RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4)

by Franca Storm

  I chuckled. “Kinda, yeah.”

  “Having second thoughts?”

  Our eyes locked.

  Upset, disbelief, and disillusionment blazed back at me.

  “Nah, Cole,” I told him straight-up. “It’s a done deal.”

  He gave a half-hearted nod, then shifted his weight uneasily, clearly trying to push his emotion down real deep. “Saying it’s an end of an era, doesn’t really cover it.”

  “I know.”

  “Thought you’d be here long after the place crumbled to ash. Long after the rest of us were gone.” He gave a bitter chuckle. “Always figured you immortal.”

  “I figured that for a long time too.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Half the trouble, ain’t it?”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “The weight of living like that,” I explained. “Like an immortal, somebody who can’t ever tire, who can carry his and other men’s burdens without so much as a stumble here and there. Living so fast, hard, and dirty.”

  Realization flashed in his eyes. “That’s how I felt before the club. That weight, I mean.”

  “I remember. You were just a kid, but you’d been forced to become an adult way too soon.”

  “You saved me, you know that? Gave me a purpose. Freedom. A place to belong. Everything.”

  “Well, it ain’t one-sided. You’ve given a fuck of a lot to the club, brother. To me.”

  “I might’ve caused some issues too.”

  I shrugged. “You’ve slayed your demons now.”

  “Sometimes they still rise up.”

  “Everybody’s got them. Demons. It ain’t a matter of just slaying them once. Sure, that first time is the hardest, but after, you still have to keep at it. Keep fighting. It’s just a part of life, of being human. You’re strong, maybe the strongest of us all. You’ve got it. I ain’t got no doubts.”

  He lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, emotion clogging his throat as he told me, “I’m gonna miss you. A fuck of a lot. I don’t even have the words.”

  “Right there with you.” I reached out and grasped his shoulder. “You really have been my most loyal soldier. I—”

  “Slade!”

  Liam’s call coming from the clubhouse had the both of us jarring and swinging our heads to see him running through the courtyard. When he reached us, urgency was spilling from him, his eyes intense. Cole and I exchanged a look, the both of us tensing, knowing something major was coming.

  When he hesitated, Cole snapped, “Spill it then. Jesus. You can’t come in hot like that, then pause, Liam.”

  “He’s worried about my reaction,” I realized. “Yeah?”

  Liam nodded. “We agreed to work together, remember? You’re still down with that? No matter what I tell you next?”

  “Yeah, fuck. You know I don’t go back on a deal. Just get to it.”

  He took a beat, then revealed, “Nolan is in play.”

  “How?” Cole asked.

  “He’s left Indulge. We got word that he’s at one of his covert residences. We also know that he isn’t going to be leaving there for a couple of days. This is it. This is the shot. Possibly the only shot.”

  Well, shit. “Let’s get our shit together then, work up a strategy.”

  He gave me a look. “You’re really… Zen about this. I thought you would’ve been jumping on your bike and burning rubber out of here by now.”

  “I fucked it up once. I’m not gonna do that again. Nah, we do this proper.” Like Willa.

  Just as we started for the clubhouse to get on it, the roar of a bike tore through the area. I turned to see it coming in hot toward the clubhouse.

  My pulse kicked up a notch when I realized who it was.

  “Rick,” I breathed aloud.

  “He’s back?” Liam exclaimed. “He didn’t give us a heads-up.”

  That just had my anxiety mounting, because I knew all too well what that meant with him. “It’s big.” I told them. “Urgent.”

  I gave the signal to the two prospects manning the gates and they let him on through. He came roaring in way too fast, burning rubber, and coming to a jarring stop that had me cringing at the hurt it would’ve caused his bike. He dismounted faster than I’d ever seen anybody do, then he ran up to us.

  “Comes to something when a member of the Strikers MC gets waved on through onto Steel Titans territory,” Cole muttered, glaring hard at Rick.

  “Saving the Prez and your girl counts for a lot,” Rick shot back. “And it’s former member.”

