Chapter Twenty-Four #2
My father keeps the gun pressed against my head.
I hold my breath until my lungs burn. I want to close my eyes, to tear them away from what my father is going to do to the man I love, the man who means more to me than anything in the world, but I can’t look away.
The violence about to unfold holds me captive, just like the ropes binding me to the chair.
Then I feel the gun shift as my father steps forward. No longer pointing the gun at me, he has it trained on Steel. “You don’t get to give orders. You’ve been a thorn in my side, the mighty fucking Steel who thinks he runs this town. Fucking biker trash.”
Steel rolls his eyes like he is bored. “Keep saying my name like that, and you’re going to piss me off more.
You know, I almost pity you, Harris. You have everything—money, power, a thriving business, family—but none of it means anything to you.
You’re too blinded by your greed and too high on your own power to see what’s in front of your fucking face. ”
My father hisses, and all I can do is watch helplessly as he takes a step away from me and his arm extends. He holds the gun perfectly still, as cold and calculated as he has ever been, as everything he’s ever done in his life.
The noise of the gun going off a foot away from me is deafening. It rings through the warehouse, splitting my ears. A shrill wail resounds after, a noise like the wrath of a wailing ghost, drenched in blood and murder.
I realize the noise is coming from me. I’m screaming, and I can’t stop.
Steel stumbles and falls to his knees, a patch of blood spreading out over his shirt.
“Oh God no!” I wail while my father turns to me.
I want to believe that there’s a flicker of regret in his eyes.
Just a glimmer, mixed with the satisfaction I see.
I want to. Because, despite everything, he’s still my father.
I want to see it. But it just isn’t there. There is absolutely no remorse.
“See? Said I didn’t know how to use it. Wrong again, you piece of shit, scum, lowly fu—”
A second blast rocks the warehouse, cutting through the tense silence.
I turn my head just in time, and it is as if life has slowed down completely, to the point where I can almost track the trajectory of the shot.
My father’s body jerks beside me as the bullet slams into him, catching him right in the middle of the chest. He doesn’t stumble or take a knee like Steel.
Instead, his eyes open wide and a thin trail of frothy spittle streams from his parted lips.
Then, his body collapses in on itself, and he sways once before he crumples, only a foot away from me. I let out a sound that isn’t human when I stare into his sightless eyes. A pool of blood spreads from under his corpse.
“I figured you didn’t need to hear his whole damn speech,” Edge says as he strides forward, followed by the rest of his brothers.
He reaches me first, blocking the view of my father’s motionless form.
“Sorry I couldn’t do it sooner. Couldn’t risk hitting you.
Fucker moved away when he shot. Left himself wide open. You can thank me later.”
“Steel,” I barely manage to say.
I draw a shuddering breath. I need to see him. I need to hold him, even if it’s for the last time. Even if he can’t feel me doing it, can’t hear me, even if he’s already gone, I need to say goodbye.
“Right here, darlin’.”
My head jerks upright. He is there, eyes shining down at me, his hand on his shoulder, not his chest. Blood flows between his fingers and drips onto the floorboards.
“Steel? Oh my god, Steel!” I lean into him, which is all I can do because I am still tied to the fucking chair.
He wraps his good arm around me and holds me close, lets me bury my head in his shoulder and sob. “It’s gonna take more than a fucking bullet to keep me down. To keep me from you.”
I can’t believe he is alive. And that it’s all finally over.
“Didn’t think the asshole had it in him,” he admits.
“I could tell by the way he was aiming, though, that any shot was either going to miss or catch my shoulder. Still, it hurt like a bitch. Knew if I didn’t get the fuck down, I’d be catching one of my brother’s slugs in my back, since there was no way they were gonna take that shit lying down.
I’m sorry about your father, but he had it coming. ”
“I’m not,” I say without hesitation. “He spent his entire life hurting innocent people. Today was the day he paid for everything he’s done. He didn’t have to do any of this. He brought it all upon himself.”
“Hate to break up the party,” Edge mumbles as he puts a hand on Steel’s shoulder, “but we better get you both out of here. You need to get checked out, and this is no place for your woman.”
