Page 12 of Twisted Steel

“Try again.”

Blood runs from his nose, and his eyes roll wildly.“Vultures,” he gasps.“Broken Vultures.”

There it is.Rage flows through my veins, but I keep a level head, for now.“Why the station?”

“The medic.They said watch the medic.See who comes near her.”

My grip tightens, and his face starts turning red.

Behind me, the passenger groans.“We didn’t touch her, man.”

Not yet.

The words sit between us even though he doesn’t say them.I release the driver and step back.Both men breathe like they’ve been granted something.They haven’t.

I crouch beside the passenger and pick up his gun.Cheap and dirty with the serial scratched off.

“I have a message for you to pass along,” I say.

He spits blood.“What?”

I lean in until he sees the part of me Harper already knows exists.The part with no mercy.

“No one watches Harper Quinn.No one follows her.No one says her name unless they’re ready to choke on it.”

His breathing turns ragged.I unload the gun, pocket the magazine, then crack the weapon across his face hard enough to drop him back to the pavement, and the driver starts crying.I fucking hate crying men.

“You go back to the damn Vultures, to whoever sent you,” I tell him, “and you say Steel knows.”

His eyes widen at my road name.Fear travels faster when it has a name.I let them leave because dead men don’t deliver messages, and I need this one delivered clean.

I sit on my bike in the alley for a long minute, breathing through the thing still clawing inside me.I didn’t kill them, and that should count for something.But it doesn’t feel like a restraint, it feels like a postponement.

My phone buzzes with a call from Saint.

I answer.“Talk.”

“Where are you?”he asks.

“Handling something.”

“Harper?”

I say nothing, and Saint exhales.“Steel.”

“They had eyes on her station,” I say the words even though it feels like spitting out glass.

The line goes silent for a long moment.“Who?”

“The Broken Vultures paid two amateurs.”

“Did you kill them?”

“No.”

Another pause, longer this time.“Well,” Saint says slowly, “that’s new.”

“Fuck off.”