Savage shook his head, his gaze fixed on Code. “There’s more to this than you’ve said, right, Code? And you don’t much like it.”
Code nodded, his whiskey-colored eyes intense. He wore his dark blond hair closely cropped, had a perpetual five-o’clock shadow and faint mustache. He didn’t carry an ounce of fat on his body, but was all defined muscle without bulk. Czar had recognized very early the genius in him and had taken him under his wing and protected him as best he could from the hungry predators in the school when they were children.
“Yeah. It’s not good. Zyah came home for a reason. Recently Anat’s home was broken into and she was beaten severely, so much so that one leg, one arm and her ribs were broken, the leg in three places. The robbers might have killed her if a neighbor hadn’t heard all the screaming and called the cops. That’s why Zyah came home. To take care of her. She didn’t just take a leave of absence, she quit that extremely lucrative job to come back and care for her grandmother.” Code indicated the report. “It’s all in there.”
There was a sudden silence. Czar broke it. “What the fuck? Someone broke into that woman’s home and beat her to the point she nearly died?”
Code nodded. “A second house was broken into two streets over from the Gamal house about three days after the attack on Anat. The occupants, an elderly couple, Benjamin and Phillis Gimble, were both beaten and robbed. Same exact MO.”
“This is bullshit,” Maestro swore.
Code kept going. “I started checking around and looked for similar robberies in other places. I believe there’s a ring of thieves targeting the elderly. They scout them out, break in, beat and rob them and then move to another town. They target smaller towns where there’s no police force and law enforcement is spread thin. Sea Haven meets those criteria.”
“Damn it.” Czar drummed his fingers on the table.
“It gets worse.”
“Don’t fuckin’ tell me that,” Czar snapped.
“The minute I realized this was Player’s woman, I put everything I had on finding out as much as I could as fast as I could. Other than working on making certain Breezy was safe, and I am one hundred percent sure she is, I stayed up all night getting into police reports and looking into every corner I could in the time I had of finding out about Zyah and her grandmother’s business.”
“Just put it on the table,” Czar said, sighing. Sprawling back.
Player leaned forward. He wasn’t liking the look on Code’s face.
“First let me say, Zyah’s intelligent and aware. She began taking courses in Krav Maga in LA when she first came to the United States and continued training throughout her college years. Her company urged her to continue those courses due to her extensive traveling, a woman alone in so many countries that can be hostile to women. She kept up her training, and I believe her company paid for it.”
“Damn right that woman is intelligent,” Storm said, flashing an admiring grin at his twin, Ice. “That company of hers really values her. They pay for everything.”
“Paid,” Steele corrected. “Past tense. She quit to come home and look after her grandmother. Keep going, Code. What happened to put that frown on your face?”
“They came back. The thieves. Zyah changed the locks on the doors. She also put a chair under the doorknob at the back door before she left and told her grandmother to have company when she was gone. She didn’t want her there alone. Inez and Frank were with her while Zyah came to the party here at the clubhouse. Apparently, Lizz asked Anat to have Zyah drive her granddaughter, Francine, so she’d have a sober driver. Francine has had two DUIs already. Zyah agreed but only if someone stayed with Anat while she was out. I know this because it’s all in the police report. Someone unlocked the back door. They had an actual key. Zyah had just changed those locks. If she hadn’t put that chair in place, I don’t know what would have happened. Inez called the sheriff, but the robbers were gone by the time they got there. Anat was pretty shaken up, but she didn’t want Zyah told until after her job interviews. She was adamant about that. I got that right out of the notes Jackson wrote in his report.”
“These women,” Alena said, “are amazing. I want to meet them. I’m with Code, Player, you don’t deserve her, but Zyah needs to be part of our club, so I’m all for you winning her back. And I want Anat to be part of us. I’m going to have to whip up something special and bring it to her. She’s got to be the strongest woman I’ve ever heard of.”
