“Player,” she whispered and rubbed her head against his chest. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so terrible for you. How very traumatic.”
That was the last thing he’d expected of her. “When we got back, the others took the food Czar gave them and Demyan, Absinthe’s older brother, grabbed the book and began to read it. That day, Alena had slipped out of the dungeon. We called it that, but it was really a basement. She was so little and thin. Starved like the rest of us. She could slip through this crack and go out into the forest and harvest roots and berries and sometimes mushrooms. These mushrooms were different.”
He gave her a faint grin. “All of us started having hallucinations, but all of mine had to do with what Irina had read from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” He rubbed at his pounding temples. “I started seeing the things in the story, all the different characters running around in the dungeon with us. Everyone thought it was so cool and funny. After that, they wanted me to do it every time things were at the very worst. That’s how the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland characters came about, and that’s why I detest them. That’s why my brain always goes to making bombs. They saved me, and it’s my go-to when I’m in a bad place.”
“Player? What did you see that first time, when everyone else was laughing about the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland characters running around the room but you saw something that scared you? What was it?”
Her voice was music, moving through his mind like a breeze. Of course she would have noticed that when she’d been in his head. He glanced down at her, not answering her question. “You know the things you see in my head, you shouldn’t know about, right? They can get you killed.”
He hated telling her the truth of that. He really hated that it was the truth. She knew too much about the club. Their history. The fact that they were assassins. The fact that they hunted and killed pedophiles. They were all alive because they never left witnesses.
She looked up at him, her eyes dark with absolute trust. “I’m well aware.”
“You ready to ride?”
She nodded.
“We need to go to Czar’s. Tonight.”
“It’s late.”
“I know, but we need to go. He has to know what’s going on. You willing to go with me?”
“Is he going to take out a gun and shoot me?”
“If he tried that shit, I’d stop him.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized it was true. Anat Gamal was right, and Gedeon Lazaroff knew he’d just made a commitment. He was going to stay and fight for Zyah Gamal with everything and anything he had for as long as it took because she was worth it, and she was definitely the woman for him.
“Then let’s go,” Zyah said.
ELEVEN
The moment Player was riding down the ribbon of Highway 1, Zyah’s arms around his waist, her hands clasped together near his cock, his motorcycle roaring between his legs and the wind in his face, he felt alive. Totally, absolutely alive. He felt free. The world felt a completely different place on his bike. It always had.
After a lifetime spent in the freezing, rodent-filled torture chamber of a basement in his native country, a captive, a puppet forced to do a cruel master’s bidding, riding in the open air with the blue of the sea throwing misty salt into the air on one side of him and wildflowers, trees and grasses of all colors on the other gave him a sense of absolute peace. He had never considered putting a woman on the back of his bike. He’d never wanted one there. If someone had asked him for a ride or touched his bike, he would have felt murderous. Zyah only added to that sense of perfection. Of well-being.
Her arms tightened around him as if she sensed what he was feeling—or thinking. And she probably was. They were that connected. He dropped his hand down to cover hers, just for a moment, needing to press her even closer. Her body moved with his, matching the smooth line of the motorcycle as it took the long, sweeping turns or the sharper, narrow ones. She never hesitated to follow his lead. They were in perfect sync, just the way they were in bed.
His Harley was a powerful machine, souped up, and eager to run when necessary. The machine rumbled between their legs, the vibration stirring already inflamed bodies. It was impossible to get near Zyah without wanting her. Having her on his bike made that need so urgent he could barely think. He felt her tits pressed against his back. It should have been impossible with the combined thicknesses of his jacket and hers between their skin, but he felt every movement, every bounce and jiggle. That just put extra stiffness in his already aching cock.
He swore she moaned. A soft sound in his mind. Intimate. Needy. Bordering on desperate. Just the way he was feeling. Now he could feel her thighs around his hips. Pressing into him. Her pussy tight against him, feeling hotter with every movement of the bike. For a brief time, it felt like agony, and then it wasn’t. Then it was perfection. Beauty. Just like Zyah. That’s what she was to him.
To a man who had been trained to never have normal erections, finding Zyah was a miracle. A gift. Realizing she was much more to him than a sexual partner, one who would always inflame his body with just a thought or look, that sex alone wasn’t enough for him and never would be, was enlightening—and equally shocking.
He had known he wanted her for himself. He just hadn’t known it would be this—the feeling of wanting her for so many reasons. Knowing that his past didn’t matter and that she was still there. Zyah was more than worth fighting for. More than worth putting himself on the line for. Anat Gamal was a very wise woman, and he vowed he was going to listen to her, no matter what.
Once he accepted the way Zyah made him feel, she became part of the experience of the night. Of being on his motorcycle. Of the ocean rising up toward the bluffs and stars overhead. It was clear and cold, the way it often could be on the coast. The wind was biting and capricious, whipping through the leaves of the trees and the long grasses, turning them a strange silvery color as they rushed past, just adding more magic to the jeweled blue of the sea.
