Czar looked around the table. “That’s it, then. Steele, you can have Delia escorted to the common room, and Absinthe, have Scarlet sit and visit with her. The two of you can vet her and make certain it’s safe for Breezy. Once that’s out of the way, we’ll all breathe easier.”
As they stood up, Alena touched the back of Destroyer’s hand. “I’m really sorry about Calina. We talked when we were children. She was fragile, but I didn’t realize . . .” She trailed off and turned her head away from him. “I feel bad that I judged you so harshly.”
“You were fragile as well, Alena. You were a child. We all were.” Destroyer shoved back the chair and spun around toward the door. “Thanks for fighting for me.”
FIVE
Player leaned against the wall of the empty building across from the grocery store, with most of his Torpedo Ink family hanging out with him. They’d come on the pretense of checking out the space in the building for Lana.
He glanced at her. At least he thought it was a pretense. Maybe not. He was so preoccupied with all the men crowding into the grocery store across the street that he wasn’t paying enough attention to Lana’s questions. She had declared her interest in deciding whether or not she wanted to set up a clothing store right there or somewhere else, or not at all.
Mostly, his brothers wanted to give him a bad time, not talk about space in buildings. Or, right at that moment, that was what it felt like to Player. Who knew there were even that many single men in the county who knew how to grocery shop? Or had heard about the new grocery store in Caspar? They certainly hadn’t been shopping there when Inez was running it.
He knew his brothers were teasing him—that’s what they did to one another to show support, most of the time. Just the fact that they were with him meant that what he wanted mattered, but his good mood had gone south when he saw the store was overrun by so many men. Some were actually shopping, or pretending to. Most were crowded around the counter where his woman—who didn’t have a clue she was already claimed—was happily chatting away with them while she rang up groceries.
Even from a distance and through the very clean storefront window, Player could see she was fast and efficient. He could also see one of the men was leaning far too close to her. The fuckin’ man was smooth too. A real snake. All melting charm. Probably didn’t swear. Certainly didn’t ride a Harley. Most likely owned the shiny black sports car parked right out front. Yeah, that was his ride. He was dressed in GQ clothing, not a hair out of place.
Player put a hand to his own wild hair. It was all over the place. It was long, and it fell past his shoulders in thick, out-of-control waves most of the time. It was light brown with what could pass for sun streaks but were really silver or gray. No one ever guessed that his childhood had put those strands of silver in his hair permanently. He rode a Harley, had a foul mouth and his colors were part of his soul. He was also a damn good shot with his gun. He could put a bullet right through that smiling mouth and take out those blinding white teeth.
“I thought you were here to be supportive, the way Ice was with Reaper when he was trying to win Anya. Or the way we all were with Ice when he was working to keep Soleil, but instead the lot of you are worthless. Go home.” He glared at them. His brothers. Wearing the colors and laughing at his predicament.
Yeah. He’d screwed up. Definitely. He was willing to own his mistakes. He’d hurt Zyah. She’d been crying when she left the clubhouse. Everything Code had uncovered about her had been good. He’d been a first-class bastard— inadvertently, mistakenly, but he’d been one all the same. He was totally willing to admit it and make amends.
Someone snickered. It sounded suspiciously like Maestro, but when he turned his head, Maestro was glaring at the sports car clown. For certain, Keys smirked. That was going to get him a beatdown because Player’s aggression toward perfect white teeth had to go somewhere.
“Alena and the rest of us gave you shit advice, Destroyer,” Player declared righteously. “This is some serious bullshit going on right here. My woman’s over there being hit on by every single man in the county and instead of trying to help me out, they’re just giving me shit. This civilized crap Czar keeps throwin’ at us is for the birds. I should shoot that asshole leaning on the counter flirtin’ with her, most likely asking her out on a date with me standing right here. And while I’m at it, I should just shoot the lot of you too.”
