“Maestro is like Reaper in a lot of ways, yet where Reaper is rough, Maestro is gentle. That doesn’t make him any less lethal. He’s faster than you can imagine and has no qualms about slitting a throat if he thinks it’s justified. Keys matches that. He’s a little less laid-back than Maestro, but the two work very well together. They know what the other one is going to do in any given situation and they just take care of business.”
“I like that they protect you.”
“I don’t.” He didn’t. He didn’t want anyone else dying for him. He wasn’t going to lose someone because they put his life before theirs. “They can protect you and Zane now.”
He slid his hand from under her breast, up over the curve to her throat. He loved to feel her heartbeat. More, he loved that she never flinched when he wrapped his very large hand around her throat. She did trust him, she always had. His thumb brushed her chin. All the while his gaze stayed glued to the house, the one where most likely his son was being held prisoner.
“I want a daughter, Breezy. One like you. One that has your sweetness and your ability to love and feel for others. You wanted to know why I wanted such a big house. I want to fill it with children.” He did. He wanted their children to have the childhood the ones who had died in that dark, cold dungeon didn’t have. He wanted to do right by them.
“At the same time, I want the freedom to fuck your brains out in every single room without you being nervous our kids are going to walk in on us. I wouldn’t give a shit because I think sex is natural and they should know their father wants their mother with every breath he takes. But you aren’t going to like that. So, lots of rooms and cameras. They’ll be taught to let us know when they’re coming to us.”
He made that a statement. A decree. He was going to have her at any time, in any of the rooms they had. Outside by the pool. Hell, anywhere.
Her reaction was typical Breezy. She laughed softly. He felt the sound in the palm of his hand. Felt her pulse. Was damn grateful she took him back and was capable of accepting him the way he was. He’d try like hell to learn. To be better for her, but he loved that she took him the way he was, a fucked-up mess with so many flaws they couldn’t be counted.
She turned back toward the house and pressed the back of her head into his chest. “If no one ever comes out to confirm he’s there, is there another way to find out?”
Her voice shook, and he glanced down sharply. His woman had been holding it together, pretending she wasn’t so anxious she wanted to scream. The tremor he felt running through her body told him it was all she could do not to run over there and bang on the front door of that beautiful, serene mansion.
“We’ll find out, but we’ll have to wait until nightfall, baby. We can’t go in blind. We don’t know where he is or how close they are to him. If he’s in one room and they’re in another, we’re golden, but if someone has their hand”—in his mind an image of a knife rose and his stomach lurched—“on him, then we have to be more careful. I know it’s difficult to wait. You’ve been a trouper through this, but we’re in the home stretch. I have a gut feeling about this, and I’m usually not wrong. The others feel the same way. In a couple of hours, Lana’s going to change her appearance and go out on the boat. She should be able to get close enough to see what’s happening from that angle.”
“Has Code gotten back to you with any more information?” She pushed at her hair and looked over her shoulder at him again. “It’s strange to think he looks like he does and he’s all about computers. He’s so good on them, but he looks as lethal as any of you.”
Steele remembered Code as a little boy, thin and small for his age. He wasn’t thin and small now. He had never gained the six feet he wanted to be, but that didn’t matter, he was close, and he’d filled out, all defined muscle, not an ounce of fat on him. He kept his dark blond hair closely cropped. His whiskey-colored eyes were intense. He wore a short beard, more like scruff really, and the same with his barely there mustache.
“He was trained as an assassin just like the rest of us.” Deliberately he kept away from their sexual training. He didn’t want Breezy reminded of that. He knew it made people uncomfortable to think about the way adults had used them or how they were in such control of their bodies. He didn’t want her to ever think he’d seduced her to get his way—and he had. He’d have to admit that to her if she asked.
“Code works out every day and still trains like we all do. He’s very, very good on a computer. That’s his weapon of choice, but he’s no less lethal with any other kind of weapon.” He was glad she’d followed her question with something he could divert her attention with because so far, Code hadn’t responded to any of their queries that morning, and it wasn’t like him. That was worrisome.
Waiting was always the most difficult part. He’d learned patience in a hard school. They all had. They could stay still for hours. They could go without sleep. They could endure torture and lack of food. He’d had years of that shit and his body was used to it. All Breezy could think about was her child, whereas he knew how to distract his mind.
“All of you are different ages. I’m a little surprised by the fact that you’re the vice president when several are older than you by a few years.”
“We had to learn to work together when we were children. We each had different strengths and we pooled our resources. Czar was the one who pulled us together. He’d been in that hellhole the longest of the eighteen of us. There were others who had been there longer when he arrived and were far older, but they didn’t try to get out. They had lost all hope. There were others who believed if they curried favor by turning on the rest of us and ratting us out, any little thing we did or rule we broke, they’d eventually get out. Of course that wasn’t so.”
“What did you do to make it out when so many others didn’t? How were you able to turn the tables on them?”
