Heart of Steel

by Cathleen Cole

  Bass started running toward Julie, who was frozen, watching as Blaze’s gun swung in her direction. She was crouched next to a wall of containers; the only place she could go once Reaper and I had started fighting. I watched in horror. I was too far away, and it was happening too fast for me to do anything to help.

  A blur moved to my left and my arm snaked out as I grabbed Remi and pulled her against me. She wouldn’t have been able to reach Julie in time, but I wasn’t taking the chance that she’d catch a bullet. I pulled her into me and turned so that my body covered hers but I swung my head around and watched as Bass got to Julie just in time for one of Blaze’s rounds to hit him right in the back.

  Julie gasped and grabbed Bass but they both crashed down to the ground under his weight. Cade was returning fire, but Blaze used the chaos to run back up the aisle he’d come from. I couldn’t tell if he’d gotten shot.

  Shit. We ran over to where Julie and Bass were laying. Julie had already laid him out and was pulling off her sweatshirt to put pressure on the wound. It looked like he’d gotten shot in the left shoulder, above the shoulder blade. Remi dropped to her knees next to them.

  “What do we do Jules?”

  Julie was crying.

  I looked over at Cade.

  “Fuck man. Should we get him to the hospital?”

  “No hospital,” Bass gasped it out between gritted teeth. All our crew in the area walked over and we all looked at each other grimly.

  “Bass, if we don’t get you there you could bleed out. We’re not going to let you die.” Cade put a hand on the side of Bass’s head. He was lying on his stomach, cheek against the ground, eyes closed against the pain.

  Remi shrugged out of her dress suit jacket and folded it before sliding it under Bass’s cheek.

  “No, hospital.”

  Fuck. Most of us refused to go to the hospital when we were hurt because of the questions it caused and law enforcement involvement but in situations like this, we couldn’t patch ourselves up.

  “Remi. Put pressure right here.” Remi put pressure where Julie directed her to. Then Julie dug her phone out of her back pocket and dialed a number.

  “Ming?”

  Remi’s head shot up and there was hope in her eyes. I had no idea who Ming was, but Remi did and she and Julie thought she could help.

  “I need your help. I’m okay, sort of. A friend took a bullet for me and he’s going to die if he doesn’t get medical care, but we can’t take him to the hospital.” She stayed quiet for a moment, but we could all hear a frantic female voice on the other end.

  Julie went off in a string of Chinese, speaking so fast my eyes nearly crossed. Whatever she said must have worked because she cut off the connection and looked at us.

  “We need to get him somewhere safe. Can we get out of here?”

  “Scout, Riggs, Steel go on ahead, find the other guys, and clear the building. I’m sure all the Lycans are gone but check, anyway,” Cade barked orders at everyone.

  We nodded, and I shot a look between Cade and Remi. “I’ll have them help me get Bass up to the front. We need to make sure the way is clear and that no one else is hurt.” Cade met my gaze, and that’s all it took for me to get going.

  Chapter 52

  Remi

  I felt so numb as I walked, Bass was hobbling between Cade and me, using us as support. Julie was walking behind him, keeping an eye on his wound. All of the Vikings met at the front. I looked around.

  “My uncle?”

  Gunnar grimaced. “Sorry, Remi. A couple of the guys saw him take off for the exit. We heard a car peeling out as the gunfire started.”

  I blinked. People had been shooting and Uncle Caleb had just left? I mean, I had originally told him to go, but that didn’t add up. I’d find out more later. Julie and Bridget were still standing here. They hadn’t run like my cowardly uncle. Bridget said she’d been stuck on the other side of the building and had been trying to find us when the shooting started.

  “Where’s Anna?” My voice cracked as I realized I hadn’t spotted her. I looked around and saw nothing but blank faces.

  “Let’s head outside and see if she’s out there.” That came from Steel’s brother. He opened the man-sized door and stepped out, still looking over his shoulder as he was speaking to me. If he had been looking forward, he might have been able to sidestep. The look on my face as I saw the 2x4 swing toward his head was probably the only thing that saved him from being brained. Well, that and Anna’s weak swing. But to be fair she gave it all she had.

