“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.