18. Crossfire
EIGHTEEN
CROSSFIRE
NEVAEH
The Clubhouse is vibrating with the kind of energy that comes before a storm. The kind that makes your skin prickle and your heart race like it already knows something’s about to go sideways.
I’m in the back room folding gauze when I hear the first roar of bikes tearing in too fast. The tires shriek. Boots hit gravel. Doors slam. Then shouting.
“Killian’s hit!” Gunfire cracks like thunder while someone screams.
I’m halfway to the hallway when Doc Emerson yells my name. “Nevaeh! Grab gloves. we need you in triage!”
I run. No hesitation. Not toward the gunfire, but the aftermath.
The prospect’s down again, blood soaking through his jeans, groaning through clenched teeth. Rampage has him slung across his shoulders like a rag doll, laying him across the kitchen table with the same care he might give a brother.
Rock’s shirt is off, tied tight around the kid's leg like a makeshift tourniquet. His jeans are soaked red.
“He’s losing too much,” Doc Emerson mutters. “Goddammit, someone get the med kit. Now.”
I’m already there, gloves on. I catch the bag before it even hits the counter. “Tell me what you need.”
“Round clipped the thigh. We got lucky. It missed the femoral.” Doc tosses me a bottle of antiseptic. “Help me clean while I stitch.”
I don’t flinch. I press the gauze to the wound. I catch Killian’s hand when it shoots up, clutching blindly for something to hold onto. He grips mine like a lifeline. His blood soaks into my palm.
“I got you,” I whisper. “Just breathe. You’ve done worse on a hangover.”
His laugh chokes off into a scream as the needle goes in.
I don’t break. Not even when he does.
Killian's eyes roll. I grab his wrist, firm. “You don’t get to die, Killian.”
He tries to laugh. It sounds like choking. “You came back…”
“Damn right I did.”
I focus. I listen. I move with the urgency of someone who knows that too many seconds in the wrong direction means death. The room is smoke and blood and adrenaline, and I move through it like I belong here.
Once the chaos settles down, a deep vibration rolls through the room like oil. Steel picks up a cell phone from the table, his fingers slick with Killian’s blood, and slides the green button, putting the call on speaker phone.
He doesn’t get a chance to say anything before a venomous voice hisses across the line. “Give us the V.P., or more of your people meet the same fate.”
Everything stops. Even Killian’s pain goes still.
“Erik Morrison. Deliver him or you’ll bury what’s left of your Club.”
The call ends before Steel can respond. The silence that follows feels like a bomb waiting to detonate.
“What the fuck is going on?” Rock growls. “Why do they want him?”
Everyone looks at Crusher. He stands still, shoulders tight, fists clenched, and his jaw is locked like a vice. “They think I have something that belongs to them,” Crusher says, his voice is gravelly low.
I see it before anyone else does. The shift in his posture. No guilt, no fear, just rage and regret.
Steel steps forward. “Explain.”
Erik closes his steel grey eyes for a second. “When Jordan died… I kept something. I didn’t even know what was on it back then. Just thought it might matter someday.”
“What is it?” Steel asks, no edge to his voice, just gravity.
“A flash drive. It was hidden in the lining of his vest.”
My chest tightens. Jordan, the boy he watched bleed out in his arms. The one he couldn’t save.
“I found out later,” Crusher continues. “He wasn’t just helping that girl escape.
He was tracking the transport route. Recording conversations.
The drive had names, dates, and faces. A direct link between Dominic Vassaro and the Echelon Syndicate and a human trafficking ring that’s been operating in three states. ”
The whole room hears it. Jordan’s story. The flash drive. The trafficking ring. Crusher’s silence. The piece of evidence that could take down the Syndicate… or get everyone around him killed.
“He died trying to expose them,” Crusher says, quieter now. “And now they’re back because I kept what he died for.”
“And you never brought it to us?” Steel’s voice is low, lethal.
“I didn’t know what it was until last year.” Crusher’s jaw ticks. “And by then, I couldn’t risk turning it in without getting others killed. So I hid it, waiting for the fire to die down.”
I step forward, and then all their eyes land on me. “Where is it now?”
Crusher doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t answer.
“Where is it, Crusher?” Steel growls.
“Locked away, safe.”
“Define safe.”
“A place they can’t touch.”
Doc finishes stitching up Killian and slips off her gloves, mumbling something about needing whiskey and a better job.
