at all, you may need to head to Las Vegas to poke around. You might uncover something he can’t find online,” Czar said.
“No problem,” Ice agreed without hesitation.
Storm just nodded.
“Anything else pressing before we move on to finding Steele’s son?” Czar asked.
Gavriil nodded. “I’ve been contacted by a former schoolmate. He’s living in the Trinity area and he’s got about twenty others from our same school riding with him. They have no affiliations with any club, and they want to come in under Torpedo Ink. They all have residences and work in the Trinity area and want to stay there. They’re on their way and have requested a meeting with you.”
“Another chapter?” Czar said, speculation in his voice. “You know them? All of them? I imagine he sent names to you.”
“Our school wasn’t quite as brutal as yours, but our instructors did like to torture those of us whose parents Sorbacov particularly hated. I know most of those in their club. I can vouch for a few personally, but not all. I can give you the names of those I know well. They’re assassins, Czar, trained just as we were.”
Czar tapped his fingers on the table and looked to Steele.
Steele knew what that look meant. “Like us, I doubt they fit anywhere.” He looked around the table. “Input?”
“Could be trouble for us,” Reaper said. “The Diamondbacks are looking very closely at us. Pierce”—he named the enforcer for the Diamondback Mendocino chapter—“is no pushover. He saw right through us and knows we’re lethal as hell. Allowing twenty or twenty-five of us in their territory is one thing. Knowing we’ve got another twenty or twenty-five a day’s ride away is something else, particularly if those men were trained the way we were—and he knows we were assassins for our government. He can’t prove it, but he knows it.”
Gavriil had attended one of the four schools that had been a training ground for assets for the Russian government, although that really meant assassins for Sorbacov. All of the schools had been brutal in various degrees. The school Steele had attended had been the worst. Gavriil’s had been right behind it in cruelty to the children being raised and trained there.
“They’re lethal enough,” Gavriil said. “If they went after the Diamondbacks, the club would never know what hit them. They’d take them down one by one silently, and they’d have patience to do it over time just the way we would. They’d be in and out like phantoms and the Diamondbacks would never know who the enemy was.”
Czar had six biological brothers and Steele had been around them for a while now. He knew they had attended the other schools, but they were dangerous men, particularly Gavriil. If those asking for acceptance into Torpedo Ink were like Gavriil, they were trained in the art of killing. The Diamondbacks, Pierce in particular, wouldn’t like it, but it would be good for Torpedo Ink to have that kind of backup.
“The Diamondbacks are an international motorcycle club. They’re 1-percenters, outlaws, living their lives their own way. We’re here because they’ve given us permission to be here, but we’ve always treated them with respect and played nice,” Maestro said.
Keys nodded. “We tried flying under the Diamondbacks’ radar, but more than once now, we’ve inadvertently showed our fangs to their club, risking retaliation. It would be extremely dangerous to bring more attention to us.”
“On the other hand,” Savage began.
The others fell silent immediately and paid attention. Savage rarely offered anything to the table. He just listened most of the time.
“These are men like us with nowhere to go. They need what we have to survive. A brotherhood. A family. They need a leader. They need Torpedo Ink.”
That was the damn truth, Steele decided. Savage was right. How could any of them possibly fit into regular society? None of them knew the rules. They didn’t know how to behave. They’d been taught to kill to survive. They knew a lot of ways to kill, but few ways to integrate into society. They certainly didn’t know how to have relationships.
Ruthlessly he turned his mind away from the woman in his bed—at least he tried to. It was hard not to think about her lying there, curled up the way she did, into a little ball, as if protecting herself. The way she slept had always stolen his heart. He’d wrapped his body around hers to show her she was safe. She’d been so fragile and yet she really wasn’t, he was