RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (ebook voice reader .txt) 📕

the only one of the surviving Strikers MC members that you’re not worried about.”

He nodded, then eyed me intently. After a few seconds, realization sparked in his eyes. “It was you.”

“What’s that?”

He folded his inked arms across his chest and shot me a look of incredulity. “A few years back, the whole cartel was wiped out in one fell swoop. You were behind it, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Rick helped you out? Or, some kind of army you got waiting in the wings for big jobs?”

I shook my head.

He frowned. “There were sixteen of them, the way I remember it. You’re telling me—”

“I took care of it. Solo.” I winced as the brutality of that day flashed through my mind. “Bringing an army into it would’ve involved too high a level of risk. Maintaining discretion and silence from so many people would’ve been a nightmare.” I shrugged. “It was easier to go it alone.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Well, easier from that point of view, but I didn’t exactly come out of it unscathed.”

“You got hurt?”

The concern in his eyes took me aback. It wasn’t just that we hadn’t really been on the best of the terms and that we’d had very antagonistic interactions as a rule. It was also that I wasn’t used to people being concerned. Care, kindness, sympathy, and all of that, weren’t exactly a part of my life. It had me off-center for a few moments and without thinking much about it, I opened my robe. His reaction didn’t escape my notice, his gaze running the length of me, lingering on my legs bare in my neon-pink and black plaid shorts, then traveling the length of my curvy figure, then lingering again once his eyes met my breasts encased in my gray, strappy pajama tank.

“So, you do have a soft side, huh?” he teased.

I rolled my eyes, then peeled up my tank to reveal the jagged two-inch scar to the left of my navel. I turned and pointed to a bullet scar at my right lower back.

I started in surprise when I felt Slade’s warm fingers on it, tracing over it. “Weren’t a through and through,” he commented. “Went deep, caused a fuck load of damage, yeah?”

Turning back around, I told him, “Yeah, it took a while to recover.” I pushed up each of my sleeves in turn, briefly revealing the burned, scarred flesh running the length of both my forearms that would never return to the smooth skin that it had been beforehand. “I was too close when the C4 detonated.”

“That’s how you took out so many of them alone. Blew them to hell.”

“Kind of a fifty-fifty split.”

“Why would you risk going that route first?”

“I guess I just like hand-to-hand combat too much.” I gave a nonchalant shrug. “It gets me off.”

He shot me a withering look. “Funny, darlin’.” Then his eyes burned into mine, the heat between us flaring as he reached out and slowly, and more gently than I’d ever thought possible for a brutal man like him, eased my tank back down, covering me again. His intense gaze never leaving mine, he then tied my robe. “Now, what’s the real reason?”

“Does it matter?” I croaked out.

He let go of me and stepped back. “Motivations always matter, more than the actual acts. They tell you all you gotta know about a person.”

Avoiding sentiment was the go-to for me. I didn’t want to entertain it and I couldn’t actually afford to either. And, recalling that awful day meant roaring headlong down that road. So, instead of answering, I pointed to his t-shirt tossed over the bench and said, “You seem dry enough now to be able to put your shirt back on.”

He smirked.

“What?”

Walking over to the bench, he called over his shoulder, “Just, I ain’t that easily distracted, so don’t think I’m gonna drop this.”

“Why is it important to you?”

He pulled his black t-shirt back on and turned to face me. “Wanna know I can trust you.”

“We’ve worked together before Slade. Plus, would I have saved your life if I wasn’t on your side?”

“Who fucking knows? People change over the years more than you think. So how about you just answer my question, yeah?” He slumped down onto the bench and eyed me expectantly. “I’ll wait, if I gotta.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a ridiculously paranoid man. You came to me. We’re doing business together.”

“And you’re a hell of a dangerous woman.”

“You’re a dangerous man.”

“True story, darlin’,” he said, leaning back against the wall and getting comfortable, making it clear he really was willing to wait it out until he got what he wanted here. “But, the thing is, you already know my motivations. All I’m asking for is the same, an even playing field. In my position, can you really tell me you’d be demanding anything less?”

He was a stubborn bastard.

An absolutely infuriating man.

Unfortunately, he was also right.

“Fine,” I conceded, folding my arms across my chest and settling in to reveal something nobody else actually knew. Well, apart from those in that brutal cartel. But dead man couldn’t talk. Unfortunately, ghosts could, and I’d dealt with more than enough of that, that day and what I’d done haunting me. It had eased off over time, but I knew it never would fully. It was the price for what I’d done. Despite that, I wouldn’t change it. I’d make the exact same choice again and again. “What those sickos did… what I saw when I showed up there… there was no other way for it to be than downright personal.”

“The same thing you were on me about doing with Nolan.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“Unlike you, I had systems in place to ensure it went the way it needed to. Every detail had been accounted for. I’d planned it that way. I knew I was going to go hand-to-hand with them for as long as I could. The explosions were a backup.” I found myself snarling, just recalling it, even briefly, “Those bastards deserved my worst.”

“Jesus,” he