Could he sound any farther from her? He thought she was condemning him and blaming herself for not being able to stop him. She shook her head and turned, sliding her arms around his neck. “I hate myself because I’m not capable of being you, Steele. I’m forcing you to do all the dirty work to get Zane back for us. That’s not right. It leaves you with the nightmares and gives me freedom to pretend I wasn’t part of any decisions.”
“You’re not going to have to pretend, Bree.” His voice was implacable. Cold. “You don’t have a say in this. I wouldn’t listen to you arguing with me about my decision. I’m going to take them both apart, and I’ll know every single thing they know about Zane’s disappearance. No one, not even you, the one person who might have influence over me, will be able to stop this. They took him from you. They have him somewhere. He’s alone. He’s terrified. I know what that’s like. They shouldn’t have taken my boy.”
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop them.” She whispered the apology, tears burning behind her eyelids. This was bringing it all back to him, it had to be. The murder of his parents. The things they’d done to him. What things? He had said torture. Rape. Repeatedly. She hadn’t asked questions; she didn’t know how long it had gone on. He’d barely scraped the surface and she hadn’t asked him questions because she could see it was making him sick. She’d done what she’d always done when Steele was upset: she’d turned his attention to her body.
Breezy pushed her forehead into his chest, desperate for air. “What if Bridges did sell him?” The idea made her want to vomit. “What if they’re doing to him the things that happened to you, Steele? Our baby. Why didn’t I have a gun? I should have bought a gun. I should have used that money to find a safer place, one they couldn’t get into.” She was babbling, and she couldn’t stop. The pressure in her chest was enormous, so much so that she thought her heart was shattering.
“Stop it.”
Steele’s low command startled her. His hand went under her chin and he jerked her head up, forcing her gaze to meet his. There was that arctic cold there and little else.
“This won’t help. You have to stop, Bree. You can’t go there. We have one job, and that’s to find him and take him back. I’ll kill anyone in my way. I’ll take apart anyone who can give me information and won’t when I ask politely for it. We will get him back. When we do, I’m going to beat the shit out of Bridges and Junk and then I’m going to kill them. I intend to make them both feel every pain you ever felt in your life, and if they hurt Zane, it will go twice as bad for them. There isn’t anything you or anyone else can say to sway me from that path. Ask any of my brothers, nothing stops me. No one stops me. I got the name Steele because I’m unbending. Zane is coming home. You hang on to that.”
She concentrated on his strength. Steele was unbending. That’s what he’d told her, and she could see that trait in him. She might not like it all the time, but right now, in this moment, she needed that from him. The Swords would make the mistake of taunting him, just as they would have had she been asking the questions. They would try to scare her with tales of what was happening to Zane, and she would fall apart. Steele wouldn’t. She could see that.
“You’re going to go with Lana—”
“I don’t need anyone but Lana with me,” she said softly. “Keep everyone else with you. Lana can keep us safe. She’s like you. I’ve seen it in her.”
Lana was beautiful, but more than once, Breezy had been uneasy in her presence. The woman gave off a deadly, dangerous vibe if you were around her for very long. During her time riding with the Swords, Lana was never far from Ice’s side. They rode together, and Ice made it known that no one touched Lana. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been good enough. The other members would have harassed her, touched her as she walked by, groping and stroking, making lewd comments, maybe even pulling at her clothing. No one did. That said it all about Lana.
“I’m sending two brothers. I won’t lose you, Bree.” He framed her face in his hands. “I’m a killer, Breezy. That’s who you have in your bed. I have more blood on these hands than you can possibly conceive of, and I touch you with them. I’m not losing you over this. Just know that. The bullshit you told me about how I would let you go if you wanted to leave is just that—bullshit.”
She knew better but it didn’t matter because she loved him. She loved him as the healer, the doctor who protected everyone and looked out for them. She loved this man, the one with the strength to do whatever was necessary to get their son home safely. No policemen could find him before they killed him or sold him. She knew that.
“When I was fourteen years old, my father gave me to one of his friends. I’d never been with anyone, and Bridges owed them a favor. I was what he wanted, and he gave me to him and walked away. He hurt me, Steele. He hurt me beyond anything I thought was possible. My father laughed when he tossed me on the floor in front of him, broken and bloody. He got up and got beer. They sat around the living room drinking while I lay in front of them.”
“Damn it,” he whispered.
“I tried to go to the cops. It was the biggest mistake of my life. My punishment was Bridges letting that man and his two friends do what they wanted with me short of killing me. I couldn’t get up for a couple of weeks and I was lucky I lived through the punishment. I know the police aren’t going to be able to help us. I know you have to do this to get our son back.”
His eyes never left hers as she told him what her father had let happen to her. Those dark blue eyes went so dark they appeared black, gleaming at her like a vicious cat’s, growing colder and more predatory with every word she said. His hands never wavered though, framing her face gently, his thumb stroking caresses over her skin.
“I’m telling you this so you’ll understand that I know what you’re doing is necessary and I’m ashamed that I can’t do it for us, that I’m leaving that to you. I’ll never blame you for something that you did to get our son back. Not ever.”
“You will give me the names of those men.”
Her heart clenched hard. Her man. He believed in vengeance. “Steele.” She said his name softly to deter him. “This is about Zane, our innocent sweet little boy.”
“This is about disgusting pedophiles who would hurt a fourteen-year-old girl or take a two-year-old boy from his mother by force.”
She’d never thought of her father’s friends as pedophiles, mostly because at fourteen, she was already so old in her mind she didn’t think of herself as a child. “Just get us our son back and we’ll call it good.”
“Give me their fuckin’ names, Breezy. I’m not asking again.”
She knew what his brothers were talking about now. She was coming up against the unbending man. He wouldn’t give her this, and she had to yield. She wasn’t protecting them, she just didn’t want Steele to put himself in harm’s way to extract whatever vengeance he felt was necessary on her behalf.
“Donk, Favor and Riddle.”
“Donk is Bridges’s sergeant at arms. Code’s been looking into him. He’s disappeared as well, so the general consensus is that he is with Bridges.” He dropped his hands from her face, but his arm locked her in place, a bar across her back.
“That doesn’t surprise me. You know Donk. He’s a brute and he likes hurting people.”
“You mean women. He likes hurting women and kids. He kicks them around. He does the same with the prospects because they can’t fight back. He’s a pussy, Bree. He wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in one of our schools.”
Breezy bit her lip to keep from arguing that point. Donk was a huge man. Yeah, he had a beer gut, but he was strong, and he liked to punch anyone who looked at him wrong. Quite a few members of the chapter were afraid of him.
“If Donk is with Bridges, then Favor and Riddle know where they are, and there isn’t a doubt in my mind they’ll visit them at some point. Favor, Riddle and Donk hang together all the time. What o
ne does, they all do.”
“That’s good, Bree. I’ll put Code on it.” He bent his head and brushed a kiss over the top of her head. “Take off now.” His gaze went beyond her. “Lana, I’m trusting you with what means the most to me.”
“I won’t leave her side, you know that, Steele.” Lana very gently caught Breezy’s upper arm and tugged her away from Steele. “Who’s the bait?”
“Master’s going in. Preacher will watch his back. You hang back with Bree until they tell you they’ve cleared the entire area. The others will be close if something goes wrong.”
Lana shrugged. “I can handle a couple of Swords idiots with my eyes closed.”
“I’m not worried about the ones we know are there. I’m worried about the ones we aren’t aware of. Don’t be cocky.”
“Steele, you know I’m always cocky. Got my brothers, don’t have a worry.” She blew him a kiss and started to step away, tugging on Bree’s arm.