  Luckily, the wood bounced harmlessly off of Rigg’s massive shoulder as he pivoted to try to avoid the blow at the last second. The look on Anna’s face when she realized she’d just hit a friendly, would have been funny… I started laughing. Nope, it was funny, especially after the incredibly tense situation we’d just gotten out of. Riggs snatched the 2x4 out of her hands and it looked like a toothpick in his large, meaty paw. He was glaring at her, but his look didn’t have the same heat that it usually did.

  “I’m so sorry! I thought maybe you were one of those other assholes.” Anna grimaced then gave Riggs a cute smile, trying to get out of trouble for having hit him. He just sighed and stalked off. He took the 2x4 with him though. Everyone was still laughing at Riggs when we all seemed to collectively remember our hurt friend.

  “Where are we going to take Bass?” I looked at Julie.

  “I’m supposed to call Ming back with a location as soon as these guys let me know. She is gathering everything she’ll need. My sister is in her last year of residency to become an ER surgeon,” Julie said to Cade.

  Cade’s eyebrows went up. He gave her the address to the clubhouse. Riggs and Steel loaded Bass into the back of Bridget’s car while Julie called her sister back.

  “You alright to ride back with me?” I looked over at Steel then nodded. There wouldn’t be room to ride with Bridget and Julie. In fact, it looked like Riggs was loading Anna up on the back of his bike as well. She met my eyes, and I raised my brows and gave her an amused look. She flipped me off then blew me a kiss. No one wasted time, everyone mounted up and took off back toward the clubhouse. The only sign we’d been at the warehouse was empty shell casings and dead Lycan bodies.

  We pulled into the clubhouse parking lot at the same time as Ming. She rushed over and pulled us into hugs, one right after another before laying into us in a slew of Chinese. We’d heard variations of this lecture before, we knew when we were getting cussed out. We’d heard it often enough growing up. The guys were smart and didn’t stick around, instead, they opted to get Bass inside and settled into his room. Once Ming was satisfied we’d been scolded enough, she rushed after the guys and her patient.

  Julie followed her sister up the stairs while Bridget, Anna, and I stopped in the kitchen and hugged each other. We’d just be in the way up there, so we decided to stay downstairs. We were all worried about Bass, but Ming had already given him a cursory exam in the parking lot before laying into us and said he would be okay. The bullet had hit him in the shoulder. He’d saved Julie’s life though. He’d stepped in front of that round on purpose. We’d always owe him for saving our sister.

  Hell, we owed all these men for saving all of our lives, countless times today. I had so many questions I wanted to ask. I glanced over at Bridget.

  “What happened?”

  She and Anna shot each other looks, as though they weren’t sure how much to tell me. Finally, I could see she opted for the truth. I’d always been able to read Bridget like a book. “Those two guys showed up at the house this morning and said that your mom and their new club had you. Once I got them to explain who that was, they told me to bring a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the warehouse by seven a.m. or they’d kill you.” I cursed. They’d increased the amount.

  “Where did you get the money?”

  “Our dads,” Anna spoke quietly, and I winced. She didn’t have a good relationship with her parents. It couldn’t have been easy for her to ask
for such a large amount from them on such short notice. “It was easier to get them to give us each seventy-five thousand than to have one give the full amount.”

  “What did you tell them you needed it for?”

  “We said you were in trouble.”

  “I’m shocked they didn’t insist on more information or going with you,” I said in surprise. Both girls looked uncomfortable.

  “That’s why we called your uncle. He came with us and smoothed it over with our dads. We still owe them an explanation, but they let us go since Caleb was going. And since time was short, they let us go without much of the story.” It didn’t surprise me. Anna’s dad was a huge business mogul and at one time Bridget’s dad was the mayor. He still ran in the political, high society scene. It wasn’t surprising that both men would have that amount of money in a safe in their house.