“What are they going to do?” I turn towards Steel, frantic.
Edge just shot my father. He did what he had to do to keep us from being killed, but he still killed him.
“Torch the place,” Steel replies, and I can tell that he didn’t want me to hear those words.
“It’s gonna look like one hell of a deal gone wrong.
Like a rival club hit up the place and things got ugly.
It happens more than you think. Torch their supply too.
That’s what most of the other clubs would do.
This is an ugly life. Things like this, bloodshed, war, happen. ”
“The cops—”
“Won’t get involved. They’ll come sniffing around asking questions, but as far as they’re concerned, we’re a peaceful club and that’s what I’ll tell them.
That we never left Helena. Harris likely left a paper trail, evidence all over the place, money withdrawn, transfers, communication between the two.
Something they can track. If they can’t, I’ll make sure one of my men makes it easy for them to find whatever shit they need to make this go away.
They’ll look into him and what he was doing here before they ever think to come after us. ”
“So… so it won’t get tracked back to us?”
I know what I am asking, and I hate myself for it, but I don’t want Steel to end up in jail for trying to save me.
Or Edge, for doing what he had to do. They gave my father a chance to live, but he wasn’t going to take it, and the Black County Sinners made their own choice.
They were motivated only by their greed, and it was their destruction.
“We have most of the cops on our payroll,” Steel admits, and it still shocks me, even though I already knew it. “A few people are all it takes to cover it up.”
“Let’s just concentrate on getting the hell out of here,” Edge urges. “She’s still tied to a damn chair, and you’re just, well, bloody, dripping that shit all over the place. Let’s go. The guys will stay behind and take care of the rest. We’ll get your bike back home, you take one of the vans.”
“No fucking way.” Steel growls. “No way someone else is getting on my bike. I’m taking my woman, and we’re riding out of here. Together. That’s the only way this was ever going to end. Me and my old lady, riding off into the goddamn sunset. Fucking literally.”
I am so relieved when Edge produces a knife from his boots and cuts the rope binding my chest and legs.
“What do you want me to do with him, Prez?”
I don’t know who called out, but when Steel turns, his gaze lands immediately on a man with a shaved head and a snake winding from his scalp down his neck. I have bets on him being called Snake, but maybe I’m completely wrong.
“Who?” Steel shouts without turning further. He keeps his eye on me.
“Fucking Wraith of all fucking people. He took two bullets to the leg, one to the shoulder, and there’s a graze on his face.
Fucker’s luckier than all of us put together.
” The brother nudges the prone form on the ground, and when my eyes sweep down, I recognize the figure immediately.
“You want me to end him?” Snake Tattoo asks.
I wait, tense, and stand slowly, rubbing my arms where the ropes bit in and left burns and bruises.
My throat hurts too, where the prick who nearly strangled me brutalized it, but I swallow hard anyway and push my fear and revulsion down.
I walk carefully to Steel’s side and wrap my arm around his waist.
“I think my father blackmailed his club into getting involved,” I say quietly. Wraith watches me, his eyes dark and piercing.
“That true?” Steel asks.
Wraith doesn’t reply. There’s something almost noble about the way he stands defiantly awaiting his fate.
“You hear me, Wraith?”
Snake Tattoo gives him a nudge and there’s a groan in response.
“You’re not begging for mercy or throwing blame on Harris. You’re a contrary motherfucker and I like that. I’ll let you live if you agree to swear loyalty to me. Patch in with us and become one of the brothers. You’re damn good at being a real bad shit. Could use those skills in our club.”
The brother with the snake tattoo curses when Wraith doesn’t immediately answer. He nudges him with his boot, though he could have been much less gentle.
“Make a choice, Wraith. You patch in with us, swear loyalty to me and mean that shit, and we’ll let you live. Get you some fucking help too, since you’re obviously strung out on your own shit. What do you say? We could all use some family, even the worst of us.”
Silence fills the warehouse, then there is a shuffling of boots on rough wood. Someone clears their throat. There’s what sounds like the whisper of a knife being holstered and the click of safeties being put back on the men’s guns.
