Page 61 of Steel

My phone chimes as I’m in the middle of a conversation with Voodoo and Darko, the Hades Hellions Enforcer, so I step away and pull it from my pocket.

HUMMINGBIRD

Hey, bossman. Thinking about you. Whatever is happening, I’m right here if you need me.

Fuck. This damn woman. I don’t know how she knew that I needed her at this moment, but just reading that text allows me to take a breath deep enough to finally shove the grief into the steel vault in my mind until I’m ready to deal with it.

My fingers hover over the screen as I think about replying. I want time with her outside of Sinful Saloon, but the only place right now that’s safe enough for her would be my place. Except my place has my daughter, and I don’t know if I’m good with sharing her with Bailee yet. Lyric is my fucking world, and that introduction would have a hell of a lot of permanence attached to it. Not sure how ready I am for that level of absoluteness.

But tonight, Lyric is at Wraith and Nova’s with Nova’s mom, Miriam, so there’s no worry about them meeting.

STEEL

Grab an overnight bag. You’re coming to my place.

HUMMINGBIRD

You sure, Jericho?

STEEL

Pack the damn bag, Hummingbird. Be there when we finish up.

HUMMINGBIRD

Okay. Be safe.

I stare at our conversation for a few minutes longer before locking the screen and shoving it back into my pocket, thenI rejoin the conversation. At least until Crow’s whistle echoes through the air and turns our attention his way. We all crowd around him after he waves and nods us over.

Wraith asks him what’s going on, and after handing his Old Lady off to her sister, he passes Wraith his phone. Whatever he reads there has him spitting out a curse, then he passes it to Voodoo.

Voodoo passes the phone to the next person, and it continues until I’m holding it in my hand.

UNKNOWN

Too bad the pretty little bird had to be rescued by the clown. Does his death hurt you, Crow?

Motherfucker is taunting my VP. The fuck?

We all wait for Crow to address us. After some silent communication with Wraith, he faces us and runs his eyes over the large group. Our VP has always been a man of few words, so we listen to what he has to say.

“Somewhere out here is the person threatening my goddamn Old Lady. It doesn’t fucking matter that I haven’t claimed her in the club yet, we’ll get to that. What does matter is that someone has been threatening to take her from me for a while now. Tonight, they finally made good on their threat and nearly succeeded. Our brother died being a hero and protecting my pretty girl. This person,” he holds up his phone with a little wave, “is taunting us with his death. Like Wraith, I want this motherfucker found. The only difference is, I want to be the one putting this bastard’s head on a silver platter. I don’t care how long it takes us, we’re going to tear this fucking city up tonightlooking for this person. We have the picture, and luckily for us, we have Tweek and Jagger, which means they should be able to give us an estimated position. Phantom and Blade may be able to get us closer since this is what they’re good with.”

Phantom and Blade nod in confirmation, then Crow turns to Voodoo and asks his permission to go hunting for this bastard in his city. The malicious smile that flows over Voodoo’s face says he’s as excited for the hunt as the rest of us are, and him giving Crow permission as long as they get to play too only confirms it.

We come together and begin planning as Voodoo and Darko stay behind to deal with the police. Once there’s a set plan in place and we each know our roles, we stand guard quietly as Jagger and Tweek work their magic.

It’s not long before Tweek lets us know they have a direction on the cell tower the last ping came from. Phantom and Blade use that information and their knowledge and experience from their time in the service to get us to the exact spot where the photo was taken.

Unfortunately, the damn bastard who did all this is already gone and the only thing he left behind is the broken pieces of a phone with a note underneath.

Wraith passes it to me, and my teeth grind together as I read the words written on it.

Five, six, Firefly has more in his bag of tricks. Catch me if you can.

“Fuck,” I mutter. “So, we can expect more shit to go down. We need to find this motherfucker before we lose anyone else, Pres.”

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