Torpedo Ink hadn’t celebrated birthdays. Most didn’t know when they were born, not months or days anyway. Czar had started to keep track of ages when new children were brought to the school, but so many died, and after a while he’d stopped. Time passed slowly in that prison they’d been raised in, and there weren’t dates. Or birthdays. There was only survival.
“Does she have any idea where to even start looking?” Maestro asked. He had dark hair streaked with silver, which matched the beard he wore. His eyes were intense, a light gray like liquid mercury or silver, and when he focused on anyone, there was no doubt they were looking at death. Strangely, at odds with his appearance, he was a gentle man, but that had never stopped him from defending his brothers and sisters when necessary.
“If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have tried to strike out on her own,” Player pointed out.
“That’s true,” Ink said, looking to Steele. “Did you ask her where she was going?”
“I haven’t had much opportunity,” Steele said. “I think we need to bring her in on our meeting about this, but she needs sleep. She looked exhausted.” She had dark circles under her eyes and it was clear, from the way she’d reacted to Alena’s soup, that she hadn’t eaten in a while either. “Bridges hurt her. You should see her body. Bruises everywhere.”
Those around the table exchanged long looks with one another. Steele was a healer, a very gifted surgeon, but he was also a stone-cold killer when he needed—or wanted—to be. No one ever crossed him, unless it was Czar. Not ever. Steele could take a man apart without working up a sweat. Bridges was not going to like what Steele would do to him, and there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that Steele was going after Bridges and making the fight personal.
“We don’t have even an inkling what state they’re in right now?” Keys asked.
“We have to figure Louisiana,” Czar said. “Half the chapter was left behind. Habit only brought some of us. Bridges and his son were pissed they didn’t get to go. I kept track of what was going on back there, just to be safe, and Bridges became the chapter president, not that he had much of a chapter left to run. We shut down their trafficking ring, closed off every pipeline they had and gave the cops so much evidence on every chapter they’re still indicting members across every state.”
Code nodded. “There are warrants out on just about every member, especially the Louisiana chapter.”
“Bridges is a vindictive man,” Reaper said. “A straight-up coward and bully, but vindictive as hell. He thinks we were the ones to bring down Habit and Evan.”
“He might think that, but he can’t know we took their money or provided evidence to the cops,” Code said. “That’s impossible to trace.” There was satisfaction in his voice.
“He is vindictive,” Steele agreed. He knew him better than any of the others, and he detested the man. “He’ll bring that chapter down even further than it has already fallen, and he’ll do it for his own gain. At least Habit had loyalty to his brothers and he understood what that is. Bridges only thinks of himself. He knew we had an aversion to those using young girls. I’ll bet any amount of money he kept Breezy’s age back on purpose.”
“You would have taken her anyway,” Czar said. He massaged the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension any conversation having to do with the Swords always put there. “You would have had no choice whether you wanted her or not. Any of us would have claimed her the moment we knew her real age.”
That was true, but for Steele there hadn’t been any choice at all. He would have protected Breezy with his life. Had Torpedo Ink not been on a vital mission, he would have killed Bridges and taken her out of there long before her father offered her to him. As it was, he felt guilt that he’d waited so long. They’d been so careful not to blow it, all of them despising the club they had to ride with but making certain not to show it.
“Code, can you find out who his close friends are? I don’t recall anyone in particular other than his son. Look into his money. Make it difficult for him. Wipe out his account. He’ll have a secret one, money he stashes away, probably club money he’s taken and no one knows about,” Steele said.
“Will do,” Code said.
“If we take his money, it will make it harder for him to move all the time. Look into his past women as well. He didn’t have an old lady. Not even Braden’s or Breezy’s mothers. No one knows what happened to them, but he would definitely have no problem taking over a woman’s home if he knows any of them.”
“Grandparents? His mother and father?” Maestro said. “I never heard him talk about them, but if they’re alive, he might go to them.”
“I’ll look into that as well,” Code said.
“As soon as I can get information from Breezy, I’ll give you any names she might know,” Steele promised. “I’ve never seen her so scared.”
“I like the name Zane. Where did she come up with that one?” Alena asked.
Steele shook his head. “She talked about names once. I wasn’t into having kids. I don’t know the first thing about them, so I didn’t participate in the conversation. She mentioned several names and I just ignored her.” It had been right before she left. Right before he’d told her he didn’t want her around.
They’d never talked about love. She’d said it to him once, and he hadn’t responded. He didn’t know how to respond. She’d never repeated the sentiment. He’d been gruff when she brought up having a family. He’d told her he didn’t want children and he’d cut off all conversation, including the choosing of names. Zane was Breezy’s choice.
“Did she know she was pregnant when she left?” Lana asked.
“It’s possible. Even probable,” Steele admitted, which made the things he’d said even worse. “I made such an ass out of myself. I should have been more careful in the things I said. I was so busy shoving her away, I didn’t think about how she was going to feel. I wanted her gone. Away from me. I’m too damned old for her. Away from her father and brother. Away from the war I knew was coming.”