“Czar. In one word, Czar. He got sick of all the dying children and he realized none of us would get out. He decided to fight back. He recruited Reaper and Savage first. They were younger, just around four or five, I think. I wasn’t there yet. Czar put together a plan to take out the worst of the instructors, the ones who were so cruel there was no hope of a child surviving the time spent with them. Reaper crawled through the vents and killed his first one while the man slept. Slit his fucking throat and then washed up in the man’s bathroom before crawling through the vents back down to the dungeon.”
That had been one of the first stories ever told to him by Czar when he was trying to convince Steele there was hope.
“Czar was careful which of the children he recruited. They couldn’t afford to be caught or betrayed. Czar, by the way, was only a boy himself. We’re not talking a teen. He was a boy. He had to watch any child brought in carefully because once we began to fight back, even though we made the kills look like another adult was doing it, Sorbacov suspected and sent in plants.”
“That would have been terrifying,” Breezy said. “How could Czar know and still risk it?”
“There was no way not to risk it, not if we wanted a chance to get out of there alive. We saw dead or dying children monthly.” Just saying it brought the images into his mind and the smell into his nostrils. He could taste the filth of the dungeon in his mouth. His stomach reacted, churning violently.
A shudder went through his body and Breezy immediately turned back to him and framed his face in between her palms. “Honey, we don’t have to talk about this.”
She knew how sickened his past made him and there was no hint that she thought he couldn’t handle it, just that she didn’t like him upset.
“No, it’s good to remember, Breezy, and to tell you. I want you to know what kind of a man Czar is. He hates trafficking so much, he gave up five years of his life, five years, in order to bring that ring down.”
“I’m beginning to see.” She pressed her lips to his throat, just a brush, but it felt li
ke a velvet stroke over his skin, chasing away demons. He inhaled to take in the scent of her hair, fresh from the shower. Her skin smelled like wildflowers, further distancing him from the horror of his childhood.
“Czar risked his marriage to the only woman who ever meant anything to him. Blythe is his only, the way you’re mine. Our bodies don’t react the same as other men’s. I told you that. They made certain of that. Some of us are really fucked up in sexual ways—like Reaper and Savage and Ice and Storm, Maestro and Keys . . . Okay, all of us. And then there’s me and a few of the others who are just plain crazy . . .”
“No, you’re not. Don’t say that. You can’t believe that.”
“Even if I do, I’m not letting you out of your word.”
He bent his head to capture her mouth with his. She tasted like fire every time. Sweet, sweet fire, burning him clean when he was so dirty he hadn’t thought anything could do that. He kissed her over and over because once he started kissing her, there was no stopping. He took a step, pushing her back against the window, trapping her there while his mouth explored hers.
He had been too close to those nightmare years of living in the dungeon with the others. He hadn’t realized how close he’d been to falling into the abyss until her mouth and soft body pushed it all behind a door somewhere in his mind and he was able to close it. He needed chains and locks to hold it closed, but she helped him get it there.
Steele wanted to tell her. He needed to tell someone, and who could an assassin go to? Yeah, I’ve killed hundreds of people. Started when I was a kid. Still doing it. It’s my first, go-to thought when people fuck up and piss me off. That would not go over well. But Breezy . . . There was no judgment. She didn’t seem to judge anyone. Even the idiots who’d looked down on her when she’d been part of the Swords.
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Any new kid coming in was so traumatized there was no talking to them, sometimes for months. That was difficult. Czar could only try to ease their suffering. He was the one to organize us all, making certain everyone got equal shares of food and water. Sometimes Sorbacov would favor someone and give them baskets of food. It didn’t matter if they didn’t want to share, Czar made certain they did.”
“That would be fair.”
“Fair and necessary. After I got there, I was big into hygiene and Czar helped me implement what we could. We didn’t have a lot to work with.” He flashed a quick half smile at her. “We even made all the kids brush their teeth, sometimes without water. We had to steal toothbrushes and paste and hide them from Sorbacov’s guards. In the other schools, they were given every kind of skill to blend with society, but we weren’t expected to live. They trained us, but they really didn’t believe we’d ever make it out of there for a kill. At least not for a long time.”
His gaze jumped from her face to over her head, so he could see the sprawling estate next door. There was still no movement and it was heading toward noon. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but little boys at the age of two tended to get up and want to run and play. He needed to keep distracting his woman so she didn’t freak out on him.
He could tell, looking down at her, that she was thinking about their son. Her upturned expression held sorrow. Catching her chin between his thumb and finger, he tilted her face up to his. “Baby, you have to look around you at the men, and Lana, here with you. They have one purpose for being here—to get Zane back. To put him in your arms. To bring him home. That’s the purpose. We know what we’re doing.”
“I’m holding on to that. I did think it would take a long time to track him, so if he’s here, we’re already way ahead of schedule, but it’s so difficult to think he might be right there. Right in front of me, scared and helpless with my father . . . He’ll hit him if he cries,” she explained.
