Hisdaughter.
The power of that knowledge in that moment was indescribable. Steel had adaughter, and there were no limits to his protection, his love, and his devotion to her.
His failure now surrounded him. He’d failed to protect her. He hadn’t been there for her. She’d been on a college campus, walking back to her student housing with a friend. She should have beensafe. No one had been there to protect her.Steelhad not been there to protect her. And in the end, her fate had been the same as that young private’s had been. Both taken from the world before they’d really had a chance to live, to experiencelife.
Melanie had had such potential. She wanted to go into social services, to help kids like Ollie, who had no one to fight their battles in a broken system. She was going to change the world. Now, the only mark she would leave behind was the blood stains on the campus sidewalk.
The detective waiting out in the hall with Carlos had given Steel the placating line that he would do everything in his power to catch the bastard who heartlessly took two young lives. Steel hadn’t cared. He didn’t need to be a detective to find Melanie’s killer.
He already knew who had pulled the trigger on his baby girl. Who had pulled up in a nondescript black sedan, rolled down the window, and opened fire.
Melanie hadn’t been the only victim. Her roommate’s boyfriend, Rodney Baldwin, had been walking next to her.Video surveillance showed the two of them had met up on the crosswalk down the street from the student housing building. They’d waved to each other, pausing to have a brief, platonic conversation, and then they started walking side by side towards the dorms, each step taking them closer to their terrible fate.
A tear-streaked Keys had tried to convince Steel not to watch the videos. Even Lucky and Bulldog, both fathers, had tried to prevent him from seeing them. But it was Ghost who told everyone to back off, claiming that Steel had a right to watch.
It wasn’t the sedan pulling up on the sidewalk or even the muzzle flash that got to Steel. She’d beensmiling. A second before the first bullet had been fired, Melanie had beensmiling. She’d beenhappy.
He’d seen on the video, he’d watched his daughterdie—but it was her smile that had slayed him.
She hadn’t seen it coming.
From the time Jenna and Steel’s kids could walk, they’d been enrolled in multiple forms of martial arts, including weapon training. A Marine’s wife, Jenna had gone to classes too. Steel wanted his family to know how to take care of themselves when he wasn’t there. He’d tried with Ollie too, but his youngest had no hand-eye coordination at all. It was worse than even his fashion sense, in Steel’s opinion. But Carter, Jordan, and Melanie had all been trained. They understood and respected weapons, using them only to defend and not to intimidate.
Melanie wouldn’t have been carrying. Firearms weren’t allowed on campus, and even if they were, she wouldn’t have had time to draw. She’d been caught out in the open with no cover, the perfect target.
Griffin Shaw was the most wanted man in the underworld now, but it was hard to hunt a man who had been trained by one of the best espionage agencies in the world. It wasn’t just theVia Daemoniaafter him either.Non Craswas hunting him, aswere the Mountain Mutineers. Jack, the other Jack, had called to personally convey his condolences and to apologize for pulling his Mutineers off Melanie months ago. Steel didn’t blame Jack, though. Melanie’s protection hadn’t been his responsibility; it had been Steel’s.
Word spread. A chapter of the Royal Bastards in Atlantic City, New Jersey, had reached out. Their President, Aero, had offered their hand in not only friendship but also assistance to hunt Shaw down. It wasn’t just Tri-State area clubs calling Ghost either. He’d gotten messages from clubs from the midwest and west coast too. The Fallen Spades MC in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, had a connection to both the Royal Bastards in Atlantic City and also a chapter in Los Angeles, California. Like a wildfire, news that a former President’s daughter had been gunned down at her college was causing a nationwide uproar.
Kids were off limits. Kids were to be protected.
The Brothers of Chaos out of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, offered to ride north when needed. Both chapters of the Steel Archangels MC in Forest Creek and Junction Creek, Wisconsin, had called in their support. As had the Knights Wrath MC from Toketee Creek, Washington, and a new club from Watson, Oregon, the Norse Rebels MC. Numerous Saint’s Outlaws chapters, including Ravell, Pensacola, and Lake Haven, reached out. Both Las Vegas and San Antonio chapters of the Lotus MC rallied, along with the Queens Wraiths MC from Rockfall, Minnesota and the AZ Demons from Hillvale, Arizona.
Blood and vengeance were riding high through the MC world. The news even traveled across borders, reaching Canada, Alaska, and Mexico. They all wanted to help. They all wanted a piece of the action, a part in the hunt. Ghost had not burned any bridges, but he also had not encouraged action. They would take information, not body parts. This was theVia Daemonia’s battle.
As their sister club,Non Craswas the only one who had a stake in this fight. Sissy was Scissors’ wife, Lucky’s daughter, and Melanie’s cousin. All of them—Poison, Scissors, Wendigo, Phoenix, Viper, Tabs, and Gypsy, along with their Knightmares, Kitty, Ghost, Sissy, Benjamin, and Waya—were already riding northeast to be at the VDMC’s side. Since leaving last year, only Scissors and Sissy had been back over the holidays. Now they were riding like the hounds of hell were on their wheels.
It had barely been a week since Melanie had been taken from this world.
The club was wearing black bands on their left biceps, and they were preparing for war. All while Steel stood here in this frozen room, looking down at his daughter’s corpse. She would never laugh again, never sing, never dance as badly as her mother, never make Bambi eyes to try to get her way… She would never find love, never settle down and raise a family, never celebrate another holiday, a birthday, or a milestone… She would never graduate college and start her career, never fix a broken system or fight for an unwanted child, never feel the satisfaction of knowing she’d righted a wrong…
She would never smile again.
Steel knew from watching the college’s surveillance video that she’d been hit in the chest. Two bullets, both piercing her heart. It wasn’t an instant death. She would have laid there as her murderer sped away, knowing she was going to die. Alone, scared, and unable to do anything to save herself.
In the movies and television shows, bullets tend to stop when they enter a person. And while some do, that was not the case with Melanie. The bullets had exited her and entered Rodney Baldwin’s guts. He might have had a chance of survival, but they were on a sidewalk. Bodies didn’t dramatically settle on the ground. When they dropped, they tended todrop. When the bullets had hit Rodney, he’d gone down on the set of stairsleading up into the dorm building. His neck had been broken by the force of the fall.
Shaw had gone after one life and ended up taking two. Rodney Baldwin was dead, all because he’d had the poor timing to bump into Melanie and had offered to walk her home. He’d died for his chivalry.
The white sheet that covered her from the chest down concealed her body’s fatal wounds, but Steel needed to see. He needed toknow. He needed to memorize.
The coroner’s assistant stepped forward, making a protesting sound as Steel reached for the sheet. The man had been respectfully quiet up until that moment. Steel’s gaze, though, made the man freeze, halting his protest. Perhaps it was the deadness, how Steel was still physically alive but no heart beat inside him.
Some might take issue with Steel revealing his barely legal daughter’s chest as she lay cold and lifeless on a metal slab with not even a pillow to cushion her head. Steel didn’t give a fuck though. Not everything needed to be sexualized. He would do the same if it were his son who lay in his daughter’s place.
Two holes still adorned her body. She hadn’t been transferred to a mortician yet. There had only been a slight delay in standard funeral proceedings due to the police investigation. It wasn’t a mystery how she died, though evidence had still been collected. The funeral home would come to collect her tomorrow to prepare for the service.
Shaw had gotten her heart. Tap, tap, ripping and tearing the organ apart. It would have still been futilely pumping as she hit the ground in a desperate bid to continue living. She never would have stood a chance. It wouldn’t have mattered if a doctor had been present or if someone had called 911 sooner. Her fate was sealed the moment Shaw had pulled that trigger.
