his early photographs. I think Steele will like those.”
“Any favorite blankets or toys Zane might want?” Lana asked.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Breezy asked and hurried to the crib. She caught up the blue blanket with the rows of sailboats on it and added a stuffed dog that looked a little worse for wear. “He loves animals.”
“Great. Steele might lose his mind if there’s animal hair anywhere.”
Lana started out of the bedroom and Breezy saw her suddenly duck as something whistled through the air. Whatever it was hit the doorjamb, putting a very large dent in the soft wood. A baseball bat clattered to the floor and rolled. Stepping up to the door, she saw someone wearing a Swords jacket facing Lana with a gun in his fist. Even from the back, she knew it was a man named Scalp. She had nightmares about him. He liked to say he could take anyone’s scalp off faster than others could shoot, and she believed him. He and her father went way back. Lana was smirking and didn’t look in the least intimidated.
Breezy wasn’t just scared; she was terrified. She knew how cruel Scalp was. She did the only thing she could think to do. She flung Zane’s little blue blanket over Scalp’s head, counting on Lana to do the rest. Lana didn’t disappoint. She was on the man in seconds, taking him down, knocking him out and calmly talking into her phone. “Need you to pick up trash for us, Preacher, and bring him to Steele. Will leave the bag just inside the door for quick collection.”
She grinned at Breezy. “Didn’t see that coming. Master and Transporter took the prisoners to Steele, and they stayed because they thought we were safe in your apartment. I was supposed to call them when we were done. Preacher was outside, on the roof across the street, not that anyone, including me, was worried, but this is going to make Steele really lose his mind. He’ll probably put all eighteen of us on looking out for you.”
Breezy was still shaken. She admired the fact that Lana didn’t seem in the least bit upset, where she couldn’t even look at the man lying on the floor. Gingerly, she caught the edge of the blanket and yanked.
“Is that Zane’s favorite blanket, or yours?” Lana teased. “If it’s yours, let’s get him a new one. I’m not certain Steele’s going to want that touching his son after it’s touched him.” She kicked the man with the end of her motorcycle boot. Lana wore particularly sharp-toed boots.
“It’s mine,” Breezy said. “I paid more than I really should have. It was new.” That made her ashamed. Zane hadn’t had a lot of new things in his life.
Lana looked at her sharply. “Let’s take it anyway. That’s what washing machines are for.” She caught up the blanket and bags of papers and pressed them into Breezy’s hands. “Grab the stuffed animal. I’ll get the trash ready. I swear, when we were with the Swords, if I heard him bragging one more time about practicing scalping on his bedmate bitches, I was going to do a little scalping of my own.”
“It wasn’t bragging.” Breezy pitched her voice low, afraid the man would overhear her. “I heard my father telling Junk about it. He was laughing. He helped Scalp get rid of more than one body. He said Habit complained that if Scalp kept killing the women, they would go broke because they couldn’t sell them without a scalp.”
“That’s disgusting. I’ll make certain Preacher lets Steele know. He likes that kind of information.”
“Has anyone texted you? Are they making any progress at all?”
“You can’t hurry these things, Bree. It takes time to get reliable information. First, Steele has to scare the hell out of them without really hurting them. He has to get a feel for when they tell the truth and when they don’t. Also, there’s the whole bravado thing. The macho I-can-hold-out bullshit. We were tortured over and over. We learned to hold out and make it look as if we were caving. We had a lot of experience in that sort of thing. It makes it far easier to see when someone else is bullshitting.”
Breezy sank down into the one decent chair she had. “I thought my life was ugly, but there’s always worse, isn’t there?”
“We made it through,” Lana said practically. She caught Scalp by his jacket and dragged him across the floor to the front door. He