“Someone’s in a bad mood,” Lana said and blew Player a kiss. “You’re right, not only is he flirting with her, but he is asking her out. His body language is blatant.”
“He’s into her,” Storm agreed. “Totally into her, you can tell by the way he’s looking at her. He’s not seeing anyone but her.”
“Why don’t you just go inside?” Destroyer asked. “Talk to her.”
“That would provoke her into going out with him even if she didn’t want to go,” Player said. “It’s better to wait until the damn store clears out. What did Inez do? Put out a bulletin that an eligible woman would be mindin’ the store today? A seriously beautiful one at that.”
“You didn’t think to stake your claim with Inez?” Alena asked. “Sheesh, Player. She’s like the one person you should go to with this kind of thing. She’s the resident matchmaker. Don’t go to Ice or Storm for advice. Or worse, consult the Internet yourself. You saw what happened to Reaper.”
“Hey. I object,” Ice said righteously, nudging his sister with his shoulder. “When are you going to let that go? It was a tiny little mistake anyone could make. A sex surrogate professionally trained didn’t sound that far a cry from Tawny.”
“Eww.” Lana sniffed. “Ice, that’s just disgusting. If you can’t tell the difference, you don’t have a brain in your head.”
“I’m just saying if Player wants to win back his lady he has to think with his brain, not his dick,” Alena insisted. “Consult the reigning queens around here. Go to Hannah Drake in Sea Haven. She has a shop everyone talks about. She makes these amazing concoctions. Kind of like Preacher does, but very potent and directed just toward your particular lady.”
“I can make anything Hannah can make,” Preacher objected. He gave Alena a sheepish grin. “Well. Maybe. I should make her a chemistry challenge. I’ll visit her shop, Player, and see what kind of love potions she has. I can recreate anything she’s got and make it stronger.”
“You do that, brother,” Lana teased. “I want a front-row seat when you do. But seriously, Player, Alena has a good idea.”
Player glared at them. “Do you think I’m crazy? I know who Hannah Drake is. She helped us out a few years ago, and she’s scary as all hell, not to mention she’s Hannah Drake Harrington. You know, married to the local sheriff, Jonas Harrington. I go near that woman and that thin veneer of his making nice with our club is going to come off.”
“Is she supposed to be a witch or something?” Destroyer asked.
“If she is a witch, I think our advice to Reaper might have been safer than what you’re giving to Player,” Storm said piously.
There were several nods of agreement.
Alena rolled her eyes. “Destroyer, you weren’t here, but the Drake sisters helped us when our club went up against the Swords. We were significantly outnumbered, and the Swords’ president had major psychic talents. Fortunately, so do the Drake sisters. Sea Haven seems to draw talent to it. Hannah Drake is powerful, and I’m sure ignorant people would call her a witch because she has mad talents and is skilled in using them.”
Lana tugged at Player’s arm to draw him deeper into the empty space. “We wouldn’t steer you wrong. Hannah’s nice. I’ve met her numerous times. Also, if you do business with his wife, Jonas will probably like us even more. Just go into her place and look around. You don’t actually have to talk to her if you don’t want to. And you might not even need to. Who knows, maybe Zyah will totally forgive you.”
Behind them, the snort of derision was loud. Player spun around to find that the others had filed into the space behind
them. He found himself smiling. He couldn’t help himself. Big men, wearing their familiar colors, the tree with the solid trunk representing Czar, the man who had gotten them out alive and hopefully intact as human beings. The seventeen branches representing those left alive. Ink had said he would be adding an eighteenth branch soon to every one of their tatts if Destroyer stuck around. The ravens, resting in the branches or flying away, representing the ones they couldn’t save. All the skulls piled high in the roots of the trees and lying around it, the dead, those he and the others had killed in order to escape or had tracked down and taken out to exact revenge for the deaths of the children in the school.
They wore that symbol on their cuts and on their skin, branded into their souls. They were bonded together, stitched together just as tightly as the lethal loom that they’d been tortured with, so many years ago, at that school. All of them bore those scars and woke with those nightmares.