“Zyah has changed the locks again, according to the police reports, to the kind where you have to punch in an actual code,” Code informed them. “She’s not taking chances.”
“What are we going to do about these thieves, Czar?” Destroyer asked. His voice was mild, very soft. Very quiet. Still, his tone carried a deadly note in it.
Czar sighed. “No matter what, whether Zyah works for us or not, whether she belongs to Player or not, we can’t have a group of brutal robbers preying on the elderly in our neighborhood. Although getting involved with the cops watching could be risky. And some of the neighbors aren’t going to like us watching at night if they spot us. We could be the ones accused. We’d have to take shifts, and Code would have to figure out who might become a target. That would stretch us pretty thin trying to cover them all. This is a fairly wealthy community to retire in.”
“It doesn’t matter if they have money or not,” Savage said. “If they live in Sea Haven or even here in Caspar, the assholes are going to think they have money.”
“If we take this on, we have to put everything else on hold. We have no idea how many homes we’re going to have to watch,” Steele said. “Player and Master risked a lot to bring back that intel on the Ghosts. We could lose them again if we don’t act.”
“That’s true,” Keys agreed, “but on the other hand, this group, whoever they are, aren’t simply robbing these people, which would be bad enough—they’re beating the crap out of them.”
“They’re escalating the attacks if they’re the same ones,” Code said. “It’s my best guess as well as the computer’s that it’s them. The MO is too close in every case I’ve looked at.”
“I just glanced over the file Code has here, and running the numbers, I have to say I’m with Code—the odds are good that these people are the same ones moving from small village or town to the next,” Master said. “They always choose very small towns with no real law enforcement presence and hit hard and get out. They simply fade away. No one seems to have a clue who they are.”
“This is bullshit,” Destroyer snapped, his tone low, almost husky, as if his voice had been as scarred as his once-handsome face. He crossed his arms over his chest. He was a very big man, and the look on his face was one of disgust. “If the club isn’t going to take this on, I will anyway. I’m not leaving these old people to the wolves.”
There was instant silence. Czar’s piercing gaze swung to Destroyer. “That’s not the way it works in this club. When you came to me and laid it on the line, I went out on a limb for you. I took your request to the others and laid it out to them, and they took you in on faith. On my belief in you.”
Destroyer shook his head. “I spent a lot of years in prison, in solitary. Alone. When I wasn’t alone, I was fighting for my life or my sanity. I don’t know, Czar. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the chance you gave me, but—”
“Destroyer,” Savage stopped him before he could say any more. He took off his cut and laid it on the table. “Have you ever really looked at this? Have you ever asked yourself what it meant? There were two hundred and eighty-seven children entering that school, if you want to call it a school. Count in you and your sister, that’s two hundred and eighty-nine. Counting you, nineteen of us survived that hellhole.”
Player was shocked that Savage was fighting for Destroyer to stay. Savage wasn’t one who spent a lot of time arguing one side or the other on any issue. He had his opinion, expres
sed it succinctly and then waited for the others to discuss it. The club members really didn’t know Destroyer that well. Only Czar knew much about him. He had been taken, like the rest of them, from his home and trained to be an asset for their government, but in another school to begin with. He had been brought to their school as a form of punishment. Or, more precisely, for Sorbacov’s amusement.
He pitted Destroyer against Ice and Storm in a series of challenges Sorbacov’s guests could watch and bet on while they “entertained” themselves with Alena and Destroyer’s sister, Calina. The winner of the series of challenges would be able to leave the schools and return to the outside world—or at least that was Sorbacov’s lie. Destroyer had won, and he and his sister had disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again, until he showed up as a member of the Trinity club asking to be patched over to Torpedo Ink. He didn’t fit with the Trinity club. He didn’t seem to fit anywhere.
“Czar is this tree trunk. He got us out, but he did more than that—he kept us from losing complete humanity. To get out of that place, to save ourselves, we had to do things even adults shouldn’t have to do. Without him giving us a moral code, none of us would have survived intact,” Savage continued.
