Page 194 of Steel

I sit up a little straighter at her question. “Assumed she went home after our fight.”

“You didn’t think to look for her?” Em yells again, her voice cracking.

My heart starts to beat a little faster because there’s not much that worries Emmy Lou, and that little crack tells me she’s scared.

“Look, I got a message from her last night that I didn’t see until this morning. We were all partying so fucking hard to celebrate that I wasn’t worried about my phone. Fucking irresponsible of us considering the shit we got going on.” She fiddles with her phone for a second before reading off the message. “It was either me or Lyric and all of you. I won’t let you all lose anyone else you care about. I’m the only expendable one. Take care of them for me, please.”

“Read it again,” I choke out.

Wraith shakes his head, looking at me with worry. “Don’t need to, brother. You know as well as I do what it says and what the fuck it means. She gave herself up for your little girl. For all of us. She must’ve gotten a threat last night and made her choice.”

“Not that you made her feel as if she had another choice,” Emmy Lou adds bitterly. “I thought you fucking knew better than to believe anything that bitch baby mama of yours spews. I had a goddamn plan. She was supposed to wait for me, but I’m guessing she had one already in motion when she called me. If they told her it was either Lyric and you or her, who the hell do you think she’s going to pick? She thinks she’s the only fucking expendable one, Steel. You told her you loved her but didn’t have her back or believe her when she needed you to. You let your guilt over Lyric not having her biological mom in her life all the time blind you to the fact that she already has a mom. She was about to explain what actually happened before you cut her off and blamed her. I’m going to give you one guess as to what actually happened with Heather.”

“Alright, girl. Enough. He’s kicking his own ass,” Wraith says.

“Good. Maybe he’ll stop being fucking stupid. Get up. We have work to do to get your woman back.”

My body has been frozen ever since Wraith read the text message Bailee left.

She believes she’s the only expendable one. I made her feel as if I was choosing Heather over her. She probably recalled our past and how I was always leaving her behind, making her feel as if she didn’t matter. Except it was worse this time because I told her I loved her. Hell, I fucking do. More than fucking anything, but I sure didn’t act like it last night when I accused her of the shit Heather said, did I?

It’s me.

I’m the one who made her feel that way. Instead of being able to come to me, I made her feel as if she didn’t matter enough, so she gave herself up to keep us safe. To keep my daughter safe.

To keepherdaughter safe.

Because that’s who Lyric is to her. Her daughter. I should have held on to my faith in her instead of letting guilt get a hold of me over some stupid expectation that Lyric already has, even after Lyric has expressed to me so many damn times that she didn’t want it any other way.

I goddamn knew how Heather was, yet I still believed her.

Or at least, I told myself I did.

“Yeah, he’s working it out in his head,” Em mutters.

Fuck, I can’t blame her for being angry at me. I’m angry with myself. Bailee would have never attacked Heather without a good reason, and I should have known that.

Heather’s fucking manipulated me for the last goddamn time.

“Already called Church. Let’s go,” Wraith orders before turning to Emmy Lou. “We don’t normally let outsiders in, but I have a feeling we’re going to need your eyes and ears.”

“Good, because there’s someone else I need to call if we want any hope of coming out of this alive. Because when I say that you don’t want to be behind her scope, you really don’t want to be behind it.”

Something in the way she says that has me looking at her. “Who?”

Emmy Lou smirks and then she fucking curls her fingers and swipes at me. “Meow.”

Killer Kitty Inc.

Em nods when she sees I’ve worked it out. “Let’s just say there’s something Bails doesn’t know about her bestie.”

Ignoring the bit that my woman’s best friend is a fucking assassin, I grab my boots and slide them over my feet then take the cut that Emmy Lou is holding out to me. “Let’s go plan for war.”

It’s been a long time since we’ve had to go to war with a club as big as the Night Skulls, but they’ve had it coming from the moment they fired the first bullet at my woman.

Chapter forty-nine

I come awake witha loud gasp and cool metal wrapped around my wrists. My toes never touch the floor. Instead, they dangle above the tub of tepid water underneath them.

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