Crimson Steel

Chapter Twenty – Eight - Glass Tongues & Burned Bridges

The clubhouse air shifted the moment Colt walked in.

Conversations dropped. Laughter thinned. The usual post-dinner buzz fell into a hush thick with tension.

Because everyone could read the signs.

Colt Maddox was pissed.

He didn’t storm in. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.

He moved with lethal calm—eyes sharp, mouth a hard line, shoulders squared. Reyes followed two steps behind him, silent, watchful.

The three women were seated near the pool table, lounging like they owned the place. Like they hadn’t been sowing rot into the walls with their whispers.

Until Colt stopped in front of them.

Dead. Center. Still.

The one in the middle—Shay, the boldest of them—smiled like she didn’t know better. “President,” she purred, tone light.

“Get up,” Colt said.

The words were soft.

But they might as well have been a gunshot.

They stood slowly, unsure if this was still a joke. It wasn’t.

“Someone want to explain to me,” Colt continued, voice level, dead calm, “why I’m hearing you’re dragging my VP and my woman through your filth?”

Silence.

The second woman opened her mouth, but he cut her off without looking at her.

“Think very carefully about the next thing you say.”

The weight of his authority pressed down like a boot on a neck.

Shay tried for defiance. “It was just talk, Colt. People joke. You can’t control—”

“This isn’t a high school lunchroom. This is my club.”

He stepped closer, voice low.

“You think spreading lies about Reyes—the man who would take a bullet for me—makes you powerful?”

He turned to the others.

“You think using Avery as your target is smart? You think dragging her through your petty bullshit is entertainment?”

No one answered.

So he answered for them.

“What it is, is done.”

Colt’s voice turned to steel.

“You are never to speak her name again. You don’t look at her. You don’t talk about her. You don’t come near her.”

His gaze swept over all three like a threat made flesh.

“You want to play queen in this house, you better earn your crown. Spreading rumors to rip down someone stronger than you? That’s coward s**t. That’s exile shit.”

Shay’s voice broke slightly. “You’d exile us over some—”

“Over her? Over him?” Colt growled now. “I’d burn this place to the ground.”

Reyes didn’t move, didn’t blink. But everyone saw the fire behind his calm.

Colt’s voice dropped again, a final warning laced in ice.

“You got one shot to fix your behavior. Cross this line again? I won’t exile you.”

“I’ll bury you socially so deep in this club, no one will remember you were ever here.”

He turned, already done with them. The matter was settled.

Reyes lingered a beat longer, offering no words—just one look.

It was enough to make all three women lower their eyes.

And then, just like that, Colt walked back out into the night.

His message was clear.

Loyalty mattered.

And his woman?

Was untouchable.

She felt it before she heard him.

The heat of it—Colt’s energy, sharp and storming, rolling in like thunder through the walls of the clubhouse.

Avery sat in her room, folding a sweater when her heart skipped in her chest. The hallway outside had fallen into hush. That only happened when Colt walked through it carrying rage.

She didn’t look up when the door opened.

Didn’t need to.

“You burn the place down yet?” she asked without turning.

Colt’s voice was a loaded silence.

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The click echoed like a warning.

Avery finally looked up and took in his posture—his jaw tight, his shoulders coiled like wire, his hands still clenched at his sides. His eyes burned, a firestorm just barely contained.

She took a beat. Let the weight of his presence settle.

And then—slowly, deliberately—she smiled.

Walked toward him.

Closed the space like it was nothing.

And with a soft look that betrayed none of the pressure she felt building in the room, she reached up and rested a hand lightly against his chest.

“So,” she said, voice low and smooth, “how do you want it?”

Colt blinked.

Just once.

Like someone had slammed the brakes on the riot in his brain.

The fury crackled in him still, but his mouth twitched at the edge. That fire turned inward—confused by the softness, disarmed by the calm.

“You trying to be funny?” he growled.

“A little,” Avery said. “Because if you came in here to pace and rant, I can already tell I’m not in the mood for it.”

She stepped closer, fingers brushing the fabric of his shirt.

“But if you came in here because something happened and you need me to remind you what’s worth fighting for...”

She rose up slightly on her toes, her breath warm against his jaw.

“Then yeah, I’ll ask again.”

A pause.

“How do you want it?”

His breath hitched.

For a long moment, Colt said nothing. His eyes searched hers like he couldn’t quite decide whether to pin her against the wall or drop to his knees just to get closer.

Then his hand came up, sliding behind her neck.

Gentle.

Possessive.

“You always know how to gut me,” he muttered.

Avery leaned in, whisper-soft.

“Only so I can put you back together again.”

That finally cracked the edge of his anger. His mouth found hers hard and hungry—not to dominate, not to punish—but to anchor himself. To come back down from the storm, to breathe again.

She let him.

Because that’s what love looked like between them now.

Messy. Quiet. Sharp-edged. Real.

Colt sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head tilted toward the floor like he was still shaking off the weight of his anger.

Avery moved around the room with quiet purpose—her soft suitcase half open on the edge of his dresser, clothes folded into neat piles. The room didn’t feel like his or hers anymore.

It felt like theirs.

The only sound for a while was the soft rustle of fabric and the low hum of tension slowly unraveling.

Colt finally spoke.

“I handled it.”

Avery glanced over her shoulder, brushing her fingers through her hair. “I figured. The walls were holding their breath.”

His mouth twitched. “Didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t have to.”

