Hammer (Steelwood MC #3)

Chapter 1 Destiny

Destiny

The cool steel against my back has long since warmed, a false comfort through the thin cotton of my shirt. My pulse races in silence, a frantic rhythm that does nothing to quiet the clench of my stomach or the desert-dry ache in my throat. Not even forcing my knees closer to my chest helps.

Dehydration will claim me first, I’ve decided—a crueler death than starvation.

Between my fingers, I roll the nail I came across only a couple of hours ago. Three inches of rust flakes onto my skin. Back and forth, the only promise this metal hell has given me. I found it abandoned in a crook of the container, a small, sharp betrayal of my captors.

I am not alone. Other women are here. Some are already ghosts, their silence more piercing than any sob. Others are raw, their crying a grating whisper that scratches at the inside of my skull.

My own tears dried hours ago, leaving a salty, brittle mask on my skin. They didn’t just take us; they scoured us out, hollowed us for their convenience. Left us weak to remain obedient.

“Do you think anyone is coming for us?” a voice, blonde and tremulous, whispers to a brunette shadow.

A hot, sharp spike of fury lances through the numb exhaustion, so potent my vision wavers.

The only people coming are those who have paid for us.

Someone else murmurs about freedom, about running at the first chance they get.

A dry, cracked sound escapes my lips. It takes me a moment to recognize it as my own laugh. Run? To what? To where? The image that fuels the sluggish blood in my veins isn’t one of escape. It’s the visceral crunch of cartilage, the wet give as I drive this rusted nail into an eye socket.

Just one. I need to take just one of them with me. That is the only freedom I’ll accept.

They took everything in a matter of minutes. A single bullet for my mother. A slow, brutal beating for my father, his last breath a wet gurgle I still hear in the silence between everyone else’s whimpers.

All over a debt he couldn’t pay. When they couldn’t get their money back, they took me.

My fist curls, the rusty edges of the nail biting deep into my palm. There’s no sting, just a dull, satisfying pressure. This minor, self-inflicted pain is the only thing I control. Right now, I’m clinging onto whatever control I can still have in this situation.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Gunshots. They’re close. The container erupts in a symphony of gasps and whimpers. I don’t breathe. My body goes wire-tight, every exhausted muscle coiling.

The door screeches open not long after, and the world turns to blinding white fire. A silhouette, broad and menacing, fills the frame.

“Everyone. Out.” The voice is a low, grinding sound of stone on stone. I feel the depth in the pit of my soul. My skin prickles instantly, like my body can sense the danger radiating from his voice alone.

The women scramble, a frantic river of limbs and fear flowing around the hulking figure. He doesn’t look at them. His gaze is a physical weight, scanning the dark. Another leather vest. Another monster.

I don’t move.

Fresh air, shockingly cold, hits my bare legs, raising every hair I have on my body.

They took my pants, leaving me in this humiliating shred of a t-shirt, but the shame was incinerated hours ago, leaving only pure, concentrated rage.

All to make sure I wasn’t hiding a weapon. Even my shoes and socks are gone.

When I remain rooted to the spot, the man—Hammer, another vest calls him through a panicked hiss on the side—lets out a low, warning sound that seems to vibrate through the steel beneath me. His boots are heavy strikes against the floor as he closes the distance.

My grip on the nail is like a vise, the point aimed and ready.

I have to tilt my chin up, way up, to get a good look, and I am utterly unprepared.

He towers over me, not just in height but in presence.

He’s built on a different scale than the men I’ve seen, his shoulders blocking out the harsh overhead lights surrounding the docks.

It’s an almost inhuman density of muscle and intent.

A scowl is carved into his features, proof of years’ worth of rage.

But it’s not terror that ices my veins when my eyes finally meet his.

It’s something horrifyingly worse.

My breath catches. He’s… good looking. Not in a polished way, but like a storm-battered cliff face—all brutal, unforgiving lines kind of way.

A silvery scar cuts through the skin under one eye, a flaw that somehow perfects the whole.

His nose is crooked, clearly broken more than once, and it should turn me away.

But it doesn’t. This is a man who doesn’t just get in fights; he ends them. And the proof is written all over him.

He radiates the kind of strength I wish I still had for myself.

Tingles travel along my veins, leaving behind an awareness that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with a terrifying fascination.

“Get out.” His voice is a contained rumble, but I see the muscle in his jaw twitch, a tiny, frantic pulse beneath the stony calm. His eyes, the color of a winter storm, lock onto mine. “You’re free.”

Free. The word is a mockery, a hook baited with rot.

I have to remind myself that this man is no different than the ones who stole me away from my perfectly simple, boring life. Even if the symbols on their backs don’t match, they’re one in the same. As far as I’m concerned, his goal is to fill me with hope, just so he can crush it to gain control.

My lips peel back from my teeth. It’s not a smile. It’s a snarl. I am exhausted, I am broken, but I am not fooled. And I am not moving. Not on my own.

His hand snaps out when I refuse to budge, a band of iron around my bicep.

With an effortless lift, he hauls me to my feet.

My body betrays me—weak, dizzy, my legs buckling.

I stumble forward, crashing into the solid wall of his chest. The impact jars my teeth.

He is immovable, all hardened muscle and leather.

For a terrifying second, my starved body seeks his heat, leaning in.