Player didn’t want the ride to end. There wasn’t much distance between Sea Haven and the farm where Czar resided with his wife, Blythe, and their children. The farm was enormous, and Czar co-owned it with five other families. Each family had five acres to themselves, and the rest was planted with crops or groves of trees or rows of greenhouses. Two other members of Torpedo Ink owned the farm along with Czar, Blythe and the others.
He hesitated before he made the turn to the road leading to the farm. He really wanted to spend more time on the bike alone with Zyah, just having that experience, savoring it. He hadn’t had too many great happenings in his life, and he wanted this one to last, but it was extremely late and it wasn’t fair to Czar and Blythe to have to wait up long hours because he wanted to run the highway with his woman. Mostly, he was reluctant to betray Zyah to Czar. He was going to have to do that in order to protect the other members of his club, and he would have to make her fully understand the stakes before they went in.
The double gates loomed up in front of them. They were closed but not locked. Czar had made certain of that. He could control them electronically from his home, and when Player had texted him that he was coming with Zyah and it was important, Czar hadn’t hesitated to tell him he’d be waiting up with his wife. He hadn’t asked questions, he just said he’d be waiting. That was Czar. Always available to them. Always a constant.
The gates were a work of art. Lissa Prakenskii’s work. She had gained fame as a glassblower, her chandeliers in demand throughout the United States and abroad, but she also did metalwork. Anything to do with fire and art. She was married to Casimir, one of the Torpedo Ink brothers. He was an actual blood brother to Czar, but not one of the original eighteen members. Player supposed he was going to have to get used to thinking in terms of nineteen, to include Destroyer. Destroyer had survived their school as well.
Player slowed the Harley and then brought it to a hal
t, indicating for Zyah to climb off. “We’ve got to talk.” Another conversation he didn’t want to have with her. One he didn’t want to have with Czar, but there was no question. He had no choice. It was imperative that Zyah understand what could happen when he exposed his secret.
Zyah put her hand on his shoulder and slid off the bike, her movements graceful. Flowing. Just like always. She wasn’t in the least affected by the experience of being on the back of the machine, and for a moment jealousy welled up. He’d wanted to be the first man to give her the experience of riding with the wind.
He studied her face as she turned back to him, watching him come to her right there at the ornate gate. Her hand gripped the beautifully twisted metal, and he realized she wasn’t nearly as unaffected as she wanted to appear. Her fingers trembled just a little. He walked right up to her and removed her helmet, needing to see her expression clearly.
“What is it, Player?”
Did her voice tremble as well? Zyah didn’t show weakness, but she was aware if they took this step, if they talked to Czar, there was no going back. She had seen too many things in his head to pretend.
He took a deep breath and then framed her face with his hands. That beautiful face. Those dark eyes. “I know you’ve seen inside my head. You know what kind of man I am. Look beyond the fucked-up one. See what kind of traits I have, Zyah. It’s important you know.”
Her long lashes fluttered. He let go of her reluctantly. She had to work it out on her own. There was too much between them, and she had to decide—now, before they went through those gates—if she could fully trust him. She didn’t have to believe in him as her man. He’d rejected her so often over the last five weeks—he knew he might have a long road ahead of him to get her to look at him as anything but the man who had tossed her aside—but she had to know he would stand for her if he gave her his word.
Zyah moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and Player did his best not to groan. Not to let his thoughts go south. This was too important to fuck it up with sex. Zyah was too important. She had to know she could count on him.
“Tell me what’s happening here.”
He reached for her free hand because she wasn’t letting go of that gate. Even through the combined thicknesses of their gloves, he felt her tremble. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “I have no choice, Zyah. I have to tell Czar about the side effect of my psychic talent. He doesn’t know. The rest of the club doesn’t know. Not even the doc. You’re very aware of that, or you wouldn’t have been so insistent on staying so close to me.”
He made certain to keep his tone strictly neutral. “This bomb isn’t one I ever built before. I’ve never seen it. The ones I fall back on, I fill with harmless things, nothing lethal. This is very different and I can’t seem to stop it. If you weren’t there with me, something very bad could have happened. On top of that, the illusion has always been the same. Always. There’s been the White Rabbit and then Sorbacov. Now I’m beginning to detect someone else in the shadows. Someone waiting I can’t make out, but he’s aware of me. And he’s aware of you, baby. That makes this situation very, very dangerous.”
Her dark chocolate eyes hadn’t left his the entire time he gave her his truth.
She nodded slowly. “I’ve felt someone looking at us, like a big bloated spider in the corner.” She gave a little shudder. “I hoped it was that horrid man you call Sorbacov.”
Player hated to crush the little note of hope in her voice. “No, babe.” He kept his voice as gentle as the fingers he used to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorbacov is dead. That’s why his figure is always blurred. He can’t come back from the dead. The White Rabbit is an illusion, just like when I created him for my brothers and sisters to amuse them. Whatever or whoever is watching is beginning to blur illusion with reality.”