He looked at Destroyer, wanting him to understand what was being offered to him. Willing him to take it, just as Alena and Savage had held it out to him. Czar had stood for him. Destroyer was covered in prison tattoo ink. He knew Destroyer still wasn’t quite convinced he was where he should be, and somehow, like the others in Torpedo Ink, Player felt compelled to convince him.
Player turned to Lana. “Babe, are you really serious about wanting to use this space for a shop?”
“Yes, but all of you were so busy worrying about Zyah and all the men fawning all over her you couldn’t give me your opinion. I’m very serious. What do you think? Too big? Too small? Am I crazy to want to actually work? I hate being cooped up.”
“If you want my real opinion, then I’m going to give it to you because you know I love you, honey,” Player warned.
“Of course I want it, or I wouldn’t be asking,” Lana said, but she sounded wary.
The others wandered through the four rooms. There was the larger floor space with a single dressing room. A back room and a bathroom. The storefront looked out onto the street and gave a good view of the ocean. The back had a very nice enclosed, covered patio like most of the other businesses on the street, which were closed.
“I think the idea of you running a clothing store like the one you’re talking about is unrealistic given your personality. You’ll be bored out of your mind in a day. You would never have the shop open. Not ever. You already know that. What you should do is start up a business designing exclusive clothing for some of these kids Darby was telling us about, who can’t afford shit and the other kids are so fucking mean to. You could change their lives for them.”
When the club came together for breakfast or barbecues, Darby, Czar’s oldest adopted daughter, often talked about other teens she met that had difficult home lives. Sometimes Player found it difficult to listen to the stories she told about children who actually had parents. The parents didn’t take care of them; instead they made alcohol or drugs their priority.
Alena spun around. She’d been staring out the window, keeping her eye on the grocery store, but she hurried across to them. “That’s so brilliant, Player, why didn’t I think of that? He’s right, Lana. That’s exactly what you should do. Design a few pieces of clothing. One of a kind. Sell them for a bazillion dollars so that everyone wants your label. You know they will. No one will be able to resist, just like with Ice’s jewelry. Once your label is blowing everyone away, then have Darby bring these kids to you. You make their clothes for them and put your special whammy into them. It won’t matter so much that they don’t have the best home life. If they start hanging around your shop and talking to you while you measure them, sitting in your chairs or on the patio outside with Darby while you work, it really could be a good thing.”
“Do you really think their parents are going to let them hang around with a bunch of bikers?” Keys asked.
“I don’t think we’re talking about kids whose parents give two fucks,” Player said.
“Player’s right, Lana,” Preacher said. “We go to Blythe and Czar’s home nearly every weekend for breakfast or lunch in the afternoon with their kids. We teach survival class, and Darby or Kenny always brings up something about kids they know from hanging at the beach or down at the community school when they test, or when Airiana teaches them physics. Lana, you could really do some good.”
Lana shook her head. She even took two steps back, as if the idea were terrifying, when she wasn’t afraid of anything. “I don’t know the first thing about kids. Blythe had a thing or two to say about the way we were handling survivor class, remember?”
“But she didn’t stop us,” Master pointed out. “One word from her and the show’s over. We all know that. The kids know it. She looks at Czar and he just caves.”
They all laughed—everyone, Player noticed, with the exception of Destroyer. He sent the man a small grin. “We sound like Blythe’s a battle-ax. You’ve met her numerous times. She’s really as sweet as she seems. It’s just that . . . well . . . she’s . . .” He trailed off again.
“Our heart, if we have one,” Alena supplied.
“Everyone’s in agreement, Lana,” Ink said. He was leaning against the wall, quiet, the way he often was. Ink could be moody. “Player’s onto something. You’ve got a gift. Help these kids out.”
Her gaze jumped to his. “You really think I should?”
