leapt out when he was satisfied and saluted Lana and then got into the cab. They waited for a minute.
“Preacher’s given the all clear,” Lana said aloud. She glanced at Breezy. “He’s lying up on the roof across the street with a rifle. He would have killed the Swords to get the boys out. They were safe, Bree.”
Breezy let out her breath. “I don’t think I have nerves of steel the way all of you do,” she admitted. “And you can all go for hours, days. I’m exhausted and need to sleep; I know I can’t because time is important. I wish I was more like all of you.”
“No, you don’t,” Lana said. “Never wish for that, Bree. You’re perfect the way you are. We don’t need more of us. We’re … flawed. Every single one of us. There’s no living on our own. We don’t know the first thing about how to live with society’s bullshit rules. Blythe works with us all the time, but we forget them. There are too many rules and they seem so unnecessary.”
The two of them walked toward the apartment building. “Like what?”
“Clothes. People make such a big deal about clothes. What others wear or don’t wear. Are they designer? Supposedly your clothes say things about you. It’s all bullshit. I don’t even feel good in clothes, they hurt my skin. And you have to know if a beach is swimsuit optional. You have to know if it’s topless or not topless. What’s the big deal?”
“Steele said you wanted to open a clothing store.”
“If we have to wear clothes, I’d like to choose what I’m going to wear. People are so hung up on what their neighbor is wearing or not wearing, they aren’t paying any attention to their own lives.”
Breezy laughed. “That makes sense.”
“And Blythe says people are really hung up about sex. Are they? Are you? She says they have so many inhibitions that sometimes they can’t even enjoy it.” Lana opened the door to the apartment.
It was one of those moments, after seeing Steele’s house, that Breezy worried that Lana would judge her for living in a really bad place. She always kept it neat, but right now, her things were smashed and broken. It was obvious to her that the two Swords members had been using her apartment to stay in while they waited for her, or someone else, to return.
“I’m not, no, but that’s because I understand Steele and his need to have all of you protecting us. He feels vulnerable, doesn’t he?”
Lana nodded. “It’s better if we’re close. No one can hurt us, or the one we’re with. It’s just so much safer and we can relax.” She shrugged. “I guess others don’t feel vulnerable. Blythe says that to most people, having sex is very intimate, an expression of love between two people and adding others around takes away from that, which I don’t understand at all.”
Breezy shot her a smile. She wasn’t the person to ask. She didn’t know about a good relationship any more than Lana or Steele did. She’d grown up in the Swords, and apparently they weren’t even like other clubs. “I don’t know much about that, having only had it with Steele, but I do remember feeling safer when his friends were close. It’s always intimate with Steele.” She was surprised that it was true. She did feel safer with members of Torpedo Ink close.
She stood in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips. “They really made a mess, didn’t they?”
Lana toed a broken chair with the end of her boot. “This was deliberate, honey. They were sending you a message if you came back here.”
“I got the message when they took Zane.”
“Let’s get your things and get out of here,” Lana said. “You can rest at the motel.”
Breezy agreed. She wanted out of there as fast as possible. “The photographs are in my bedroom in the top drawer along with his birth certificate,” she said and led the way.
TWELVE
Bruiser was a screamer. He was the one Steele was certain was going to break first. Dart’s eyes were all over the place, but he was fairly stoic. That wouldn’t last. Steele was far too good at his job. He had begun to study anatomy and the human body when his trainers had first discovered that he was exceptional when it came to healing. It hadn’t bought him any favors. Not one.