  Cole took an aggressive step forward. “You didn’t do shit for Tasha with Mikhail.”

  Rick reacted, matching Cole’s aggression, the two of them getting in each other’s faces. “You know I did. That maniac wanted to kill her. If I didn’t do shit for her, he would have.”

  “You could’ve put him down. I almost didn’t get there in time. You were already there.”

  “My hands were tied. But you’ll never get that, because of your all-or-nothing way of thinking, so let’s just drop it, yeah?”

  When Cole still didn’t step back, I forced him back, breaking the two of them apart. “Let’s stay on track.” I shot Cole a look. “Demons, remember?”

  It took him a moment, but he blew out a breath, then gave a nod.

  “All right then,” Liam said, stepping forward and eyeing Rick. “Why did you come tearing up here?”

  Rick’s gaze shot to mine, the look there real fucking worrying. Right away, I could tell it was specifically about Willa.

  He gave me a once-over and nodded to himself. “Good. You’re looking way better than you did the last I saw of you.”

  He didn’t look too bad either. He had a few scrapes and bruises on his face and arms, but other than that, he seemed fine. He was moving easy, riding easy.

  Reading my expression well, he said, “I’m more of an easygoing fighter and I don’t bite off more than I can chew. You always take a lot of damage for a higher payoff.”

  “That would be fine if you had Cole’s rage working for you,” Liam said, with a laugh.

  “I’m past the raging now,” Cole said.

  “Didn’t seem like it a minute ago,” Rick pointed out.

  “I made an exception for you.”

  “Lock it up.” Liam snapped. He gestured at Rick, “No more small talk. Get to it. What’s going on?”

  “Willa’s okay.”

  Relief like I’d never felt before coursed through me. After way too long carrying the anxiety and fear for her, I felt some of the weight lift. There was more to the hope I’d been holding out, just based on her skills and abilities. Now there was something concrete.

  Rick went on quickly, “It’s clear Blake is monitoring her calls and communications, because she sent me a coded message from an old burner.”

  “How did she get a hold of that without him knowing?” Cole asked.

  Rick and I exchanged a smartass look. “She’s another level,” I told them.

  “Hella resourceful and skilled. She can work up a plan like nobody else,” Rick added. Reaching into his jeans pocket, he pulled out his cell, scrolled for a few seconds, then handed it over to me, showing me the message she’d sent him.

  I took in the three words, frowning. It was coded all right.

  Heavy shade. Sunblock.

  “It means she’s in deep cover right now, working Blake. Heavy shade. The sunblock part is telling us to stay out in the sun, not to come into the shade. Basically, not to interfere with what she’s doing,” Rick explained.

  “It’s not much to go on,” Liam pointed out.

  “That shithead is using her for something for sure,” Cole said.

  “And she’s using him right back,” Rick stated.

  “She’s playing with fucking fire,” I said, a growl leaving me. What the hell was she thinking? Sure, she could handle herself, but everybody had a limit. She weren’t invincible. She weren’t all-knowing. She was out there alone without any backup and she’d
decided to kick up a shit storm? Jesus Christ! I eyed Rick. “Any leads from the call?” It was a longshot with the burner, but I still had to ask.

  “It can’t be traced, but I know where she kept that phone. Which office. Won’t tell us much, though. She could be miles away by now.”

  Liam pulled his phone out and told Rick, “Text me the location. We’ve got some of our boys running down leads. I’ll have Van find the closest one of our boys to his place and point them toward it to check it out.”

  Rick went ahead and sent the text, Liam’s phone chiming a second later. Then he turned his attention to me. “Look, there’s nothing we can do until we know where she’s at and where Freeman is keeping her. For now, let’s focus on what we can do.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Nolan.”

  “I’m gonna send Mason down with you.”

  “I’ll go,” Cole protested.