This man truly is a force to be reckoned with. All I can do is blame these delusions on all of these strange feelings bubbling up.

I jerk my head up, expecting to see cruelty, disgust. Instead, I see… nothing. A flat, empty calm. Even the scar cutting beneath his heavy stare seems passive.

His hand is still a manacle around my arm. We are locked in a silent battle, bodies unmoved. I am the first to break the stare, but only to aim.

With every ounce of hatred left in my hollowed-out frame, I drive the nail into the meat of his shoulder as my final attack, one last taste of revenge.

A hellish roar tears from him, and the emptiness in his eyes is instantly incinerated by pure, unadulterated fury. Finally. A real reaction.

“Hammer!” The other biker appears, gun raised and pointed in my direction.

The brute jerks his head. He bleeds instantly, but his pained noise is gone with his next swallow.

“I’m fine.” The words are gritted out, his jaw tight. He doesn’t release me. Instead, he drags me out of the container. I try to dig in my heels, to claw at his hand, but my strength is nonexistent. When I fumble for the nail, still buried in his shoulder, my legs give way completely.

“I’ll kill you,” I rasp. The threat is weak, airy. “I’ll kill you both.”

He snorts. A short, harsh sound. He can laugh right now?

Then I see them. Bodies. Littering the ground like discarded trash. One is the leering man who shoved me inside. He’s staring at the sky from a pool of his own blood. If these men died, then what chance do I have to make my threat a reality?

My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, confused rhythm.

“That’s the last of them?” The one with the gun asks, shoving a hand through his hair. “Crimson Road is going to be pissed. Judge is going to kill us. This is bad.”

Hammer isn’t listening. His gaze is back on me, a storm of anger and something else I can’t name. He finally pries his fingers from my arm.

The ache is immediate and deep, a constellation of bruises already forming.

Finally released, my arm throbs where his fingers dug in. The space is hardly enough between us.

Is he waiting for me to run? Or perhaps a simpering apology for his injury? He’ll choke on the silence before he gets one.

I don’t run. My feet are cemented to this filthy ground, less from defiance now and more from the leaden exhaustion that has become my bones. When I don’t scatter, the other biker flicks a hand, a dismissive gesture that snaps the last frayed thread keeping me together.

The rage I’ve been swallowing for days, for a lifetime, surges up my throat, acidic and overwhelming. It tears out of me in a voice I don’t recognize, ragged and stripped bare.

“I have nowhere to go!” The admission is a defeat in itself, and that only makes me angrier. “You—your kind—you took everything!”

Somehow, my body finds water for tears. They don’t fall, just burn my eyes, blurring the man in front of me. Hammer doesn’t flinch. He frowns, his eyes boring a hole through me, reading the ruin etched in my veins.

Somehow, this leather-clad biker makes it feel like he can see right through me. See my emotions, hear my thoughts. Can he feel my pain, too?

There’s no fixing this. The hollowed-out truth of it hits me, and for a dizzying second, death feels less like a threat and more like a mercy I’d choose if I had the strength.

He should want to be the one to deliver it. I’ve caused him harm. I’ve become a problem.

The world tilts. A wave of dizziness rolls over me, my body swaying like a sapling in a storm. I haven’t slept in two days. Haven’t eaten a meal to be kept weak. The last of my strength is a guttering candle, and the thought of taking a single step away from the docks is a death sentence.

Someone would find me. Drag me back. This whole town is a festering wound, and the cops are just a part of the infection, only they’re wearing a badge.

My knees buckle. I don’t stumble—I fall. But the ground doesn’t come. Instead, I’m surrounded by a sudden, shocking warmth. More than just on my arm. As dark spots bloom in my vision, the world lurches, and I’m pretty sure my feet leave the ground.

I breathe in, and my closed eyes register the incongruous scent of a freshly mowed lawn and gun oil.

Blinking, I realize the brute has me. He’s cradled me against his chest like broken goods.

His vest is rough against my cheek, and I can barely make out the sergeant-in-arms patch against the leather.

The metallic scent of blood—his? Someone else’s?

—permeates my senses. It’s on him, and now it’s on me.

“You can’t take her with us.” The other biker—Warden’s—voice is flat, final. He stares at me like I’m a stray dog. “Dude.”

“She has nowhere to go.” Hammer repeats my words, and I feel them rumble in his chest. His arms tighten—not a hug, but a claim, a securing of a burden. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not—” The other man lets out a frustrated growl, followed by a forced, weary sigh. “We need to get out of here before more come. Ripper better have found her brother; otherwise, they’re out of luck.”

I’m with the other guy here. It’s not fine. But this guy is strong, and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open while I’m surrounded by such warmth. I don’t even have the strength to curse him for touching me as he pleases.

My still-to-be-determined savior grunts, his face a mask of granite. He adjusts his grip, pulling me closer, and that small movement is the only kindness he’s capable of, a brutal sort of mercy.

I don’t understand this. Any of it. The energy to care has bled out of me. With the scent of his violence in my lungs, I turn my head into his vest. A soft, traitorous sigh escapes me.

Thoughts scream from a distant part of my mind, urging me to stay awake. I need my revenge.

But my body has already surrendered. The last thing I can focus on is the solid, unsteady rhythm of his heartbeat against my ear before the darkness pulls me under.