Breezy’s stomach churned and she pressed a hand to it. She couldn’t imagine Steele as a little boy in those conditions, let alone surrounded by wounded or dying children.
“Sometimes they left dead bodies down there with us for a few days to teach us a lesson. I was never certain what the lesson was, but it added to Steele’s distress and sense of guilt. He’s so protective now, I can’t imagine how that trait will manifest itself with you and Zane. He’ll go crazy trying to keep you safe. The fact that one of our worst enemies has his son has to be killing him right now.”
Breezy sighed. She knew it was killing her, and the fact that Steele was forced to do horrible things to get information for them was making it worse. She hadn’t been able to protect either one of them.
“If Absinthe can get truth out of people, why didn’t you use him?”
“Absinthe’s gift is extremely hard on him. None of us know how it works. Simple things, like pushing a suggestion into someone’s mind, are easy enough; forcing truth when someone is resisting can damage him. There’s levels of resistance, and what we need now is too important—you can bet there will be major resistance. Absinthe wanted to come, but both Czar and Steele refused him.”
Breezy pressed her fingers to her temples. There was no saving Steele from his task. “Lana, I love Steele with everything in me, but there’s things I don’t know if I can handle. He’s pushing me hard and I have this inclination to give him whatever he wants, but I don’t know if I can give in about the club. I’m sorry if that hurts, because I like you. I like all of you, well, the ones I know fairly well, but that doesn’t mean I trust the club life.”
“It was unfortunate that you arrived when we were entertaining the Demons. That chapter has been trying to thank us for helping the wife of their president out of a bad situation. They brought women because they knew most of Torpedo Ink was single. I know Steele looked bad coming out from under those women but—”
“He explained that to me. I choose to accept his explanation.” Breezy hesitated and then took the plunge. “He had photographs of me on his phone. Dozens of them.”
Lana frowned at her. “That’s a good thing, right? He kept them because you matter.”
“Some of them were of us in very intimate positions. I had no idea we were being photographed. He never told me. He likes to have photos. I think he even needs it.”
“Does it matter to you?”
Breezy rubbed the pad of her finger over her lips. Back and forth. Thinking it through. “It doesn’t bother me to have the photographs or that someone he trusts is taking them. It bothers me that he needs them. I think he uses them to reaffirm that I care about him. That he’s my man, the only one I want. He shouldn’t need photographic proof, Lana.”
Lana shrugged. “We’re all fucked up in some way. You are too, or you wouldn’t be able to handle him. You know that’s true. Steele might not look as scary as Reaper or Savage, but no one, not one single person in our club, would ever be stupid enough to cross him. But you, Breezy, you stand up to him. You smile sweetly, and you somehow get him to see reason.”
“Steele’s pretty reasonable.”
Lana nodded her assent. “That’s true, in a fight, or argument, he’d never lose his cool. But with you, in terms of your safety and Zane’s, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Breezy took a deep breath and let it out, fighting a yawn. “I’m very tired and as soon as Steele is finished, he’s going to want to ride, isn’t he?”
“He’ll want you to get rest and eat,” Lana said and stood up. “What do you really need from here? Or want? We’ll bag it and go.”
Breezy stood too and looked around her. She didn’t need—or want—anything but her child back. She emptied the papers and photographs into a plastic bag and added the two small albums she’d already made up. “This is it. I have his birth certificate and Social as well as all his early photographs. I think Steele will like those.”
“Any favorite blankets or toys Zane might want?” Lana asked.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Breezy asked and hurried to the crib. She caught up the blue blanket with the rows of sailboats on it and added a stuffed dog that looked a little worse for wear. “He loves animals.”
“Great. Steele might lose his mind if there’s animal hair anywhere.”
