“Where’s the fuckin’ fun in that?” Savage demanded.
Steele was standing over Junk again, watching him dispassionately as he tried to crawl away. He reached down fast, yanked Junk to his knees, arm a bar across his throat, nearly crushing it with his strength, hand once again over his mouth and nose to cut off his airway. Junk’s body thrashed wildly.
Savage walked over, leaned down and shoved his knife deep and then ran it up Junk’s belly like a zipper, opening him from groin to ribs. Intestines spilled out and slithered across the floor like snakes, straight at Bridges.
The smirk disappeared from Savage’s face, leaving Bridges facing the devil. “Breezy is Torpedo Ink. She was always Torpedo Ink. She belongs to Steele. Zane is Torpedo Ink, and he belongs to all of us. You never should have messed with either of them.”
“Fuck you!” Bridges screamed. “Fuck you both!”
Steele dropped Junk right in the middle of what were formerly his insides and stalked to Bridges. He rolled him over and held out his hand. Savage tossed him the bloody knife. Steele tore the man’s jeans into strips, ripping them away, so that some of the rags hung from the cut waistband, but leaving Bridges’s bare skin and genitals exposed.
“That can be arranged, you sick pervert,” Steele said. “You think I don’t know about what you did to the kids the chapter kidnapped? Boys and girls? You’re a sick fuck. You always were.” There was an edge to Steele now, as if his thin veneer of civilization was beginning to crack. “Everyone knew what you did.” Code had uncovered quite a bit about Bridges Simmons.
“We don’t like your kind, Bridges,” Savage added. “You’re a pedophile. You like children. You know why? Because you’re so weak you can’t handle a real relationship. You have to rape children to get off.”
Bridges shook his head violently back and forth. He was helpless, lying on his back, his body exposed to both men. They looked at him with utter contempt. Not as though he was human, but as if he were the worst piece of dirt on the planet.
“You know those stories you told Donk and the others about the little boys and girls you raped? What you did to them? Got news for you, you fuck. You’re going to experience every detail,” Savage said.
Steele stood up, went back to Junk and cut his throat. Bridges howled his need of revenge and sorrow. Neither man so much as blinked. Savage was laying out their tools to make certain Bridges experienced the things he’d done to kids. He had already been beaten until he couldn’t move or stand.
They spent nearly two more hours with Bridges, making a point to the Swords, to every pedophile who might know Bridges. His screams and curses fell on deaf ears, as did his pleas and sobs when they got down to work with knives, making him very aware he would never be able to harm another child or woman. He had to watch and feel, but neither showed mercy, their faces grim and purposeful.
As always, the Torpedo Ink members stripped after, down by the lake, the clothing and gloves going in a bag to burn. They washed off in the lake and then dressed again in the clothes Player provided before heading back to the vacation rental. The guns were broken down and would be disposed of on the way home, across several states. They had been careful in the house not to wear their own fingerprints. The key to the vacation rental had been mailed to them. The owner never saw Phil McBride, the man he’d rented to, and the key was to be left for the cleaning crew beneath the mat by the front door.
Steele walked into the house, shocked that his hands were shaking. Not just his hands, his entire body. He hadn’t been in the least affected by what he’d done to Bridges and Junk, or the others, but knowing he was going to be meeting his son for the first time threw him. Torpedo Ink members were loading the truck and bikes, giving him a few minutes alone with his woman and son before they wiped down the house with their cleaner and put as many miles as possible between Lake Pontchartrain and them.
Breezy sat in the rocking chair, Zane in her arms, eyes closed, humming as she rocked. The boy had his head buried in her neck, his little arms wrapped tightly around her neck. Steele stood just inside the doorway, his heart pounding and then settling to a rhythm he hadn’t felt in a long while. Contentment. Joy. He had experienced both those foreign emotions when he’d been with his woman.
“Thank you, Steele.” Her voice came out of the gathering shadows. “You said you’d bring him back to me and you did. I don’t have the right words to tell you what it means to me. There is no greater thing that you could have done for me. No better gift.”
