Spark in the Ashes (Steel Souls MC Book 1)

by Nikki Groom

  “How about we wake up his friend, Bro?” Ruck suggests. “It’s not much fun playing with him on his own.”

  “Tex,” I call, tossing the salts back in his direction.

  We wait quietly, the air filled with testosterone, power, and fear, and as Tex brings Dago back to the present, I stare down Spice whose composure is slipping already.

  “That’s it. Wakey wakey, my friend,” Tex says from behind me, and I turn around to see Dago gaining consciousness.

  “Nice of you to join us, Dago,” I tell him, and at the sound of his name leaving my lips, his eyes bolt open and he zeroes in on me. He huffs some words behind his gag, which I presume aren’t pleasant as he fights to loosen his ties. “We’ve already had this conversation with your friend over here,” I step to the side so he has a clear view of Spice. “But I’ll give you the courtesy of the information too. There’s no use fighting the ropes, Tex is a master.” Tex smiles with pride beside me. We all made fun of him when he talked about being a cowboy and mastering a lasso, but his skills have come in useful on many occasion and serve more purposes than we could have ever imagined, the cowboy hat he wears twinned with the leather chaps he nearly never takes off, makes people not take him seriously, and if there’s one person you should take seriously, it’s Tex. He’s a tiger in a cat’s pajamas, and it’s a disguise he loves to wear.

  “Now, I’m gonna tell you both the same thing and I’m only gonna say it once. No one will hear your screams, you won’t loosen the ropes no matter how hard you try, and the more you cooperate, the less it’ll hurt, and the sooner we can all get back to what we like doing best… bikes, beer, and bitches. Hear me loud and clear, amigos?” Spice stays quiet, while Dago fights against the gag. “You want to say something?” I ask quietly. He tries to lurch forward in the chair, displaying his anger and frustration at the situation, a situation they opened themselves up to but never expected. Fools. I laugh at him, which stokes the fire even more. Then I lunge forward, grab the chair and slam it into the floor sideways, so it crushes his hand. He cries out, a muffled sound, that is until Tex rips off the gag and grabs a handful of his hair, forcing him to look at me as I crouch in front of him. “You don’t run this show, asshole, I do. Either you cooperate, or it hurts, it’s as simple as that.”

  “Fuck you, Dalton,” he spits, still straining against the ropes binding his hands.

  “Now, now, Dago, that’s not very polite. Here I am giving you a chance to talk.” I nod up to Tex, and he flips the chair back to upright and stands close behind. “Maybe I should talk to your little friend here, what do you say?”

  “Anything you got to say, you say to me,” Dago answers, his eyes darting nervously between Spice and me.

  “Hmm,” I muse, pressing my finger to my lips as I think about his comment. “Nah, you’re good.” I shake my head. “Take off his gag,” I tell Ruck. In a flash, he whips his knife from his boot and slides it up underneath the gag, flat against Spice’s cheek. His eyes widen, and he tries to inch away from the blade. Ruck twists and slices upwards fast and the gag falls away leaving Spice nervous and breathless.

  “Now.” I fold my arms across my chest. “I want you to tell me, which one of your boys went too far with one of my girls at my strip club?” Spice looks at me blankly. “Okay, maybe you don’t actually know the answer to that one, so I’ll give you a second chance. Where’s your Prez hiding out?” He fixes his gaze and looks through me, his jaw set hard. I know what he’s doing, he’s settling his mind into silence, calming his racing adrenaline and detaching his thoughts from what he knows is inevitable. Because he won’t talk. It’s code. Biker law. You don’t rat, and you keep your mouth shut, always. I lunge forward, grabbing his jaw hard, pressing my fingertips into his cheeks and squeezing his jawbone. “No more chances,” I seethe. “Ruck, get the kit.”

  “He doesn’t have the answers you want, Dalton,” Dago pipes up in desperation to defend his fellow gang member. His loyalty surprises me. It’s well known that Dago would throw his grandmother under a hurtling train if it were to save himself, but here, he’s defending someone that I don’t think he even really cares about, does he? I know he’s a tough bastard and won’t give anything up easily, but I wouldn’t trust a word out of his mouth either.

