BOOTH
I looked at my brother as he hung up his phone. He’d just lied to Mia—for what reason I couldn’t know or understand. I had known my VP since we were eighteen years old, and I just watched him tell a barefaced lie.
“Fuck, that was brutal. Jesus, Steel. What the fuck are you doing?”
Steel ran his hands through his long hair, his frustration clear. “Bloody hell, Booth. You know how I feel about Callie, but I have so many feelings for Mia, too,” he admitted as he blew out a breath and sighed.
Creed sat at the end of the table, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw ticked. He had bonded with Mia more than the others and saw her safely home at nights and helped her with her car. I couldn’t figure out if he wanted her in his bed or just wanted to be her friend. Creed wasn’t the easiest man to read, and he let no one in.
“Well, as far as I am concerned, that’s good fucking news. Now she can get a guy who cares about her feelings and about her heart,” Creed ground out between clenched teeth as he got up from the bar. He glanced at his watch and headed in the direction of the door leading to the club’s garage.
“And what? That means you are going for a shot with her?”
“What the fuck do you care, VP? You just destroyed a beautiful woman with one fucking word, brother. So you can go fuck yourself,” Creed yelled over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn around.
Creed and Steel had always clashed heads—even when they were in the army, they were always at it—but give them a sniper rifle each, and they were a fucking sight to see. Their brotherhood was strong, and that was the only reason I wasn’t stepping in. Well, that, and by the sound of my woman on the other end of the phone just now, she sounded a tad pissed off with my VP. She also sounded very drunk, and a drunken Stella was a fun time in bed for me. Time to go retrieve my woman.
“Oh, fuck me, Pres. This looks like trouble.” Darth was pointing at Steel, who was striding purposely over to where Callie was playing pool with Ingrid and Seb.
Oh, please, tell me he wasn’t going to do what I thought he was going to do. I prayed to God he wasn’t. When he dropped awkwardly to one knee, my stomach rolled. The whole scene was like a bad movie with Steel on his good knee and his hand out to the blonde bitch—fucking idiot was asking her to marry him. Fuck me sideways.
“For fuck’s sake, you’re a dickhead, Cooper,” Mannix grumbled from beside me, using Steel’s given name. Cooper and Mannix Steel, brothers in arms as well as blood just like Carson and I had been. I often wondered if Carson had lived, would he have helped start the club with Deck and me. I reckoned he would have since the little bugger had done anything I did. He had been my bloody shadow, but that day, I wished he had gone for cover. Instead, he’d followed me. To his death. I concentrated on the couple in front of me and pushed the ugliness in my mind aside.
***
“Are you serious? Steel, please, I don’t want to marry you. You know how I feel about your leg. I have a queasy stomach. Now get up. You look ridiculous down there.” Everyone in the main room could hear Callie’s cruel taunts as they enjoyed and relaxed the afternoon away. I saw Steel, frozen to the spot, his leg wouldn’t allow him to get him up without stumbling, and that shit was just not on. I jumped off my barstool and strode over to give my brother the support he needed. Reaching my VP, I grasped his arm, his face turned up to me, and the sorrow in his expression said it all.
“Come on, brother. I got you,” I said quietly as I took most of his weight so his leg didn’t give out underneath him and ended up on his arse in front of this bitch. I helped him up so he could look like he did most of the work himself. Pride was a big thing and important around this club, and this horrible woman just tried to strip it from my friend.
“I want you out of here, Callie. You aren’t welcome here anymore,” I ordered Mia’s sister, and her eyes went wide with shock.
“You can’t do that. Steel, tell him I can stay,” she spluttered, but it was for nothing. I’d had enough of her vile mouth and nasty attitude towards the women of my club.
“Fuck off! Get out of here now,” Mannix shouted from behind me where Deck and Darth had also gathered. Their support of Steel was expected and always a given.
I looked at Steel, who was now on his feet, and his face was devoid of any emotion. I wasn’t sure what the damage would cause him, but I was sure he was going to feel this humiliation for a long time to come.
“Pres!” Creed’s shout from the garage sounded frantic, and he burst into the room with a phone in his outstretched hand.
“Creed, Creed, can you hear me?” Mia’s voice was muffled and low, but it was her.
“Mia, yes, we can hear you. Go on, gorgeous, tell us what’s going on.”
I ignored the growl coming from Steel when Creed used the pet name. My gut was telling me something very bad was happening.
“They … they took her,” Mia whispered so softly I could barely hear her. “I begged them to take me instead because Stella has a man who loves her, but they wouldn’t take me, Creed, and they took her.” Her sobs filled the silence that had descended in the room. The music now turned off, all eyes were on Creed’s phone.
“Mia, Beauty, tell me where you are?” Steel asked. His feelings for the beautiful, sweet, quiet girl were never far from the surface despite his involvement with Callie.
“I’m in the cleaning supply cupboard. Rainn pushed me in here and locked me in when I tried to bargain with them,” she cried.
Where was Stella? My vision blurred with images of her. She was the air I fucking breathed, the fucking love of my life.
“Where… is… Stella?” I asked. I wanted her to say that she was with her, locked in the supply cupboard, but I knew she was gone. She was the one they took—whoever they were.
“Booth, they took her. Her stepfather and brothers knocked her out and took her.”
Fifteen words. That was all it took for my world to fall out from beneath me.