Walk Through Fire (Chaos #4)(172)

I was going so fast down the walkway I had to throw out a hand to grab the post holding up the landing by the stairwell. My body went flying to the side, but I held on tight, forcing its momentum toward the steps.

Then I dashed down them watching Logan race my way.

We collided two steps from the bottom and I didn’t know how Logan didn’t fall to his ass when that collision included me throwing myself bodily at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, my legs around his waist and shoving my face in his neck.

I drew in deep breaths, audibly sucking in air to hold it together as his strength became real all around me, he held me tight, and I tried to keep my shit together.

But I couldn’t stop the shaking.

“The girls?” I forced out.

His arms held tighter.

“Big Petey got a call. They know you’re good,” he replied, his voice, low and harsh, scratching into my skin.

I nodded, my body bucking painfully as I fought back a sob.

“You’re good, Millie. You’re here. I got you. You’re good, baby,” he whispered, gliding a hand up to tangle in my hair.

“I’m good,” I whispered back. Iit was shaky and uncertain but I said it anyway.

“Hold on,” he ordered.

That I could do.

So I did it and Logan held me back.

That gave me the strength to pull it totally together, and after I absorbed enough of it, I lifted my head to look at him.

His gaze immediately went to the swelling around my eye and a scariness that was exponentially scarier than that day he’d charged into my office and then dragged me around my house to show me the alarm system he’d set up snapped into place over his features.

“I’m okay,” I assured him hurriedly.

He stopped looking at my eye to look into both of them.

“Yeah,” he muttered. It was not shaky but it was skeptical.

I dropped my forehead to his, holding his gaze.

“Chaos has a problem,” I shared quietly.

“Think we know that, babe,” he replied just as quietly.

“No, Snooks,” I went on. “He’s planning something. Something he thinks means a guaranteed win. I don’t know what today meant. I just know he’s convinced he can’t lose.”

Carefully, still holding me close, Logan jiggled me so I knew to drop my legs. He put me on the step in front of him so we were still eye to eye but he didn’t let go.

“He’ll be convinced otherwise,” he announced.

I moved my hand to curl it on the side of his neck, rolling up on my toes to get closer to him.

“You need to be ready for anything,” I warned. “You need to be ready and you need to be smart. He has something, Low, an ace up his sleeve. He’s determined to use it to bring Chaos down and I don’t think he means to harm anyone physically. I think he means to force you to do stupid shit that would end the Club.” I pressed even closer. “And I can see it in your eyes, baby. You’re fired up to do stupid shit and if he brings you down, he takes you away from me. From Cleo. From Zadie. And, Snooks, you gotta be smart because you cannot let that happen.”

He studied me without replying and in the middle of this, we heard, “Sorry, High, but gotta get her statement,” and Logan’s eyes went beyond me.

I looked over my shoulder at the officer who had begun to question me and looked back to Logan when I felt his hold on me loosen. He nodded to the officer as he took a different hold on me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and moving me around so he could guide me up the steps with him.

We followed the officer, and with Logan guiding, I could look behind me.

Chaos was standing there.

All of them.

I shot a weak smile in their general direction.

I got no smiles back.

Not even a lip curl.

They’d been nudged.

A different kind of fear started slithering through my insides as I looked away to make the turn on the first landing.

One could say I’d not had a very good day. If the kind of day I had happened to someone I cared about, I’d be pissed in the extreme. I might even consider doing something crazy.

And I wasn’t a biker.

That meant it was up to me to stop them from doing anything stupid.

The brothers did what the brothers had to do and any good old lady let that happen.

Except in circumstances like these.

This meant I had to rally the troops. I had to do what I could with my Chaos sisters to be certain the brothers stayed strong.

I had to.

And I was going to.

Like any old lady should.

*  *  *

There were a variety of cars wedged in my courtyard when Logan took me back home after I’d done what I’d needed to do with the cops.

Mitch Lawson and Brock Lucas had showed. I’d also gotten to meet Elvira’s boss, Hawk Delgado.

It was lucky I met him then, after seeing Zadie with Valenzuela’s men, getting punched in the face, being kidnapped, and then witnessing a double homicide. If I hadn’t, with the Chaos boys, Lawson and Lucas, the addition of Delgado would have been hot guy overload and I might have spontaneously combusted.

As it was, I just gave him a handshake, said hey, memorized his dimples when he gave me a small smile so I could take that memory out later and savor it, and Logan carried me (I had bare feet, but I probably could have negotiated the parking lot, though he didn’t let me) to a truck delivered by Roscoe (who was riding Logan’s bike back to my house).