I glance up at Steel’s face, sure that he’s going to give the order. I don’t want to see it happen, so I stare athim hard instead, bracing for that final gunshot to rock the warehouse.
But it never comes.
Steel actually rolls his eyes. “You know, it’s funny—most of the brothers said that at first when I gave them the option. I seriously believe Edge said it to me first when I caught him trying to steal my bike and offered him the option of having lunch with me or being lunch for the gators. He told me to go fuck myself and now look at where he is.”
“V fucking P,” Edge calls out. He sends Steel a pointed look, and Steel shakes his head.
“Get him out of here. Call one of our medics to fix the holes we shot into him. Get him to rehab after, somewhere he can’t fucking ditch, and then I want him in Helena, prospecting for us. I know he’ll change his tune when the shit pumping through his blood runs its course and he gets back to being a normal human being.”
Edge looks doubtful, but he shrugs. “We’ve seen worse before,” he admits.
“Everyone deserves a chance. Even fuckers like him.” Steel’s arm slips around my shoulders. “Now, my Queen, your chrome chariot awaits.”
“The only thing that awaits is our doctor at the clubhouse when you get there,” Edge calls as Steel steers me away.
Steel stops right before the stacks of pallets, right where the carnage happened, and bad shoulder and all, he scoops me up into his arms. I let out a gasp of surprise and wrap my arms around his neck. I bury my face there, inhaling his smoky, leather scent. The scent of the man I love.
He’s still here. With me.
He walks us out of the warehouse and into the compound, then sets me on my feet. He grins at me before he looks off towards the distance, where the sun is just starting to set, the sky daubed with fire-colored hues.
“Minus a few bullet holes in places they weren’t meant to end up in, we came out alright tonight,” Steel murmurs, still staring at the sky. “We didn’t lose a single man.”
“Instead, it looks like you gained one.”
He turns to me, visible regret and guilt twisting his face. I can’t stand to see those gray eyes weighed down like that. “I’m sorry about your… father. He was a real asshole, probably as bad as they come, but he was still your pops.”
“No.” I shake my head as my hand finds his.
Our fingers intertwine, and a few tears start to fall. Tears of happiness, tears of relief, tears over how I am standing here beside the man I love, a man who took a bullet for me, the man who has now saved my life twice.
“Don’t say that. We might have shared DNA, but he was never my father. He terrorized my poor mom and made my life hell. The only person he loved was my brother and even then, I don’t think it was love. It was more some kind of narcissistic pride in what he created. My father made his own decisions. He got the only ending that he was probably ever going to get.”
Steel smiles. “You’ve got a whole new readymade family. You and your mom—we’ll take care of her. Get her the help she needs. If she doesn’t want to stay in that fucking mansion all by herself, we’ll get her a better place, something nice and homey that has some real love within its walls.”
My eyes tear up again as joy floods my chest. I stare up at the man who has given me everything, who has made my life so damn rich in all the ways it was empty before. A man whose heart is pure fucking gold, whether he believes it or not. I stand there, my chest aching, my heart overflowing to the point where I feel like I’m going to burst. I don’t know what to say or do because ‘Thank you’ seems so inadequate, so I turn to my man, my glorious, beautiful King, and stand on tiptoes to carefully wrap my arms around his neck.
“I love you, Steel,” I whisper.
And they are all the words we will ever need.
His answering smile is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. “I love you too. Now, I promised you a ride into the sunset. Seeing as this wound is leaking like a motherfucker, I better make good on it.”
I throw back my head and laugh. Nothing has ever sounded better to me than getting on the back of that chrome beast and riding behind my man, my arms wrapped tight around him, my hair whipping in the wind, truly free for the first time in my life.
I’m about to leave my old life behind and ride like the devil straight into a new one.
Epilogue
Leah
Two Years Later
“Steel, come on! We’re going to be late.” I can’t stifle the half laugh, half groan as he sinks down to the floor in front of me in our motel room.
“What does it feel like, knowing you can bring a man like me to his knees?”
My hands tangle in his thick, glorious hair. It’s hot out, even for Florida, and the air conditioner is working double time to keep the room a bearable temperature during the insane late June heat wave. We’re spending the weekend in Miami for Harley’s graduation, and Steel booked us a fancy hotel for the occasion.
