Free Steel My Soul (Motorcycle Club Romance) (Sons of Steel Motorcycle Club Book 4) by Vivian Lux Page B

guards, and after only twenty-four hours in here, I was ready to punch something into oblivion.
    There was nothing to do but play cards, drink and get on each other's nerves while we waited to find out the plan.
    As far as I was concerned, they could all go fuck their plans. I was old, I had seen shit, and I was tired of it all. I signed up to ride bikes and party with my best friends, not to squat in a safe house like some pussified coward, waiting for the fight to blow over.
    We had been stupid. So stupid and careless, that it made me sick to think back on all the mistakes of the past forty-eight hours. We got complacent, used to our tiny little corner of Philadelphia, safe and out of the thick of things. The years of sticking to Teach's code, of keeping our heads down and our noses clean, had made us complacent. We had forgotten basic safety procedures and it had almost cost us our lives.
    We acted like amateurs, heading right back to the clubhouse after that dustup with the low-level cartel members that nabbed Case's girl. They had followed us - because of course they did -and we led them right to our front door.
    The firebomb had hit the front of the clubhouse. The store, the legit front for our legit business. The sum total of Teach's livelihood had gone up in flames.
    But the metal garage hadn't burned. And the garage was where we were all congregated, bickering like schoolgirls over Crash's exit.
    When the noise and confusion had died down, we had stood coughing, and choking in the huge clubhouse parking area, watching with dismay as the storefront burned. But we were all alive, and for that I silently thanked Crash. If he hadn't left like he did, then we would have awakened like it was another morning, taking our breakfast in the common area adjacent to the store.  Those of us who hadn't burnt in the initial explosion would have been trapped in the smoky aftermath. Instead we were clear of the bomb, and suffered nothing more than the loss of everything we had.
    And for that I was grateful. My life might not be worth nothing, but I liked living it.
    I made sure not to voice this opinion to the rest of the guys though. Crash was now public enemy number one, with Case deciding that the bomb was somehow his fault. The rest of the guys seemed to agree. And I understood why. A sworn brother taking off like that was a deep offense, made worse by the fact that it was over a chick.
    But I still couldn't manage to harden my heart against the kid. It was Crash who had made me quit medicine. Up there at North Jersey, up there in my old life, I had been in charge of the boy's rehabilitation. And I had banged my head against brick wall after brick wall in trying to get him the care he needed. His grandparents seemed to think that a traumatic brain injury was something he should be able to just shake off, as if then had suffered nothing more than a couple bruises.
    Their refusal to follow the treatment plan was made worse by Ben's amnesia. Finally, running out of options, I had come to Teach, my old neighborhood friend from before I went to med school and remade myself as a fancy-pants doctor. But all the fancy-pants degrees couldn't help me when it came to getting Ben that treatment he needed.
    I came to Teach with my hat in my hand and in his implacable, fair way, he gave me a price that was the easiest to pay. Leave medicine entirely and come work as the club doctor.
    I had no trouble leaving the high stress world behind. I grew out my beard and began reveling in the freedom of living outside of society's expectations. It wasn't a heavy cost, but it was a lifelong one.
    Ben never knew who paid for his treatments. And I made damn sure he never had reason to ask. He was my mission, my life's work, the one thing I could point to and say, "There. I made that. And I am proud." I had done a damn good job of giving him a new life after his old one was shattered.
    Good enough that he was now out there on his own, making his way by