Steele was silent for a long moment, drinking her in. Those green eyes. Vivid. Overbright. She’d been crying, but this time they were tears of joy and relief. She was looking at him as if he were someone special. Someone she looked up to. Adored. That adoration she’d given him before was back.
“Baby, he’s our son. Mine too. There was no question I would get him back for us.” He tried for matter-of-fact. He didn’t want her thinking he was some kind of hero—and yet, perversely, he did. He loved that particular look on her face, the one that told him she believed there was no other man like him or as good as him.
She smiled serenely. “I love you, Steele.” She brushed kisses over the top of Zane’s head and then began to ease him away from her, so she could turn him around. For a moment the boy resisted, his little arms tight around her neck, nearly strangling her.
“It’s okay, baby,” Steele assured her.
Breezy insisted, turning Zane in her arms so he faced his father. She wrapped the boy tightly in her arms. “This is your daddy. Remember I told you all those stories about him? How brave he is? How he will always look out for you? Your daddy took you away from the bad men. They’ll never be able to get to you again.” She kissed the side of the boy’s face several times.
All the while his son—his son—stared at him curiously. He recognized those eyes. He looked into the mirror daily and saw them. There was no denying Zane was his child. He had his jawline. The eyes. Breezy’s wild mop of thick tawny-colored hair. It wasn’t like his own dark hair wasn’t thick and wild as well. Most of the time he didn’t bother to try to tame it. He might cut the sides shorter, but the top of his hair was always left longer, and it went every which way, just as Breezy’s did. Their son inherited from both. Double the thickness, her color and thick curls and waves everywhere. Zane was so beautiful, Steele wanted to weep.
The two stared at each other. Steele let him look his fill. The little boy reached out a hand, and Steele leaned down, so he could touch his hair. Evidently, they were thinking the same thing. “Did they hurt you, buddy?” he asked.
Zane nodded, his eyes narrowing a little as if the memory made him angrier than scared. “The bad man hit me. Mommy said don’t hit.”
That little voice turned Steele’s heart over.
“He has bruises all over him,” Breezy said. There were tears in her voice, and she buried her face in the mop of curls on the top of Zane’s head.
Steele’s gut tightened and the monster in him
roared. Bridges had paid for his crimes. Junk had as well. They wouldn’t be coming back to threaten or harm Steele’s family, and there was satisfaction in that.
“Come here, little buddy,” Steele said gently. “Let me hold you for a minute. I want to see how big you’ve gotten. Mommy gave me lots of pictures of you, but you’re so much bigger than those pictures.” He wanted to lay his hands on every bruise and try to ease any pain.
Zane’s eyes lit up. “Pictures aren’t big.”
The boy didn’t pull back when Steele brushed his hair out of his eyes. Very slowly, so as not to startle him, and extremely gently, just in case he put his hands on a bruise, Steele lifted his son from Breezy’s arms. His entire body reacted. Every cell. Every organ. This was his child. The meaning of that slipped, for the first time, all the way into his mind. Before, he’d been careful not to think too much about it, because that way led to disaster. Now that Zane was safe and with them, Steele could let the reality slide into his brain. He’d never been more emotional.
This was his son. He’d made him with Breezy. He might not be good at telling her he loved her, but it was the stark, raw truth. Having a child with her was nothing short of miraculous. He wanted to crush the boy to him, absorb him through his skin the way he wanted to with Breezy.
Zane put both little hands on his jaw, reminiscent of the way Breezy sometimes framed his face. He knew she must do that to their son.
“So your mama told you I was brave, did she?” Steele’s gaze jumped to Breezy’s face. Slow color slid up her neck. She shrugged and tried to look away, but he didn’t let her. “She told you stories about me?”
“Steele.” Her voice held embarrassment.
“Baby, I fuckin’ love that you did that.” He moved his hand gently over the boy’s body, feeling the heat he generated reaching into his son.
She frowned at him. Narrowed her eyes. “There is no need to teach him foul language.”
“Got it. No more saying fuck in front of the boy.”