condensation on it. Bruiser’s tongue lolled, and Dart’s touched his dry, cracked lips.
Dart heaved a sigh. “We were following orders. We had no choice.”
“Bruiser here told me all about how he planned on raping her. The details were very well-thought-out. Seemed to me he was fixating on her and what he could do to her,” Steele said as he applied the cattle prod to the man’s most precious part. He was casual about it as if he wasn’t in the least bit even thinking about it.
Bruiser’s screams hit a note Steele had never heard before. He circled around behind the shrieking man. “Seems to me, Bruiser, you thought you were going to put your filthy dick in my woman. I don’t take kindly to that shit, do I, Maestro?”
“No, Steele, you don’t,” Maestro replied.
“You said you were putting your dick up her ass, didn’t you, Bruiser?”
Bruiser began screaming before the cattle prod even touched him, let alone was applied to any area he’d been threatening on Breezy.
A couple of the other Torpedo Ink members snickered. “Breezy’s been off-limits since Steele laid eyes on her,” Keys said. “Isn’t that right, Ink? You notice any man touched her even before she was with him, that man got the holy hell beat out of him, cuz I noticed that shit. But I got a healthy dose of self-preservation that’s clearly missing in these two.”
“Everyone knew, even then, you didn’t touch Breezy,” Mechanic agreed.
“Guess they must have missed that memo,” Maestro said. “You get that now, Bruiser? Maybe a little late for you, but hopefully you get it now.”
Bruiser was sobbing and nodding his head up and down.
“I been thinking on this for a little while now,” Keys said. “Wondering about how a man that protective of his woman might feel about someone taking his boy. His son. If it was me, I’d walk through hell to get that man. Follow him right down into flames so I could fuck him up. That about right, Steele?”
“The minute Lizard walked in with Candy, Bridges grabbed her by the hair, shoved the kid into her arms and went out, barking orders at everyone,” Dart said. “He didn’t tell any of us where he was going, but once he had Candy in the truck with Junk, he came back and told Bruiser and I to come here and if Breezy came back, to teach her a lesson. A hard lesson.”
“Where was Donk? He’s never far from Bridges.” Steele’s voice was mild. Deceptively so. The thought of Dart and Bruiser teaching his woman a lesson of any kind made the monster in him show his teeth.
“He was still in the clubhouse. He’d been drinking with Bridges and snorting cocaine. The two talked in whispers and then Bridges left. Lizard jumped up and ran to his truck, probably worried Bridges would kill Candy he was so far gone. Donk was still there. I think he was waiting for Riddle and Favor.”
Just the names of the three men who had raped Breezy when she was fourteen made the monster emerge even more. He felt cold inside. Cold outside. Just plain ice. There were no compassionate feelings in him at all, as if his personality had split and this one had come forward to allow him to do everything necessary to survive. He remembered his monster. He had needed him, the block of ice that couldn’t be stopped.
“Did Donk follow Bridges?”
“We left. I gathered my shit and got out of there. Donk was getting crazy with the cocaine and I don’t like being around when he’s like that. Bruiser and I headed out.”
“Have you heard from Bridges?”
Dart hesitated just that fraction of a second too long and retaliation was swift and brutal. Steele wasn’t playing around. He was on the move now, Code gathering intel his way and Steele taking it forcibly. One of these two men would put him on the right road to finding Zane.
When Dart stopped screaming, Steele looked at him impassively. “My son, Dart. He’s out there somewhere scared and alone without his mother. He’s with a man who beat the shit out of his daughter daily and gave her to three of his friends to be raped when she was only fourteen years old. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a man I want my son with. Not even for a minute or two, let alone this long. So, if I were you, I’d just tell me whatever I want to know and get