Vengeance Road Page 33

  “Thanks,” Maestro whispered. He opened the door cautiously. “The one to our left? In the sitting room?”

  Steele nodded. He didn’t like any of the members of the Swords, but as far as he knew, they’d come to help protect a brother, which he understood. They weren’t there to hit his son or kill him. If he knew any differently, with a certainty, he would kill the bastards slowly. Instead, when Maestro pulled open the door, Steele stepped in and shot the Swords member three times, all kill shots.

  Downstairs, another high-pitched scream told Steele that Savage had found another shooter and was taking care of him. The wail was cut off abruptly and then started again, a jagged piercing cry of agony.

  “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.” Junk’s voice was raised. Shouting. Trembling. Fearful.

  “Distraction,” Maestro said into his radio as they crept down the hall and positioned themselves on either side of the bathroom door.

  At once a barrage of bullets tore through the window of the bathroom. Maestro and Steele counted. Five seconds later, Maestro tore open the door and Steele stepped into the bathroom and shot the Swords member three times, just as he had the one in the sitting room.

  Steele reloaded as he made his way down the staircase to the main floor. He knew Junk and Bridges were at the back of the house, pinned down by heavy fire coming from Torpedo Ink members outside. Savage was in the house, killing the others who had been with the two men, and making certain neither Junk nor Bridges moved from that spot. They were all waiting for Steele.

  Steele walked right up to the door of the kitchen and peered in. Bridges faced outward toward the pool. Most of the glass had been shattered, or shot out, but one big slab hung like a death trap, waiting for an unwary visitor. It swung macabrely, as if it were a living thing. Bridges occasionally lifted his gaze to it. When he did, he shuffled back involuntarily and then looked back over his shoulder to see if his son had witnessed his display of nerves.

  Junk faced the open kitchen door. The door hung on two of the three hinges and looked as if someone had repeatedly kicked it in a fit of rage. Junk was hunkered down behind a table, gun in his hand, trembling so bad the gun shook. The more the man Savage had taken screamed, the more Junk closed his eyes, wincing.

  Steele stepped right into the room and calmly shot Junk in the shoulder and, as Bridges was turning, did the same to him. Junk dropped his gun. Bridges somehow held on to his weapon. Bullets hit all around the man from behind as Torpedo Ink opened fire.

  Bridges cried out, a hoarse shout of protest, and lifted his arms to cover his face. He still maintained possession of his gun, but it was in his hand, almost forgotten. Steele smashed the barrel of his gun against Junk’s head as he swept past. Maestro picked up Junk’s gun. Steele kept moving straight to Bridges, disregarding the barrage of bullets.

  “Cease fire, cease fire,” Maestro instructed.

  Steele brutally kicked the gun out of Bridges’s hand. “You think you can hit my woman and get away with it, you piece of shit?”

  He had marked every bruise on Breezy’s body and he proceeded to use his steel-toed boots and his enormous strength to map every bruise right back on Bridges’s body. He did it fast and hard, giving the big man little time to react. He was careful to make it as painful as possible without letting him off the hook by killing him too soon.

  “You took my son, Bridges. That was really stupid. You knew I’d come after you. You had to know that. You just stay right there while I have a talk with junior. Your father is dead. Boone wasn’t all that good of a man, so I doubt many will mourn. Certainly not his family. You won’t have time.”

  He caught Junk by his hair and yanked him to his knees. Junk screamed as the movement wrenched his shoulder. “I didn’t do anything to Breezy,” Junk denied. “I didn’t do anything.”

  Steele stared down into his eyes. It was the monster staring at Junk, not Steele, and he was grateful for that monster. “No, you didn’t do a thing to Breezy, not to help her. You stood a few feet away while your father hit and kicked the shit out of her. You watched, didn’t you?”

  Junk didn’t answer, and Steele drove the toe of his boot into Junk’s bloody shoulder. Junk went sailing sideways, screaming to rival whatever was going on in the other room. Steele waited until Junk’s voice was dying down and the man was attempting to crawl toward the door before he caught him by the hair and lifted him back to his knees.