“You never do,” she said gently, tucking a blouse into the suitcase.

“They crossed the line,” he said, voice low. “Dragging you like that. And Reyes? That man would lay his life down for me. For this club. For you.”

Avery turned and leaned against the dresser, watching him.

“That’s why I went to him first,” she said. “It wasn’t about hiding it from you. It was about showing him I respected his position. His role in your world.”

Colt looked up at her now, eyes softer. “I know.”

Avery tilted her head, studying him. “And now?”

He exhaled through his nose, rubbing his hands together slowly.

“Now they know better,” he said. “They won’t come near you again. And if they so much as breathe your name with venom, I’ll exile them without a second thought.”

“Even if they’ve been here since before I walked into this place?”

Colt met her eyes.

“Especially then.”

The silence that followed was deep and full.

Avery moved back toward the bed, pulling her suitcase shut and zipping it in one smooth motion. She didn’t say anything when she set it on the floor by the door.

Just looked at him.

Then softly, without fanfare:

“I’m moving back in.”

Colt stilled.

“You sure?”

She nodded. “I’m not here to play games. I’m not here to pretend I don’t care when I do. You’ve never been the easiest man to love, Colt Mercer. But you’re my man. And I want my bed back.”

His jaw clenched—just a little—and his voice dropped an octave.

“It was always your bed.”

She stepped between his knees, resting her hands on his shoulders.

“Then let’s stop pretending I ever left it.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into him, resting his forehead against her stomach. For a man who ruled with steel, this was the part of him only she got to see.

And he let her hold him like that for a while.

Because in the quiet, with her fingers in his hair and the weight of the day melting off his skin—

That’s when Colt Mercer knew:

He’d finally come home.

Avery stood barefoot in the middle of Colt’s room—their room now—hands on her hips as she assessed the space with a level of judgment that made Colt immediately defensive.

“You seriously haven’t changed this place since high school, have you?” she asked, one brow arched.

Colt, now shirtless and comfortably stretched on the bed like a smug king, smirked. “It works.”

“It’s chaos,” she said, stepping over a stray pair of boots and a lopsided pile of motorcycle magazines. “No storage, a questionable laundry system, and three empty whiskey bottles on the shelf that you’re apparently emotionally attached to.”

“They’re sentimental.”

“They’re trash.”

He grinned. “You calling my room trashy?”

She turned to him slowly, lips twitching. “No. Just unloved.”

“Unloved?” he repeated, pretending to be offended. “Babe, this room has seen more action than your entire dorm building.”

She threw a pillow at his face.

He caught it one-handed.

“You’re disgusting,” she muttered, trying not to laugh.

“You’re smiling,” he shot back.

“I’m considering sleeping in Reyes’ guest room.”

Colt sat up in a flash. “Say that again and I’ll chain you to this bed.”

Avery raised her hands. “Ah, there’s the romance.”

Colt stood, walking toward her in a lazy, unbothered stride. He smelled like soap and leather and still had the faintest trace of her perfume on his skin. When he stopped in front of her, there was no tension. Just heat. Familiar and easy.

“I like your laugh,” he murmured.

Avery tilted her head. “You’ve heard it before.”

“Not like this.”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t need to. She just looked up at him, her eyes dancing with humor and something warmer underneath.

“If I’m going to share a room with you,” she said, brushing her fingers against his chest, “I’m getting a closet.”

“You want a closet?” Colt asked, leaning in. “Fine. We’ll clear out the gun safe.”

“I’m not hanging my heels next to an arsenal.”

“Why not? That’s sexy as hell.”

She laughed—this time fully, freely. A rich, head-tossing laugh that shook the walls more than any of his temper ever had.

And Colt just watched her with that look he reserved for no one else.

Like he couldn’t believe this was real.

Like he didn’t deserve it—but was holding on anyway.

Colt threw himself back onto the bed with a dramatic groan, stretching across the mattress like he owned every inch of it—and her.

“Fine,” he said, voice muffled against the sheets. “You can have a damn closet. But if I trip over one pair of your sparkly heels in the middle of the night, I swear to God—”

“You’ll what?” Avery asked, crossing her arms. “Stub your toe and cry about it like the big bad biker you are?”

He peeked at her with one eye. “You think I won’t drag you across this bed and make you beg for mercy?”

She smirked. “Not if you can’t find me through the wall of designer shoes.”

Colt laughed—an actual, from-the-gut kind of laugh. The rare kind. The one she loved most.

“You’re evil,” he muttered.

“I’m organized.”

“You’re a menace in perfume and tight skirts.”

“And you love it.”

He rolled onto his side, watching her with something dangerously close to adoration. “Yeah,” he admitted, quieter now. “I really do.”

Avery walked over and climbed onto the bed beside him, elbowing him lightly.

“You going soft on me, Mercer?”

“Not a chance. You just make it harder to stay stone cold.”

“That your poetic side?”

“That’s my shut-up-and-kiss-me side.”

She leaned in, kissed him once, then smirked against his lips.

“Well... that’s a side I can work with.”

They collapsed into each other, trading sarcastic jabs and lazy kisses. The laughter didn’t stop—it rolled between them like a private tide. The room, once rough and bare, now felt different.

It felt like home.

Not because of the walls.

Not even because of the man.

But because of them. Together. Balanced. Finally.

And as night fell around the clubhouse, behind locked doors and soft laughter…

Avery and Colt let themselves be something they hadn’t had the chance to be in years.

Happy.