“Let’s go home, honey,” she reiterated.
He looked like he’d fought a battle. “It’s going to happen again,” he said. “What happened tonight. I don’t even know what triggers it. One minute I’m completely into what’s happening and the next I’m gone. I wake up and I’m in the middle of a couple of women and they’re crawling all over me, all over Storm, and I don’t even know what I’ve said to them.”
“You’ll be safe with me, honey. Now that I know what happens sometimes, I can find ways to get you out of it.” She framed his face and leaned in to kiss him. Her heart ached, was so heavy she could barely stand it, but she knew it wasn’t nearly as heavy as his.
She was never going to convince him that he wasn’t to blame for the things that had been forced on him. They’d both have to live with it. She kissed him again and then pushed his jeans into his hands while she found his motorcycle boots.
NINETEEN
Spread out, cover the entire area. We can’t let him get away. Czar spoke telepathically, the way he’d done all those years ago in the school in Russia. His team was on the move, running lightly over rooftops and through alleys.
He’d been a very young child, no more than five or so, when his father told him stories of wolf packs hunting prey through the winter in the deep snow. How every member of the pack was needed and could be counted on. He’d learned how the older ones would sacrifice their lives in order for the younger ones to live. He had been greatly influenced by his father’s stories.
His father had always said wolves were intelligent. They used their brains, and the brain was the most valuable weapon they—or people—had. He’d talked about teamwork and applied it to their family. Cooperation, and how, when they all worked together, they came out ahead. Coordination, utilizing one another’s strengths, how even the youngest could contribute meaningfully.
Czar never forgot his father’s advice, or the many stories he’d told. After he’d been taken to the school, where he’d quickly realized he was going to die along with all the other children, he’d decided to find a way to fight back. Wolves were in it for the hunt, for the long haul. They were endurance hunters. Patient. His father had made him aware of his brain as a great tool. He’d known the wolves used their brains, and he’d begun to teach the other children he trusted, the ones he could see would fight no matter how badly used they were, to utilize the way of the pack.
He had assigned the children specific tasks based on their age, gender and ability they were required to work on. It hadn’t been difficult to get cooperation. They’d been naked, in a freezing basement that had been turned into a dungeon, and they’d all needed to believe there was a way to survive. Each had specific intuitions, and Czar had given them drills to do, over and over, to work on the skills they would need to survive.
In the beginning, he had only shared with a couple of the children that they would have to kill their tormenters in order to escape. They would have to do so without ever having suspicion cast on them, which meant stealthy, patient work.
He’s running, heading down the hall toward the master bedroom. Ice, are you in position to round him up? Reaper asked.
Reaper had been so young, just a little boy, when he’d become Czar’s trusted weapon. He never hesitated to stalk and kill, and that was the kind of right hand he needed. Reaper had been only five, but he’d been able to move through the vents without detection, and he’d never hesitated when he’d had to finish off one of the worst.
Then there was Reaper’s younger brother, Savage. He had been so traumatized when their older sisters had been murdered trying to stop the brutal pedophiles from taking the two boys. The boys had returned, bloody and in bad shape, only to find their sisters dead on the floor of the basement. Savage had become . . . something else. Worse, he’d been taken by some of the cruelest of the pedophiles running the school, and they’d begun his training. They’d worked at shaping him into a being who craved seeing the marks of pain on flesh. Who needed that just to survive and even more to be aroused and enjoy a woman.
Czar knew, from experience, that when a very young toddler was subjected to training from that early age, and it continued until they were in their early twenties, there was no going back. It was always there. Instincts. First reactions. Need. Savage was damaged beyond repair, but he was a weapon always to be counted on.
In position, Ice replied. He’s going to run right into the room with me. I see him now, but he doesn’t see me. He’s pulling out his phone, thinking it’s safe to relax now and call for help. He isn’t certain if anything is real or not.
Let him make the call, Czar advised. Whoever he calls is part of this ring.
Then there was Ice and Storm and Alena. Czar sighed. The three had been brought to the school because they were unusually beautiful children. The boys were twins. Sorbacov, the man behind the murders of those opposing his candidate, had been a sick, sadistic fuck who, for political reasons, had to keep his proclivities a secret. He’d married, had children, but he had gathered the cruelest like-minded pedophiles around him, those with criminal histories, and had given them a banquet. No one had expected any of the children to survive. The moment Sorbacov had laid eyes on those three little ice-blond toddlers, he was never going to pass on them.
That had been one of Czar’s darkest moments. He had almost given up, knowing what was in store for those three babies. Knowing it would be worse than bad, the way it had been for Reaper and Savage. Sorbacov would fixate on them, as would the most brutal and depraved of the vile criminals running the school. The more the criminals had been given free rein, the more they’d thought up to subject the children to. Czar hadn’t been much older, and like the others, he’d been powerless to stop the adults—until he thought of his father and his wolf-pack stories.
Even as very young toddlers, Ice and Storm had fought hard to protect each other and their baby sister, Alena. Czar had known then that they had what it took to join his pack. As small children, they’d been helpless against the predators running the school, but once he’d taught them to become predators, like he had Savage and Reaper, they’d become very good at what they did. Too good.
David Swey, the hot dog vendor, had been tailed after he left his home in Graton and traveled toward Occidental. He had gone straight to the mansion that had been previously owned by Walter Sandlin, where Czar’s adopted son Kenny had been held since he was a young boy. Swey had waited for someone, peering at his watch over and over, clearly spooked by the creak of the branches against the windows.
It was the perfect environment for Ice and Storm to create an atmosphere of fear. Czar never understood how they did it, but they had some kind of psychic ability to utilize the weather. The wind, the clouds, even lightning and thunder. Right now, the wind was moaning and crying, dashing those branches against windows so that they scraped and shrieked against the glass.