  “Nah,” Liam said, shaking his head. “I know you’re better than you used to be, but we can’t take any risks here. Nolan is known for getting inside people’s heads. He’s even managed to with Slade before. Mason is the most level-headed with the hardest, impenetrable outer shell.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Cole grunted.

  “I need you to handle the borders here while they’re down there, Cole,” Liam told him.

  That soldier mentality of his kicked in now that he’d been given a direct order, and Cole went rigid, assuring him, “Got it, brother.”

  Liam clapped my shoulder. “Let’s get this asshole, Prez.”

  Fucking right.

  And I wasn’t gonna screw it up this time around.

  Adrian Nolan’s life was ending tonight.

  24

  ~Willa~

  SECURITY WAS A JOKE.

  Nolan really seemed to think that retreating to a house way out of the way was enough to ward off his enemies.

  There’d been just three guards and I’d taken them down without much effort, given how weak their combat skills had been and the fact that they hadn’t been able to handle a surprise attack. They’d fought separately, instead of working off each other as a team. It would’ve given them way more of an edge and somewhat of a chance against me, at least for the first few moments, while I’d been getting into the groove of the fight. Instead, I’d disposed of them in moments.

  Now I had my back flat against the corridor wall, just a few feet from Nolan’s bedroom.

  Despite the ease with which I’d managed to access my target, the mission was going to be tricky from here on out.

  A hit was one thing. Disturbingly, it was run-of-the-mill for me.

  A hit was what Blake Freeman thought it was.

  A hit was what I wanted it to be.

  But it was a whole lot more complicated than that.

  I couldn’t let Adrian Nolan die.

  Not yet.

  I tapped the infuriating earpiece that I’d been forced to wear and connected to Freeman, my voice below even a whisper, as I spoke, “In position. Going radio silent.”

  “Twenty minutes and you reconnect, or I’m coming in.”

  “Roger that,” I responded, swallowing down how pissed I was that he was giving me a command. Pride didn’t matter right now, though. It was all about the big picture.

  I took a deep breath, getting in the zone, entering that headspace that allowed me to do this sort of high-risk, brutal thing.

  And then I stepped up to the bedroom door, turned the knob without making so much as a sound, and slipped inside.

  ***

  God, the guy was a heavy sleeper.

  Then again, I could move like a ghost when I wanted to.

  Still, I could sense the slightest movement anywhere within my vicinity, even when I was asleep. Slade could testify to that.

  Slade.

  My gut twisted, just like it had been doing ever since I’d watched the safehouse explode with him and Ricky inside.

  I wanted to believe that they’d made it, but hope made fools out of many. Sometimes, it was all you had to hold onto, though.

  Fuck! Stop! Get a grip.

  I was on a mission. I couldn’t let personal sentiment infect me. I never had. It was a testament to the hold that Slade had on me.

  Focus!

  My gun at the ready, I approached the four-poster bed in the ridiculously lavish master bedroom.

  I was just a few feet out when a wayward floorboard shattered my imperceptible movements, a creak that sounded more like a foghorn in the deathly silent space.

  Sure enough, Adrian Nolan stirred.

  I remained stock-still, but it was too late.

  He shifted and shot up in bed, a curse leaving him, as he jumped out of his skin when he caught sight of the figure shrouded in the darkness of his room, aiming a gun his way.

  No matter. It would just serve to speed things along. Sure, it would’ve been better if I’d been right upon him, with him incapacitated, before he’d woken up. But a struggle wouldn’t be much of a problem for me. I was equipped to handle a great deal.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  Before I could get a word out, he switched on the lamp beside his bed, bathing the room in a muted light. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t do him much good, because my low-hanging hood obscured any defining facial features.

  It was against my instincts to reveal my identity to any mark. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Besides, Freeman had already burned me by looking into me so relentlessly and deeply. He’d kicked a hornet’s nest, and Shadow was over and done with now, out in the open.

  Keeping my gun steady with my right hand, I flipped my hood down with the other, revealing myself. “Willa Rose. You may know me as Shadow.”

