Page 39 of Twisted Steel

Calm is breathing through rage until it becomes useful.Control is choosing when to strike and how hard.Quiet is what happens when everything human steps back and leaves the weapon standing in its place.

That’s where I go.Straight into the quiet.

The phone sits in Savage’s hand, screen black, the threat still hanging in the yard like smoke.

‘Tell him healers bleed too.’

Harper is behind me.Too close to danger.Too close to me.

My first instinct is to turn, check her face, and make sure fear hasn’t cracked something I can’t fix.My second instinct is worse.I want to climb on my bike, find Reaper, and carve Harper’s name out of every man who thought it was safe to say it.

Savage watches me.Saint watches me.The whole damn yard watches me.They know what I am.They know what happens when I stop speaking.

“Steel,” Savage says.One word in his President’s voice.I turn my head slowly to find his hard gaze.“Inside.”

“I’m going after him.”

“No.”

The answer hits the yard like a shot, and a few men shift.Not away from Savage, but away from me.Smart move.

I take one step forward.Saint moves at Savage’s side, not between us, he isn’t suicidal, but close enough to remind me that the club has a structure, and I am not above it.Even when I want blood.

Especially then.

“Reaper threatened her,” I say.

Savage’s eyes don’t move.“I heard.”

“He sent a man to her window.”

“And that man left breathing because you chose the message over the corpse.”

“He won’t send one man next time.”

“No,” Savage says.“He won’t.Which is why you’re not riding out blind with your dick in one hand and rage in the other.”

Behind me, Harper makes a strangled sound.It might be fear, or she might be offended by medical professionalism.Hell, it might be her trying not to laugh at the worst possible time.I don’t turn around because if I look at her, I’ll lose the last thread holding me still.

Savage steps closer.“We do this clean.We find the leak.We find who carried the message.Then we burn the right house down.”

My fists curl, and the bandage Harper wrapped around my knuckles pulls tight.That’s what stops me.Not Savage.Not Saint.

Her bandage.White gauze over split skin.Proof that she touched me when she had every reason to back away.

I breathe once.Hard.“Fine,” I say, and the yard exhales.

Fucking cowards.

Saint nods toward the phone in Savage’s hand.“It’s a burner.No trace yet, but I’ll pull what I can.”

“Do it,” Savage says.“Crimson, double the gate.Fury, take two men and sweep the outer roads.Nobody rides alone.Nobody leaves without clearance.”

Orders snap through the compound, men move, and the club becomes a well-oiled machine.

I turn once everyone has moved off to do something.Harper stands near the clubhouse steps, arms wrapped around herself.She isn’t crying, isn’t shaking.Her chin is lifted, mouth pressed into a flat line, eyes too bright under the floodlights.

She’s angry, and that’s good.Anger keeps people upright.