“If she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t comprehend the enormity of what could have happened to her son, how is she going to understand that you need to hold them both a little tight right now?”
That sounded good and maybe he could get away with it, but Steele doubted it. He shook his head. This was Czar. They could bring anything to Czar—almost anything.
“I’m not holding her a little tight. Breezy’s a prisoner. The house is beautiful and includes just about anything she could want, but it’s still a prison because she can’t go anywhere without my knowledge or one of the others with her. She’s living her life in a glass bowl. She doesn’t realize that yet, but she is.”
“I had the feeling you bought that house with the idea that your woman would want to spend most of her time there.”
Steele nodded. “I knew I’d find her again. I had to find her again.”
“You should have told me she was the one for you.”
“I couldn’t. You would have sent me away. In any case, I’ve got her and my son, and I’m not losing them again.”
“There is such a thing as holding on too tight, Steele. You know you could lose her just by doing that. Women don’t like a man controlling them or for that matter, being jealous …”
“It’s not that. It’s never entered my mind, since she’s been with me, that she would cheat on me. Breezy’s too open. She’d tell me if she wanted to leave because of someone else. I don’t want to control her just because I could—and I could. She’d let me. I have to know she’s safe.”
“That’s an impossibility, Steele, and I think you know that. Safety is as big an illusion as control is. You’re going to have to get a handle on this.”
Steele nodded. “I’m very aware.”
Czar switched gears. “You know that while you were gone, I met personally with each of the men who want to join Torpedo Ink and had Absinthe talk with them. I like them. I like the idea of having others like us sticking together. We’ll take a vote after you have had a chance to vet them.”
“Have they given you their reasons for wanting to join us? I read everything Code had on them and they seem to be doing well for themselves. No other club harasses them. They followed protocol. What made them decide to ask us?” Steele asked, all business.
Czar knew he was asking if individually any had differed on their reasons. “The brotherhood,” Czar said simply. “They’re misfits the way we are. They might have a slightly better understanding of the rules living outside the schools, but how do any of us fit anywhere? We can’t. We never will entirely. If they’re part of us, they have more brothers. They have a place to come to where they’re welcome, brothers who understand them, places to bring their women occasionally. We’ll have their backs. It adds to our strength.”
Steele nodded. It made sense. Torpedo Ink was a closed community. Every member had been tortured as a child. They’d been trained to be assassins. They’d been trained in the art of seduction. They knew all kinds of ways to kill or seduce, but their rules, rules they’d made as children and lived by, weren’t the same as those of everyone else in the world. Half the time they didn’t even understand the way the outsiders thought. Those trained in the other schools would feel the same way, and they needed a home. A community. Brothers at their back.
“I talked to Fatei, and he wants to stay with this chapter,” Steele said.
Czar nodded. “He’s a good man. He’ll make a good brother. We’ll give him his patch before we patch over the others if the vote goes that way. They’re coming in Friday night with their women to party with us. Alena has the food under control. We’re set, but I’d like you here. You’re the only one now who hasn’t signed off on them. I want you to really check them out, Steele. Your opinion matters. You see things I don’t. Let Darby babysit Zane at your house or bring him to mine so you and Breezy can come.”
Steele sat back in the chair, his heart doing that strange pounding again. Split them up? Zane in one place, Breezy in another? The idea of spending an evening with his brothers, relaxing with his woman sounded like what he