“How?” Zyah challenged. “Why would reality start taking over the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland illusion? I’m right there with you, making sure you wake up and you’re pulling out of it.”
He had to be honest, because it didn’t make sense to him either. “I don’t know, baby. That’s the problem. Nothing like this has ever happened before. I don’t know if that bullet did more damage to my head than we thought . . . I just don’t know.”
“When you start dreaming, what’s happening?”
He shrugged, his first instinct to shut down, but that wasn’t fair to her. She’d come with him. Seen him through night after night. Now she was risking her life, prepared to walk into the lion’s den with him. She had the right to ask any question and get the truth. She was everything he could want, standing with him. His warrior woman, nothing like him. Not hard. Not honed into a weapon. She was soft and gentle, a woman of the earth, but nevertheless his equal, a woman to walk beside him, everything he could ever want.
“It’s always that first bombing, on my birthday. I despise birthdays. I’ve never celebrated one since.” He confessed it fast. “Your grandmother has one coming up. Alena’s been talking to her about it and asking what kind of cake and frosting she likes.” He added the last, unable to stop himself from revealing the guilt and shame he felt in not being able to join in with the others looking forward to the celebration.
“Player.” Zyah finally pried her fingers off the gate and slid her palm up the front of his jacket, over his chest and wildly beating heart. “Don’t do that to yourself. Trauma can cause triggers. You’re intelligent. You must know that. You can’t beat yourself up because you have a very real one. You were five. You couldn’t possibly have known what Sorbacov was planning to do. I would have done anything to keep from being raped and tortured.”
“Each time I successfully built a practice bomb and beat my time before, he raped me. If I didn’t beat the time, he whipped me until I couldn’t breathe.” His body shuddered before he could control it. That door in his mind had creaked open, the one he kept bolted closed for self-preservation. “None of the alternatives were very good.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his chest.
“Don’t pity me, Zyah, that’s the last thing I want,” he said gruffly, but he cupped the back of her head and held her to him. He didn’t want her pity. He wanted a lot of other things from her, but not pity. He didn’t feel sorry for himself. He’d done enough of that when he was a child. According to Anat, he might still be doing it, but he was determined to win Zyah. To be good enough for her. Soliciting pity wasn’t going to cut it.
“It isn’t pity when we’re sharing the same mind and I need comfort, Player. You’ve lived with this a long time. I haven’t,” she reminded.
He hadn’t thought of it like that. He plunged his fingers into the thick hair at the back of her scalp. She had that long braid, but the back of her head was covered in the thick, silky layers he loved so much.
“I don’t understand where the bomb is coming from when I’ve never seen those materials before or the schematics. I’ve never built that bomb before, and I’ve gotten very good at building a good number of them. I have no choice. I have to take this to Czar. It’s too dangerous not to. When I do, he’ll know that you’ve been in my head, Zyah. There’s no way to keep you out of it. The things you’ve seen about me, my childhood, the way I was raised and the things I did, the assassinations—those are all things not another living soul knows outside of the club members.”
She tipped her head up to look at him. He had no choice; he had to let her, even when he didn’t want to. Her eyes met his. She was a very intelligent woman. “Not even Blythe?”
“I don’t know how much Czar tells his wife, but I doubt very much. He doesn’t lie to her, though, so if she asks him, he’ll give her the truth. It isn’t the same as really knowing everything, the way you do, Zyah. You know our childhood. You know everything done to us. The way we were trained. The way we were used as assets for our country. The people we killed to
stay alive.”
“That’s not exactly true, Player,” she denied. “I know what happened to you. I know some of the things you did. I saw that the others were tortured and raped, but not the specifics, nor do I want to see. I never saw a single thing they did in order to survive. I see your memories, not theirs, and I’m grateful for that. As to what you had to do to survive in that place, I’m glad you had the strength to do it.”
“I’m a killer, Zyah,” he said quietly. “You can’t very well deny that.”
“You killed to survive. You killed for your country. That’s considered reasonable under the circumstances, Player.”
He refused to look away, staring down into her dark eyes, daring her to continue. He felt like he was falling. Drowning. A man could get lost there. She didn’t say anything else, but she had to know the killing hadn’t stopped once they’d gotten out from under Sorbacov. They had taken back kidnapped women. They had chased pedophiles. They weren’t nice about it when they caught up with the ones they were looking for, and they didn’t take prisoners.
“We’re very careful, Zyah. We always make certain we don’t make mistakes. Czar drilled that into us when we were kids. We’re patient. We let our quarry walk away if we’re not one hundred percent certain they’re guilty. We make sure there are no innocents that can be harmed or are around to witness. We don’t act until we know there aren’t witnesses.”
He felt her body tense. Her lashes fluttered and then veiled her eyes. The tip of her tongue moistened her lips and she tried to pull back. He locked his arms around her, refusing to relinquish his hold now that he’d told her the truth.
Reckless Road Page 24