with solutions that worked. His brain worked at an extremely fast speed and remembered details, right down to the smallest particular. Nothing got past him—until Breezy.
His body had responded to her immediately and worse, his heart. He’d never had that happen. Not once in all his years. Torpedo Ink was a closed society. They were whole when they were together and none of them—with the exception of Czar—had ever considered that anyone else might be brought into their very fucked-up family. He’d been thrown. Completely.
He’d known if Czar or the others were aware of how he really felt about Breezy, they would have insisted he take her and leave. He couldn’t do that. He knew that none of them worked away from the others. They functioned because they were together. Whole. They had tremendous gaps in their social education, but they could function and survive. Alone, they would fall apart. He couldn’t take the chance that things would go haywire with the person that mattered to him. He also couldn’t leave his family when they needed him. Every gun counted—every single one—when they were up against an international club like the Swords.
He knew Breezy better than she knew herself. He knew her insecurities. He knew her character. He knew every unselfish thing about her. He especially knew what to appeal to in order to keep her with him. This plan was more important to him than anything in his life had ever been because, like those dark days of his childhood, it was about survival.
Steele had found that once one had a glimpse of what life could be like when it was good, he couldn’t go back to dark, ugly days and nights. He had existed before Breezy. He’d thought he was free, so it was better than when he’d been a captive forced to do his master’s bidding, but it hadn’t been good. He hadn’t been alive. Breezy had changed all that. Once she was gone, he was back to—nothing. To empty. To an existence he didn’t want anymore.
Her fingers on his skin, her mouth on him, his body moving in hers, she’d taken away every trace of those earlier days, the nightmare existence he’d lived. The more he’d taken her, the less he’d felt that yawning abyss threatening to swallow him whole. Now he had her back and he wasn’t about to lose the most important war of his life.
He had a campaign already planned out. Each step. He couldn’t afford a misstep. It was Breezy. He didn’t know anything about love, not in the accepted sense of the word, but anything he did know—or feel—all belonged to her. He had a serious battle plan. He was going to use everything he knew about her, everything he’d ever been taught and everything she felt for him, to get his woman back. Nothing was going to be too big or too small in his campaign, but he wasn’t losing her a second time.
Now that he knew Zane existed, he would move heaven and earth to get the boy back, and he’d learn to be a good father. He was eager to be a father. He couldn’t imagine what that would be like, but already, just knowing Zane was out there, he felt connected. Bonded to him without ever having laid eyes on him. Just as he had a point by point plan to win his lady back, he had an equally well-thought-out plan to get his son back. And he would. There was no question in his mind. No room for failure in either endeavor.
Maestro and Keys carried the groceries up the walkway to the house. A fountain was on and the sprays of water erupting into the air looked like diamonds as they landed in the circle surrounded by a wide swath of white flowers set among dark green leaves. Stonework and wide white stairs led up to a landscape of plants, trees and small expanses of lawn.
Breezy let him take her hand and tug her up to the front door, which Maestro had left open for them. The floors were white oak and travertine. They gleamed as if they’d just been put in. Light fixtures and chandeliers were brand-new throughout the house. All the chandeliers were blown glass. Lissa, Casimir’s wife, was a very famous glassblower who had earned quite a reputation, first in Europe and then the United States. Of course, she had made a fellow Torpedo Ink member first priority. He particularly loved the chandeliers.