by Franca Storm
I returned it, deciding it was best to drop it. With Cole, you couldn’t push him to talk. He’d ready himself in his own time.
I just hoped it wasn’t too much time.
Nik was messing with his head. Bringing up Mikhail after all of this time wasn’t just a threat, it was to screw with his mind, to destabilize him. He was trying to force him out of the picture and away from me, to remove the obstacle that he believed him to be.
Cole was stronger than that, though.
He’d hold it together.
He was nothing if not a hell of a fighter.
My fighter.
14
~Cole~
IT WAS PISSING DOWN.
Just an extra fucking obstacle I really didn’t need right now.
I fought harder over the distracting roar of the heavy rain beating down all around me, soaking me to the fucking bone, to zone in on her.
Sure enough another scream sounded. Pure fucking terror that ripped right through me. I felt sick knowing she was suffering and that I still wasn’t there to stop it, that I hadn’t gotten there in time to protect her.
I was already sprinting at top speed, but those revived screams of hers overrode everything and forced another burst from me. I tore through the dark, dank, piss-soaked alley, my boots a rapid-fire thunder on the concrete, sloshing through the washed out streets.
My earpiece buzzed. I grunted, knowing who it was, and hesitated on answering.
He was gonna try to reel me in, to quell the rage burning through my veins. I was out for blood. Calming in any way right now would fuck with my head, with the power I needed to save her.
So I let the call pass.
My escape was short-lived, though, as it buzzed again. Over and over.
Fuck, he was a determined bastard.
Against my better judgment, I answered with a tap. Damn, Slade Mitchell had some power over me.
“Prez, I ain’t gonna back—”
“Authorized,” he cut in.
“What?”
“You got authorization to make the kill. Just Baranov, not Rick. The club’s got your back on any fallout. I’ll protect you. Clear?”
I rounded another corner, deep into the backstreets.
Through the haze of the heavy rainfall, I finally set eyes on what I’d been searching for.
My stomach lurched, bile rising into my throat. I swallowed it down and choked out to Slade, “Clear.”
I hung up and strategized rapidly.
There Natasha was, shoved up against the back wall of a run-down dive bar. That sick fuck, Mikhail Baranov had his left hand pressed to her back, holding her against it as his other was jerking down her jeans and panties. She was struggling and screaming at him, begging him not to take it there.
As I burst forward, the rear door flew open and Rick ran out.
“Mik!” he called, looking almost as horrified as I was. “Prez said to deliver a message, not to fucking well rape her! Shit!”
Mikhail snarled at him in warning and yelled, “Doing him a favor. Bitch needs taming. After this, she’s gonna be. Gonna fucking break her for him then he ain’t gonna get no more trouble from her.”
“You sick fuck, he ain’t gonna want that. Ease up. Now!”
He went for him.
But I was faster, the dumbass slower because of his hesitation from not wanting to hurt one of his own club brothers.
With a roar, I dug my gloved fingers into Mikhail's shoulders and hauled him off Natasha.
He lost his balance and crashed onto the wet alley floor, water and dirt soaking his clothes, skin and hair.
“Fucking shit. Just what we damn well need,” Rick groused as he took me in.
With him in shock and Mikhail momentarily down, I ran to Natasha.
“It’s okay, firecracker. It’s over. Nobody’s gonna hurt you now. I’m here. I’m here with you,” I told her, as I fixed her clothes back into place and gently eased her away out of the line of fire.
I didn’t want her seeing what was about to go down.
A goddamn execution.
She whimpered and clutched at me. “Cole,” she choked out.
“I know, baby. I know.”
She squeezed my hand and I kissed her fingers.
“I’m going to need you to wait just around the corner. I’ll be there in a few moments. Can you do that for me?”
I saw the worry in her eyes. She knew what I was going to do. For a second, I thought she was going to object, but then she hung her head resignedly and nodded.
“Steel Titans shit!” Mikhail bellowed, my peripheral vision taking him in getting to his feet.
I pulled back quick from Tasha and ordered, “Go.”
The second I saw her disappear out of sight, I turned my full attention to Mikhail and stepped forward. “Putting your hands on my woman is the last mistake you’re ever gonna make.”
“Cole,” Rick called. “You come at him and we’re gonna have a major problem.”
I scoffed. “You think we don’t already, dipshit? He tried to rape her! In what universe do you think I could ever let that go unpunished?”
“He got carried away.”
He was a fool thinking he could reason away such fucked-up actions. “He’s a sick piece of shit.” I glared at Mikhail, growling, “An out-of-control psycho who needs putting down.”
He charged me, going for a tackle.
I wasn’t an undefeated boxer on the underground circuit for nothing and I sidestepped him with my quick reflexes, then caught him off guard with a brutal uppercut to his throat.
As he was choking, I slammed my elbow down into the center of his back, drilling deep for good measure. One of his knees buckled and I took it the rest of the way with a sweep of my motorcycle boot to his ankles. He went down hard, grunting and wheezing as he collapsed onto the sodden ground on his front, only just managing to brace himself with his hands to avoid shattering his face.