  “You had your chance to talk,” I growl, throwing him a warning look over my shoulder.

  “He doesn’t know where Rev is, no one does,” he insists reluctantly.

  I spin around fast and get up in his face. “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

  “And I’m telling you, Spice doesn’t have answers,” he grits back.

  I straighten and huff, “And you do? You have answers?”

  “I told you, we don’t know where he is.”

  “I don’t believe you. What about the girl at my club, you wanna tell me which one of your boys did that?”

  He looks me in the eye and smirks. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.” Tex grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls hard enough that I see his scalp lift from his skull.

  “What are you going for, bro?” Ruck asks ignoring Dago and focusing on scaring the shit out of Spice. I turn back to him and delve into the sack he has opened in front of me.

  I pull out a small drill. It’s perfect for home DIY and making Wolves talk. I stand next to Spice and inspect the instrument closely, musing to myself, making small sounds of appreciation and working a conversation in my head. I place my hand on top of Spice’s head and tug his hair, gently tilting his head back. He tries to resist, but the harder he pulls forward, the harder I pull back. He jams his mouth shut, guessing what I’m about to do and whimpering at the thought of having his teeth drilled out of his head. “Front or back one first,” I ask Ruck as if I was asking him something as simple and meaningless as the weather. Then I laugh, a deep, belly-aching laugh that rattles the old, thin glass windows of the shack. “You thought I was going to drill your teeth out?” I say between breaths. His brow furrows, his eyes dart back and forth from Dago to me and back again. Tex still has a very firm hold on Dago, making him watch everything I’m about to do to his friend, and both Tex and Ruck laugh with me.

  Then the laughter stops.

  Silence fills the room as I press my palm over the back of his hand, pushing it flat into the chair and making sure his fingers are spread. Then I start the drill up with a whirr and hold it steady on the back of his hand until it starts to pull the skin apart.

  “N-n-n-no! Please, no,” he cries as the color drains from his skin.

  “Too late,” I say simply before I apply firm, steady pressure and drive it through his flesh until the drill bit comes into contact with the chair. His screams fill the cabin. Dago struggles in his binds and fights against Tex’s grip on his head that’s forcing him to watch his friend have holes drilled through him.

  No one ever tells you torture is part of the game when you patch in. But living life as a biker takes guts of steel most of the time and this guy doesn’t look like he has what it takes. Tears stream from his eyes, and he starts to gag as I draw the metal back and forth making a clean hole through his hand. “Where is your president?” I ask firmly.

  “I don’t know,” he cries, looking at me with desperate, pleading eyes.

  I stop the drill midway through his hand. “Was it you that worked over the old boy at the drug store?” Recognition flashes in his eyes, and I jab my finger on the trigger with a whirr that has him screaming. I hear Tex shuffle behind me as Dago struggles under his hold. Now we’re getting somewhere. “Who else?”

  I lift the drill from his flesh and drive it into a new spot. He screams. So I repeat the action again. “Who. Else,” I demand.

  He whimpers, tears and snot collecting on his lips. I’m ashamed that he calls himself a biker, even if he’s not in our club. He’s a disgrace to the name, to his club’s name.

  “It was me,” Dago yells from behind me. I close my eyes and take a deep breath before dropping the drill and standing to full he
ight, still looking at Spice. He looks confused. Confused and scared, and I know Dago is lying to save his buddy. Hell, I would do the same thing for one of mine. I swing my arm back and throw it forward in frustration, landing it square on Spice’s jaw with a crack. The chair flips backward, and Spice’s head jerks back on his shoulders. I leave him there on his back and spin to face Dago, grabbing his jaw in a vice-like grip. “Who and why?” I ask. I pull the knife from my boot and jam it against his throat.