“Stop beating yourself up,” Czar said. “You’re always the voice of reason. You’re the one who says we can’t change the past so let it go and figure out a way to undo the damage.”
That was easier said than done. Steele believed there was no changing the past and that one just learned from it and moved on, but now that it was his royal screwup, it wasn’t so easy. He glanced at Reaper. Their enforcer had managed more than once to put his relationship with Anya in jeopardy. Steele cringed a little trying to remember what advice he might have given.
He just nodded because the others seemed to be waiting for something. “We have to assume Bridges has some woman taking care of Zane. No way is he changing diapers or taking him to the toilet. He wouldn’t feed him or get him to bed at night. Neither would Junk.”
“How old would he be?” Player asked.
“Around two and a half. Just shy of that,” Steele answered, and his heart contracted.
“I’ll get looking for the women in his life,” Code assured him. “Has Breezy ever mentioned her grandparents on either side to you, Steele? Names? Where they might live?”
Steele wanted to kick himself. He’d never even asked. Had he asked her any personal questions? She certainly hadn’t volunteered any information about herself. Damn it, why hadn’t he asked? Because he didn’t think in terms of extended family. None of them did. There was so much to learn about relationships.
He shook his head. “Sorry, Code, no clue.”
Code shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but Steele knew not having any information made it all the more difficult for his brother to track down Bridges’s parents. Steele had been happy with Breezy, mostly because she was there to do every little thing for him. Give him everything he wanted. He’d never had that. He’d never once in his life, that he could remember, had anyone see to his every need. He’d selfishly been happy with
that arrangement.
“Anything else?” He wanted to get back to her. He needed to see her in his bed. Make certain she hadn’t found a way to slip out. He’d left Fatei, the prospect he trusted most, just outside his door. Fatei had been in the same school with Gavriil, Czar’s brother, and it had been brutal. The man was dangerous, quiet, and he could be counted on. Steele hoped that when the others showed up, those seeking entry into Torpedo Ink, Fatei would opt to stay with the original chapter. He didn’t want to lose the man. He knew the others felt as he did.
He heard the clock ticking on the wall and his gut tightened. Somewhere across the country, his son, no more than a toddler, huddled alone without his mother, probably terrified. Most likely he was crying himself to sleep, just like Breezy had most likely cried herself to sleep—if she slept at all. He wanted to leap up, get on his bike and ride, find his boy and bring him home to Breezy. He had no idea where to start.
“We’ll find him,” Alena assured softly and put her hand over his.
The others nodded. He looked around at them. These were the men and women he could count on. These were the men and women who would stand by him. They’d stand by his woman and their child.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“Before we call it a night,” Czar said, “anything on the Demons?”
“I’m not certain what the Demons were looking for on us,” Steele said. “It was less of a cementing of relationships between our clubs and more of an information hunt. They brought their club girls and used them to try to pump us for personal information, at least it seemed that way to me.” He looked around the room for the others to confirm.
He couldn’t help cringing when he thought about Breezy looking on as he rose up out from under the three women who had partied with him so hard the night before. Her face, that beloved face, had shown hurt and betrayal. There was no excuse, he knew that. He’d tried numbing himself, believing he’d lost her. Believing he didn’t deserve her. He didn’t. That was the plain damned truth. He didn’t deserve Breezy, and he never would. That wouldn’t stop him from claiming her or from keeping her because he was that big of a selfish bastard.
Maestro nodded. “Absolutely. The women were asking all sorts of questions, but all personal. They weren’t going for club secrets so much as trying to figure out where we all came from and what we did before we ended up here.”
Lana nodded. “Before I left, a couple of the men were plying me with compliments and liquor, asking similar questions.”
Alena agreed. “They’ve figured out that there’s more to us than a few friends getting together and riding. We rescued Hammer’s wife from the Ghosts when they couldn’t, and we did it fast. I imagine they’re wondering about us.” Hammer was president of a Demons chapter that had come to them looking for help.
“I believe we can count on them as allies in a pinch,” Player said. He looked around the table. “Did you all get that same impression?”
Czar had taken Blythe home after the barbecue. He looked to Reaper. Reaper and Anya had attended and stayed longer. Because Reaper had a woman of his own, he had more of an opportunity to observe the men and women who had come to party.
“They want to know who they’re getting in bed with, Czar,” Reaper said. “They want us as their allies, but they don’t want to get caught with their pants down.”
Steele seconded that. “I have to agree. We’re looking for just as much information on them. Code does that for us. They aren’t going to find jack on us, no matter how hard they look. Code can feed them bullshit, small random pieces on us he manufactures, if you think it’s necessary.”
They already had enough enemies, and they were right in the middle of Diamondback territory. That was an uneasy alliance. Adding another chapter to Torpedo Ink might make that alliance even shakier. Having the Demons at their back was a good thing. Of course that meant doing business with them, but that was the name of the game. And they were very good at the game.