“Cole, stop!” Rick called out to me.
Mikhail rolled onto his side and cursed me out in pathetic choking rasp. “Gonna finish what I started with your little bitch. Just… wait. Gonna make you watch.”
There wasn’t a fucking chance in hell.
Even if it had briefly occurred to some virtuous part of me to pull back from going for the kill, there was no way now.
There would be no stopping.
No mercy.
I stalked to the heap of Mikhail groaning and struggling to get onto his knees. It was just as I’d figured from what I’d heard about him. He was all hardass talk and bluster, no real skill when it came down to the meat of it, meaning hand-to-hand combat. Just another thug hiding behind his size and a gun.
“Cole, last chance,” Rick warned me.
As I took another step, I saw him running at me.
Big mistake.
Reacting real quick, I snatched my knife from my ankle holster, snapped my wrist down to dislodge the blade, then caught his tackle before he could make much of it. Using his weight against him, I spun him into a boarded up window. As he was reeling from that, I drove my blade down, crucifying his hand and securing it to the plywood.
He screamed out into the night, writhing and fighting to pull it out, to free himself.
I turned away, swallowing down his bloodcurdling screams and stalked back to Mikhail.
Seeing he was almost to his knees, I slammed my boot into his side, hard enough to crack a rib or two. More screams. Choking.
All nothing but distractions.
I blocked it out.
And then the real brutality began.
Fists. Boots. Elbows. Knees. Headbutts.
A red haze of rage engulfed me, my goal of ending him my only focus.
In no time at all, he was nothing but a mass of bloodied flesh and broken bones.
And then… he was nothing at all.
I shot bolt upright, my breaths coming fast and strained.
It took me a moment to readjust my eyes to the pitch-b
lack room.
But once I managed it, I took in Tasha sound asleep beside me in my bed.
The clubhouse. I was back in the clubhouse.
That alley and the shit that’d gone down there was long past.
Well… kind of.
It was still haunting me.
Months and months had passed after it’d happened where I’d been plagued by nightmares and flashes of it all. I hadn’t been able to escape it. And, fuck, it’d put me in a real bad headspace.
I’d thought I was finally past it a little while ago when all of that had finally faded away.
But I’d been wrong, because the Strikers bringing it up had my head messed all over again.
“Fuck,” I muttered, bringing my hands to my face, as I fought to get a grip.
I couldn’t… be like this. I just couldn’t. Too much was on the line right now. I had to keep my focus. Nothing could be screwing with my head. I couldn’t let it pull me under.
That fucker had deserved to die. He’d really deserved it.
I’d done the world a favor.
So, what the fuck was all the guilt about?
I didn’t want it twisting me up inside.
And I didn’t deal well with that shit.
I needed to push it down.
Right the hell now.
I tossed the covers aside and swung out of bed, trying to be quiet about it so I didn’t wake Natasha. She’d been through so much lately on top of the pregnancy and she needed her rest whenever she could get it.
I dressed quick and took a long look at her sleeping so peacefully curled up in a ball under the covers, her long, silky black hair fanned out all over the pillow.
Mine.
***
I flipped on a couple of the light switches by the door, just enough so I could see my way to the booze. I stalked across Steel Titans’ premier nightclub, Vibe, checking it out as I went to make sure things hadn’t gone to hell in the weeks that I’d been away. The club was my responsibility, something Slade had thrown my way to keep me out of trouble, his attempt to quell my aggressive tendencies.
With the vote that’d gone down during Church a few days ago, where he’d finally laid out everything with Tasha and the Strikers, it seemed it’d just been a stalling tactic. Because we were going to war now. The club had been put to work to gear up for it. We were going to put an end to Nik’s reign of terror once and for all.
I needed to keep my head in the game more than ever. I couldn’t let some bullshit remorse gain traction. I had to bury it down deep and rise above it. If not, it’d shake my resolve and lead to hesitation, which would be useless on the fucking battlefield. Useless to me. Useless to the club. And, worst of all, useless to Tasha and our baby.
Sighing with the weight of everything bearing down on my shoulders, I walked behind the bar and snatched up a bottle of Jack. I made a mental note to reimburse the bar. Slade was real strict about members taking from the stash without replacing it. I screwed off the top and grabbed a glass. Best monitor my intake. Getting shitfaced wasn’t the plan and it wouldn’t be tolerated while we were on the verge of war either. I just needed to take the edge off.
I slid onto one of the chrome stools and started filling the glass.
Well, tried to.
My hands were shaking, something I hadn’t taken the time to realize in my haste to get down here and outrun that fucked-up recollection. Liquor spilled over the rim, sloshing over the bar top too. The more I tried to still my hand, the worse it seemed to get.
And then a strong, steady hand clasped mine around the glass. The bottle was pulled from my grip.
I looked up to see the most unlikely person of all pouring my drink for me.
“Mason,” I spoke, my surprise clear.
He stepped back and put the bottle down beside me. I watched him fold his arms across his chest, striking that stance of his that meant he was in an all-business frame of mine.
