Vengeance Road (Torpedo Ink #2) - Christine Feehan Page 0,1

tables and chairs, and the other side had several couches and armchairs. Sleeping bodies were everywhere. A woman picked up bottles and put them into a garbage bag, dumping paper plates in along with the other trash as she moved through the mostly naked bodies strewn around the floor. She glanced at Breezy but didn’t say anything. She kept picking up trash as if on automatic pilot. Breezy remembered what that was like. She could have been that woman.

She didn’t recognize any of the men that she could see lying on the floor or slumped in the chairs, and her heart sank. She paused by the bar, her gaze going from one face to the next. Half-naked or naked men and women were draped in chairs around the room or on the floor. Most snored softly, but one woman was busy going down on a man with wild blond hair and ice-blue eyes. Three teardrops were tattooed at the corner of his eye like ice drops dripping down his face.

He slumped in a chair looking almost bored, his eyes at half-mast as the woman knelt at his feet, her mouth busy while another woman kissed her way up his chest. Across from him, a second man who looked exactly like the blond, obviously his twin, watched, his fist around his impressive and somewhat intimidating cock. With a jerk of his chin, the one with the teardrop tattoos indicated to the woman kissing his chest to go to his watching brother. She immediately dropped to her hands and knees and crawled between the thighs of the other twin.

It was them. The right club. The men she had searched for. She’d found them. She recognized the twins and her heart kicked into overdrive. How could she not recognize them? They were gorgeous men. As cold as ice, but beautiful. The one with the tattoos, Ice had been his name, suddenly lifted his gaze and met hers. Her heart stuttered at the recognition she saw in his eyes.

She slapped the envelope onto the bar. “Give that to Steele.” She turned to go, her gaze sliding around the room once more.

At the sound of her voice, three women stirred in the far corner of the room, their sleeping bodies pushed aside by the man who lay under them. The movement drew her eye. He half sat, shoving at the dark hair spilling onto his forehead. It was thick and wild, a little out of control. He blinked drowsily at her. Her heart faltered. Stopped. They stared at each another, her stomach lurching.

Breezy threw dignity to the wind. She ran. Fast. She heard the sharp whistle following her, but she had already flung herself into her pickup and thrown it into reverse, foot stomping on the gas pedal. She pressed down hard, and the truck roared as it backed all the way through the rapidly closing gates. Men poured out of the clubhouse, she could see them through her windshield when she glanced at them, but they were mostly naked, and the gates had closed behind her with a loud clang. She was on one side, the side of freedom; they were on the other, those gates holding them in. For once, luck was on her side.

She backed straight into the street, thankful it was so early and there was no traffic. Throwing the pickup into drive, she nearly spun out of control as she overcorrected before straightening out and taking off toward Highway 1. She had a plan, just in case, and she was grateful she’d made it. Her entire body trembled, so much so it was difficult holding on to the steering wheel. She did so, her knuckles turning white.

Why did it hurt? He’d made it very, very clear she was nothing to him. Another club girl. No, lower than that. A whore. One her family pimped out. A drug mule. Nothing. She was nothing. She’d thought he was her world, and all the while, he’d been plotting to take down her family’s club. She’d loved him. He’d used her and then thrown her away, shattering every dream, every hope she’d ever had.

Her vision blurred, and she swiped at her eyes, furious that he’d made her cry again. That he could make her cry again. She’d cried enough tears over him. The liar. He was just like all the others in the clubs. Women were nothing to them. Nothing. They used them. Humiliated them. She’d been born into that life, but she didn’t