It was all Steele could do to tell her hitting wasn’t the worst Bridges could be doing to Zane. Not just Bridges. There was Donk, Riddle and Favor. And Boone. Who knew what Boone was like, other than the fact that he was ugly to everyone and in and out of prison. He’d made a lifetime of moving in and out of the prison system.
“Lana’s heading out any minute. She had to wait until noon, at least, to make it look normal. She’s taking the boat, wearing nearly nothing and getting in close to their backyard. She’ll have equipment on board that will allow her to hear what’s going on in the house. It’s very sensitive. Mechanic cooked it up for her. He’ll be down in the cabin of the craft where no one can see him. It will look as if Lana took the boat out alone on the lake.”
“Is that safe?”
He gave her a brief grin, mostly teeth. “Babe, Lana is as good as any one of us when it comes to taking out the enemy. Don’t ever underestimate her. What you saw earlier at your apartment was nothing. Had you not been there, she would have disarmed him and probably killed him, at least incapacitated him in seconds without the help of you throwing the blanket. She’s lethal as hell. We call her ‘Widow’ because she’s made so many. Don’t think for a minute she can’t take care of herself, or you or Zane for that matter.”
She nodded. “She’s very beautiful and confident-looking. I used to look at her and Alena and I was so intimidated, not because I thought they would hurt me but because I couldn’t measure up to them.”
That surprised him. He tried to think back to the days she’d ridden with him as his old lady. “Were the girls not nice to you?”
Had they been nice? Lana and Alena had been aloof because, like the rest of them, they really didn’t know the rules of society. They fit better in the motorcycle club world than anywhere else, and even there, they sometimes didn’t know exactly what was expected of them. They learned fast and adapted when they had to. Mostly, they stuck to themselves because it was safer.
Riding with the Swords had been a mission every one of them eventually joined. They were there to kill as many as possible without causing suspicion. They disrupted shipments, and every time a chapter acquired new young girls, a team went out under either Czar or Steele and freed the girls, killed the Swords running the portable brothels and disappeared before anyone could identify them. It was what they were good at.
Meanwhile Code went after the books of each chapter, not the ones anyone could find but the real ones reported to the international president. That was what he was good at. He managed to transfer all the money to their accounts. Then he went after the Greek shipping magnate, Evan Shackler-Gratsos, who had inherited from his brother. It just so happened he was the main target and the international president of the Swords. Code managed to get that money into their accounts as well.
Torpedo Ink was set up financially for life. Every member had access to money. Code managed the paperwork, so anytime they ran into a problem, he could set it right. He did all the things necessary, like making it so Steele was able to practice medicine in the United States, even do surgery legally if he desired. Code was the one who sorted out adoptions if they brought children to Blythe and Czar. Gun permits. Concealed gun permits. Whatever paperwork was needed at any time, Code could easily provide it for them.
“Babe.” He said it as a warning.
Her tongue touched her lower lip. “They weren’t mean.”
He groaned. What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t told the others Breezy was the one for him back then. He’d had his reasons for being careful, but he should have asked that the girls befriend her.
“I’m sorry, Bree, that’s on me. Czar wouldn’t have let me stay if he’d known how I felt about you, and poor decision or not, I made my choice to stay. I should have noticed that you could have used friends. We were careful all the time. Lana and Alena had to be careful. No one could know that Alena was Czar’s ‘sister’ and not his old lady, or that Lana and Ice weren’t really a couple. That said, there’s no excuse for my oversight.”
“It was three years ago, Steele. I think I’m over it. I had to be careful as well. Anythi
ng I told any of the girls in the club would get back to Bridges. If they didn’t tell him, he would beat them. I tried to protect you at all times.”
He stiffened, something in her voice telling him there were things he didn’t know. “What do you mean?”
She tried to step back, but the wall was behind her. Her head was against the window. It was low and long, giving them a good view of the lake and the backyard next door. Even from a distance, it was easy to see how beautiful it was. It never ceased to amaze him how he could be surrounded by beauty and yet evil was still present.
Steele put both hands on either side of her head, holding her captive, looking down into her eyes. He could get lost there. He did every time he looked into that vivid green. She couldn’t hide what she was. All her compassion was centered there. Her capacity to love. He couldn’t have chosen a better woman to be the mother of his children—or his wife.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Yeah, baby, it does. It matters to me.” A sudden memory came at him out of nowhere. Walking into their room, that tiny place she always kept immaculate, and finding her eyes red, her face swollen from crying. She was rocking back and forth on the bed, holding her stomach. She’d told him she had cramps and that sometimes they were really bad.
Steele had gotten a heating pad and laid down beside her, holding her while she curled up into a ball, the pad on her stomach. She kept adjusting the pad, and when he wanted to examine her, she’d shaken her head. When he tried to talk to her, she just said it was cramps and they’d always been like that. He let it go, but he shouldn’t have. He knew at the time he shouldn’t have.
“That bastard hit you, even when you were mine, didn’t he? He wanted information about me, and you didn’t give it to him. Was that it, Bree? Did he do that?” The monster in him opened his eyes, tasted ice-cold rage. Wanted vengeance. Needed it.