  “I’ll go by both of your houses with you today and pay them back. We’ll come up with a story that will keep you both out of trouble but will satisfy them as to why we needed the money on such short notice. Something to do with the FBI freezing my accounts but needing to pay a vendor or my lawyer should be a good front,” I mused. They both looked up and happiness shot across their faces. The FBI was going to provide us a pretty good cover story for their families.

  At least they’re good for something. Despite everything that happened today I was still pissed off at what was happening with the FBI and Mackenzie’s. I saw the girls exchange a relieved look. Trying to figure out a way to explain things to their dads without bringing up the fact that they were caught in between a war between two motorcycle gangs had been worrying them.

  Well, it had been worrying them since we’d all figured out we weren’t actually going to die in that warehouse. A chill shot down my spine. Once Blaze said they were keeping me I’d started fretting about all of us and what might happen. Then there was shooting and people dying, luckily none of ours had died though.

  “I’m not sure what’s going to happen now,” I said quietly, more thoughtful than anything. I couldn’t think too hard on it right now or I’d lose my mind. So much happened in the last few weeks.

  “We’re here with you, Remi,” Bridget said earnestly.

  “No matter what. MCs, FBI, your uncle, our families, Mackenzie’s. Whatever happens, we’re family.” Anna had tears in her eyes.

  I blinked mine back and the three of us all but tackled each other in a group hug.

  Gunnar, Riggs, and Steel came back downstairs, and we all stared awkwardly at each other for a moment, us girls from our huddle and the guys from the doorway.

  “Uh, we can give you a few minutes.” Gunnar rubbed a hand through his hair. All three of the men looked decidedly uncomfortable. Clearly, group hugs and tears weren’t how they resolved things with each other. We looked at each other and snickered.

  “No, we’re done,” I said and smiled at Steel as we disentangled ourselves.

  Gunnar pulled Bridget into a hug and both Anna and I watched, grinning. We just sat there with stupid smiles on our faces as he tugged her out of the room and through the door that led to his half of the complex. Steel shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stared between me, Anna, and his brother.

  “What?” He looked at me then glanced curiously at the door that Gunnar and Bridget had disappeared through.

  “Nothing, it’s just nice seeing them with each other again.” Steel just blinked at me then shot a glance at his brother. They shared a long look, some kind of secret, silent, communication thing between brothers. Something that they weren’t going to share with us.

  Riggs cleared his throat. “Anna, you want a beer?” Anna looked at him then gave me a calculating stare.

  “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  “My house is over there.” Riggs pointed at a white house sitting about two hundred yards to the south of the clubhouse. Anna gave me a quick hug and then they left. I stared at the back door in silence. It’d just hit me when Riggs and Anna had eyeballed us, that I had broken up with Steel.

  I’d told him to fuck off, and that I didn’t want to see him, and he’d come in, guns blazing, and rescued me from my insane mother and a biker gang. I frowned. I wondered if she’d lived?

  “Do you know if my mom died?”

  Steel looked at me in surprise. “Your mom?”

  “Rhonda? I guess she’s dating Blaze?”

  Steel rubbed the back of his neck. “Your mom is the girlfriend? Shit. She’s the one who’s been funding the Lycans?”

  “Funding them?” Understanding dawned. “Oh, man. That’s what she was doing with the money?” He frowned at me. “I just found out, on my birthday actually, that my dad has been paying my mom a hundred thousand dollars for the past couple of years. He’s been paying her however much he could though, every year on my birthday since he started Mackenzie’s Trucking.

  “Why would he start paying her?”

  “She left right after I was born. I guess that’s how she made ends meet after she left my dad.”

  “And your dad wanted to take care of her.” It wasn’t a question. It shouldn’t surprise me that Steel just somehow picked up on the type of guy my dad was.

  “I guess he saw it as his duty?” I answered anyway, and he nodded. She left him so I didn’t understand it, but my dad had always been an honorable guy.