“Yeah, babe, I really think you should,” Ink said. “Every damn time Darby, Kenny or that crazy kid Benito talks about those lost teens, I want Blythe and Czar to take them in. Just sittin’ on your furniture will make them feel better, let alone wearin’ something you make.”
“You know if you make a few outfits and sell them to adults first, you’ll be a huge hit and everyone will want your stuff,” Alena said. “Just do it.”
The others nodded in agreement.
Player indicated them all with a sweep of his hand. “This is why, Destroyer. Those colors you wear mean something. You were in that school with us. You lost just the way we lost. Let Ink put that shit right into your skin, the way we wear it in ours. You’ll feel it.”
“There’s nowhere it can go,” Destroyer said softly, his voice a husk of a sound, filled with something close to regret. “I’ve got ink all over me.”
“Show me,” Ink challenged.
The group went silent, all eyes moving from Lana to Destroyer. He stood for a long moment. Savage held out his hand, a casual gesture. Destroyer shrugged out of his vest and let Savage take it from him. The big man caught the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. His body was every bit as strong as he appeared to be, skin stretched tight over muscle.
Dark whorls and white slashes marred what should have been smooth skin, most wounds they all recognized—they had them as well. The shocking ones were the most recognizable, scars only Torpedo Ink members should have. No one from any other school had ever been subjected, as far as they knew, to the diabolical torture of the loom. That had been reserved for their school only. It had been hideous, and all of them still had nightmares.
How had Destroyer gotten those scars? They weren’t just a few scars either. He had far more than any of them. They were all over his chest, but the stitches were torn as if his skin had literally been ripped off. He turned his back to allow Ink to see what he would have to work over. His back was very broad, and the scars there were much worse, long raised ridges making his skin look much like a road map. The worst had been made by the loom, long, hideous stitches weaving patterns in every direction. Again, those had been torn, ripped away as if he had been skinned alive.
Someone had crudely tried to tattoo various pictures around the scars, most depicting rank in the prison. It was clear Destroyer had risen fast in prison, but the artwork had to have hurt as it had been tatted along or over the ridges. The tattoos were done with whatever the prisoners could find to use.
No one said anything, but they all looked. Stared. More than ever, Player felt Destroyer belonged with Torpedo Ink. Czar had molded them into a family, one fiercely loy
al to one another, and somehow Destroyer fit with them. The loom scars proved that. He was another strong thread in their tightly knit family.
Czar had told them Destroyer had completely damaged the loom and killed the weaver when his sister had been tortured, raped and murdered, but they hadn’t seen the terrible evidence of the toll on his body. His skin had to have been pulled off both his chest and his back when he’d ripped his way out of the weave to get at his sister’s killers.
Ink studied Destroyer’s back, not looking at the black ink there but more at the ridges and whorls that were spread from his shoulders all the way to his buttocks. “Yeah, you want me to, I can work with this. I can make the tree kick-ass. The ravens are personal for each of us. They represent whoever you knew that didn’t make it out. I can make them however you want, standing on a branch, wings out, in, flying, as many or as few as you prefer. Your tree can have eighteen branches. You’ve got the room, and it will help with covering this bad ink here.” He ran his finger up along a particularly bad ridge.
Savage nodded, standing close to Ink, his eyes on the scarring the loom had made. “Yeah. It will look good. The skulls in the roots represent the ones we took out for those tortured, raped or killed. They could be an instructor inside the school or someone Sorbacov brought in and let enjoy us for his own fucking pleasure. You know what I’m talking about.”
Destroyer took his shirt back and pulled it over his head, settling it back over his broad chest easily. “Yeah, I know.”
Maestro took up the explanation. “The skulls lying on the ground are for missions for our country or pedophiles we’ve taken out. If you prefer, the kills for pedophiles can go under the tree, if you’ve got the room. Reaper and Savage pretty much have completely filled that space.”
Savage handed Destroyer his cut and all of them watched him put it on.
Reckless Road Page 10