Hard As Steel: A Hard Ink/Raven Riders Crossover (1001 Dark Nights)

by Laura Kaye

  “What happened?” Ike asked in a quiet voice.

  “I came home one night after work and walked in on two of my so-called friends robbing my house. They’d broken into my dad’s gun closet. They had my mother’s jewelry and her rare coin collection, and a bunch of rare comic books I’d picked up over the years.”

  Jess rubbed her hand over her left forearm, where her rose-and-vine tattoo surrounded a tattoo of Harley Quinn, a comic book villainess with red and black hair who wore a red and black costume. She’d been driven mad by the Joker and fallen in love with him, and then devoted her life to making him happy. It was one of Jess’s earliest tattoos, one inspired by her love of comics and this dark character in particular.

  “I was arguing with them and threatening them. I felt so betrayed because I’d told them about these things in casual conversation, never thinking twice about it or that they’d violate my trust like that. Hell, if I hadn’t come home then, I never would’ve known it was them who’d done it. This guy named Marx pulled one of Dad’s guns on me and threatened to shoot me. He said they needed the money or someone would hurt them. I learned later that they’d been dealing drugs and someone had double-crossed them and stolen some, which put them in debt to the dealer above them. I had no idea they were dealing.” She looked at Ike. “I mean, I get it, using is bad enough. But I didn’t know that.”

  Ike nodded. “And…your dad walked into the middle of this fight.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

  “Yeah,” she said, her gut clenching. “I didn’t even hear him come home over all the commotion. Marx shot first, and Dad dove in front of me, taking the bullet. He knocked me down in the process and managed to get off a shot and hit Burton. When Marx raised the gun to shoot again, my dad threw himself on top of me.”

  The memory sucked her back into the past, right back into that horrible moment. Jess smelled the hot scent of the gunfire, tasted the tang of iron in her mouth from where she’d bit down on her tongue when she fell, and heard its deafening thunder and the screams and shouts.

  “Two shots went off at the same time, but my dad was on top of me and I couldn’t see what was going on. And then it got very quiet.” Jess met Ike’s solemn gaze, a knot lodged in her throat, tears burning the backs of her eyes. She blinked again and again to keep them from falling. “My dad was dead before the ambulance arrived.”

  “Aw, hell, Jess. I’m so fucking sorry.” He reached out and grabbed one of her hands. “Yeah, you made some mistakes, but it’s not your fault he died.”

  Jess shook her head. She’d heard it all before, and the repetition didn’t make it any more true than the first time someone had tried to convince her. “He told me my friends were trouble. If I’d listened, he’d still be alive.”

  “Every parent in history has probably said that about their kid’s friends at some point or another. Trust me when I say I know what it is to be responsible for someone else’s death. And you absofuckinglutely were not.”

  * * * *

  Aw, fuck. What the hell was Ike doing? Besides Dare and Doc, no one else in his life now knew about how he’d failed to protect Lana. Which meant, honestly, no one else really knew him.

  “What do you mean?” Jess asked in a quiet, surprised voice.

  Ike debated for a long moment, and then he decided that if she could lay her greatest failure out on the table, so could he. And doing so had some extra benefits. First, it might alleviate some of the guilt she carried for her father. Second, it might make her look at him in a way that wasn’t so damn affectionate—because if she thought she’d been hiding her emotions from him since he’d come downstairs, she was all kinds of wrong. And, third, it would make her see that Ike wasn’t a good person—that he was just like the people her father had warned her away from. The first one was all for her, but the latter two were things he really needed to have a chance to put the colossal misstep of last night behind him, to get them back on the track they should’ve stayed on.

  Sonofabitch.

  As if Ike could have that taste of her and not want more. As if he could make it just about the fucking and keep his emotions separate—problem was, the whole time he’d been operating on feelings, not thoughts, and it was his goddamned feelings that had led him to give in to his body’s demands in the first place.