Lana started out of the bedroom and Breezy saw her suddenly duck as something whistled through the air. Whatever it was hit the doorjamb, putting a very large dent in the soft wood. A baseball bat clattered to the floor and rolled. Stepping up to the door, she saw someone wearing a Swords jacket facing Lana with a gun in his fist. Even from the back, she knew it was a man named Scalp. She had nightmares about him. He liked to say he could take anyone’s scalp off faster than others could shoot, and she believed him. He and her father went way back. Lana was smirking and didn’t look in the least intimidated.
Breezy wasn’t just scared; she was terrified. She knew how cruel Scalp was. She did the only thing she could think to do. She flung Zane’s little blue blanket over Scalp’s head, counting on Lana to do the rest. Lana didn’t disappoint. She was on the man in seconds, taking him down, knocking him out and calmly talking into her phone. “Need you to pick up trash for us, Preacher, and bring him to Steele. Will leave the bag just inside the door for quick collection.”
She grinned at Breezy. “Didn’t see that coming. Master and Transporter took the prisoners to Steele, and they stayed because they thought we were safe in your apartment. I was supposed to call them when we were done. Preacher was outside, on the roof across the street, not that anyone, including me, was worried, but this is going to make Steele really lose his mind. He’ll probably put all eighteen of us on looking out for you.”
Breezy was still shaken. She admired the fact that Lana didn’t seem in the least bit upset, where she couldn’t even look at the man lying on the floor. Gingerly, she caught the edge of the blanket and yanked.
“Is that Zane’s favorite blanket, or yours?” Lana teased. “If it’s yours, let’s get him a new one. I’m not certain Steele’s going to want that touching his son after it’s touched him.” She kicked the man with the end of her motorcycle boot. Lana wore particularly sharp-toed boots.
“It’s mine,” Breezy said. “I paid more than I really should have. It was new.” That made her ashamed. Zane hadn’t had a lot of new things in his life.
Lana looked at her sharply. “Let’s take it anyway. That’s what washing machines are for.” She caught up the blanket and bags of papers and pressed them into Breezy’s hands. “Grab the stuffed animal. I’ll get the trash ready. I swear, when we were with the Swords, if I heard him bragging one more time about practicing scalping on his bedmate bitches, I was going to do a little scalping of my own.”
“It wasn’t bragging.” Breezy pitched her voice low, afraid the man would overhear her. “I heard my father telling Junk about it. He was laughing. He helped Scalp get rid of more than one body. He said Habit complained that if Scal
p kept killing the women, they would go broke because they couldn’t sell them without a scalp.”
“That’s disgusting. I’ll make certain Preacher lets Steele know. He likes that kind of information.”
“Has anyone texted you? Are they making any progress at all?”
“You can’t hurry these things, Bree. It takes time to get reliable information. First, Steele has to scare the hell out of them without really hurting them. He has to get a feel for when they tell the truth and when they don’t. Also, there’s the whole bravado thing. The macho I-can-hold-out bullshit. We were tortured over and over. We learned to hold out and make it look as if we were caving. We had a lot of experience in that sort of thing. It makes it far easier to see when someone else is bullshitting.”
Breezy sank down into the one decent chair she had. “I thought my life was ugly, but there’s always worse, isn’t there?”
“We made it through,” Lana said practically. She caught Scalp by his jacket and dragged him across the floor to the front door. He was showing signs of coming around and she kicked him hard again, driving the toe of her boot into the side of his head.
Breezy watched her, the casual way Lana did it and then turned her back on him and sauntered across the room, her hips swaying, looking like a million dollars. She looked the epitome of confidence in herself. As a warrior. As a woman. As a biker. She was definitely an equal in Torpedo Ink.
“Do you have a full vote in your club the way Steele does?”
Lana’s gaze jumped to hers. She nodded. “Both Alena and I do. We’re charter members along with the others. Two of Czar’s brothers have joined and are fully patched members, and we have a few prospects. The club coming to us, the ones wanting to be patched over, are out of one of the other schools. They reached out to Czar’s brothers, who live in the area, and then, after they’re vetted, if we agree, we’ll have a chapter up where they live.”
“What about Blythe or Anya?”