His name might have been on the lease, right alongside Jenna’s, but this place had been hers. When they’d gotten married, Steel and Jenna had agreed to combine everything. They didn’t have his-and-her bank accounts with a shared one for expenses or separate credit cards. There was nothing one of them had that they couldn’t or wouldn’t share with the other, nor did they have any secrets. If one wanted to purchase something without the other one seeing, they simply asked him or her not to look at the credit card statement that month. Trustwas the foundation of their relationship, and that would never change.
From the first day Steel had met Jenna, her pure heart had attracted him to her.“I like to do one kind thing for a stranger per day,”she’d told him the day they’d met.
Forty years later, Jenna was still keeping to that goal. She helped out the parents who needed a break on the constantly growing expenses of raising kids by not charging them for certain things; accepted items that were too worn to resell but paid for them regardless; always had a smile on her face and a kind word on her lips; offered diapers, wipes, and formula at no charge; andneverturned anyone away.
This hadn’t been destroying something Steel loved. He worked here, sure, but this place wasn’t his. This was about destroying somethingJennaloved.
“Give me your phone,” he ordered Carlos.
Carlos pulled his from the inside of his coat pocket without hesitation, knowing Steel would have a good reason for asking for it. “Where’s your phone?”
Steel had known Carlos for years, even before Steel and Bulldog had met. When he’d still been active duty, Steel and Jenna would visit Mount Grove to see Lucky. Sometimes they brought their kids and sometimes they didn’t to have some away time just for them. Carlos had been a young deputy the first time they’d met, and it wasn’t until years later that Steel had sat down next to Bulldog on an airplane headed for Pittsburgh. It was one of those ‘small world’ meetings when they realized they were both headed to the same town.
“Broke,” he said, his answer clipped. He dialed Darrin’s number, not pausing to see if Carlos had it in his contacts. He was of the generation that memorized phone numbers, and that hadn’t changed with the invention of smart devices.
“Yeah?” Darrin answered. It was possible Darrin didn’t have Carlos’s number in his phone either.
“Is she safe?” Steel demanded.
“Yes, sir. We’re back at your house.”
Relief flooded him. “And Ollie?”
“At Angel and Cage’s. Viktor checked on him, but we didn’t mention what was going on.”
Tires squealed behind Steel, and he turned to see a club SUV coming to a halt by one of the cruisers. Bystanders jumped out of the way as Ghost, Bulldog, Lucky, and Demo exited the cage.
“Good,” Steel answered into the phone. “My threat still stands.”
“Understood,” Darrin said.
Steel hung up and handed the phone back to Carlos without looking at the town’s sheriff. He headed towards his club brothers. He might not have a cut anymore, but that did not change who these men were to him.
“What do you know?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.
“Keys tried to send you this,” Ghost answered as he held out his phone. “But he said your device is unresponsive.”
“Broke it,” Steel answered. He was going to have to have that tattooed on his forehead until he got a new one. Believe it or not, he’d lived a long life before having his first cellphone. He was not heartbroken to see it destroyed. Too many people cared more about what was on the screen in front of their nose than the world surrounding them. Steel would never understand how people could become so reliant on their phones.
He took Ghost’s and looked at a night-vision surveillance of Little Shoes. A few seconds after the video started, something flew through the air and crashed into the display window at the front of the store. The following explosion rocked the camera, and a second later, the image turned to static. A glance up and to his right showed the light pole had been damaged in theexplosion and the camera destroyed. It likely got hit with flying debris.
“RPG,” Steel confirmed his suspicion. He handed Ghost’s phone back to him. “No sign of him?”
“Scar, Starbucks, and Ranger are on the hunt.”
It had nearly been fifteen minutes since the explosion. If this was a trap, Steel couldn’t figure out the trick. It was more than likely that Shaw was long gone.
“Fucking coward,” Steel breathed out.
Ghost grunted in agreement. “No one was hurt?”
Steel shook his head. “No one would have been inside.”
“Property’s on lock down. It took us a minute to round everyone up, which is why you beat us here.” Steel would expect nothing less. Ghost was practical enough to understand life over possessions. “What do you need from us?” Ghost asked.
Steel needed to talk to Captain Hunter to see what the true extent of the damage was. There was going to be a shit ton to do in the coming days, including dealing with insurance and the town to figure out who was liable. Jenna didnotneed this sort of stress right now. Her relapses so far had all been pseudo-exacerbations, but that could change very, very quickly. And once that domino fell? There would be no stopping the disease’s advanced progression.
Fear was not an emotion Steel was used to feeling. Not in a long time. But Christ, he’d been in a constant state of fear since they’d learned her diagnosis. For the past year, all Steel had been begging for was an enemy to fight, some way to destroy this disease and cure Jenna from its affliction.
