Czar nodded. “Let’s take a vote on whether or not to bring them here for a trial.”
Steele knew the vote would go through. He actually liked the idea of having another chapter, men trained as they’d been trained in the art of assassination and warfare. If it came to war with the Diamondbacks—and that was always a very real possibility—Torpedo Ink was outnumbered. The Diamondbacks would have an endless army, just as the Swords did.
Financially, they’d broken the Swords. The money had been earned from trafficking, and Code had siphoned off every penny from every local chapter as well as international ones. They’d taken out a number of members in a massacre, as well as the president, Evan Shackler-Gratsos. Before they’d killed him, they’d hit his personal bank account as well as every one of his businesses. Code had made certain the money couldn’t be traced to their accounts. Torpedo Ink was wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. They were trying to spend the money wisely, using it to establish themselves in Caspar, with legitimate businesses. They tried to do business with locals as much as possible. Czar wanted their club to have a good reputation.
There was no 1-percenter patch on their vests. The local law enforcement didn’t believe them, but that was okay. No one could prove anything against them. They wanted to keep a low profile and fit in with their community. That was the plan—and the hope.
Steele glanced down at his watch. For the first time, he realized he wanted out of a meeting, so he could get back to Breezy, even if it was just to watch her sleep. It had been so long. He had made up his mind he would never have a woman of his own again. He’d had her, the right one, the only one, and he’d lost her. The ache in his chest hadn’t ceased, not from the moment he’d put her in a car and watched her go.
She’d been crying when she’d left him. Sobbing. That had torn out his fucking heart, but there had been no way he was going to risk her life. He’d known the war was coming and her father would never forgive her for being with him—even though her father had handed her over to him to incur favor. At first, after she was gone, he couldn’t stand another woman touching him. Then, no matter how many women blew him, desperate to feel something—to get relief from the agony of dreams waking him nightly with a raging hard-on that wouldn’t seem to go away.
The vote was unanimous to bring the others in, if they were suited for Torpedo Ink. That didn’t surprise Steele in the least.
“All right, Gavriil, let them know to come up for a meet,” Czar said. “Anything else?”
“There’s the mandatory run with the Diamondbacks coming up. We can’t forget we have that,” Preacher said. “It’s a couple of weeks away, so no worries yet, but if we don’t find Steele’s boy in that time period …”
“We have to,” Steele said. “He can’t be left with Bridges, you all know what he’s like. He’ll hurt him. He likes hurting anything smaller than him.” Bridges was Breezy’s father, and he was the type of man to kick a sleeping dog just to hear it yelp. He’d done so numerous times and laughed as the dog had turned tail and run away from him.
“You want to tell us what happened, Steele?” Czar invited.
He’d known the question was coming. These were his brothers—and sisters. They would risk their lives for him. For his son. They were silent. Patient. Just waiting for him to give them any kind of explanation. If he didn’t, they’d still help him. He knew that.
“She’s my Anya. My Blythe. She always was. It wasn’t some bullshit white knight, rescue her thing. You know my … appetites. The women in that club were always up for anything.” He stopped and shook his head. “Let’s just say, I thought having them would be a way to get through rubbing shoulders with those sickening men. They weren’t anything I really wanted, but they were bodies and they were willing. Then I saw her. The first time I laid eyes on her I was a prospect and she was the daughter of a fully patched club member. There was no going there.”
He couldn’t help shoving his hands through his hair, betraying his agitation. “I watched her, though. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t have to tell my body to react. It was there. One fucking look at her. She was it for me. I thought it was just sex. I just wanted her because she looked like an innocent angel among all those she-devils, but …” he broke off.
“She was different,” Lana agreed.
He shot her a grateful look. That was Lana, always ready to back one of her brothers.
“She was very different. I watched her closely over that first year and the next. Talked to her every chance I got. Her father used her to cement deals with the scum they did business with. She’d come back battered and bruised and he didn’t seem to mind. I minded. I started figuring out ways to kill the bastard and I should have done it. Eventually, I made it known I wanted her. I made certain her father knew. He wanted in with you, Czar, so he offered her to me.”
Czar nodded. “I thought you took her to keep her from having to do any more drug runs or be given to Bridges’s friends.”
“That too, but it really was for me. I just didn’t want Bridges to know how much she mattered to me. It wasn’t safe for any of them to know. I had her for a year. Best fucking year of my life.” He looked down at the table, the pain in his chest that had been there since that car had driven away, taking her from him, increased in strength. “What I didn’t know was her age.”
He dropped that bomb right on them. He had to get it out fast. They hunted pedophiles. They weren’t men to tolerate any kind of sexual predator.
“What are you saying?” Code asked.
“She was fourteen years old when her old man gave her to one of his friends. She was fifteen when I was a prospect perving on her. She was barely seventeen when her father gave her to me.”
There was a stunned silence. It was Czar who broke it. “That’s impossible.”
“She was just shy of seventeen by a few days,” Steele repeated. “I didn’t think to ask her age. Her eyes said thirty, but I should have asked. I should have fucking asked her. I still would have taken her, claimed her for my old lady, but I wouldn’t have touched her.”
He hoped that was the truth. He doubted it though. A part of him was certain he wouldn’t have been that strong, not with her sleeping in his bed, and she would have had to out of necessity, in order to keep her safe from everyone else. He cleared his throat. These were his brothers and sisters. Men and women ready to lay down their lives to help him. “That’s not true. No way could I have her in my bed and not touch her. I lived for that woman.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Czar asked.
Steele knew why. Every man at the table knew why. Without Czar none of them would be alive—at least none of the original eighteen. He had to make certain Czar lived through the coming war with the Swords.
“You would have sent me away with her,” he admitted, making the truth more about Breezy and less about Czar.
Czar sighed and pressed his fingers to his eyes, looking weary. “What tipped you off to her age?”
“There was a younger girl there, she was about fourteen or fifteen. She had a mop of red hair, freckles and bright green eyes. I think they called her Candy. Do you remember her? Bree was worried about her, worried the club would start using her the way they used Breezy. She said it had started for her around the same age. That made me wonder how old she was. I didn’t think she was a kid. She never acted like a kid. Not how she talked. Not the way she thought. Not the way she took care of everyone. Not the work she did. Not in or out of bed. I didn’t have one inkling, so when she told me how old she was, I nearly fell through the fucking floor.”
He would never forget that moment of complete shock. He was guilty of statutory rape. Worse, he was everything he hated most. He was in a relationship with a teenager and it was a very sexual one. He was demanding of all sorts of things and she gave him whatever he wanted. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead.
He’d felt sick, bile rising. “I couldn’t look at her and I knew I had to send her away immediately. I’d planned to, to keep her safe from the Swords when war broke out, but now, I needed to keep her safe from me. I was also extremely angry. Angry at everyone for not knowing. Mostly at myself for not even asking, but her as well, for not telling me. A part of me knew she wasn’t to blame, she probably didn’t think anything of it since her own father had turned her over to his friends at fourteen, but I couldn’t get past the rage.”