stop looking for an escape route. Your ride is gone.”
That jerked her head up. Her gaze clashed with Steele’s and then she ran to the window to look out. Her truck wasn’t there. She whirled around to find him close. He was so silent he could walk like a cat across a room, not making a sound. That had always freaked her out a little.
“Get it back, Steele.”
“Not happening, Breezy. You’re not running out on me in the middle of the night. You have every right to be angry. And hurt. But you also have to admit, you should have told me you were pregnant …”
“You didn’t give me the chance when you were throwing my ass out. You couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. You made it very clear I was nothing to you …”
“Damn it. I had no choice.”
“Step back.” He was too close, and she was still intimidated by the biker world and those in it. She’d been trained to obey the members or get beaten. Three years, most of it trying to learn to survive on her own, hadn’t been enough time to block out that programming. He was a threat to her and her body reacted with those years of conditioning. She detested that she froze, holding her breath. Waiting.
Steele immediately took two steps back, giving her room. “Breezy, we have to talk. You know we do.”
“I know we need to talk about getting Zane out of their hands. If that’s what you want to talk about, let’s do it. I’m ready. Anything else, there’s no reason.”
“Zane? You named him Zane?”
There was a note in his voice, possessive maybe, that scared her. He couldn’t have her son. He couldn’t. “The moment I have him safe, I’m taking him home.”
“The home they stole him from?” Steele shook his head. “What’s to say they won’t take him back?”
“They’ll be dead. If you don’t kill them, I will.”
“Breezy, you know the life. Baby, come on. You were born into that club. They’ll come after you. Chapter after chapter. Brother after brother. You won’t survive. Neither will Zane.”
He was right. He was so right. She pressed her fingers to her throbbing head. She was so terrified for her child she was almost numb. From the moment she’d rolled over onto her hands and knees, vomiting blood and hurting so badly, she’d been panicked for Zane in the hands of men who had were capable of great cruelties.
She looked up at Steele. He’d been the man she believed in. The one she thought she could count on. His betrayal was far worse than the club’s. She wanted to collapse into his arms and let him take care of everything, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t that girl anymore and she refused to be, even when she desperately needed someone. It had been a hard-won fight, but she’d made it. She’d learned to stand on her own and she wasn’t going back.
“He’s so little, Steele. He’s just so little.” Her voice broke and she pressed her fingers over her mouth, knowing her lips were trembling and he could see that telltale sign that she was about to fall apart.
“We’ll bring him back to you, Breezy,” he promised.
She wished she could believe him, but he’d lied to her for an entire year. She shook her head and looked away from his face, that face that had represented strength and safety to her.
Clearly reading her expression of disbelief, he cursed under his breath and stepped back again. “Go sit. Let Alena feed you. You can tell us where my boy is being held.”
She winced at his word choice, but the important thing was getting Zane out of her father’s hands. She could sort the rest after. “That’s the problem, Steele. They refused to tell me. I think they’re moving him around, but I don’t know for certain. They send me pictures, so I know he’s alive. I have a number I’m supposed to call when I have the information on you and then again when I kill you.”
“Where were you planning on going when you left here?” Czar asked.
She turned to face him. She’d almost forgotten the others were still in the room they were so silent. It was eerie being with so many people and not one of them made a whisper of a sound. Her gaze touched on them one by one. They looked grim. Dangerous. Very sober.
“I know them. I know their haunts. I know where they think they’re safe.