RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (best books for students to read txt) 📗

Last night had been a fucking revelation. It’d been a major turning point between us. I’d made a commitment to her. We’d made a commitment to each other. It’d surprised the fuck out of me that she’d agreed so easily. Not only agreed, but been real enthusiastic about it too. She wanted it as badly as I did. To walk away from all of this together, to start a better life. It’d taken me years to get to this point, to let somebody in like this, to have somebody by my side again, so I was hellbent on doing whatever the fuck I had to in order to protect what we had. To protect her.

I pushed out of one of the rolling chairs and went up to her. Laying my hand on her shoulder, I told her, “You need to take a break, darlin’.”

She hardly reacted to my touch. Didn’t respond neither.

“Willa,” I tried again. “Time to take a break, eat something, get some fresh air, and all that.”

Her focus stuck to the monitor, she muttered, “In the zone.”

“I get that, but—”

“No break,” she grunted.

I stepped back and scrubbed my hand over my face.

The door to the surveillance room opened and Mason strode on in. “How’s it going?” he asked, his gaze flicking to the back of Willa as she continued rapidly typing, coding, or whatever the hell. It settled on me and he winced, realizing that she’d been at it for way too long. “When you’ve got a rhythm going with that, it’s hard to stop. You have to see it through.”

I cursed under my breath.

“I wish I could’ve accessed his damn office when I was right outside his club the other night.”

“Getting that close was bad enough, a hell of a risk.”

He murmured his agreement, then studied the screens in front of Willa. “We’ll get it anyway. She’s good.”

If she wasn’t going to take a break, she at least needed something to eat. She’d already chucked up everything earlier this morning. She was running on empty.

I got up to go get her something, when the sound of her phone ringing pulled me up short.

She really was in the zone, because she didn’t even seem to register it at all, even though it was right beside her.

“Willa,” I called.

No reaction, no response at all.

Sighing, I walked over there, intending to just turn it off to stop the irritating ring. But when I saw the caller ID, I changed my mind. “It’s the doctor,” I told her.

“What?” she asked distractedly.

“Take the call. It’s the doctor with your test results.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “He’ll call back.”

I’d been waiting on edge long enough already, freaking out about what could be wrong with her, worrying that she could be really sick. I wasn’t going to wait a second longer to find out what was going on. Screw everything else. Nothing mattered more to me than her. I answered the call and shoved the phone at her, forcing her to take it, or let it drop into her lap.

Her eyes met mine briefly and I saw that flash of anger in them. She didn’t like having her hand forced in any way, even when it was in her best interests. Hell, I didn’t want to be doing that with her. But this was an exception, and she’d left me no choice.

She fumbled with the phone for a few seconds, but she managed to get a grip, nestling it between her chin and shoulder, as she continued on with her work.

I rolled my eyes. Unbelievable.

It was then that it really hit me.

It weren’t just focus with her right now. Nah, I’d seen her focused before. This was way more than that. It reminded me of how I’d been the night of the Strikers MC takedown. And there’d been a hell of reason behind that.

This weren’t just a mission to her. It’d become intensely personal. Freeman had pushed her too far and that was what I was seeing from her now.

Insistence.

Determination.

Resolve.

Obsession.

She wanted more than just ending this to find peace.

She wanted blood.

Vengeance.

Shit. This was the last thing we needed right now.

We were so close.

So close to being out.

So close to really being together.

So close to freedom.

So fucking close to the peace that’d only seemed like a flickering hope for so long.

I was supposed to be the off-the-books, wildcard. Not her. She was the rock, the stable element counteracting me. But once you had that desire for vengeance take hold of you, it wouldn’t fucking leave. It took you over, consumed everything, overrode everything else, until you damn well got it. There weren’t nothing that could cut through that.

Willa spinning around on her chair, caught my attention.

I tensed at the wide-eyed look on her face. “No, that can’t… you’re absolutely sure?” she spoke into the phone in a rush of anxious words. It weren’t a regular thing to see her shocked, unprepared, or none of that. But that was what I was seeing from her right now.

“Willa? What is it? What did the doctor say?”

She was staring right at me, but there weren’t a focus there in her gaze. Her mind was on whatever she was hearing down the line from the doctor.

Fear threatened to cripple me. I stepped forward, pressing, “What’s wrong? You sick?”

She didn’t say nothing. She looked down, then slowly, in some kind of daze, rose to her feet. She shook her head vehemently.

The next thing I knew, she was walking up to me and shoving the phone into my hand. She snatched her jacket off the hook on the back of the door, then threw the door open, and rushed out.

Mason and me exchanged a what-the-fuck look.

I heard the doctor’s voice coming from the phone, asking if she was still there.

Swallowing hard, I brought it to my ear and spoke, “It’s Slade. Whatever you told her ain’t gone over well.”

“I see. Well—”

“She sick?”

He hesitated.

I weren’t surprised. There were rules and the guy had taken an oath and