  As if he’d be able to stand any other man looking at her, let alone having her.

  Jessica Jakes was his. Only she wasn’t. And that mindfuck had no cure.

  He pushed his plate away and folded his arms across his chest. “My father was trash. Working with Mexican cartels, he made his money as a coyote smuggling Mexican migrants into the country across the Arizona border. That was his business. And the expectation was that it was the family business. Me and my two older brothers were all to work for him. I hated it. I hated the intimidation, the exploitation, the separation of kids and parents. I wanted no part of it. One time, I got up the courage to tell my father I wanted to leave after I graduated high school. He beat me so bad I couldn’t see for three days because of the swelling.”

  “Oh, Ike,” Jess said, her expression so full of sympathy.

  “Senior year, a girl came through on one of our transports. She stayed with some cousins in Tucson, one of whom was my girlfriend, Lana Molinas. Lana and I had been together since freshman year. I loved her,” Ike said, nailing Jess with a stare.

  Jess didn’t flinch at that information. She just nodded.

  “Lana’s cousin started talking all over town about having been raped and purposely separated from her parents and little brothers. Lana supported her and went to the authorities, which was the right thing to do, of course. But it put her on my father’s radar. On the cartel’s radar. Bad shit started to go down. My father told me to break it off with Lana or he would. If I’d listened, Lana would still be alive. But I loved her, and I didn’t want that life anyway. So we planned to run away.”

  “Jesus, Ike. I had no idea,” Jess said. “What a horrible position to be in.”

  He frowned. She still wasn’t getting it, but she would. “I promised her I’d keep her safe until we got out of town. She trusted me.” Ike hated the sympathy he saw on Jess’s face. That wasn’t the reaction he was going for. He didn’t want her to feel bad for him—he wanted her to be pissed at him, disappointed in him, repulsed by him. All the things he felt about himself. His words came out clipped and angry. “My oldest brother, Aaron, called Lana and told her I wanted her to meet him. She probably thought he was helping us escape. But my father sent Aaron to rough Lana up, scare her away, intimidate her into doing what he wanted and shutting her cousin up while she was at it. I found out about the meeting from my middle brother, David, but I got to her after it’d started.”

  Ike shook his head as the images of Lana’s bleeding lip rushed to the fore. She’d been sprawled in the middle of an abandoned barn about a mile from their school, crying and clutching at her stomach. God, the sight had felt like a jagged blade to the gut.

  “Aaron and I got into a knock-down, drag-out fight, and he pulled a gun. I hit his arm as he pulled the trigger and the bullet went wide.”

  Fists and jaw clenched, Ike could still see the slug tearing into Lana’s throat, the blood pouring from the wound.

  “Lana took the bullet meant for me and bled out in my arms. Last thing she said to me…” Ike shook his head as pain bloomed in his jaw from how tight he clenched it. “…was that she was pregnant with our baby. I killed two people that day, two people I was supposed to protect,” he rushed out. So he’d failed as a man and a father, as a lover and a protector. And it had cost the only person he’d ever loved everything.

  “Ike,” Jess whispered, pulling her chair closer to him.

  He held up a hand, stopping her. He didn’t want compassion from her. Or from anyone. He hadn’t deserved it then and sure as fuck didn’t now.

  But there was more Jess needed to know. “I wanted to kill Aaron with my bare hands. But I was too fucking scared. Coward
that I was, I ran instead. Eventually, I met up with the Ravens, and Dare took me in. Ike Young’s not even my real goddamned name.”

  Jess went to her knees in front of him and pushed her body between his thighs. It was too close, too intimate, too damn much for Ike to handle. She grasped his face in her hands. “You were a kid and your father and brother were criminals. If I didn’t cause my father’s death, you didn’t cause Lana’s.” Her thumbs stroked his cheeks. “Ike, I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re not hearing what I’m saying,” he said, knocking away her hands, anger boiling up inside him. Jesus, the pain of Lana’s death and his failure was still so fucking sharp.

