Czar nodded. “I went over everything in detail with the others. I believe you got him out of there just in time. Does Breezy realize that?”
“She knows that it was bad, Czar, but she has no idea just what the Swords were doing to young kids, boys and girls. I don’t particularly want her to know. Already, she spends time just sitting and holding him. Rocking him. She cries when she’s doing it. She goes to sleep peaceful and then wakes up quite often. I think the trauma of having her child taken was enough.”
“If she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t comprehend the enormity of what could have happened to her son, how is she going to understand that you need to hold them both a little tight right now?”
That sounded good, and maybe he could get away with it, but Steele doubted it. He shook his head. This was Czar. They could bring anything to Czar—almost anything.
“I’m not holding her a little tight. Breezy’s a prisoner. The house is beautiful and includes just about anything she could want, but it’s still a prison because she can’t go anywhere without my knowledge or one of the others with her. She’s living her life in a glass bowl. She doesn’t realize that yet, but she is.”
“I had the feeling you bought that house with the idea that your woman would want to spend most of her time there.”
Steele nodded. “I knew I’d find her again. I had to find her again.”
“You should have told me she was the one for you.”
“I couldn’t. You would have sent me away. In any case, I’ve got her and my son, and I’m not losing them again.”
“There is such a thing as holding on too tight, Steele. You know you could lose her just by doing that. Women don’t like a man controlling them or, for that matter, being jealous . . .”
“It’s not that. It’s never entered my mind, since she’s been with me, that she would cheat on me. Breezy’s too open. She’d tell me if she wanted to leave because of someone else. I don’t want to control her just because I could—and I could. She’d let me. I have to know she’s safe.”
“That’s an impossibility, Steele, and I think you know that. Safety is as big an illusion as control is. You’re going to have to get a handle on this.”
Steele nodded. “I’m very aware.”
Czar switched gears. “You know that while you were gone, I met personally with each of the men who want to join Torpedo Ink and had Absinthe talk with them. I like them. I like the idea of having others like us sticking together. We’ll take a vote after you have had a chance to vet them.”
“Have they given you their reasons for wanting to join us? I read everything Code had on them, and they seem to be doing well for themselves. No other club harasses them. They followed protocol. What made them decide to ask us?” Steele asked, all business.
Czar knew he was asking if individually any had differed on their reasons. “The brotherhood,” Czar said simply. “They’re misfits the way we are. They might have a slightly better understanding of the rules living outside the schools, but how do any of us fit anywhere? We can’t. We never will entirely. If they’re part of us, they have more brothers. They have a place to come to where they’re welcome, brothers who understand them, places to bring their women occasionally. We’ll have their backs. It adds to our strength.”
Steele nodded. It made sense. Torpedo Ink was a closed community. Every member had been tortured as a child. They’d been trained to be assassins. They’d been trained in the art of seduction. They knew all kinds of ways to kill or seduce, but their rules, rules they’d made as children and lived by, weren’t the same as those of everyone else in the world. Half the time they didn’t even understand the way the outsiders thought. Those trained in the other schools would feel the same way, and they needed a home. A community. Brothers at their back.
“I talked to Fatei, and he wants to stay with this chapter,” Steele said.
Czar nodded. “He’s a good man. He’ll make a good brother. We’ll give him his patch before we patch over the others if the vote goes that way. They’re coming Friday night with their women to party with us. Alena has the food under control. We’re set, but I’d like you here. You’re the only one now who hasn’t signed off on them. I want you to really check them out, Steele. Your opinion matters. You see things I don’t. Let Darby babysit Zane at your house or bring him to mine so you and Breezy can come.”
Steele sat back in the chair, his heart doing that strange pounding again. Split them up? Zane in one place, Breezy in another? The idea of spending an evening with his brothers, relaxing with his woman, sounded like what he needed, but could he actually leave Zane somewhere else?
“I don’t know, Czar,” he said reluctantly. “It’s probably a little too soon for Breezy to be that far from Zane, and no way is she going to like me going to a party without her, especially after the disaster when she first arrived.”
Czar nodded. “I thought you might say that. Alena has a room right off the kitchen in the private wing. Darby could watch him there. It’s completely closed off and protected. There’s a security alarm, and all of us will be here. We could move a crib in and get it set up. You and Breezy could sleep in your room when you get tired or take Alena’s room, and I’ll get Darby home.”
It was a perfect solution. Steele nodded. “We’re in. We’ll get everything and come back. I’ll bring Breezy early. She’s going to want to help the girls get the food ready.”
NINETEEN
“You’re not making any sense, Steele. None.” Breezy swung around and glared at him. “It’s been the best time. We have such fun together. You. Me. Zane. Even Maestro and Keys. And then you act like this.”
“I act like this because you’re sneaking around—”
She cut him off. “What do you think is going to happen if I get up and go to the bathroom without waking you up and telling you first? You always wake up anyway. Do you think I’m sneaking out to meet someone?” Breezy threw her hands into the air. “Enough is enough.”
Steele knew it was enough. He knew he was acting crazy. He’d woken the moment she moved. She slid from the bed, out of the protection of his arms. He’d watched her go out the door, but she hadn’t headed to the bathroom.
“You didn’t go into the bathroom.” He knew he sounded like a nut. He knew it. Still, he couldn’t stop. The words kept tumbling out of his mouth no matter how hard he tried to be calm and sane. He had no idea what was happening to him, but he knew Breezy couldn’t be a saint forever. She’d had more patience than any woman would have under the circumstances.
“Because I was checking on Zane. You have your app. Look at it.”
“I shouldn’t have to look at the fucking thing. You should tell me where you’re going,” he snapped. His chest hurt like hell. His skin felt clammy, but he was sweating. It had started the moment she’d slipped from the bed.
He was getting worse. The physical symptoms were becoming as bad as the mental—or emotional—ones. The monster, always so close, always so ready to protect him, opened his eyes and stared at his woman. Furious. She had no right to be upset, not when she insisted on doing the bullshit things she did.
“How the fuck do you think I know what you’re doing when every time I turn around you’re doing some bullshit move to protect your man?”
He watched her face, there in the moonlight. She was gorgeous standing in nothing at all but her bare skin. He loved her like that. Her breasts were round and full, high on her body so that the temptation to cup them and feed on them was always present. She’d shed the silk kimono he’d gotten her when she’d returned to their bedroom. He didn’t like her sleeping in clothes, and the few times she’d tried, saying it was more convenient, he’d just stripped them off, rolled her under him and forestalled any argument.
There wasn’t going to be putting this one off, and he didn’t want to. She had a look on her face that told him, nearly for the first tim
e ever, she was ready to battle with him.
Breezy jammed her fists on her hips. “What are you talking about? I thought we put that to rest. I didn’t tell you about Bridges beating me and I should have. I’ve admitted that. Are you going to keep bringing it up every time you get upset over something stupid, so you have something else to divert attention from the fact that you’re acting crazy? Because you are.”
He took a step toward her. Savage was right. She wasn’t getting the message no matter how much he talked to her about it. A jackhammer began pounding at his brain, a terrible thudding that wouldn’t quit. “You can insult me as much as you want to, Bree. I get that’s your only defense, but you don’t get a pass on this. I’m not having you stepping in front of me when you think someone’s attacking me.”