Heart of Steel

by Cathleen Cole

  Now that we were juniors, and we were all hitting our stride in higher education, Bridget had suggested we come up with something the five of us could do together at night. We’d all been pulled in so many directions it wasn’t unusual to only see the girls in passing, for a few days at a time, despite living together. She’d been mentioning that we needed to take the time to socialize together for a while but had waited until last week to insist. It had taken me a lot of time to not only grieve for the loss of my dad but to get my life situated now that I owned the only other baby dad had in life. Mackenzie’s Trucking.

  He’d retired from the Marines fairly young and with a teenage daughter to provide for he’d pooled all his resources to start his own trucking company. It’d exceeded his expectations in every way, and after his death, it became mine. There’d been a lot of family drama over the company, but things were starting to smooth out a little.

  I was finally in a better headspace, back on track with my business degree, and learning how to deal with the business. Things were busy, but I was managing to deal with dad being gone which was why Bridget sprang her plan on us.

  “Seriously, we could go home, shower and change, and still make it in time for the huge frat party at Delta Sigma Phi,” Bridget muttered unhappily.

  Now she’s pouting. glancing over in amusement I watched Bridget pick imaginary lint off her pants. Normally Bridget wouldn’t mind these classes, but not when the football team’s fraternity was having a kegger.

  We all knew she meant we should go drinking or dancing. She liked to gripe about the fact that none of us acted like irresponsible twenty-one-year-old college kids. Sure, we’d gone out for each other’s birthdays, well except for mine since it was on the day my dad had passed. I didn’t remember that birthday for a very different reason than most kids my age, celebrating the fact that they could legally drink. Now my twenty-second was looming, and I wanted to be able to fast forward and completely skip the day.

  “Drop it, Bridge.” Julie all but growled at her.

  Bridget’s mouth twisted into a disappointed pout and she flounced off to go stand next to Anna. Julie sighed, then side-eyed me. Before she could say anything, I responded to the question she hadn’t asked.

  “I’m fine, Jules. I promise.” Her concern had nothing to do with drinking or the gym. I didn’t bother to get upset about the fact that Julie constantly checked in with me. They all did.

  I hadn’t handled my dad’s death well in the beginning. It had taken months to pick myself up. Luckily, my Uncle Caleb was the manager at Mackenzie’s, and he’d been doing both his and my dad’s job while I pulled myself together. Now, I’d been slowly learning the ropes so that I could take over and Uncle Caleb could go back to doing the manager position he loved. He never envied my dad being the owner, something he’d told me many times before. Our relationship had been strained thanks to dad’s death and him running everything.

  “Break’s over!” Bridget groaned when Sergio came over and started setting us up with focus mitts to punch. This wasn’t a normal self-defense class. Julie hadn’t been lying. It was a workout. But after we sweated, Sergio made sure he taught us everything we’d need to know to be able to defend ourselves. At least he taught us enough so that we could escape. None of us, including the other ten women in the class, had any delusions that we could go toe to toe with a man in a fight and win right now. Sergio was going to help change that.

  We practiced punching, we did cardio, we punched some more, then finally Sergio had us circle around so that he could demonstrate the new move he wanted to teach us during this lesson.

  When we limped into our house that night, with the exception of Julie and Ming, we all went our separate ways. The first thing I wanted was a blistering hot shower. Then I had a ton of homework to do for my classes. Two nights a week and Saturdays I worked at Mackenzie’s. It was more work than I had ever thought it could be.

  Between that and school I hadn’t been around as much, which is why the girls had mandated the hangout sessions. Anna agreed with Julie when she’d vetoed Bridget’s idea of going dancing. I had shrugged and said I didn’t care what we did. It was just nice to be around my friends. Anna was likely going to regret agreeing to the defense class, but she’d stick with it, we all would. Most weeks it was only one night a week. Sergio wanted two in our first week so he could get everyone signed up and all the paperwork filled out.

