Chapter Seven #2
Dante recoils, Steel freezes, and I look up. This is the moment. The room holds its breath. Steel could grab him anyway. He could treat fear like an inconvenience. He could prove every terrible thing I believe about men like him.
Instead, he looks at me and waits for my call.
My chest tightens. “Saint,” I say, because Dante won’t fight him as hard. “You and Savage lift on my count. Steel, clear the path.”
Steel’s jaw tightens before he nods. Just once, and he does what I asked. That makes something inside me shift, small and dangerous.
We move Dante into the back of a club van because, apparently, an ambulance rolling out of an outlaw compound with a rival biker inside raises too many questions.
Steel hates it. I can feel that from twelve feet away.
But he lets Saint drive, lets me work, and lets Dante keep breathing without adding fear to the blood loss.
That shouldn’t feel intimate, but in some seriously fucked up way it does.
Steel climbs into the back with me, crouched near the doors, gun in hand, body angled between me and the world.
The van lurches forward, and Dante groans.
“Sorry,” Saint calls from the front.
“Don’t apologize to me,” I snap. “Apologize to his spleen.”
“Is it his spleen?” Saint asks.
“I don’t know, but it might be.”
Steel’s eyes flick to me. There it is again.
That almost-smile that makes me want to do something stupid.
Instead, I look away and focus on my patient.
Dante fades twice on the ride. Both times, I drag him back.
I talk to him. Insult him. Order him. Tell him if he dies after making me do all this work, I’ll personally haunt him and judge his afterlife choices.
By the time we reach County, he is barely conscious as the trauma team rushes him in. I give reports fast, clean, and without mentioning that half the emergency room security staff has started sweating because Steel is standing behind me, looking like execution got bored and grew legs.
The doctor takes Dante, and the doors close. And then there’s nothing for me to do. That’s always the worst part. My hands are red again, my shirt, and my forearms. Under my nails despite the gloves because blood always finds a way.
I step back from the trauma bay and hit the wall with my spine. Steel is beside me instantly, not touching, but there in case I need him. Fucking gargoyle.
“Harper,” he says my name softly.
“I’m fine.” My automatic response.
“No.”
I laugh once, hollow. “You’re right. I’m covered in rival biker blood after saving a man who helped set up my assassination. Fine seems ambitious.”
His face hardens. “He didn’t set it up.”
“But he knew.” I quirk a brow, daring him to start lying to me now.
“Yes.”
“And I still saved him.” What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Yes.”
“Because that’s what I do.” Damn my training.
“I know.”
I look up at him, and the hallway noise fades. Nurses moving. Monitors beeping. Someone crying down the corridor. Life and death continuing like my entire world has not become blood, guns, and Steel’s shadow over me.
“He was scared of you,” I say.
“He should be.”
“He was dying.”
“Yes.”
“You still scared him.”
Steel’s gaze drops. Not in shame exactly. Steel doesn’t seem built for shame. But something close. Something heavy.
“I stepped back,” he says.
“You did.”
“Because you told me without telling me.”
My breath catches. He saw that. Understood it. Listened.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
His eyes lift to mine. The words hit him strangely. Like gratitude is another language and he knows just enough to be wounded by it but not quite understand.
“Don’t thank me for basic decency,” he says.
“Was it basic for you?” The question is too soft. Too honest.
His jaw flexes. “No.”
That answer does something to me. Something worse than attraction.
It makes me see him. Not the weapon. Not the enforcer.
Not the violence that everyone keeps pointing at in the world.
The man underneath, scarred and brutal and trying, God help me, trying because I asked without having to say the words.
I should step away. Instead, I touch his bandaged hand. Just my fingertips, and Steel goes still. His entire body locks around that tiny point of contact.
“Harper,” he says, voice low. A warning? A prayer? I don’t know.
“I’m not saying this is okay,” I whisper.
His eyes stay on mine. “I know.”
“I’m not saying I understand you.”
“I know that too.”
“I’m not saying I’m not terrified.”
“I would be worried if you weren’t.”
My fingers curl around his. His hand is huge around mine, rough and warm and made for damage. He doesn’t close it. Doesn’t trap me. He lets me decide the pressure.
I squeeze once. That’s all. That’s enough.
The doors at the end of the hall burst open, and Savage strides in, Saint behind him, both men moving like bad news has learned to walk. Steel releases my hand before anyone sees.
No, not releases ... lets me release first.
Savage stops in front of us. “Is he alive?”
“For now,” I say. “He needs surgery.”
Savage nods. “He gave us the location. Reaper’s setting a trap.”
Steel’s face goes blank again. “Then we spring it.”
“No,” I say, and all three men look at me.
I probably should be intimidated, but I am exhausted, bloodstained, and very, very done.
“No?” Savage asks.
“No,” I repeat. “Because that’s exactly what he wants. He wants Steel angry, alone, and stupid.”
Steel’s eyes darken. “I’m not stupid.”
“No. But you are angry. And that makes smart men predictably stupid.”
Saint’s mouth twitches like he is trying very hard not to enjoy this.
Savage studies me. “What do you suggest, paramedic?”
“I suggest you stop letting the man who wants to manipulate you choose the path you take.”
Silence. Steel’s attention burns into me, while Savage looks at Saint.
Saint shrugs. “She’s not wrong.”
Steel says nothing, and I face him because he is the only one in this hallway whose choice could ruin everything.
“He used my name to pull your leash,” I say, and a muscle jumps in his cheek. “He sent Dante here knowing I’d try to save him. Knowing you’d watch me touch someone you want dead. Knowing it would make you worse.”
Steel’s voice drops. “You think he knows me that well?”
“I think violent men understand violent men.”
That hits close to home, I watch it happen. But I don’t take it back.
Steel steps closer. “And what do you understand?”
I should say nothing. I should keep this clean.
Instead, my mouth betrays me. “That you’re more than that.”
Everything stops. Steel stares at me like I have opened him with a scalpel. Savage and Saint both go very still. Great. Fucking excellent. Perfect time for emotional nudity in a hospital hallway full of criminals.
I clear my throat and step back. “Which is why you need to prove it by not charging into the obvious trap.”
Steel looks at me for a long moment before he turns to Savage. “We do it smart.”
Savage’s mouth curves faintly. “That was always the plan.”
“Bullshit,” Saint murmurs, and I almost laugh.
Steel looks back at me. “You stay here until Dante is out of surgery.”
“I have a job.”
“You are off shift.”
“That’s not the same thing as being unemployed.”
“Harper.” There it is again. My name in his mouth like he is holding back a thousand bad decisions.
I exhale. “Fine. I’ll stay until surgery is done.”
Steel nods. Then hesitates. In front of Savage. In front of Saint. In the middle of County Hospital, with blood drying on my skin. He reaches up slowly and brushes his thumb along a smear of blood near my jaw.
The touch is light, careful, and over before I can decide whether to lean in.
“I’ll come back,” he says.
Not, I’ll try. Not maybe. A promise, and my chest aches.
“Don’t make me stitch you,” I whisper.
His eyes darken. “No promises.”
Then he walks away with his President and his brother, carrying war on his shoulders.
I watch him go. I tell myself I am worried because violence solves nothing.
I tell myself I am shaken because I saved an enemy and painted a bigger target on my back.
I tell myself I am not waiting for Steel to come back because the thought of him gone feels worse than the danger he brings.
The trauma room doors open behind me, and someone calls for blood, and I turn away from the man who takes lives and go back to doing what I do best.
I try to save one.