“Alena.” Destroyer’s voice lowered another octave. “It’s all right. I appreciate you standing up for me, but this thing is very personal to me.”
“It’s personal to all of us. We always talk out everything, give every side of it, look at every angle—that’s our way. We vote, make a plan and then attack as an entire group, an entity. One. Torpedo Ink. You take on one of us, you take on all of us. It has to be that way. A long time ago, someone hurt Lana, really hurt her, and I couldn’t stand it. I decided I was going to exact revenge.”
Lana leaned toward Alena and covered her hand. “Baby, I love you so much.” She whispered it so softly the declaration was barely audible.
Alena’s blue eyes turned liquid, but she went on. “It had been drilled into me not to go off alone, or deviate from the plan, but I didn’t care and I did it anyway. The consequences were extreme and taught me a lesson I’ll carry on my soul the rest of my life. A young girl died as a result of my stupidity. We are safer and work better as a team. We have to be able to count on you at all times. And you have to know you can count on us.”
Destroyer nodded. “You didn’t have to tell me that, Alena. I know that wasn’t easy for you. It’s damn difficult to try to fit into a tight unit when you all have been together for so many years. I sometimes feel like I have nowhere to go.”
“You’re wearing the colors,” Alena persisted. “They mean something. Make them mean something to you like they do to us.”
“You said this was personal,” Savage said. “Tell us why.”
Destroyer looked around the table at the Torpedo Ink members, his brothers and two sisters, the ones wearing the same ink, bound together by something tighter, even, than blood. It occurred to Player that Destroyer said very little, and when he did, it was never about himself or his past. They all knew that, like theirs, his past wasn’t good. He wouldn’t have been in the schools if he hadn’t been torn from his home. He would have suffered torture and rape; they knew his sister had. He had carried out the work of an assassin. They knew he had been sent to the worst prison possible when he was only fourteen years of age. How did one survive that and come out intact?
Destroyer curled his fingers into two tight fists. He had massive shoulders and arms. Every time he moved, muscles rippled ominously beneath his skin. Clearly, he fought his natural inclination, which was to just walk out and stay on his own.
Alena tried again. “All of us have hit a wall at some point, Destroyer, where we felt we couldn’t keep going. It wasn’t that long ago that it happened to me. We were in a huge fight and I ended up on the wrong side of a knife. The stab wounds were deep, and I knew they were bad, that there was no way I was going to make it through. I welcomed death. I was so damn tired of fighting for sanity every day. Lana was there. I remember her voice, looking up at her, hearing her call to me, telling me she needed me with her, and I knew I just couldn’t keep going. It was all too much for me.”
Player watched Destroyer carefully, as did the other members of Torpedo Ink. They knew Alena, knew just how difficult offering any part of herself up to a virtual stranger could be, but she was doing it in order to try to save him, to make up for the grudge she’d held against him. The club members saw past her tough exterior. That had been so hard-won. She was soft inside and needed to protect herself.
Her birth brothers, Ice and Storm, could barely contain themselves, but she had every right to put herself out there for a brother. Player was proud of her, but like Ice and Storm, and probably all the others, he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and carry her off before she exposed herself. Before she cut herself open and bled for him. If Destroyer didn’t see what she was giving him, he didn’t deserve to wear their colors.
“You would never have sought out a club unless you were getting desperate. Unless, like I was, you were right there, saying, Enough. I was through waking up every morning to pain and memories I couldn’t take in a world I didn’t understand and could never fit into. When you didn’t fit with that chapter, you came here, because you’re like us. You see you in us. You have to take that leap, Destroyer, let down your guard with us, just like we’re doing with you. Let us in. Give us something so we bond together, and you’re part of us. We’re all of us one. Part of these colors.”