  “Me and Dog. We worked him over, and gave him a warning he won’t forget.” He laughs despite the threat pressed against his windpipe. “You think you’re top dog around here? Rev’s taking over. He’s taking it all. The Souls won’t be running downtown for much longer. You’re losing the power, Ramsey. You and that has-been, JJ, you’re ruined, and I’m gonna watch you fall, with my dick in my hand and a smile on my face.” He eyes me with twisted delirium. Despite being at my mercy, he won’t cower or bow. I admire him for standing his ground, but I won’t let him get away with it. I release my grip on his face, composing myself, thinking where we go from here. But then faster than his eyes can follow my movements, I grab his ear and slice with the hunting knife. He screams—a blood-curdling wail that fills the cabin as I tear the knife through his cartilage. Blood gushes from the open wound, and I let his severed ear drop to the floor. “Wrap that up, Tex. Don’t want him bleeding out. I ain’t finished with them, yet.”

  Chapter 7

  “Good morning, sweetheart.” Vaughn glances over to me across the room and smiles as I enter the kitchen.

  “Hey,” I reply softly. I don’t want to talk about last night, and I busy myself pouring some juice and popping a croissant in the microwave for a few seconds, with the hope that Vaughn will just let it all go.

  “How did you sleep?” he asks, placing his empty plate on the counter top next to me.

  “Fine.” I smile politely, grabbing my juice and moving around him to take a seat at the far end of the dining table.

  “Good. Coffee?” he asks, fiddling with the coffee machine. I know what he’s doing. He’s acting all casual, then BAM, he’ll go in for the kill with the questions.

  I hold up my juice and shake my head. “No thanks.” I hope my abrupt answers throw him off and he leaves me alone. I’m not a morning person at the best of times, but when you get home late, after the night I had, too, then the gardeners wake you up with all kinds of roaring machinery, cutting hedges and the like, it makes my usual bad morning mood look like a Mary fucking Poppins movie.

  “Oh, no coffee? You on a health kick today?”

  I lean back in my chair and let my legs rest over the corner edge of the table. “Not particularly, just don’t want the coffee.” I roll my eyes, knowing that I’m sounding like an adolescent, but hating the fact that he’s skirting around what he wants to say, and what I know I don’t want to hear.

  “I’m glad to see you’re in a good mood.” He clicks the button on the coffee machine and turns to face me, resting his hands on either side of him on the counter top.

  “Will you cut it out? I’m not in the mood for you today, or anyone else for that matter. I just want to drink my juice and eat my breakfast in peace before I start working on a headache of a website that I’ve been hired to design.” I push my fingers into my temples, rotating in small firm circles to try and ease the pressure in my head. “Which, by the way, I really wish I hadn’t agreed to now as I’d rather hide from the world in my bedroom. So, it’s going to take all of my brain power just to get started today. Is is too much to ask that I start my day in peace?” I huff. I knew I should have stayed in bed. Thoughts of hibernation run through my head. Headphones on, duvet pulled up over my head—closed off from the whole world and undisturbed.

  Vaughn walks around the island and places his coffee on the coaster at the opposite end of the table. This is where we always sit, in our own chairs, never changing. We always have for as long as I remember. When I was smaller, he used to say this is how the king and his princess daughter would sit. Instead of sitting with his coffee to read the paper that’s neatly laid out in front of him, he walks around to me and pushes my legs off the table causing them to hit the ground with a thud. He then takes the croissant out of one hand and the juice out of the other and places them both on the placemat in front of me. I’m about to let loose a verbal cannon of insults, but I’m too tired, too deflated, and not in the mood to argue, so I don’t say a word.

  “Stand up,’ he orders softly.

  “No,” I reply simply, although there’s not really any weight behind my words. I don’t have the energy to back up my words with actions. He ignores my petulance and takes my hands in his, tugging gently. I protest weakly, but we’ve done this before, hundreds of times, and I don’t really know why I insist on being so stubborn. I relent and stand up. He smirks, knowing he’s won a small battle, but he won’t gloat. He drops my hands, so they fall at my sides, and he wraps his big, strong, protective arms around my shoulders and tucks my head under his chin. I huff, hating that I’ve given in, but deep down not really wanting it to be any different, and as Vaughn continues to hug me, I let myself relax into him, his warm embrace, his soothing scent. A hug from Vaughn has always made everything seem all right. He might not be my biological father, in fact, he wasn’t a father figure in my life until I was ten years old, but I needed him, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I still need him, I think. We were each other’s comfort after such tragedy. He was the calm in my storms, the stability in my life and my role model and father, even though I have never called him Dad officially.

