Page 71 of Burned in Stone
We all fall silent and watch his face.
“You’re sure? ... Good man. Stay there but don’t engage. We’re coming.” He hangs up. “That was Mouse. The new prospect. He was at the bar with me and Tank.”
“And?” Stone demands.
“Thought the whole thing was suspect, so I had him follow when they left. Said they took Cash to one of Summit’s abandoned construction trailers out in the industrial zone.”
I’m already moving toward the door, but Stone catches my arm. “You’re not going.”
“Like hell?—”
“You’re Gabriel’s target. Walking into his trap is suicide.” Stone’s voice is sharp. “Bones, Lee, Tank, you’re with me. Kya—Steel’s outside with the bikes. Get him to take you and Mercy to the clubhouse. Go straight there and stay put.”
“Stone—”
“That’s an order.” His tone brooks no argument. “We’ll bring him home.”
Every cell in my body is screaming to fight him on this. To demand they take me along. To refuse to be protected when Cash is the one in danger and I know it’s my fault. But Stone’s right and I know it—Gabriel wants me there. Wants me to walk into whatever hell he’s created so he can use me as leverage against Cash, against the MC, against everyone I care about.
“I’ll go with them too,” Josie says, moving to stand beside me. “Mercy and I have some urgent work to do.”
Stone squeezes Josie’s arm. A small, private gesture, but I catch the affection in it. I wonder if anyone else sees the tightrope Stone is walking—holding everything together when every instinct screams to burn the world down for Cash. Josie sees it too. She nods at him with a look that says we’re in this together. For one crazy second, I realize how rare it is for me to see two adults share trust like that, let alone in a room crowded with berserker bikers and blood-deep adrenaline.
“We’ll go now,” Josie says. “The sooner I call Judge Martinez, the faster we push the divorce through and strip Gabriel of leverage.”
She’s hustling me out of the waiting room before my brain finishes the order. Kya’s right beside me, her hand locked around my wrist like I might try to bolt and chase after the boys, anyway. I want to. I want to rage and smash and get in the car and drive straight for wherever they’re keeping Cash. But Josie’s right. I’m Gabriel’s real target. If I walk into his crosshairs now, I’ll just hand him exactly the ammunition he needs to wreck not just my life but everyone I care about, and I have been too selfish for too long to risk that now.
Steel’s waiting in the lot, bike idling, face drawn. He nods when he sees us. “We’re heading to the clubhouse. Stone said don’t stop for anything.”
“We’ll take my car,” Josie says to Steel. “You take point on the bike.” Steel nods, glancing back at the station like he expects trouble. “Stay close,” he tells us. “If you spot a tail, honk like hell.”
Kya pulls me into Josie’s backseat before I can protest. It’s a rough dash through empty downtown, lamplight streaking white and useless across the windshield as Josie guns it. Steel’s bike is a black phantom up ahead. None of us speaks until we’re halfway to the clubhouse. Every second drags like a razor across my nerves.
Kya is the first to break. “You think they’re hurting him?”
Josie doesn’t blink. “Not if they want him alive to leverage against the MC. Stone made it clear—any permanent damage, and Gabriel’s in a blood feud with the MC to the grave.”
Kya just nods, staring out the window. I listen to my own breath and count the spikes in my pulse, using it as a metronome to keep from melting down.
But my mind keeps showing me what Gabriel’s capable of. The emotional torture he perfected over years. The way he’d twist everything until you doubted your own sanity. And now he has Cash—my Cash, who’s already survived so much, who’s already been broken by people who were supposed to protect him.
What if Gabriel knows exactly where to push? What if he’s doing to Cash what he spent years doing to me—making him doubt himself, making him feel small, using his trauma against him?
The worst part is I can’t do anything but sit in this car and trust that the MC will get there in time. Believe that Cash is strong enough to survive whatever Gabriel’s doing. Count on the family I’ve chosen to bring home the man I love.
I’ve spent so long not trusting anyone. Maybe that’s the test now—learning to trust when it matters most. God, it’s hard.
Josie swings into the clubhouse lot, the prospect on duty waving us in. When we get out of the car, Steel is already off his bike and holding the door. He hustles us inside, then stations himself at the window, every inch the sentry.
Inside, the main room is dead quiet—no music, no laughter, not even the usual after-hours bickering about who owes for beer. I head to the kitchen, ignoring the judgy looks from the hang-arounds at the table. I pour myself another cup of coffee and don’t protest when Kya adds a slosh of whiskey ‘for my nerves’. She pours herself one neat for good measure, and we sit at the battered kitchen table, pretending that caffeine and a splash of liquor might be enough to keep the panic at bay.
Josie paces the room’s perimeter, phone glued to her ear as she makes calls. Her lawyer voice is all precision and threat, crisp enough to slice through city bureaucracy if she wanted. I keep half an ear on her end of the conversation, the rest of me straining for any sound from the front door, from the family I borrowed hurtling into the dark after my man.
Kya watches me over her coffee cup. “You holding up OK?” she says, reaching over the table and squeezing my arm.
Josie ends her third call and turns to us, her mouth a thin line. “Judge Martinez is not happy about being woken at two in the morning.”
My heart sinks. “Does that mean she won’t?—”