  I started the shower and began planning a to-do list for tomorrow. As steam filled my room from the attached bathroom, I pulled all my books from my bag and got all my homework laid out on my bed. I dropped the empty bag on the chair next to my desk and hesitated.

  Picking up the picture frame I stared at my dad’s laughing face. I looked so much like him. We had the same wide smile, the same light brown eyes, dark hair. He’d been such a handsome man. I grinned remembering all the times he’d gotten hit on at the PTA meetings and the grocery store. It had made him so uncomfortable.

  He’d just wanted to be the best dad he could be. For so many years he’d put his life on hold for me. I wanted to make him proud by taking over his company and making sure it continued to grow and flourish.

  The knot that had been residing in my chest for the last year tightened so fiercely I sucked in a breath. Tears pricked my eyes as I set the photo back down. “I miss you,” I murmured.

  A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts and before I could say anything Bridget burst through the door, bouncing on her toes. “He invited us to a party tomorrow night!”

  “What?” I chuckled, watching her in amusement as she happily danced around the room. “Who did?”

  “Gunnar. The biker from this morning. They’re having a party at their MC’s clubhouse.” At the look on my face, her expression turned mutinous. “We’re going.”

  The smile had slipped off my face at the idea of meeting her bikers at a party. “I don’t know, Bridget. I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  “It’s a perfect idea. It’s Friday night and you don’t have to work. I want to spend time together somewhere other than at a boxing gym. Do Anna and Julie have to work tomorrow?”

  Both girls worked at Mackenzie’s part-time. It was the perfect setup for all of us. It allowed us to have a job that worked around our school schedules.

  “Anna is on shift. The other girls have dinner with their parents.”

  “Well, then, it’s just you and me. We’re going.” She repeated it firmly. Before I could argue she flounced from the room, leaving me to finally take my shower.

  Chapter 6

  Steel

  “Church in ten minutes!” Cade bellowed up the stairs of the clubhouse and a couple of the guys hanging out in the hallway groaned. It was four p.m. on Friday afternoon and Cade had called us all back to the clubhouse. Something must be up, and I could see the guys were wary as they trudged down the hallway toward the stairs. We all worked hard during the week.

  The club had multiple, legit, businesses that we owned and worked. Then there were the activities that stayed off the books. We were a bigger club, but the workload kept us all hopping. Friday nights signaled the weekend, and it was time to let loose and they didn’t want anything to get in the way of the good time planned for tonight.

  Gunnar fell in step beside me. We’d come home and immediately headed up to our rooms to shower before the meeting. “Any idea on what’s going on?”

  “Nope,” I replied. Normally I would know, but Riggs had other stuff to do this morning, so he hadn’t been at the garage. When I asked Cade, he had just said he’d tell me what was going on in church with the others.

  Gunnar didn’t say anything else as we headed down the stairs and filed into the kitchen, which doubled as our meeting spot for now. I slid onto a stool at the island, setting the beers I’d grabbed from the fridge down. The clubhouse was in the middle of renovations. We were adding in more bedrooms for the brothers who chose to live here and a meeting room that the officers could hold c
hurch in.

  The members who weren’t officers went outside, giving us space. I saw Cade leaning on the wall that separated the kitchen and living room. He acknowledged me as Riggs, his vice president, walked in the front door.

  Riggs clapped a hand on my shoulder as he passed, and I handed him one of the two beers I had sitting in front of me. He accepted it with a grunt of thanks. Riggs was two years older than me. He’s the one who had brought me into the club. Our dad walked out on my mom a few years after I was born and it was my brother who taught me all the important shit, how to ride a bike, how to roll a joint, that I should use a condom unless I wanted my dick to rot off. The memory of that talk made me grin as I watched him walk over to Cade. They clasped forearms in greeting and sat talking quietly.

  My brother was a big motherfucker. He had finally topped out at six-six. Add that to muscle upon muscle packed on his frame, and most men didn’t want to take him on. If he wasn’t so important to Cade as a VP, he would have continued to be an enforcer. Not that I was much smaller. I was six-four and thanks to the grueling workouts Riggs put us through in the morning; I was almost as big.

