips are thinned out like that, and his hands are at his sides, clenching and unclenching like he’s going to need to go for his gun, I know that it’s bad.
“What the fuck is going on, brother?” No matter how pissed off I look, Edge’s used to that shit by now. He doesn’t even blink.
“It’s the Sinners. Wraith was spotted in town today and you probably already know where. Up at the Harris house. He might even still be there.”
I curse under my breath.
“Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.”
“I already know what his game is. Just found out for certain.”
Edge’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. “Yeah? So what the fuck are we gonna do about it?”
“Don’t know,” I finally concede. “But we sure as fuck better figure it out. I have to send her home to that piece of shit. Have to—to keep her safe. We better get a game plan together fucking stat.”
Edge nods because he knows exactly what is at stake. “You want me to send Tracker after her when she leaves?”
“Yeah. He won’t be seen. Have Brick and Shadow tail the rest of the fuckers until they’re sure they leave town.”
“And Leah?”
“I’m getting her out of here,” I say, with more confidence than I currently feel, but I know I am going to figure this out. Get her out of Helena and somewhere safe before shit goes down.
Edge claps me hard on the shoulder. “With ya, brother. Whatever you need.”
“I know,” I say grimly, because I do.
Edge has my back. All my brothers do. I might be heading straight for the eye of the storm, but at least I won’t be alone.