“It’s not necessary,” Czar said. “We’ll meet back here tomorrow and hash out with Breezy where to start looking for Zane.”
FOUR
Steele entered his bedroom at the compound quietly. The room smelled different. He’d always kept it clean. He was a doctor, and often, his room was nearly sterile. He used antibacterial spray on everything, but mostly it was antiseptic. He wanted his room sterile. It was the one place he never brought a woman—or women. This was where he was most vulnerable, and he wasn’t going to allow anyone or anything that might remind him of his childhood and the place he’d shared with the other members of Torpedo Ink as well as those who didn’t make it.
The moment he thought of it, the smell of blood and death was there, the moans and cries of the dying. Of the brutalized. Boys and girls. Sometimes they waited in rows of two, lying on the floor curled into bloody balls of what was once human flesh and now was just a mass of blood he was supposed to miraculously cure. It had been cold. So cold, there was no way to warm those bodies, or himself.
He shook his head, his hands curling into two tight fists. He couldn’t go there, not now, not when he had a second chance at life—a real life. It was dangerous to go back, at least for him, to even think of those days when he was too young and had no way to save the dying. He could only whisper to them, tell them not to be afraid, and that someday, he would avenge them. That was all he had to give to those little boys and girls with the open, weeping sores and infections that smelled so bad he knew they were rotting from the inside.
Deliberately, he inhaled, taking Breezy’s scent deep, knowing his woman could drive out every bad thing, every ugly place, the smells that seemed to follow him wherever he went, and replace it all with her. It didn’t matter if it was temporary; she gave him what no one and nothing had ever been able to.
Right now his entire room smelled fresh and feminine. He leaned one hip against the door, looking at his woman lying in the middle of his bed. She’d always done that—curled up like a little cat right in the center of the bed. She had all that thick tawny hair, and it spilled across the pillow, covering most of her face from his sight.
A thin sheet was pulled over her body and she shivered continually. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her arms were held tight into her. He moved closer to her, leaning down to look at her face. She’d been crying, and his heart turned over. Still, there wasn’t a single line there. She looked like an angel with her fair, rose-petal skin and the sweep of those thick tawny lashes. He should have known she was underage when he’d met her. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to know, not with his body’s reaction to her.
He’d never had that—a real reaction—not that he could remember. His training had been brutal, just like the others’. The beatings. The sex. Learning to kill. He hadn’t had it like some of the others. Reaper. Savage. Ice. Storm. Maestro. They’d been nearly wrecked as human beings. He didn’t know how they’d survived—but then he didn’t know how he had. In truth, there were parts of him that hadn’t.
Steele couldn’t help himself, he covered Breezy with the blankets and then stepped back. All the way across the room to the door again. Away from her. Just having her that close was dangerous to both of them. He wanted her with every breath he took—he had from the first time they’d met. His body reacted the moment he inhaled her scent, fresh from the bath. He tended to get his way in all things—especially with her. Breezy had given him that. She might have continued if he hadn’t sabotaged the relationship.
He recognized what he’d done. He was intelligent. He felt he didn’t deserve her—and he didn’t. He’d sent her away as much for his own punishment as to save her. He was that screwed up. Now she was back, and he had to find a way to keep her. He’d tried living without her, and it hadn’t gone very well. He would be fighting her as well as fighting himself, because if he didn’t find a way to keep her, this time there would be no survival for him.
He loo
ked slowly around his room. He was a doctor. A surgeon. He’d had more specialized training than most doctors. Over and over, he’d violated his oath—his need—to heal others. He’d murdered his enemies, keeping his promise to the dead. He’d assassinated for his country. He’d been following orders—but it was still murder. He went after child predators, but he’d made the same mistake he killed others for. He hadn’t known her age, but then he hadn’t bothered to find out. He was guilty as hell—even if the law didn’t condemn him, it didn’t make him less so in his own eyes.
Breezy moved. Those long lashes fluttered. “Steele?”
The ache in her voice was an arrow piercing his heart. “I’m here, Bree.” He stayed right where he was, planted against the door, afraid to move. He’d walked into a room filled with enemies, never flinching, and would do it over and over, but this woman held the power to ruin him.
“I want him back. I want my baby back.”
The little sob was his undoing. She was weeping. It was heartbreaking and so unlike Breezy. She didn’t cry. He’d noticed that before he’d ever been with her. He’d seen her father backhand her, sending her flying. She’d picked herself up without even putting her hand to her face. She’d simply done the task Bridges had wanted, without a comment or sound. He’d wanted to kill her father, and that had been the first time he’d ever had to be physically restrained by Savage and Czar. It wasn’t the last. He’d been the one to make her cry the last time, telling her he didn’t want her, that she was nothing to him. Could he hate himself any more? Yes. The answer was yes, because if he was any kind of a good man, he’d get their child back, give him to her and get her out of the country.
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