knives to cut us or whips, so open wounds. It was the worst nightmare possible for a boy like Steele. He felt responsibility, even when he was just very little. Something in him needed to help all of us.”
Breezy’s stomach churned and she pressed a hand to it. She couldn’t imagine Steele as a little boy in those conditions, let alone surrounded by wounded or dying children.
“Sometimes they left dead bodies down there with us for a few days to teach us a lesson. I was never certain what the lesson was, but it added to Steele’s distress and sense of guilt. He’s so protective now, I can’t imagine how that trait will manifest itself with you and Zane. He’ll go crazy trying to keep you safe. The fact that one of our worst enemies has his son has to be killing him right now.”
Breezy sighed. She knew it was killing her, and the fact that Steele was forced to do horrible things to get information for them was making it worse. She hadn’t been able to protect either one of them.
“If Absinthe can get truth out of people, why didn’t you use him?”
“Absinthe’s gift is extremely hard on him. None of us know how it works. Simple things, like pushing a suggestion into someone’s mind, are easy enough; forcing truth when someone is resisting can damage him. There’s levels of resistance and what we need now is too important—you can bet there will be major resistance. Absinthe wanted to come, but both Czar and Steele refused him.”
Breezy pressed her fingers to her temples. There was no saving Steele from his task. “Lana, I love Steele with everything in me, but there’s things I don’t know if I can handle. He’s pushing me hard and I have this inclination to give him whatever he wants, but I don’t know if I can give in about the club. I’m sorry if that hurts, because I like you. I like all of you, well, the ones I know fairly well, but that doesn’t mean I trust the club life.”
“It was unfortunate that you arrived when we were entertaining the Demons. That chapter has been trying to thank us for helping the wife of their president out of a bad situation. They brought women because they knew most of Torpedo Ink was single. I know Steele looked bad coming out from under those women but—”
“He explained that to me. I choose to accept his explanation.” Breezy hesitated and then took the plunge. “He had photographs of me on his phone. Dozens of them.”
Lana frowned at her. “That’s a good thing, right? He kept them because you matter.”
“Some of them were of us in very intimate positions. I had no idea we were being photographed. He never told me. He likes to have photos. I think he even needs it.”
“Does it matter to you?”
Breezy rubbed the pad of her finger over her lips. Back and forth. Thinking it through. “It doesn’t bother me to have the photographs or that someone he trusts is taking them. It bothers me that he needs them. I think he uses them to reaffirm that I care about him. That he’s my man, the only one I want. He shouldn’t need photographic proof, Lana.”
Lana shrugged. “We’re all fucked up in some way. You are too, or you wouldn’t be able to handle him. You know that’s true. Steele might not look as scary as Reaper or Savage, but no one, not one single person in our club, would ever be stupid enough to cross him. But you, Breezy, you stand up to him. You smile sweetly, and you somehow get him to see reason.”
“Steele’s pretty reasonable.”
Lana nodded her assent. “That’s true, in a fight, or argument, he’d never lose his cool. But with you, in terms of your safety and Zane’s, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Breezy took a deep breath and let it out, fighting a yawn. “I’m very tired and as soon as Steele is finished, he’s going to want to ride, isn’t he?”
“He’ll want you to get rest and eat,” Lana said and stood up. “What do you really need from here? Or want? We’ll bag it and go.”
Breezy stood too and looked around her. She didn’t need—or want—anything but her child back. She emptied the papers and photographs into a plastic bag and added the two small albums she’d already made up. “This is it. I have his birth certificate and Social as well as all