  As the rest of the officers filed in and sat down, Cade sat at the end of the table and Riggs took the seat next to me. “Alright, let’s get going.” Cade looked around at his officers, his most trusted men.

  “Steel, how did the drop go from yesterday?” His green eyes met mine. I’d already given him my report, but he had me repeat it for everyone else.

  “No problems. According to Alexis, Enzo is happy with the product and plans on ordering more.”

  Cade nodded. “Good, that’s going to help a lot with cash flow for the club. Let’s make sure we stay in good standing with the Bratva. We don’t want to piss those guys off.” Everyone sitting at the table nodded in agreement.

  “Absolutely,” I agreed.

  “Anything new to report from the field?” Cade and his VP looked around expectantly.

  “We came across some Lycans last night,” Axel, our road captain, spoke up. I tensed up, wondering why I was just hearing about this now. As the sergeant at arms, my enforcers and I should have been contacted to take care of that problem. Axel shot me an apologetic look.

  “Sorry Steel, but they took off as soon as they saw us. We lost them downtown. I would have called but I knew you were busy with the drop. I would have, even with the drop happening if we’d been able to keep up with them.”

  I nodded and took a long swallow from the bottle in front of me. It was a good call, which is why Cade trusted Axel to be the captain. “What were they doing?” This came from Riggs.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure. We spotted them coming out of an alley. By the time we got close enough they were on their bikes, had seen us, and booked it through late afternoon traffic.” Axel ran a hand through his short black hair and blew out a frustrated breath. The Lycans were getting ballsier by the day. It was starting to piss us all off. No other club should be coming into our territory.

  “Probably dealing,” Trip, one of my enforcers, chimed in. “There’s been rumors of a new drug circling the local clubs and the campus.” We all listened intently. This wasn’t good news. “My old lady said a few college kids got sent to the hospital thanks to something that was passed around at a campus party a few days ago.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered. Sure, we sold drugs too. But our shit was clean. We never cut our product with stuff that would kill people. It was bad for business to kill off the clients. This was more of that forward-thinking that made Cade a better prez. Plus, we didn’t need a bunch of irate parents connecting their kids’ deaths to our MC.

  “Alright. Steel.” I focused on Cade. “Get a plan together to see if we can get a hold of this new drug. Begin a rotation to keep an eye on both the campus and a few of the more prominent nightclubs in the area. If you see a Lycan, I want them alive so that we can question them. We need to figure out what their play is and go from there.”

  “Yup.” I nodded and looked over when Gunnar nudged me.

  He smirked. “I volunteer to watch the campus.” A grin spread over his face. I frowned and shook my head.

  “Keep it in your pants, asshole. I’m not putting you at the campus or clubs. I have another job for you. One that won’t let you get anywhere near that number of females.” We all knew it was pointless to expect Gunnar to get anything vertical done when women were around.

  “We can put a few extra members on it if you need more manpower,” Riggs spoke up again. “Hell, even the prospects could babysit the campus.” I nodded. We had six prospects right now. Four had been with us for close to a year. It wouldn’t be long until they were patched in, so we trusted them with handling our business. The other two were fairly new. He knew there was no way I’d trust the two new prospects with that kind of responsibility. Hell, they weren’t even allowed to guard the clubhouse alone yet.

  “I’ll get it done,” I spoke to both Cade and Riggs. They nodded.

  “Drew, Trip, speaking of drugs. How’s our product moving?” Both men grinned at our president.

  “Great. It was a brilliant idea to start up at the campus.” Everyone rolled their eyes. Of course, Trip thought it was a good idea, it was his. Dealing at the campus could blow up in our faces, but it was hard to deny that it was working out well so far. That’s what had brought in the two new recruits. Plus, our drugs were flying off the shelf. College kids loved to party.

