Page 106 of Steel

Was there always more to this?

“We don’t know anything for sure yet.” Jameson frowns.

“But you think she was?”

“It’s likely.”

I close my eyes and fill my lungs like the air can be hope. But when I let it go, I’m as empty as I was when I thought she was dead.

Mom might be alive, but this isn’t any better.

Whether she was in on this or not, she put Austin’s life at risk for those men. The one person who has done nothing to deserve this.

“What do you need from me?” I ask. “I assume you’re telling me because you need something.”

“If you can watch the video to see if you recognize anything—”

“I can do that.”

He nods. “I’m going to figure this out, Tempe. I’m not going to let anything happen to you or Austin. You have my word.”

He tips his forehead to mine, and I close my eyes, holding my arms tight around his shoulders.

I never trusted words when lies are so easy to tell. But with Jameson, I believe him.

“Thank you, Jameson.” I sigh, sinking against him.

“Anything for you, wildfire.” He kisses me. “Anything.”

29

Steel

Every time I takea step forward lately, it feels like I’m going back five. Tonight, that needs to change.

Ghost hasn’t been able to locate Tempe’s mom or the car she arrived at Tempe’s house in, but he was able to find an Iron Sinners safe house listed under the name Dimitri Stone. It’s a break when we haven’t had many of those in the past couple of weeks.

And right now, we need it.

After telling Tempe her mom’s alive, things have been tense. She’s still working through what to tell Austin, so for the time being, she’s keeping it to herself, burdened by the full weight of the information. She doesn’t want to give him hope when we don’t know what it means yet, and it’s weighing on her.

I need to get her answers.

I need to make this right.

Even if fixing this for them just means letting them go and carving a giant hole in my chest.

“How do we wanna approach this?” I hand Havoc the binoculars, and he lifts them to his eyes.

We’ve been staking out the safe house from a distance, and there are a couple of lights on, so I’m assuming someone is there.

Havoc reassesses the scene, humming as he scans the distance.

His special ops training comes in handy at times like this. Especially when there’s nothing but empty desert between us and them and nothing to mask our approach.

The lack of cover is something that comes in handy when we’re defending our own clubhouse. But out here, the open land is their advantage, not ours.

The moment we start in that direction, shit is going to hit the fan.

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