“Fuck you!” Wraith spits out. “Didn’t know she was your woman until it was too late.
I fucking swear. She was promised to me as part of the payment by that fucking asshole.
” Another groan interrupts his foul string of words.
“I won’t join your fucking band of cunts. So just put a damn bullet in my head.”
I glance up at Steel’s face, sure that he’s going to give the order. I don’t want to see it happen, so I stare at him hard instead, bracing for that final gunshot to rock the warehouse.
But it never comes.
Steel actually rolls his eyes. “You know, it’s funny—most of the brothers said that at first when I gave them the option.
I seriously believe Edge said it to me first when I caught him trying to steal my bike and offered him the option of having lunch with me or being lunch for the gators.
He told me to go fuck myself and now look at where he is. ”
“V fucking P,” Edge calls out. He sends Steel a pointed look, and Steel shakes his head.
“Get him out of here. Call one of our medics to fix the holes we shot into him. Get him to rehab after, somewhere he can’t fucking ditch, and then I want him in Helena, prospecting for us.
I know he’ll change his tune when the shit pumping through his blood runs its course and he gets back to being a normal human being. ”
Edge looks doubtful, but he shrugs. “We’ve seen worse before,” he admits.
“Everyone deserves a chance. Even fuckers like him.” Steel’s arm slips around my shoulders. “Now, my Queen, your chrome chariot awaits.”
“The only thing that awaits is our doctor at the clubhouse when you get there,” Edge calls as Steel steers me away.
Steel stops right before the stacks of pallets, right where the carnage happened, and bad shoulder and all, he scoops me up into his arms. I let out a gasp of surprise and wrap my arms around his neck. I bury my face there, inhaling his smoky, leather scent. The scent of the man I love.
He’s still here. With me.
He walks us out of the warehouse and into the compound, then sets me on my feet. He grins at me before he looks off towards the distance, where the sun is just starting to set, the sky daubed with fire-colored hues.
“Minus a few bullet holes in places they weren’t meant to end up in, we came out alright tonight,” Steel murmurs, still staring at the sky. “We didn’t lose a single man.”
“Instead, it looks like you gained one.”
He turns to me, visible regret and guilt twisting his face. I can’t stand to see those gray eyes weighed down like that. “I’m sorry about your… father. He was a real asshole, probably as bad as they come, but he was still your pops.”
“No.” I shake my head as my hand finds his.
Our fingers intertwine, and a few tears start to fall. Tears of happiness, tears of relief, tears over how I am standing here beside the man I love, a man who took a bullet for me, the man who has now saved my life twice.
“Don’t say that. We might have shared DNA, but he was never my father.
He terrorized my poor mom and made my life hell.
The only person he loved was my brother and even then, I don’t think it was love.
It was more some kind of narcissistic pride in what he created.
My father made his own decisions. He got the only ending that he was probably ever going to get. ”
Steel smiles. “You’ve got a whole new readymade family. You and your mom—we’ll take care of her. Get her the help she needs. If she doesn’t want to stay in that fucking mansion all by herself, we’ll get her a better place, something nice and homey that has some real love within its walls.”
My eyes tear up again as joy floods my chest. I stare up at the man who has given me everything, who has made my life so damn rich in all the ways it was empty before.
A man whose heart is pure fucking gold, whether he believes it or not.
I stand there, my chest aching, my heart overflowing to the point where I feel like I’m going to burst. I don’t know what to say or do because ‘Thank you’ seems so inadequate, so I turn to my man, my glorious, beautiful King, and stand on tiptoes to carefully wrap my arms around his neck.
“I love you, Steel,” I whisper.
And they are all the words we will ever need.
His answering smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. “I love you too. Now, I promised you a ride into the sunset. Seeing as this wound is leaking like a motherfucker, I better make good on it.”
I throw back my head and laugh. Nothing has ever sounded better to me than getting on the back of that chrome beast and riding behind my man, my arms wrapped tight around him, my hair whipping in the wind, truly free for the first time in my life.
I’m about to leave my old life behind and ride like the devil straight into a new one.