  “I asked you a question, Junk.” As always, Steele’s voice was low. Mild. In complete contrast to the steady, wicked blows he’d visited on Bridges and the kick to Junk’s shoulder. “You watched your father beat your sister up, didn’t you?”

  Junk nodded. “Yes. Yes, I watched,” he said, desperation in the pitch of his voice.

  “What were you doing while your father punched and kicked your sister?”

  Junk’s eyes widened in terror. He began shaking his head wildly. “I kept the boy safe. I held the boy.”

  “How were you holding my son, Junk? Like this?”

  Steele released the vicious grip he had on Junk’s hair and walked behind him. Junk fell forward to his hands and knees. Again, he let out an agonized scream as his hand touched the floor, jarring his shoulder. Steele caught him from behind, wrapping his hand around his nose and mouth, his arm around his neck, cutting off all air.

  “Is this what you did to my son, Junk?” Steele asked in the same mild tone. “Bridges? You recognize this hold? You teach him this is what you do to your own flesh and blood?”

  He ignored Junk’s wild thrashing, keeping his eyes on Bridges. His hands never wavered. He had completely cut off Junk’s air supply. His enormous strength allowed him to hold the man there while he stared at Bridges.

  Bridges shook his head and tried to get up. He was too broken and fell back down, but he didn’t look away. “Let him go,” he ordered hoarsely.

  “It’s not going to happen, Bridges,” Steele said. “I don’t feel in the least bit sympathetic. Not at all. The two of you hurt Breezy. Not just physically, but with the things you did to her. You would have sold my boy or killed him. Same with her. This piece of shit doesn’t deserve to live, and neither do you. The problem you have isn’t how you’re going to die, it’s when you’re going to die. Because both of you are going to die right here, today.”

  His tone suggested a conversation, nothing more, nothing controversial. He was merely explaining facts to Bridges. He waited until Junk quit fighting and went limp before he released him. Junk fell forward onto his face, gasping, wheezing and choking. Steele walked around him and then kicked him hard in the ribs. Junk shrieked.

  “It isn’t over for you, Junk,” Steele said. “You made her suffer. Both of you. I’m not okay with that.” He looked at Bridges. “Did you think I would be? Did you really think I wouldn’t come after you?”

  Bridges tried to spit. Blood and spittle trickled down his chin. “Thought I could get her to kill you.”

  “You were wrong. Breezy’s got more loyalty in her than the entire Swords chapter you belonged to. You chose your son because he was male. He’s weak.”

  Very casually, Steele walked right up to Bridges and started on him a second time, beating him, this time attacking his internal organs. He was thorough and systematic.

  “You’re going to get tired a hell of a long time before I am,” Steele said.

  A few minutes later, he left Bridges sobbing on the floor and started back over to Junk. Savage appeared in the frame of the broken door. “Thought I’d join the main event. The house is cleared. All cameras are removed, inside and out of the house.”

  Savage walked right up to Bridges, who was moaning and writhing on the floor. “Nice to see you again, Bridges,” Savage said.

  He crouched down beside him, caught him by his hair and turned his head to face him. “Steele was nice enough to allow me to join the party. He doesn’t mind beating the
shit out of you, but he can take it or leave it. Me? I love that fucking shit. I love to hurt bullshit men like you. Pussies. Crybabies. You kidnap little kids and sell them to perverts and you rape and beat young girls. I take that into consideration when I’m planning the proper retaliation. I like to see you suffer. It gets me off, you know. I’m already high as a kite from hackin’ Obe in the other room to pieces.” He took out his knife and slowly, one by one, flicked the buttons off the shirt Bridges was wearing. “Hold still. This blade is sharp. Wouldn’t want to cut you too soon.”

  Bridges shook his head in horror. Steele had always been the steady one. Savage was unpredictable. And he liked to hurt people. Everyone knew that. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was high from it. He got off on that shit. Steele was bad enough, with his dead eyes and ice-cold rage. Savage was a demon from hell.

  Bridges’s entire body shuddered. “Just kill me, you bastard. Get it over with.”