Destroyer put both hands on the table, fingers splayed wide. He had big hands. His fingers were tattooed. His hands were clearly weapons. His arms, all the way to his shoulders and up his neck, were covered in tattoos—not the smooth artwork Ink did, but raw prison work done in cells with contraband. He had long hair he wore pulled back from his face and bound tightly in two-inch increments down his back.
“I’m not certain I ever got out of that prison,” he said, his voice husky. At some point his vocal cords had been damaged. He had scars, but the tattoos swirling up his neck covered them unless one looked closely—and Destroyer wasn’t a man to let anyone get that close to him.
“That’s the point,” Player added his two cents, trying to fight for the man. They all were drowning in their own ways. “We’re better together. I’m not saying this right. I exist because we exist. I don’t know how else to put it to you. That’s how we get through.”
“You’ve had one another since you were kids,” Destroyer pointed out. “You went through all of it together. That had to have woven a tight bond.”
“Or it could have done just the opposite,” Steele said. “In many cases it did. So many children refused to join with others—with us. They were embarrassed, or they wanted to please Sorbacov, or the instructors, hoping for favors. Whatever the reasons, they went their own way and they didn’t make it.”
“I had no choice.”
There was no bitterness in Destroyer’s voice, and Player realized that was one of the reasons Czar had fought so hard for him. He accepted what happened and went on from there. None of them could change the past, but they’d had Czar and one another to keep going—what had Destroyer had?
“Yes, you did,” Czar said, his tone low but firm, the way it was when he was making a point and wanted it to stick. “You always have a choice, and you know that. You stayed alive in that prison. Something kept you alive. Whatever it was, it was strong, and you made it out and it brought you here, to us. You came this far and you have to take that next step and let us in.”
Destroyer shook his head. “I’m not ever going to be that man who tells someone what happened to me. You all shared that past. That gave you a tight bond.”
“Stop using that as an excuse. You were there in that school. What happened to us, happened to you,” Czar snapped. “What’s really going on here? You didn’t have to be in the same room with us, because those fuckers went after all of us. You lost your sister. You know what they did to her. Every one of us suffered losses. Too many of them.”
Before Czar could continue, Alena put both hands on the table. “Let me, please, Czar.” She waited for his nod of consent. “Destroyer, you wanted to be part of this club. One of us. It was huge to allow you in. We don’t do that. I held a childish grudge against you and nearly held out because of it, but Czar reminded me that you suffered the same nightmare childhood and losses we did. You belong with us, but we live with a code.”
Destroyer started to speak, but Savage shook his head and indicated for him to allow Alena to continue.
“This isn’t easy for me to say. I have a difficult time with outsiders, and letting you in when I felt you betrayed me was one of the hardest things I’ve done. I’m working every single day to accept you wholly into our family. The thing is, you have to come all the way in. Yes, it’s true that we lived together, so we have that advantage on you. You were taken to that prison and lived alone. It’s difficult to merge with us, I know that. It must seem like so many rules and personalities. I’m getting to the point, I promise. I’m just working up the courage to make my confession.”
“Alena,” Czar said gently, “you don’t have to.”
“I do. He’s a member of the club, and we all know one another’s worst secrets. We all saw the terrible things done over and over. He didn’t. He might know what happened. He might have experienced the same things, but he didn’t see it happening to us the way we did. He doesn’t get thrown out without me making an attempt to get him to understand. I was the one who behaved childishly, and I can stand up for a brother. We made him that when we gave him a Torpedo Ink cut.”
“Alena.” Destroyer’s voice lowered another octave. “It’s all right. I appreciate you standing up for me, but this thing is very personal to me.”
“It’s personal to all of us. We always talk out everything, give every side of it, look at every angle—that’s our way. We vote, make a plan and then attack as an entire group, an entity. One. Torpedo Ink. You take on one of us, you take on all of us. It has to be that way. A long time ago, someone hurt Lana, really hurt her, and I couldn’t stand it. I decided I was going to exact revenge.”
