Page 65 of Flawed Revenge

Kate couldn’t argue with that. They were a family, all of them, and it was time to reunite them and then eliminate the threat so they could all finally be free and happy.

Chapter

Nineteen

March 19th

10:13 A.M.

Being trapped was fraying the thin threads of his control.

“You're not going to lose it on us again, are you?” Blade asked, his tone teasing, and Lion threw him a glare.

How could the man make jokes at a time like this?

Kate and Ariella were out there somewhere, Rose was, too, and they had no idea of their condition. Kate had been injured from the crash, there was a chance that her broken ribs had punctured her lung, she could have died, alone and scared, thinking that he’d let her down all over again.

That thought killed him.

That his girls might die thinking that he’d failed them. They deserved better than being dragged into this mess. His original reason for wanting to stay away from Kate had turned out to be accurate. If he had lost control of the beast of fury that lived inside him, he would have killed his girls without even realizing what he was doing. Those men he’d killed in the forest were nothing more than a hazy memory, and knowing he could have done that to Kate and a vulnerable baby made him break out in a cold sweat.

But there was another threat, one he hadn't realized at the time. And that was the very people he had trusted when he shouldn’t. Dr. Ridge Gardner had been able to hide his insanity until he had them in a glass cage, and there had been no clue that his mother was involved as well. Knowing that his girl had been watched all these years, so vulnerable, so unprotected, made him feel like an absolute failure.

Which he was.

If he wasn't, then his girls would have been protected all along.

“You know I'm not,” he snapped at Blade. “If anyone is going to lose it, we all know it’s Steel.”

“Don’t think you want to be taunting me right now,” Steel growled, but he didn't turn around from what he was doing. Which was working on bending the metal bars. It was clear that this cell had been built specifically with them in mind, because those bars weren't just regular metal. If they were, they’d already be out.

“Actually, maybe I do,” he grumbled. While he did want to pick a fight to feel anything other than crushing guilt, he also wondered if he could get Steel angry enough that it would kick up his enhanced strength a little, and the man could actually bend the bars enough for them to get through.

“Really?” Steel snarled as he spun around. “You want to waste time having an argument when my girl, when your girls are out there somewhere?”

“You think I don’t already know that I failed them?”

“If you know, then stop wasting time.”

“Cool off, both of you,” Voodoo piped up, shifting so he was between them in case they were going to take things from verbal to physical.

“He’s right, you sound like bickering children,” a voice spoke, and the attention of every single one of them snapped to the other side of the bars, the argument forgotten.

“Rose,” Steel whispered on an exhale, and then he was reaching through the bars to grab hold of the pretty redhead and dragging her close enough that he could kiss her.

Jealousy reared its ugly head inside him, and Lion felt that familiar tug on the leash of his rage, a plea to let it out, to punish anyone who upset him. While it was there, it wasn't the same as when he’d been out in the forest. This time it was duller, there but not urgent, able to be contained because he knew he was being ridiculous.

As badly as he wanted to be pulling his Katie-Bear into his arms and kissing her senseless, hugging his daughter and feeling her thin arms wrap around his neck, he didn't not want that same thing for Steel.

Besides, if Rose was there, alive and in one piece, standing on the other side of the bars, then it meant Kate was probably there too. Also alive and in one piece, even if she wasn't there right now.

“Are you okay, little ladybug?” Steel demanded when he finally drew back enough to take a breath.

“I'm not hurt. Are you all okay?” Rose asked, her gaze roaming Steel’s body, before shifting to move over each one of them.

“All okay,” Voodoo replied.

“And Lion is …?” Rose asked, watching him with concern.