Vengeance Road

by Christine Feehan

  He leaned close. Took the spoon from her hand and set it on the table. “Look at me, Breezy.”

  It was a command, nothing less, triggering her heart into overdrive. She couldn’t help but lift her apprehensive gaze to his.

  “Zane is my son. Mine. You aren’t going to dictate to me what I can and can’t do with him. You aren’t going to live somewhere I can’t protect the two of you. We’re going to talk things out and we’re going to do what’s right for our boy.”

  The quiet in his voice alarmed her more than anything. She knew they called him Steele for a variety of reasons. Road names were given for anything from funny incidents to very serious ones. Some of the brothers had called him unbending. Once he made up his mind, no one ever got in his way because he’d just go right through them.

  “You’re not taking him from me.”

  “Did I say I was taking him from you? Did I ever indicate that? You’re a pair, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re both mine.”

  She pushed away from the table fast, surging to her feet at the same time, knocking the chair over backward. “You’re out of your mind if you think that. Completely out of your mind.”

  He didn’t even get up. He reached out, hooked the chair, pulled it upright and pointed back to the seat.

  She glared at him, but the smell of the soup was too good, and it had been a long time since her last really nourishing meal. She sat back down and picked up the spoon. “You don’t get to dictate to me anymore, Steele. I’m not that girl, the one worshiping you and thinking you walked on water.”

  “I’m very aware I lost that.”

  “I don’t even know you. You were lying to me. To everyone, remember? So, no, I’m not yours. Zane, I’ll concede, is, and you have a right to visit him . . .”

  “It won’t work that way. You know me, Bree. You know me. I might have misled things to the club, but I gave you the real man. I don’t back away from a fight, and I win.”

  She felt herself go pale. Dizzy. So light-headed for a moment she thought she might pass out. “You’re threatening to take him away from me.” Her voice was a whisper of fear.

  “No, baby”—he leaned close again—“I’m threatening to lock you in a house with our son until you come to your senses. I told you, he isn’t going to be raised with one parent.”

  “And I told you, he isn’t going to be raised in a club.”

  “We’ll see. Eat your soup and then I’ll show you to your room, so you can get some sleep.”

  “I slept all day.”

  “You dozed on and off all day waiting for dark, so you could carry out your harebrained scheme. Don’t remind me. It will just piss me off.”

  She was tired, and she wasn’t going to argue with him for argument’s sake. He could posture all he wanted; it didn’t mean he would get his way. She finished the soup and then stood up, taking the bottle of water with her.

  Breezy followed Steele down a long hallway. He pointed out a bathroom as they passed a door and stopped at the room just beyond it. He shoved the door open and stepped back to allow her inside. She knew instantly it was his room because his scent was everywhere. Steele always smelled masculine but very clean, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. That was unlike most of the Swords members, and she had spent a great deal of time inhaling Steele and taking him deep into her lungs.

  “I’m not staying with you,” she informed him, putting on her stubborn expression. She couldn’t stay there, breathing him in. Surrounded by him. God help her if he decided to stay in the room with her or get in the bed. It didn’t matter that he’d thrown her out and made her feel as if she were nothing; he was still Steele, the love of her life, the man she dreamt of. Fixated on. Obsessed over. She didn’t want him, or anything to do with him, but her body didn’t seem to know that.

  “I’m through arguing with you. You’re staying here and I’m examining you, so get on the bed before I just tie you to it.” When she didn’t move, he stepped inside, slammed the door and pointed to the bed. “You know I’ll fucking do it, so stop stalling. I’ve had just about enough for one night. Learning I have a son and the woman who is my old lady didn’t even bother to tell me was enough of a shock for one day.”

  “I’m not your old lady. You were very clear on that, Steele. Don’t you dare turn this around and act innocent. I wasn’t about to go near the club once I left and you were riding with it, remember? As I recall, you had me banned from the Swords. You pretended your loyalties were with the Swords, just like you pretended your loyalties were with me.”

  “There’s an explanation.”

  “Of course there is, but you know what? I don’t want to hear it. I just want my son back. Just get him back. That’s all that matters. That’s all that should matter to you.”

  “We’re going around and around about things we aren’t going to settle right now. Get on the bed, let me take a look at you and then you can take a shower or a bath and sleep. The club has a few things to take off the table, so we can turn our full attention to getting Zane back. You can sleep in here while I’m doing that.”

  Breezy hesitated. She hadn’t been able to take a bath since she’d left the club. Her tiny apartment had a little shower stall, just big enough for her to get into. She doubted most men could have showered without turning sideways and stooping. Certainly, Steele couldn’t. She knew the exact width of his shoulders, and there was no way he could get into that little stall.

  She wasn’t going to argue with him anymore. What was the point? She was going to lose, and every minute she spent arguing was more time in his company. She sank onto the mattress, and of course it was far nicer than any she’d ever slept on in her life. Tearing off her boots, she resisted throwing them at him.

  “Do you have things at your place you need me to get for you?”

  God. His voice. He could turn her inside out with that voice. “A few things matter to me, but not at the risk of your life. I’d prefer you get Zane for me.”