  But Jess didn’t back off. Instead, she pushed herself closer. “I hear you loud and clear. You and Lana were both victims of a horrible situation.”

  “I wasn’t any goddamned victim,” he bit out, shoving his chair back and springing to his feet.

  Slowly, Jess stood.

  “I was weak and stupid and a fucking coward. And Lana paid for it with her life. I didn’t even get her vengeance,” he yelled, pacing between the dining area and living room. Fucking hell, there wasn’t enough air in here. Not with his words echoing around the cabin. Not with Jess staring at him.

  “Yes, you did,” Jess said, her voice rising. “You survived. You didn’t give in to what your father wanted. You got free,” she said, walking closer, and a little closer still. “Living life on your terms is the sweetest vengeance of all, and you did it without making a seventeen-year-old kid bear the awful weight of murder.”

  Ike glared. He was going to lose his freaking mind. He really was. “Aaron fucking deserved to die.”

  “Of course he did,” Jess said, her expression fierce. “But you deserved to live without the guilt of killing someone more.”

  “I did fucking kill someone!” he roared.

  She shook her head. “No, you didn’t.”

  Jess’s words, her defense of him, her compassion—Jesus, they hurt. They picked at messy scars and painful scabs inside him. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t stand still. He couldn’t bear the weight of the vulnerability. And he didn’t want to examine the why of it too closely—because while it’d been hard to tell this story to Dare and Doc, Ike hadn’t felt this damn exposed with them. “You’re wrong.”

  “Ike—”

  “Just stop,” he said, his chest so tight he had to gasp for air. “You’re not listening to me. You’re not hearing me.” And not just about Lana, either. Jess was looking at him with so much damn emotion in her eyes that he could barely meet them. He had to make her hear him. He had to make her understand. Telling her the greatest shame of his life wasn’t doing the job on Jess he needed it to do, so he was going to have to be more blunt. He gestured with his hand between them. “You and I?” Ike shook his head and ignored the burning pain in his chest. “We’ll never be anything more than this. Relationships aren’t my thing anyway, and definitely not with a woman always in so much damn trouble.” He was the world’s biggest asshole, he knew he was, especially as hurt flashed across her face. “And last night? That was just fucking, just scratching an itch. So whatever you think it meant, Jessica? It didn’t. Not even a little. Not to me.”

  Chapter 11

  With a raw, jagged hole in her chest where her heart used to be, Jess watched Ike storm out the front door.

  How the hell had that conversation gone so badly so fast? Why had he lashed out at her like that? What did she say that was so wrong?

  His words echoed in her brain, doing more and more damage as they sank in. She’d been nothing more to him than scratching an itch? As if she’d just been a series of holes to get him off and nothing more.

  Fuck. Him.

  Jess fisted her hands as anger crashed over her head like a violent wave. You know what? Let him go. She wasn’t chasing after his ass, not when he was being such a gigantic freaking douchebag. He didn’t want a relationship with her? Fine. It wasn’t like she’d pressured him for one. And it wasn’t like she’d started shit between them last night anyway. That had been all him.

  But to say being with her had meant absolutely nothing? That didn’t just negate what they’d shared, it negated their friendship, too. No friend talked to or looked at you that way. With friends like that… She chuffed out a humorous laugh. Exactly.

  Except, fuck, his words were absolutely slicing up her insides. That he could say shit like that after she’d opened up with him hurt. Jeremy was the only other person in her life now who knew what had happened. And now Ike. And it felt like he’d thrown all of it right back in her face.

  Not that she planned on letting him see even a single drop of blood.

  A half hour later, Jess had cleaned up dinner all without smashing anything, which seemed like some kind of a victory.

  Ike still hadn’t returned.

  Through the open window over the sink, she heard loud, angry heavy metal music coming from the garage, along with an alarming number of crashes and bangs. Jess had no idea what the hell Ike was doing out there, but if he needed a time-out in the corner for a while, she wasn’t going to talk him out of it.