Lana leaned toward Alena and covered her hand. “Baby, I love you so much.” She whispered it so softly the declaration was barely audible.
Alena’s blue eyes turned liquid, but she went on. “It had been drilled into me not to go off alone, or deviate from the plan, but I didn’t care and I did it anyway. The consequences were extreme and taught me a lesson I’ll carry on my soul the rest of my life. A young girl died as a result of my stupidity. We are safer and work better as a team. We have to be able to count on you at all times. And you have to know you can count on us.”
Destroyer nodded. “You didn’t have to tell me that, Alena. I know that wasn’t easy for you. It’s damn difficult to try to fit into a tight unit when you all have been together for so many years. I sometimes feel like I have nowhere to go.”
“You’re wearing the colors,” Alena persisted. “They mean something. Make them mean something to you like they do to us.”
“You said this was personal,” Savage said. “Tell us why.”
Destroyer looked around the table at the Torpedo Ink members, his brothers and two sisters, the ones wearing the same ink, bound together by something tighter, even, than blood. It occurred to Player that Destroyer said very little, and when he did, it was never about himself or his past. They all knew that, like theirs, his past wasn’t good. He wouldn’t have been in the schools if he hadn’t been torn from his home. He would have suffered torture and rape; they knew his sister had. He had carried out the work of an assassin. They knew he had been sent to the worst prison possible when he was only fourteen years of age. How did one survive that and come out intact?
Destroyer curled his fingers into two tight fists. He had massive shoulders and arms. Every time he moved, muscles rippled ominously beneath his skin. Clearly, he fought his natural inclination, which was to just walk out and stay on his own.
Alena tried again. “All of us have hit a wall at some point, Destroyer, where we felt we couldn’t keep going. It wasn’t that long ago that it happened to me. We were in a huge fight and I ended up on t
he wrong side of a knife. The stab wounds were deep, and I knew they were bad, that there was no way I was going to make it through. I welcomed death. I was so damn tired of fighting for sanity every day. Lana was there. I remember her voice, looking up at her, hearing her call to me, telling me she needed me with her, and I knew I just couldn’t keep going. It was all too much for me.”
Player watched Destroyer carefully, as did the other members of Torpedo Ink. They knew Alena, knew just how difficult offering any part of herself up to a virtual stranger could be, but she was doing it in order to try to save him, to make up for the grudge she’d held against him. The club members saw past her tough exterior. That had been so hard-won. She was soft inside and needed to protect herself.
Her birth brothers, Ice and Storm, could barely contain themselves, but she had every right to put herself out there for a brother. Player was proud of her, but like Ice and Storm, and probably all the others, he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and carry her off before she exposed herself. Before she cut herself open and bled for him. If Destroyer didn’t see what she was giving him, he didn’t deserve to wear their colors.
“You would never have sought out a club unless you were getting desperate. Unless, like I was, you were right there, saying, Enough. I was through waking up every morning to pain and memories I couldn’t take in a world I didn’t understand and could never fit into. When you didn’t fit with that chapter, you came here, because you’re like us. You see you in us. You have to take that leap, Destroyer, let down your guard with us, just like we’re doing with you. Let us in. Give us something so we bond together, and you’re part of us. We’re all of us one. Part of these colors.”
Player didn’t take his gaze from Destroyer’s eyes. The man looked like what he was—a brutal, dangerous man. He could be charismatic if he chose, with his dark, mesmerizing eyes, eyes that were fixed on Alena’s face. There was despair there. Sadness. No way was Destroyer going to walk away from Alena’s plea. He knew how difficult it was. He saw inside her to that soft, vulnerable part she protected, and the man was bracing himself to do something he’d never done in his life—share something that was real and painful and buried so deep no one knew how much it hurt to give it up.
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