  “Make a list and write down the address of your apartment.”

  She nodded and started to lie down.

  “I’ll need your jeans off, Bree. I have to look at your thigh, and I have to examine your ribs, so lose the tank as well.”

  She lowered her lashes, her sex clenching hard. She didn’t have the same figure she’d had when she’d left. Her breasts were larger, and her hips fuller. She hadn’t had a lot to eat during her pregnancy, so she hadn’t gained a lot of weight, but she still had a couple of small stretch marks. She told herself she didn’t care. She wasn’t trying to impress him.

  Refusing to look at him, she peeled off her jeans and tank and then draped them over a chair. It wasn’t like she was wearing a really pretty bra and panties. They didn’t even match. She bought the cheapest cotton bikinis she could find and the cheapest bras that were functional. Stretching out on the bed, she looked anywhere but at him.

  The room was larger than she’d expected and far nicer than the flop rooms for the Swords members to sleep in. He sat on the edge of the bed, and instantly she felt caged in.

  “Damn it, Breezy. You’re covered in bruises.” There was genuine distress in his voice.

  She closed her eyes at the brush of his fingers. She’d forgotten how gentle he could be. That whisper of a touch on her bare skin. The moment he did that, every nerve ending sprang to life. She hadn’t wanted a man since she’d left him. She hadn’t thought of wanting a man. She’d avoided them like the plague, first because she’d been pregnant, then because she’d been a single, harassed mother and then because men were disgusting creatures and she’d wanted no part of them. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, if she was honest, it had been because they weren’t Steele.

  Those fingers whispered along her ribs, so gently she thought she might cry.

  “Hurts here?”

  He was bent over her, his hair fall
ing toward her bare belly while his hands slid over her ribs. A healer’s hands. A lover’s hands. He’d been both before he destroyed her.

  “Yes.”

  “They aren’t broken, thank fuck. Your old man do this, or Junk?”

  Now his hands were on her thigh, sweeping over the large bruise. Everywhere he touched her, there was heat, and then somehow, miraculously, the terrible ache would subside. He had magic in his hands. “He kicked you in the ribs as well, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. It was my father. Junk had Zane. He had his hand over Zane’s mouth and I thought he was going to kill him.” She breathed deeply to keep from sobbing. She would never forget that moment. Lying on the floor helpless, her father kicking her while her brother had his hand over her baby’s mouth, a grin on his face.

  “I’m going to beat the shit out of both of them before I kill them,” he said. “Break every bone in their fucking bodies.”

  He sounded like Steele. Calm. But she knew he meant it.

  “If you think I’m going to object, Steele, I’m not. They took my baby.” This time the sob escaped before she could prevent it. She turned on her side, face to the wall, jamming her fist in her mouth. She didn’t want him there to witness her breakdown. That was hers alone. He’d thrown her out like trash, and she’d made something of herself. She hung on to that. She’d even finished high school, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  He leaned into her, his mouth against her ear. “We’ll get him back, baby. That’s what we do. We don’t let perverted clubs like the Swords take children. We’ll get him back.”

  He was gone before she’d turned to face him. What had he meant by that? That was what they did? What did that mean? And how had he made her ribs and her bruised body feel so much better just by touching her? Steele. He broke her heart in so many ways.

  THREE

  “We’re going to have to clear the calendar to get Steele’s boy back,” Czar said, the moment the twenty fully patched members of Torpedo Ink took their places around the large oval table made of oak.

  Czar looked over at his vice president. “You get her settled?”

  “She’s going to give me trouble, but I deserve it. I’ll handle it.” Steele knew Breezy wasn’t going to be won over easily, but as far as he was concerned, there was no other choice. He had to win her over for his own self-preservation.

  Czar nodded. “First business, where are we with the boy we’ve been bidding on? Is there anything new popping up?”

  Code shook his head. “They shut down the auction, saying some member of the crime unit had bid on him. They sent out a warning and disappeared. I had traced them to Las Vegas, but they may have moved the kid and the operation. I’ve done everything I can do to be alerted if they pop back up. My friend Cat is also working with me and she’s got just as many alerts up as I do. Sooner or later they’ll try to sell the kid and we’ll be back in business.”

  Finding the little boy they’d heard was being auctioned on the Internet was a fierce need for all of them, and frustration showed on their faces. Now they had to find Steele’s child as well. There was no way they could sacrifice one child for the other. If necessary, they would break into two teams. They’d done so often enough that both teams ran smoothly.

  “Ice, Storm, if Code gets anything at all, you may need to head to Las Vegas to poke around. You might uncover something he can’t find online,” Czar said.

  “No problem,” Ice agreed without hesitation.

  Storm just nodded.

  “Anything else pressing before we move on to finding Steele’s son?” Czar asked.

  Gavriil nodded. “I’ve been contacted by a former schoolmate. He’s living in the Trinity area and he’s got about twenty others from our same school riding with him. They have no affiliations with any club, and they want to come in under Torpedo Ink. They all have residences and work in the Trinity area and want to stay there. They’re on their way and have requested a meeting with you.”