  “Bass told us Blaze had hooked up with a new female who was going to give them money for a new shipment of weapons.”

  “So, they haven’t been together long?” Steel shrugged at my question.

  “He said the guys said they’d been together for a few years.”

  I nodded. It didn’t surprise me. Once she started getting larger payments, she probably bought her way into a position of power.

  “No one found your mom’s body, so she must have made it out.” He strode over to me and pulled me into a hug. I was surprised at the regret I felt. I wished she had been killed. Then I immediately hoped that didn’t make me a horrible person.

  “Is Bass going to be okay?” I nestled my face into the crook where Steel’s shoulder and neck met and breathed in deep. It felt so soothing to be in his arms, a reminder that we were both alive.

  “Ming was setting him up with an IV and getting everything ready to go in after the bullet when we came down. She said he’ll be fine.” He tightened his arms around me.

  “We’ve already got Rat working on getting rid of the evidence against Mackenzie’s Trucking. He’s working it to make it look like the Lycans set you up. By the end of the week, the FBI won’t have enough evidence left to bring any charges against you, Remi.”

  He leaned back and looked me in the eyes. Tears started welling up in mine. I refused to cry despite the relief I felt. I hadn’t cried once all day, and I didn’t want to start now. He brushed his lips over the corner of my eyes then over my lips. I tried to deepen the kiss. Steel may have gotten my company, and me, into trouble with the FBI but he was helping to get me out of it and he’d literally just risked his life to save mine. If a girl couldn’t forgive a guy after those kinds of actions when could she forgive him?

  When he didn’t oblige me, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down toward me, and bit his bottom lip. Once his mouth slackened, I dipped my tongue in and rubbed it against his. Steel groaned and pulled me up against him.

  There we go.

  I moaned as he took control of the kiss, then shoved me back into the counter and ground his hips into mine. Someone clearing their throat had us pausing. Steel broke our lips apart but just rested his forehead on mine. After a minute we both looked over into Cade’s grinning face.

  “Ming got the bullet out. Luckily it didn’t pass all the way through or it would have still hit Julie. She said Bass is going to be feeling it for a while but otherwise he’ll be fine.”

  I sighed with relief and felt Steel relax slightly too. Cade looked pretty damn relieved as well. It hit me suddenly. These guys were family in the same way that Bridget, Anna,
Julie, Ming, and I were.

  Steel and I stepped apart and the three of us sat down at the island in the kitchen.

  “Did Steel tell you we’re working on the FBI problem?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I really appreciate the help.”

  Cade watched me quietly before he finally spoke. “We got you into trouble in the first place and you did us a solid by getting rid of the paper trail linking us to the evidence the FBI had. Even if you hadn’t, we’d have still helped you.”

  Cade gave me a long, serious look and then flicked his gaze over to Steel before settling back on me again. “You’re a part of our family now, Remi. We take care of our own. I hope you know that.” I blushed and watched as Cade got up and walked out the back door, heading toward his house.

  I looked over at Steel. “Am I?”

  He quirked a brow at me.

  “Part of your family?”

  “Seriously? You need me to tell you I love you, Remi? Throwing myself between you and a gun wasn’t enough of a clue for you?” He grinned at me. I couldn’t help but smile at him.

  “A girl does like to hear it.”

  “I love you.” He stood up and dragged me off the stool and into his arms. Lowering his lips to mine he said it again before he took my mouth in a searing kiss.

  “I love you too, Logan.” He grimaced and pulled back.

  “I hate that name.” I laughed and shook my head.

  “Fine. I love you too, Steel.”

  “Better. So… What are we going to do about your uncle?”

  I sighed. “I honestly have no clue. He’s up to something. Why would he come to get me back and then take off as soon as the shooting started? If he had left with the girls, that would make sense. I told him to get them out of there. But he left them in that warehouse too. What do you think we should do?”

  “For now? Don’t let him think anything is wrong. We’ll dig into it, see what’s going on.”