“No.” His voice was steady, a demand. Steel was used to giving orders and having them followed. Now would be no different. “I am calling my daughter, Carlos, and she’s going to pick up.”
Carlos carefully pulled Steel’s phone from his hand. “No,” he said softly, mournfully. “She won’t.”
CHAPTER 10
She should have never woken up. She should have stayed asleep where all four of her children were alive, healthy, and happy. She should have stayed snuggled up in that hospital bed with her arms around her youngest son, in blissful ignorance of the pain that awaited her.
No parent should have to outlive their child. No parent should have to know the despair of such utter heartbreak. No parent should have to see their child, so alive and carefree only hours ago, in a cold, wooden coffin.
It should have been her. Why hadn’t it been her? Instead of her baby girl, so innocent and full of life with endless opportunities laid before her… What had she done in a previous life to deserve this cruel fate? Why couldn’t the universe have taken her instead?
There were no words to describe the agony. The sun would not rise that day; the moon would not glow. The rain only added to the misery. Yet there was no chill, not when her body ran just as cold. Food had no taste, water had no purpose, air had no meaning.
She should have never woken up.
Steel had beento a lot of funerals in his time. He never thought he’d have to go to his daughter’s.
Things were… Well, they were fucking awful. Steel and Jenna had faced some hard times over the years. Been through a miscarriage, the loss of his parents and her sister, the fear of thinking something had happened to Lilly when no one could get ahold of her, the unknowns of new marriage, and the distance of a military life.
Steel had once seen a young private die, so bright-eyed and bushy tailed as he stepped out of the transport van and directly onto a landmine. It had been his first day off-base since arriving in-country. Steel had held that man’s only remaining hand as his body bled to death. The life bleeding just as rapidly from his eyes. And in the end, all he wanted was to go home to his parents. Eighteen fucking years old.
Given Steel’s military career, many were surprised that none of his adult children had joined the Marines or any other branch. Some thought it was a lack of patriotism while others thought that maybe they were rebelling against The Man—be that man their father or the country they called home. But that wasn’t true in the slightest.
Steelhad sat his kids down and told them that they were not joining. That they would go to college and have careers andlive. Because none of his children were going to see what he saw, face what he’d faced, done what he’d done, or watch helplessly as a fellow soldier bled out in their arms as he pleaded to be able to go home.
None of his kids wouldbethat soldier, dying on foreign soil for interests that had less to do with ensuring freedom and more to do with might of power.
Steel was a soldier, a patriot. He’d bled, sweated, and sacrificed for his country. He would not see his children do the same. It was the only time he’d ever had a say in what his children chose for their futures.
And now?
Now he was staring over his daughter’s still body as she lay covered by only a thin, white sheet in the fucking city morgue.
Everyfucking decision Steel had ever made replayed in his head. What could he have done differently, what could he have changed, that would change this appalling reality? That would place him on this table instead of his precious baby girl.
Or better yet, left the metal slab empty.
Jenna wasn’t with him. He’d had to wake her to tell her what had happened, and there was no ‘keeping calm’ at that news. She immediately relapsed as she wailed and pleaded with the universe that it was only a dream, a nightmare she could wake up from and back to a reality where her daughter hadn’t been gunned down in the streets. Tessa, distraught at the news of Melanie’s fate, had to sedate Jenna before hospitalizing her.
Steel thought telling Jenna had been the worst part, but he’d been wrong. He then had to break the news to Carter, Jordan, and Ollie that their sister was dead. Drew, thank God, was too young to understand what death was, but that also meant he would never remember his Auntie Mel.
The club was…suffering. They’d lost one of their own before. Twice. Conner had been new to them, but he’d still been family. He’d been buried in full colors under the road name Lionheart to honor his sacrifice.
And then there’d been Scar. When he’d gone over that bridge, the club had thought his body had been lost to them, swept awayby the current. They’d buried an empty coffin. Scar hadn’t meant to fake his death, but he also hadn’t purposefully told the club he was alive either. It had been Tally who’d told them of his resurrection, as well as his imprisonment.
The club had never lost like this before. Taken from them at the start of her adulthood, Melanie’s murder was beyond comprehension. Shock, anger, and denial flowed through the club as if they had their own heartbeat.
Carlos was blaming himself like he’d been the one to pull the trigger instead of just being the reaper’s messenger. It had been his words that had broken the dam. He insisted on personally bringing Steel to Philadelphia to identify and claim his daughter’s body.
The ol’ ladies were taking care of Jenna while Carter, Jordan, and Lucy stayed to help take care of Ollie. Everyone was taking care of someone so Steel could stand here over his daughter’s lifeless form. His baby girl. The apple of his eye.
There was no more apple. It hadn’t been carved or eaten, but obliterated. By two bullets. Two small pieces of metal should not be capable of such destruction.
Someone had combed her hair. While Carter and Jordan had inherited Steel’s dark hair, Melanie had gotten her mother’s orange locks. It was slightly darker than Jenna’s, not so fiery, but just as curly. Her eyes had been a mixture of hazel and green. She’d been Jenna’s Mini Me.
Steel could still feel the phantom of her small body in his arms. He’d been granted leave, arriving just in time to meet Jenna at the hospital and be present for the birth. In full uniform with a blue gown draped over him, Steel had cut the umbilical cord that connected mother and daughter. Then the labor and delivery nurse had placed Melanie’s little body in the cradle of his arms, and Steel’s heart had melted.
Holding his sons had been nothing in comparison. His little girl, his precious baby. All seven pounds and five ounces, nineteen-point-four inches. Even then she’d had tufts of orange hair, gooey and saturated from being born. There wasn’t anything Steel wasn’t willing to do for his children, and he knew it was wrong to choose favorites, but there was no denying in that moment that Melanie Daphne was his.
