Page 26 of Steel

7

Steel

“Take your fucking time,why don’t you.” I lean back in my chair, lighting a cigarette.

I swear I’m going to quit smoking.

Just one final nicotine hit to burn this morning from my lungs, and then I’ll throw away the pack.

Being in the same room as Tempe is borderline torture. She talks back, doesn’t shut up, and makes me question every decision. She’s a wildfire ripping through all my good intentions, and I fucking hate it.

I’m the president of this club.

My word is law, and people don’t question me.

Until her.

She has the nerve to show up on my doorstep and be pissed about the fact that I’m making her play by my rules on my turf. I’ll let her leave when I say she can fucking leave. And if she doesn’t like it—good. Maybe then she’ll learn not to fuck with the Twisted Kings.

Soul is the last of the guys to walk through the door and sit in his seat on my right at the long, oval-shaped wooden table. It’s a thick maple with the Twisted Kings’ crowned skull and wings carved into the center of it.

Beside Soul is Ghost, with an empty chair on his right where Chaos, my road captain, would be if he wasn’t behind bars.

To my left is Havoc, with Legacy, my treasurer, beside him. At the end is Mayhem, the tail gunner, sitting in for Chaos until he returns.

Sometimes, church involves all voting members, but today, it’s only those with rank because I’m trying to keep what happened last night under wraps until I figure out what to do about it. With everything that’s gone down in the past forty-eight hours, I don’t know who I can trust.

Soul leans back, rubbing his temples. “If I’d have known we were having church at nine-thirty in the fucking morning, I wouldn’t have gone to bed an hour ago.”

“You can sleep when our enemies aren’t stealing shit from our club.” I take another drag of my cigarette, and Legacy hitches an eyebrow at me because I just told him yesterday that I was done smoking.

“Enemies?” Soul grins, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands around the back of his head. “Is that what you’re calling the girl who kept your bed warm last night, Prez?”

Soul being Soul was bound to give me shit. If Chaos wasn’t behind bars, he’d be fucking with me too. I glance at his empty seat at the table and remind myself I need to call the lawyer today and figure out the next steps.

“Better than having her wandering the grounds getting into more trouble.” I take another drag of my cigarette, slowly exhaling the smoke before turning to Ghost. “Did you figure out what’s on the drive yet?”

Ghost shakes his head. “Not yet. The encryption is a spiderweb of tripwires. If I’m not careful, I’ll trigger the code that wipes the data.”

“Helix wasn’t that smart.”

“Nope.” Ghost shakes his head. “Which means that even if he is the one who hid the drive in his room, he’s not the one who encrypted it.”

“Then who did?”

“Still trying to figure that out.” Ghost leans forward, crossing one tattooed arm over the other on the table. “Doesn’t look like any of the signatures I’m used to.”

“The Iron Sinners?”

“Not unless they have someone other than Richter doing their tech work.”

Richter’s been with them as long as I’ve been alive, so that’s not likely.

“All right. Well, keep me updated.”

“Will do, Prez.” Ghost nods, sinking back in his seat.

His fingers tap away on the arms of his chair while I move on. Ghost would rather be behind a laptop, phone, or any kind of screen, but I don’t allow distractions in church.

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