  “Where’s the fuckin’ fun in that?” Savage demanded.

  Steele was standing over Junk again, watching him dispassionately as he tried to crawl away. He reached down fast, yanked Junk to his knees, arm a bar across his throat, nearly crushing it with his strength, hand once again over his mouth and nose to cut off his airway. Junk’s body thrashed wildly.

  Savage walked over, leaned down and shoved his knife deep and then ran it up Junk’s belly like a zipper, opening him from groin to ribs. Intestines spilled out and slithered across the floor like snakes, straight at Bridges.

  The smirk disappeared from Savage’s face, leaving Bridges facing the devil. “Breezy is Torpedo Ink. She was always Torpedo Ink. She belongs to Steele. Zane is Torpedo Ink, and he belongs to all of us. You never should have messed with either of them.”

  “Fuck you!” Bridges screamed. “Fuck you both!”

  Steele dropped Junk right in the middle of what were formerly his insides and stalked to Bridges. He rolled him over and held out his hand. Savage tossed him the bloody knife. Steele tore the man’s jeans into strips, ripping them away, so that some of the rags hung from the cut waistband, but leaving Bridges’s bare skin and genitals exposed.

  “That can be arranged, you sick pervert,” Steele said. “You think I don’t know about what you did to the kids the chapter kidnapped? Boys and girls? You’re a sick fuck. You always were.” There was an edge to Steele now, as if his thin veneer of civilization was beginning to crack. “Everyone knew what you did.” Code had uncovered quite a bit about Bridges Simmons.

  “We don’t like your kind, Bridges,” Savage added. “You’re a pedophile. You like children. You know why? Because you’re so weak you can’t handle a real relationship. You have to rape children to get off.”

  Bridges shook his head violently back and forth. He was helpless, lying on his back, his body exposed to both men. They looked at him with utter contempt. Not as though he was human, but as if he were the worst piece of dirt on the planet.

  “You know those stories you told Donk and the others about the little boys and girls you raped? What you did to them? Got news for you, you fuck. You’re going to experience every detail,” Savage said.

  Steele stood up, went back to Junk and cut his throat. Bridges howled his need of revenge and sorrow. Neither man so much as blinked. Savage was laying out their tools to make certain Bridges experienced the things he’d done to kids. He had already been beaten until he couldn’t move or stand.

  They spent nearly two more hours with Bridges, making a point to the Swords, to every pedophile who might know Bridges. His screams and curses fell on deaf ears, as did his pleas and sobs when they got down to work with knives, making him very aware he would never be able to harm another child or woman. He had to watch and feel, but neither showed mercy, their faces grim and purposeful.

  As always, the Torpedo Ink members stripped after, down by the lake, the clothing and gloves going in a bag to burn. They washed off in the lake and then dressed again in the clothes Player provided before heading back to the vacation rental. The guns were broken down and would be disposed of on the way home, across several states. They had been careful in the house not to wear their own fingerprints. The key to the vacation rental had been mailed to them. The owner never saw Phil McBride, the man he’d rented to, and the key was to be left for the cleaning crew beneath the mat by the front door.

  Steele walked into the house, shocked that his hands were shaking. Not just his hands, his entire body. He hadn’t been in the least affected by what he’d done to Bridges and Junk, or the others, but knowing he was going to be meeting his son for the first time threw him. Torpedo Ink members were loading the truck and bikes, giving him a few minutes alone with his woman and son before they wiped down the house with their cleaner and put as many miles as possible between Lake Pontchartrain and them.

  Breezy sat in the rocking chair, Zane in her arms, eyes closed, humming as she rocked. The boy had his head buried in her neck, his little arms wrapped tightly around her neck. Steele stood just inside the doorway, his heart pounding and then settling to a rhythm he hadn’t felt in a long while. Contentment. Joy. He had experienced both those foreign emotions when he’d been with his woman.

  “Thank you, Steele.” Her voice came out of the gathering shadows. “You said you’d bring him back to me and you did. I don’t have the right words to tell you what it means to me. There is no greater thing that you could have done for me. No better gift.”