  The usual terror I was used to seeing in the eyes of my targets, just moments before I took their lives, came at me like a surging wave. Nolan scrambled up in bed, pulling his covers up to cover his bare chest. “Fuck,” he choked. “I should’ve known Slade had put a failsafe in place, in the event of his death. Anything to ensure my demise, even if he’d failed to do it with his own two hands.”

  “You remember me from a few years back when I allied myself with his club,” I realized.

  “Yeah. Never pegged you for a woman, though.”

  Interesting time to bring his deep-seated misogyny forth. Then again, as far as he knew, he was seconds away from meeting his end anyway. It didn’t really matter what he said.

  “Get out of the bed. Hands raised. Nice and slowly,” I commanded.

  When he hesitated, I made a show of fingering the trigger.

  “All right! Shit!” he cried. “Takes me longer to move around these days, thanks to that psycho you’ve been working for,” he said, holding up a bandaged hand, the one Slade had done such devastating and permanent damage to.

  He managed to get out of the bed, less than gracefully, then slowly turned toward me with both hands raised, standing there in just a pair of silky pajama pants.

  Dressed down, disheveled, injured, and shaking with terror, there was no sign of the formidable, hard-edged tycoon he’d portrayed himself as for far too long. The person who’d caused so much damage, pain, humiliation, and wrongdoing seemed a world away now.

  Now he was alone and about to face justice, he was merely a shadow of his former self.

  Nothing.

  I closed the distance between us and executed a quick, efficient pat-down to ensure he wasn’t packing a concealed weapon. All clear.

  Then I got down to work.

  I shoved him into the wall, my knee grinding painfully into his back and effectively incapacitating him, while bringing the intimidation factor with my gun pressed into the back of his head. “The commander of the militia. Who is he?”

  “Wh-what?” he croaked.

  “The militia you connected with Blake Freeman! Who is the commander?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  I ground my knee harder against his back, making him cry out. “Don’t fuck with me. A name!
Now!”

  “I don’t know offhand. It was a one-time connection. I’d have to look it up.”

  Dammit! Exactly what I’d been hoping against. “Then do it. Where’s your phone?”

  “Bedside table. But it’s not on there. All secure files are on the hard drive at Indulge.”

  A curse left me, before I could reel it in.

  “That’s why you’re here? For intel on Freeman?”

  “He’s the one who sent me here. He wants you dead. I want intel.”

  “Wait… this isn’t about Slade Mitchell?”

  “You’ve made it a whole lot bigger than that by connecting a man like Blake Freeman with his own personal army.”

  He hung his head and murmured, “I just wanted Slade off my back.”

  “You made that impossible for him.”

  “He kept screwing with me!”

  “He did what was right. He protected the innocent, when you sought to use and defile them for your own ends.”

  As he whimpered some more, movement behind me caught my attention, sending a red alert to my brain. But, as I went to pull my secondary weapon from my left hip holster, a voice spoke, stopping me.

  “Well, damn, never figured myself as a hero, but I’ll take it from you, darlin’.”

  I smiled to myself.

  Relief like I’d never felt before surged through me. I couldn’t believe I was hearing that voice again, his voice, the one that infused my senses and captured every part of me.

  “Slade,” I breathed.

  25

  ~Slade~

  I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT.

  Willa fucking Rose had my dick hard in an instant, right in the middle of a goddamn mission. The sight of her going all aggressive and kickass and roughing up my enemy was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

  Her eyes locked on mine.

  Nah, I was wrong. That was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. Her looking at me with an intense want and need, like I was the only thing she wanted to set eyes on, the only thing that mattered in the whole fucking world to look upon. Like I was everything.

  It sure as well was what was going on my end, and I weren’t holding it back, so I knew she’d be seeing it in my eyes too. Damn, I’d missed her. Part of me hadn’t known whether I’d be able to set eyes on her again, until a few hours ago when Rick’s news had reached us about her. Now, here she was, in the same room as me, just a few feet from me.