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.”
Player didn’t take his gaze from Destroyer’s eyes. The man looked like what he was—a brutal, dangerous man. He could be charismatic if he chose, with his dark, mesmerizing eyes, eyes that were fixed on Alena’s face. There was despair there. Sadness. No way was Destroyer going to walk away from Alena’s plea. He knew how difficult it was. He saw inside her to that soft, vulnerable part she protected, and the man was bracing himself to do something he’d never done in his life—share something that was real and painful and buried so deep no one knew how much it hurt to give it up.
Destroyer shook his head and ran his hands through his hair again. “I’ve never really followed anyone in my life. Not since I lost my grandmother, but Czar and I have a history. If there’s anyone I believe in, it’s him. You lay down an argument I can’t exactly ignore, Alena. All of you have. I appreciate you fighting for me.” He managed a rueful smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
He sighed again. When he put one hand on the table, he closed his fingers into a tight fist. It was large, tattooed, scarred and had seen many fights. “We lost our parents early. Calina, my sister, didn’t talk for a long time after their accident.” He ducked his head, avoiding Alena’s eyes. “It wasn’t an accident. My father started drinking more and more, and when he did, he would get very angry with everyone. He didn’t like anyone looking at my mother. She was very beautiful.”
It was clear he didn’t talk about his family to anyone. He probably hadn’t talked about his parents since he was a child. He fell silent and no one prompted him to speak. No one became impatient with him. They simply waited. All of them knew what loss was. They’d all suffered enormous losses. It was entirely up to Destroyer if he wanted to give that piece of himself to the club.
“He flew into jealous rages, and he did that night. He shot our mother and then tried to shoot Calina, but I dragged her out of the room and ran out of the house with her. I wasn’t very old myself, but I just kept running until I made it to my grandparents’ house. They lived about three miles from us. He killed my mother and then himself. Calina was really just a baby, a toddler, and he shot our mother right in front of her—she had blood all over her. My grandparents took us in. They were good people. The best.”
He did look up then, but this time at Czar. “I get crazy sometimes, in my head. What the hell is wrong with the world? When Sorbacov’s men came for my grandfather because he was too outspoken against the new president’s policy, the soldiers shot him, but they beat my grandmother to death, again, right in front of Calina. I tried to stop them, and they found that very amusing. I took a beating myself in front of her. She was practically in a catatonic state after that. I thought when Sorbacov and his son were dead and I was free, all the killing would end, all the brutality, but it follows me. What’s the difference between someone who would kill a child and someone who would do the same to the elderly?”
Destroyer rubbed his fist in his palm in agitation. “A grandmother? They beat her? Robbed her? A woman with the guts to bring a ten-year-old girl to the United States and start a life? It’s bullshit. It just triggered something in me.”
“That’s understandable, Destroyer,” Czar said. “I can safely say, it triggered something in all of us. We’ll vote on it, but I don’t think you have much to worry about.”
Destroyer cast the first vote decisively in favor of watching over the elderly and finding out who was behind the robberies. It was unanimous, which didn’t surprise Player in the least.
“You’ll have to find out everything you can about the other robberies, Code,” Czar said.