  Steele was silent for a long moment, drinking her in. Those green eyes. Vivid. Overbright. She’d been crying, but this time they were tears of joy and relief. She was looking at him as if he were someone special. Someone she looked up to. Adored. That adoration she’d given him before was back.

  “Baby, he’s our son. Mine too. There was no question I would get him back for us.” He tried for matter-of-fact. He didn’t want her thinking he was some kind of hero—and yet, perversely, he did. He loved that particular look on her face, the one that told him she believed there was no other man like him or as good as him.

  She smiled serenely. “I love you, Steele.” She brushed kisses over the top of Zane’s head and then began to ease him away from her, so she could turn him around. For a moment the boy resisted, his little arms tight around her neck, nearly strangling her.

  “It’s okay, baby,” Steele assured her.

  Breezy insisted, turning Zane in her arms so he faced his father. She wrapped the boy tightly in her arms. “This is your daddy. Remember I told you all those stories about him? How brave he is? How he will always look out for you? Your daddy took you away from the bad men. They’ll never be able to get to you again.” She kissed the side of the boy’s face several times.

  All the while his son—his son—stared at him curiously. He recognized those eyes. He looked into the mirror daily and saw them. There was no denying Zane was his child. He had his jawline. The eyes. Breezy’s wild mop of thick tawny-colored hair. It wasn’t like his own dark hair wasn’t thick and wild as well. Most of the time he didn’t bother to try to tame it. He might cut the sides shorter, but the top of his hair was always left longer, and it went every which way, just as Breezy’s did. Their son inherited from both. Double the thickness, her color and thick curls and waves everywhere. Zane was so beautiful, Steele wanted to weep.

  The two stared at each other. Steele let him look his fill. The little boy reached out a hand, and Steele leaned down, so he could touch his hair. Evidently, they were thinking the same thing. “Did they hurt you, buddy?” he asked.

  Zane nodded, his eyes narrowing a little as if the memory made him angrier than scared. “The bad man hit me. Mommy said don’t hit.”

  That little voice turned Steele’s heart over.

  “He has bruises all over him,” Breezy said. There were tears in her voice, and she buried her face in the mop of curls on the top of Zane’s head.

  Steele’s gut tightened and the monster in him
roared. Bridges had paid for his crimes. Junk had as well. They wouldn’t be coming back to threaten or harm Steele’s family, and there was satisfaction in that.

  “Come here, little buddy,” Steele said gently. “Let me hold you for a minute. I want to see how big you’ve gotten. Mommy gave me lots of pictures of you, but you’re so much bigger than those pictures.” He wanted to lay his hands on every bruise and try to ease any pain.

  Zane’s eyes lit up. “Pictures aren’t big.”

  The boy didn’t pull back when Steele brushed his hair out of his eyes. Very slowly, so as not to startle him, and extremely gently, just in case he put his hands on a bruise, Steele lifted his son from Breezy’s arms. His entire body reacted. Every cell. Every organ. This was his child. The meaning of that slipped, for the first time, all the way into his mind. Before, he’d been careful not to think too much about it, because that way led to disaster. Now that Zane was safe and with them, Steele could let the reality slide into his brain. He’d never been more emotional.

  This was his son. He’d made him with Breezy. He might not be good at telling her he loved her, but it was the stark, raw truth. Having a child with her was nothing short of miraculous. He wanted to crush the boy to him, absorb him through his skin the way he wanted to with Breezy.

  Zane put both little hands on his jaw, reminiscent of the way Breezy sometimes framed his face. He knew she must do that to their son.

  “So your mama told you I was brave, did she?” Steele’s gaze jumped to Breezy’s face. Slow color slid up her neck. She shrugged and tried to look away, but he didn’t let her. “She told you stories about me?”

  “Steele.” Her voice held embarrassment.

  “Baby, I fuckin’ love that you did that.” He moved his hand gently over the boy’s body, feeling the heat he generated reaching into his son.

  She frowned at him. Narrowed her eyes. “There is no need to teach him foul language.”

  “Got it. No more saying fuck in front of the boy.”