  The back door to the clubhouse slammed open and a younger kid in khaki shorts and a white t-shirt strolled in. He paused when he saw all of us sitting there staring at him incredulously. “Hey, guys!” An insolent grin crossed his face.

  I was up, out of my seat instantly. Storming around the island, I grabbed him by the back of the shirt and started dragging him out the door. I heard voices start back up in the kitchen again as I walked him around the side of the building.

  “What the fuck man? Let me go, Steel,” the kid whined.

  “What the fuck? You just walked in on church, prospect.” The kid struggled, but he was a buck fifty to my two twenty and I easily overpowered him.

  “You guys rarely have church this early. I just figured you were hanging out before the party tonight.” He jerked again, and this time I let him go and watched as he stumbled away from me.

  “With all of our officers there? You’re a dumbass, but you’re not that fucking stupid. Do that again and you’ll regret it,” I growled at him and felt slightly appeased when his face lost a little color. We were standing in the parking lot out back, where we parked our bikes. We absolutely hazed our prospects, but as long as they were fitting in, we didn’t let it get too out of hand. After all, what good was a prospect if he was crippled? Kids like this, though?

  I eyed him up and down and scoffed. He didn’t belong here. He was a preppy college kid who was just here to try to be a badass and have easy access to coke. “Where the fuck is your cut, prospect?”

  He flinched. “That’s what I was going in to get. It’s in my room.” He fidgeted in front of me and it set my teeth on edge.

  “There’s no reason it shouldn’t have already been on you. You’ll know when church is done, then I suggest you grab it and make yourself scarce tonight.”

  His head shot up, eyes wide. “But what about the party?” His whining voice was sending my blood pressure through the roof. I slammed a fist into his gut, knocking him back on his ass. He crab crawled backward as I advanced on him. Stopping his retreat, he held his hands up in an appeasing manner.

  “If you want to take a chance and come to the party after pissing all of us off, be my guest. But there will be more of that waiting for you if you do.” I watched as he stood up.

  “Sure thing, Steel. I’ll stay in my room.” His voice was condescending and still had a whine to it. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts. I tilted my head to the side.

  “No. Join Bass for his round tonight.” We had the prospects patrolling the compound in shifts tonight for the par
ty. His face turned red, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Get the fuck out of my sight,” I told him as I turned to head back inside. I shook my head as he stalked off to find Bass. This kid wasn’t going to make it into our club. He didn’t fit in, and no one liked him. I wasn’t sure why he was still here. Opening the door, I noticed everyone was still sitting and was now quietly waiting for me at the table. I nodded at Cade and sat back down.

  “Alright, you all have your assignments. Let us know if you need anything.” Everyone stood and shuffled out. “Steel, hold up a minute.” I paused, then sat back down.

  Cade raised his brows and Riggs scowled at me. “Everything okay out there?”

  “It’s fine. I explained where he messed up.”

  That made Cade chuckle. “I’m sure you did.”

  “He need any more reminders?” I met Riggs’s dark eyes.

  “I handled it.”

  “Good,” Riggs grunted, leaned back, and crossed his arms.

  “Heard you invited a new girl to the party tonight.” It wasn’t a question, but there was curiosity in the statement. Cade was staring at me, waiting on the reply to his question. I noticed Riggs giving me the side-eye as well, and I narrowed my own.

  “Fuck you, Gunnar,” I muttered and shot him a glare. It shouldn’t surprise me he’d told Cade and Riggs that I’d invited her. He just grinned at me. The condescending prick was enjoying this.

  Cade laughed, and even my brother chuckled. “I don't know how you pulled a college girl. That ugly face usually scares them off.”

  I flipped them off and stood to head up to my room. As an officer, and a member of the club, I was expected to attend all of the functions, and I did. It didn’t mean I stuck around for long at most of them. At the family functions, I closed the parties out. I wanted to be respectful to the guys’ families. But the parties like tonight? I stayed long enough to get drunk, fuck, then kick the girl out and stayed holed up in my room upstairs. None of the guys gave me too much shit about it, normally.