  “I love you, Sadie,” Vaughn talks quietly into my hair as he nestles his cheek on the top of my head. “I know life is hard for you right now. I know you’re not settled here yet, and I know you miss your mom and brother every day. I miss them too.” His voice catches in his throat. If only my mom weren’t so stubborn—if only she weren’t so damn independent she might have married Vaughn and made us all happy. She might not have had to work like she did and she might not have been killed that night. The night that changed everything.

  “I’m sorry I worried you,” I mumble into his chest, my sour mood depleting from Vaughn’s reassuring presence.

  “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me,” he whispers, his words carrying a deeper meaning than just last night. He kisses me on the top of my head and pulls back, straightening his shirt and adjusting his cufflinks at his wrists. “Okay?” he asks, touching his thumb to my cheek. I nod and smile. We both sit back at our usual places at the table, and Vaughn picks up his paper as I finish breakfast. That’s it. Conversation over. Maybe he’s letting me grow up after all.

  The front door slams and Vaughn lowers his paper to look over to the doorway. “Morning, boss,” Nate says as he strolls into the kitchen. “Hey, Sadie.”

  Nate is Vaughn’s right-hand man. He’s his chauffeur, handyman, PA, and because Vaughn is kind of wealthy, Nate also acts like his protection, a bodyguard if you like. Vaughn pays him well, very well. He’s loyal and dependable, and since he’s been officially employed with us over the last five years, we’ve been through a lot together, and I trust him almost as much as I do Vaughn. He’s a short, stocky fella, with a kind face, a bald head and way more tattoo’s than Vaughn would like, but he covers them up while at ‘work’ and does everything that is asked of him.

  “Morning, Nate,” I say.

  “Morning,” Vaughn grumbles in his deep, authoritative voice as Nate helps himself to a coffee while humming a little tune under his breath. Vaughn folds his paper and places it on the table, glancing over to Nate, then me with a smirk on his face. “Someone’s happy this morning.”

  “You know me, boss. I’m always happy,” Nate winks in my direction and leans on the island while his coffee brews. “What’s on the agenda today?”

  “Well, not that I want to wipe the smile off that happy face of yours or anything, but I need you to drive me to Salinas. I have a meeting first th
ing tomorrow, so we will need to stay over. That okay with you, Sadie?”

  “Sure.” I shrug. “What’s happening in Salinas?” I ask, not really caring for the answer but being polite all the same.

  “I have a meeting with a company director in crisis.”

  “Ah, I see,” I prop my legs back up across the corner of the table. “Vaughn Campbell to the rescue,” I say lightheartedly.

  “Something like that,” he says. “So we’re going to need to leave later this afternoon, I’ve got a few other things to run through with you before that, but this morning I’d like for you to get the car fuelled and ready to go. Speaking of cars …” he looks pointedly at me.

  “I …I’ll sort it later. I don’t need to go anywhere for a few days anyway. I have that big project to complete.”

  “But where is your car, Sadie?” he presses.

  “I told you, it’s at a garage, I’ll sort it.” I feel my earlier mood coming back at his pushing into my business, and I wonder if I’m making him dig deeper by being so secretive.

  “Hang on,” Nate interrupts. “What’s happened to the beast?” he asks referring to my Camaro and tilting his head in question.

  I draw a huge breath and blow it out with a sigh, feeling every nanosecond of Vaughn’s quiet, intensive scrutiny. “I kinda crashed it last night.” I shrug, looking into my lap to avoid eye contact with Vaughn.

  “Were you hurt?” Nate asks, looking at me with concern, and I turn my cheek in his direction.

  “Just a scuff,” I murmur, recalling how I actually got the graze on my cheek, and it was nothing to do with crashing the Camaro, and everything to do with being taken down to the gravel by a very angry, very hot biker, before he ground his crotch into my backside and growled in my ear.