  “Another chapter?” Czar said, speculation in his voice. “You know them? All of them? I imagine he sent names to you.”

  “Our school wasn’t quite as brutal as yours, but our instructors did like to torture those of us whose parents Sorbacov particularly hated. I know most of those in their club. I can vouch for a few personally, but not all. I can give you the names of those I know well. They’re assassins, Czar, trained just as we were.”

  Czar tapped his fingers on the table and looked to Steele.

  Steele knew what that look meant. “Like us, I doubt they fit anywhere.” He looked around the table. “Input?”

  “Could be trouble for us,” Reaper said. “The Diamondbacks are looking very closely at us. Pierce”—he named the enforcer for the Diamondback Mendocino chapter—“is no pushover. He saw right through us and knows we’re lethal as hell. Allowing twenty or twenty-five of us in their territory is one thing. Knowing we’ve got another twenty or twenty-five a day’s ride away is something else, particularly if those men were trained the way we were—and he knows we were assassins for our government. He can’t prove it, but he knows it.”

  Gavriil had attended one of the four schools that had been a training ground for assets for the Russian government, although that really meant assassins for Sorbacov. All of the schools had been brutal in various degrees. The school Steele had attended had been the worst. Gavriil’s had been right behind it in cruelty to the children being raised and trained there.

  “They’re lethal enough,” Gavriil said. “If they went after the Diamondbacks, the club would never know what hit them. They’d take them down one by one silently, and they’d have patience to do it over time, just the way we would. They’d be in and out like phantoms and the Diamondbacks would never know who the enemy was.”

  Czar had six biological brothers and Steele had been around them for a while now. He knew they had attended the other schools, but they were dangerous men, particularly Gavriil. If those asking for acceptance into Torpedo Ink were like Gavriil, they were trained in the art of killing. The Diamondbacks, Pierce in particular, wouldn’t like it, but it would be good for Torpedo Ink to have that kind of backup.

  “The Diamondbacks are an international motorcycle club. They’re 1-percenters, outlaws, living their lives their own way. We’re here because they’ve given us permission to be here, but we’ve always treated them with respect and played nice,” Maestro said.

  Keys nodded. “We tried flying under the Diamondbacks’ radar, but more than once now, we’ve inadvertently showed our fangs to their club, risking retaliation. It would be extremely dangerous to bring more attention to us.”

  “On the other hand,” Savage began.

  The others fell silent immediately and paid attention. Savage rarely offered anything to the table. He just listened most of the time.

  “These are men like us with nowhere to go. They need what we have to survive. A brotherhood. A family. They need a leader. They need Torpedo Ink.”

  That was the damn truth, Steele decided. Savage was right. How could any of them possibly fit into regular society? None of them knew the rules. They didn’t know how to behave. They’d been taught to kill to survive. They knew a lot of ways to kill, but few ways to integrate into society. They certainly didn’t know how to have relationships.

  Ruthlessly he turned his mind away from the woman in his bed—at least he tried to. It was hard not to think about her lying there, curled up into a little ball, as if protecting herself. The way she slept had always stolen his heart. He’d wrapped his body around hers to show her she was safe. She’d been so fragile and yet she really wasn’t, he was beginning to realize. She’d had his baby alone. She’d found a way to support the child and care for him when she’d left, not even knowing how to make a decision.

  In the world of bikers, Breezy had appeared to be a leader of the women and children, one of the reasons he’d th
ought she was older. She anticipated problems and dealt with them ahead of time. She knew the language of bikers and her father’s particular club. Outside that environment, she was in an entirely different world and had no idea how to interpret or fit into it or make decisions accordingly—yet she’d managed. She’d done it for herself and their child.

  She’d depended on Steele entirely when she’d been with him. She’d looked at him as if the sun had risen and set with him. Now that adoration wasn’t there, and he found he needed it back. She’d been the one. He hadn’t said a word to the others. Czar had been sent by Sorbacov to kill Evan Shackler-Gratsos, the international president of the Swords. He had crossed Sorbacov one too many times and the order had gone out.

  Evan Shackler-Gratsos had inherited billions from his brother. Those billions included freighters that Shackler-Gratsos had turned into snuff ships. His very wealthy clients paid for sexual partners of any age—from very young children to men and women—used them and killed them after or during sex, and then disposed of the bodies at sea. Of course Czar would want to shut that shit down. He’d risked everything to do so, not just his life but his marriage to the woman he loved. One by one, the other members of Torpedo Ink had followed Czar into the Swords club in order to have his back. Steele couldn’t have left him when a war was brewing, and he couldn’t have left Breezy there, where the Swords would name her a traitor.

  Steele had seen Breezy for the first time, and all hell had broken loose inside him. He’d been trained, like the others, to have complete control over his body, and that had gone right out the window the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He’d watched her, couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He’d taken every opportunity to talk to her. She’d been responsible, always looking out for those younger than she was. She cooked for the club. She cleaned up after them and never complained. She was a problem solver when things went wrong and had to be fixed. She never asked for help; she just quietly did what needed to be done.