Page 8 of Twisted Steel

“Vultures?”

“Maybe, but it might be someone who wants us thinking Vultures.”

Savage’s face hardens.“Find out which it is.”

“That shooting was staged messily,” I say, staring at the image.“They wanted bodies, but not a clean message.This is more about panic than territory.”

Saint nods.“I agree.”

“Do you think Jax was the target?”Savage asks.

“No.”I think of the bullets cutting low, wild, and spreading across the lot.“They wanted whoever was unlucky enough to bleed first.”

Savage understands before Saint does, and his eyes go black.

“They wanted emergency response,” he says.

The three of us fall silent.There are different kinds of traps.Some are built for soldiers.Some are built for cops.Some are built for the innocent people who rush in after the shooting stops because they are too good or too stubborn to let strangers die.

My hand curls into a fist again, and my split knuckles complain, but I ignore them.

“They drew medics in,” I say.

Saint’s jaw tightens.“Harper.”

The sound of her name in his mouth makes something violent move under my ribs, but I crush it down.Barely.

Savage looks at me like he hears the thought crashing through my mind.“Go to the clubhouse.Get stitched up and then find out who knows her name.”

“I’m fine.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion.”

I hold his stare, but he holds mine longer.As usual, the President wins.He always does.

I turn toward my bike, but my gaze catches on the hospital entrance one more time.Harper is long gone.It’s better to keep a safe distance between us.But I already know safe distance is a thing of the past.It died when I touched her.

****

Mama M stitches myhand at the kitchen table without asking why my knuckles look like they lost an argument with concrete.She has a cigarette tucked behind one ear and murder in her eyes, which is how she looks most nights.

“You boys ever think of using words?”

“No.”

She pushes the needle through the skin harder than necessary, but I don’t flinch.

She snorts.“Figures.”

The clubhouse is too loud around us.Men drinking off adrenaline, club women keeping close to the walls, and prospects cleaning blood out of the van because no one trusts them with anything sharper than a mop right now.

Jax’s chair sits empty near the far table, and that kind of emptiness gets noticed.

Fury leans against the bar, arms crossed, watching me with a grin that says he values his teeth less than he should.“Heard the paramedic called Jax road rash.”

A couple of men laugh, but I don’t, and the laughter dies fast.

Fury’s grin fades into something smarter.“Is that true?”