  Three hours later, she was sitting in the dark on the couch staring at the front door. Knees pulled up to her chest and chin resting on folded arms, Jess’s head was a hot mess of sadness and anger and memories. And she got angrier with every hour that Ike stayed outside.

  By the time she nuked a Hot Pocket for dinner the next evening, Jess was exhausted and strung-out and downright livid.

  If anyone was responsible for changing their relationship, it wasn’t her. She’d handled her shit. He was the one giving her the silent treatment after tearing her head off—and her heart out.

  Standing at the kitchen counter, she’d just pulled a pepperoni out of her sandwich when the front door flew open. She didn’t look up as she popped the saucy morsel into her mouth.

  “Get your things together. We’ve leaving,” Ike said as he clomped toward the bathroom.

  Jess took another bite. Chewed. Savored. Swallowed.

  Ike stopped outside the bathroom door. “Did you hear me?”

  “I’m eating,” Jess said. Okay, it was childish, but she had to admit she took pleasure from defying him. There was no way he wouldn’t know she’d be ten kinds of curious about why they were leaving, so if he couldn’t talk to her like a normal person, she wasn’t going to listen.

  He marched up to the kitchen counter, and she felt his gaze on her face almost as if it were a physical caress.

  She took his challenge and looked him right in the eyes, working hard to make sure her face showed nothing but a careful, carefree blasé. “I’ll be done in a few.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, long enough for her to see he was doing the careful blasé thing, too. “I want us out of here as soon as possible. The team has set up a meeting tomorrow with the assholes who ruined their military careers and attacked Hard Ink, and I want the extra protection the Ravens’ compound will afford while all that’s going down. Just in case.”

  Jess’s insides went on an uncomfortable loop-the-loop at hearing what was about to happen and knowing what kind of danger that likely posed for Nick and his team. But all she said was, “Okay. I’ll be ready in ten.” After all, it wasn’t like she had much to pack.

  He gave her a single tight nod, and then turned on his heel and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Ridiculously, tears chose that moment to threaten. All night and all day, she’d sat dry-eyed, too mad to let herself cry. She stared up at the ceiling and blinked the urge away—no way was she giving in to the urge in front of him. Frankly, she didn’t want to give into it at all.

  Before Ike emerged from the bathroom, Jess rushed to the loft to stuff all her clothes in her duffel. Downstairs again, she waited until he came out and gathered her toiletries in the bathroom. And then she was ready.

  “Got everything?” he asked, a bag of his own hanging from his shoulder.

  “Yup.” She f
ollowed him out the front door. His bike sat in the sun by the front porch, and she had the weirdest moment of déjà vu. In so many ways, the scene was the mirror image of when they’d arrived almost a week before. In reality, so much had changed.

  Ike handed her a helmet, stowed their bags, and mounted the bike. The engine growled to life, the sound cutting through the springtime air. Jess got on behind him, and then they were off. Heading out of the long driveway, turning onto the curving mountain road, and riding to another place she’d never before been—the home of the Raven Riders Motorcycle Club.

  * * * *

  Normally, being in the saddle of his bike cleared Ike’s head and fed his soul. Not today. Not when he’d purposely hurt the person he cared about most in this world, and the only woman he’d developed any feelings for since Lana.

  Because he was a fucking coward.

  Ike leaned into the turns and sped up on the straightaways as they made their way over the mountain, the bike cutting through the warm evening air. Jess’s hands grasped lightly at Ike’s waist, though she didn’t wrap herself around him the way she had on the way out of Baltimore last week. The distance between them felt like a steel bar sitting on his shoulders, making it hard to breathe, hard to even sit upright.

  But he couldn’t blame her for erecting a wall between them. After all, he’d handed her the bricks and taught her how to build the goddamned thing—right after he’d thrown so much hurtful bullshit right in her face.