Chapter Five #2
Savage studies me like I’m either a complication or entertainment. Maybe both. “Harper Quinn.”
“President Scary.”
Saint actually coughs, and Steel goes very still.
Savage’s mouth curves, faint and dangerous. “Savage.”
“Right. That’s less dramatic.”
“Not really,” Saint mutters.
Savage’s gaze drops to the kit in my hand. “You planning to patch someone up?”
“I brought it in case your club decides to keep leaking on my floor.”
Steel’s eyes sharpen. “Your floor?”
My face heats. Damn it.
“The floor,” I correct, but it’s too late. He heard it. Everyone fucking heard it.
Savage looks from me to Steel. Something passes between the men, silent, male, and irritating. Then a door bangs open. A man stumbles in from the side entrance with blood running down his arm, and the room shifts instantly.
I don’t think. I move. “What happened?” I snap, already crossing the floor.
The injured man blinks at me. “Who the hell...”
“Wrong question.” I cut him off. “Sit down.”
He looks at Steel. “Sit.” The man sits.
I cut his sleeve open before he can argue, to find a knife wound. Deep, but not arterial. Lucky idiot.
“Clean towel,” I call, and someone hands me one immediately.
“Not that one,” Mama M barks from somewhere behind me. “That’s for dishes.”
A different towel appears just as quickly. I press it to the wound and check sensation in his fingers. “Can you move these?” He wiggles them. “Congratulations. You get to keep the arm.”
The man grins weakly. “You always this mean?”
“Only when men interrupt my nervous breakdown.”
A few laughs ripple through the room, but Steel doesn’t laugh. He stands close, not interfering, eyes on the injured man, like pain might become contagious if it reaches me. I clean the wound, numb around the edges with what I have, and stitch him under bad lighting while half the club watches.
“Stop hovering,” I tell no one in particular.
Half the room steps back. Steel doesn’t.
I look up at him. “That includes Mount Murder.”
His eyes lower to mine, and the injured man wisely looks at the ceiling. Steel takes a single step back.
I finish the final stitch and bandage the wound. “Change this tomorrow. If it gets hot, red, starts leaking pus, or smells like old cheese, it's time to go to the hospital. Immediately.”
The man grimaces. “Old cheese?”
“I paint vivid pictures. It helps retention.”
Mama M appears with a trash bag. “She’s handy.”
“I’m not a club service,” I say flatly.
“No,” Savage says from behind me. “You’re a guest.”
The word guest hits strangely. So does the way Steel looks at him after he says it. Like it matters. Like the distinction between guest and possession is a line he intends to carve into the floor with his own hands.
The injured man stands, mutters thanks, and disappears with a friend, and I start cleaning up. Steel crouches beside me and picks up bloody gauze. I slap his hand, and he freezes. Actually, the whole damn room freezes.
I point at the gauze. “Biohazard.”
He looks at me, and I look back. He drops it into the bag without argument.
Someone at the bar whispers, “Holy shit.”
Steel’s head turns in that direction and silence descends once more.
I tie the trash bag and stand. “If any of you develop sepsis because you think infection is masculine, I’ll let you die out of spite.”
Savage’s mouth twitches. “Noted.”
My adrenaline fades all at once, leaving me shaky. Steel sees, and his body shifts toward me.
I hold up a hand. “Don’t.”
He stops. That’s good. Or is it bad? I swear to God, I don’t know anymore.
“I need air,” I say, moving toward the door I know leads outside, and no one stops me.
I step outside into the yard, gulping cool desert night air like it can rinse the clubhouse out of my lungs. The sky is black and wide. The compound lights buzz overhead. Somewhere beyond the fence, Vegas keeps glowing, selfish and bright.
The door opens behind me, and I know who it is without turning.
“You have a listening problem,” I say.
“Yeah.” At least he admits it.
Steel comes to stand beside me, leaving a few feet of space. We both stare at the fence.
“That man tonight,” I say. “At my window.”
His jaw tightens. “What about him?”
“You hurt him badly.”
“Yes.”
“Would you have killed him?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No apology.
I close my eyes. There it is again, the truth of him. Violence doesn’t live in Steel like a habit. It lives in him like language. Like breath. Like purpose.
“You understand that should make me run, right?”
“Yes.”
“But it doesn’t.”
His head turns, and I feel his gaze on the side of my face. I hate how warm it feels.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” I admit.
Steel’s voice is rougher when he answers. “Neither do I.”
A laugh slips out of me, small and humorless. “Great. So we’re both emotionally qualified for this disaster.”
“This?”
I look at him then, which is a big fucking mistake.
His face is hard in the floodlight, the old scar casting a shadow along his jaw.
But his eyes are fixed on me as if I am not a problem, not a witness, not a civilian dragged into the club business.
Like, I am the only thing he is trying not to touch.
My pulse kicks.
“This,” I say quietly, gesturing between us. “Whatever keeps happening when you’re close.”
Steel doesn’t move. “I won’t take what you don’t give,” he says, the words deadly.
The words hit deep in my soul, too deep. “Stop saying things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because they make it harder to hate you.”
His eyes darken, and for a second, I think he’ll step closer. I almost want him to. That terrifies me more than the man at my window. Because I know what to do with danger. I don’t have a single fucking clue what to do with wanting the thing that brings it.
Instead of moving closer, Steel looks toward the gate. His whole body changes, and the enforcer returns.
“What?” I ask.
He pushes me behind him with one arm. Not grabbing, but shielding, and this time, I let him. I watch as a motorcycle approaches outside the gate. Slow. Deliberate. Not one of theirs, judging by the way every man in the yard suddenly appears armed.
The bike stops beyond the fence, and a man tosses something over. It lands in the dirt near the gate.
A phone that starts ringing, but no one moves to get it. Savage steps out behind us, Saint at his side.
Steel’s voice drops into something flat and deadly. “Get inside, Harper.”
I should argue, but I don’t. Because the phone keeps ringing, and every instinct in my body says there’s something very unpleasant on the other end.
Savage answers it on speaker, and a man laughs through static.
“Tell Steel we know about his medic.”
My stomach drops, and Steel goes still in a way I have never seen before. Not calm. Not controlled. Empty.
The voice continues, pleased with itself. “Tell him healers bleed too.” And then the line goes dead, and no one speaks.
Steel turns his head just enough for me to see his profile. His jaw is locked, and his eyes are so dark they look black. The last trace of restraint is gone, and for the first time, I understand exactly why men fear him.
Not because he is violent. Because now his violence has a direction.
Me.