Something in Rock snaps. “You still think bringing her here was a good idea?” he spits. “We’re sitting on a damn target, and the enemy’s got a fucking journalist in their back pocket. You’re a walking liability, sweetheart. Pretty face, bleeding heart, and just enough smarts to get us all killed.”
“I’m not your enemy,” I snap with a shaky voice before he can finish.
The second the word leaves my lips, Crusher turns on me. His voice is too quiet. “They didn’t know where it was. Until now.”
I freeze. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying someone gave them enough to start digging again.”
“You think I…”
“I don’t know!” he explodes, voice raw and ragged. “That’s the problem. I think you’re a fucking reporter who writes secrets she swore she wouldn’t.” He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. “And that scares the hell out of me.”
Steel doesn’t speak. Just watches.
I feel the words lodge in my throat. “You think I’m working with them?”
“I think you’re a reporter. Who writes secrets. Who wasn’t supposed to publish but somehow still did.”
I back up a step. Like his words are a physical slap. Like they cut. “I bled in this clubhouse. I held Killian’s pulse in my hand. I buried your secrets under floorboards instead of headlines.”
“But you still wrote it all down, didn’t you?” Crusher’s voice drops. “You think I didn’t see your notes?”
I can’t breathe.
He did. He found the file.
Rock steps forward. “You were writing about us behind closed doors. Field Notes? That’s what you call protecting us?”
“Those notes were for me. To make sense of everything, because none of you talk to me unless it’s through a sneer or a sidearm.
” I stare him down. “I’ve had your blood on my hands, Rock.
I’ve stitched your people back together and slept with one eye open since the first attack.
You want to question my loyalty? Fine. But at least give me the decency of doing it to my face. ”
Rock scoffs. “And what, you expect that to earn you, trust?”
“No.” I take a step toward him. “I expect it to earn me truth. Because I’ve watched you all circle each other like wolves, waiting to see who slips first. I get it.
I’m not patched. I’m not blood. I’m not one of your half-naked Honeys pretending to understand your world.
But I’ve saved Killian twice, taken threats you don’t even know about, and I haven’t run. ”
I turn toward Steel. “If you think I’m here to sell you out, say it. Look me in the eye and say it.”
Steel doesn’t blink. “I think you’re dangerous.”
I nod. “So are you. But at least I admit it.”
That makes his mouth twitch. Almost a grin. But he doesn’t give it. Not yet.
“I’m not asking for a patch. I’m not asking for faith. I’m asking for the right to stay until this war ends. For the right to fight back, not be benched while you all decide what to do with me, like I’m already a threat you regret.”
Rock crosses his arms. “Big words from someone who doesn’t wear the cut.”
“Then give me a reason to earn it.” I don’t flinch. “Or tell me to leave. But don’t keep looking over your shoulder like I’m the one holding the knife.”
The room is dead quiet. You could hear a trigger breathe.
Steel looks at Rock. Then at Crusher. Then at me. “She stays,” he says.
Rock glares. “You’re making a mistake.”
“She stays,” Steel repeats, “until we have answers. After that, we decide. But if she keeps saving my men, keeps pulling her weight, she’s not just baggage. She’s an asset.”
My breath hitches. Not because I feel safe. But because for the first time, someone chose to keep me.
“Everyone except Crusher and Nevaeh out.” Steel orders. One by one, they all leave. Rock and Honor help Killian off the table, while Rock mutters something about crazy ass bitches.
When it’s just the three of us, Crusher glares at me. “You’ve been documenting every damn thing since you walked through the door.” The pain in his voice makes my heart ache.
“For me,” I whisper. “To remember. To make sense of what this is. Not for the paper. Not to expose you.”
“I can’t take that chance.”
And just like that, everything we were building detonates.
Steel finally speaks. “Both of you need to cool off. I don’t care if you fuck or fight, but keep it off my table. I’ve got a war brewing and dead kids on my conscience. I don’t need lovers turning into liabilities.”
Crusher storms out first.
I stay behind. Trying not to break. But I do.
Not loud. Not messy. Just one tear. One crack.
Crossfire.
That’s what this is. I’m in the crossfire of a war I never meant to join. A man I never meant to love. And a truth that’s tearing everything apart.
And I don’t know if I can survive the next hit.
Steel looks at me with pain in his eyes, like he knows how my heart has just been ripped out of my chest. “You’re staying.” He looks at me one last time. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“You won’t.”