“Come here for more?” I asked, gesturing to my fading bruise from the punch he’d dealt me when I’d first arrived back in Warlow with Natasha. “You should know, I won’t let it happen this time so you’re going to have your work cut out for you.”
He rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Let it happen? You really think a lot of yourself.”
“I just call it like it is,” I shot back.
“Well, I’m not here to test that theory.”
“Why, then, huh? You made it clear you’re done with me. You even moved all of your shit out of the clubhouse to drive the point home. So, what the fuck are you doing in the same room with me now?”
“Vibe’s on my patrol route. I saw the door open.”
Oh, right. With that brutal Mikhail memory so fresh, I was more than a little out of it, so much so that it’d slipped my mind.
I chugged back a couple of burning gulps of my Jack, then eyed him. “Well, as you can see, all’s well. You can head on out.”
Instead of taking the out and leaving me to it like I wanted, he stood stock still like the wall of muscle that he was.
“What?” I snapped.
“I didn’t know Nik was using Mikhail to blackmail you.”
Either he simply didn’t get it, which was unlike him, given how astute he was, or, as was more likely the case, he just refused to acknowledge it. I shook my head at him and delivered the cold, hard truth. “He blackmailed Natasha by using me against her as leverage. She risked the wrath of the likes of you and everyone else in the club to protect me.”
“The reason Mikhail happened was because of her. If she hadn’t called you down there to bail her out then—”
I slammed my fist down on the bar top. “Enough!”
He started, his body tensing at my explosion of anger. Yeah, even Mason was wary of my temper.
“I knew Luce would be safe no matter what the fallout of all Nik’s bullshit was, because I had you protecting her.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t have known that for sure.”
“I did. Don’t you get it? I knew, because I know you.”
He stilled at the intensity of my confession. After a moment, he let out a heavy sigh and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Why did you risk it at all by bringing her over the border? Even if I agree to concede that you’re right about Luce being safe, there’s still the threat it was to the club. It’s not like you, not even for her. She might have a hold on you, but it’s never trumped the club before.”
Fuck. He didn’t get it. I had to give him the missing piece to everything. “She’s pregnant with my kid.”
I’d never seen him so shocked in all the time that I’d known him. “What?” he choked out. “You got proof?”
“Yeah. Sonogram.”
“And you know for sure that it’s yours? I mean, you know how she is and—”
“It’s mine. The last couple of years she’s only been with me. We’ve been seeing each other on the down low. And that rep you’re talking about? That was years ago when she was desperate and scared because of Nik. She hasn’t been that person for a long time.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“She’s sorry, you know that? She regrets what happened between the two of you. She can’t make peace with it either. Not until you forgive her.”
“Cole,” he growled.
“I get it, all right? I get why you slipped up back then. We were at odds, moving into enemy territory actually. My rage was at its worst in those days and I was jeopardizing things for us, so much so that you were considering making a break from me so that you wouldn’t get dragged down with me and kicked out of the club and everything. On top of that, you were struggling with your… predilections. You’d searched long and hard to find a woman who could handle what you dealt out back then. You knew Tasha had that edge. And then, when she came onto you in a real desperate fucking moment, you snapped. I know you hate recalling it, because you’re not that guy. It was a mistake and I get that. That one slipup doesn’t negate everything. You’re still the loyal
guy you’ve always been.” I took a beat then told him. “I forgive you.”
We locked eyes.
For one of the very few times in our long friendship, I actually saw emotion blanket his face.
A long, intense silence stretched between us. Finally airing all that painful shit was a lot to absorb and reconcile.
He pulled up a stool beside me and offered a heartfelt nod that let me know he appreciated my gesture, that it’d go a long way to repairing things between us. Of course, there were still the women in our lives that we needed to settle things over.
“This is what you’ve always wanted, but never thought you could have.”
My own family.
I chugged back more of my Jack. “It’s all on the line.”
“The timing is… problematic, yeah.”
I downed the rest of my Jack.
As I went to reach for the bottle to refill my glass, Mason’s hand clamped down on mine, stopping me.
My gaze snapped to his.
He smiled. “I really don’t think you would’ve been given this gift just for it to be taken away.” He squeezed my hand. “It’s gonna be okay.”
I knew him well enough to get that it wasn’t just hollow comfort that he was offering.
Nah, he was telling me in his way that he’d have my back on this, that he’d actually step up and help me to protect everything I was so afraid of losing. When this war hit, when we struck, that list would include the thing he loved most of all. My baby sister.
“Yeah?” I tested. I had to be sure, given the animosity and distrust that’d lived between us for way too long.
“Yeah. I’ve got you, brother.”
I smiled. “Right back at you.”
15
~Natasha~
WARLOW WAS A WORLD AWAY from city life.
Quiet. You could actually walk several blocks without encountering a soul. The traffic was almost non-existent. Even walking around downtown, no more than two cars had driven by at one time. It was a welcome reprieve from the claustrophobic packed-into-one-tiny-patch-of-land layout of the city. Homes and businesses, alike, were afforded the space they deserved, not all squeezed in next to one another.
