Twisted Road (Torpedo Ink Book 10)
by Christine Feehan
Book 10 of 10: Torpedo Ink
July 7, 2026
There’s no escaping the pull of desire in this novel in #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan’s Torpedo Ink motorcycle club series.
When Czar shut down Lazar “Keys” Alexeev’s undercover mission, that should have been the end of the story. Instead, Keys is back in the middle of a nowhere town where a petite redhead with a pouty mouth and a ready smile drives him to distraction. He’s not sure why he’s breaking all of Torpedo Ink’s rules to spend more time around a woman who’s not even his type. He can’t get her out of his head—and now he’s facing the consequences.
Lyric Johansen doesn’t like to look anyone in the eyes, but Keys’s gaze is the one thing keeping her from a full-on panic attack. Her instinct to charge into the fray and help the biker fend off a group of vicious thugs has led to the most insane situation she’s ever been in: trapped in a coffin with a man she barely knows, minutes away from a painful death.
Survival means staying focused. But when Keys kisses Lyric to snap her out of losing it, he’s the one who ends up falling apart. He’ll need to unleash hell to get them out alive.
If only to get another taste….
Amazon
Keys and Lyric wake up in a pine box after getting knocked out by some bad guys. Keys has been undercover in Lyric's small town for a few months, and they have gotten to know one another a bit. But waking up in a box on their way to be slaughtered is not a good day.
Keys knows he can get them out alive but first he has to calm her down from having a panic attack, which isn't easy since he's just found out she's claustrophobic. He gets through to her, tells her to act unconscious and he'll do the rest. It almost works, but she's not known for taking orders or sitting idly by when she thinks she could help.
Now the bad guys are dead, another bad guy is waiting for confirmation of their death, they're both hurt and Keys has no way to get a hold of his motorcycle club members to help them. But his club, Torpedo Ink, does come for them when he can get word to them. Afterward, when the wounds are healed and Key and Lyric have time to themselves, they come to realize that they don't want to go back to being alone and want to make a life together. But Lyric doesn't know if she'll be enough for him to stay with her in the long run. It was fun watching these two learn how they fit together, even if Keys was way too bossy for my taste.
Keys makes a point of telling Lyric that he doesn't want to live without her. The first meeting with some of the other members of Torpedo Ink doesn't go as well as Keys had hoped because the guys don't think Lyric is the kind of woman Keys would end up with if he ever claimed one woman. There are some misunderstandings, and when Lyric meets Czar, their leader, he can see that both Keys and Lyric are meant to be together. All members of Torpedo Ink have special supernatural-type gifts. Steele is a doctor and can surgically repair injuries psychically. Someone else in the group is a human lie detector and Czar knows instantly if two people are meant for each other. They all have their own gifts in that way.
But the guys are all like family because they all went through something truly horrible as children. It made them killers, killers who go after human traffickers and pedophiles. Czar thinks that there's a human trafficking ring operating from the town that Lyric was living in when she met Keys. So, Czar and some of the others question her about what she saw and heard while she lived there. While she's not comfortable, she does her best to answer them. They know they have to go after the human traffickers and save whatever women and children they might have kidnapped.
While I liked the storyline quite a bit and loved seeing what some of the other characters have been up to, Keys is over-the-top bossy and pushy about what he wants to do with Lyric. She goes along with him because she wants to please him, which sat wrong with me on more than one occasion. I didn't love his character the way I loved some of the others, but it was a nice addition to the series.
Twisted Road is the 10th book in the Torpedo Ink series by Christine Feehan. I've read all the books, and they are best read to understand what the members have gone through since they were children. There's a lot of talk of murder, revenge, and sex in these books. But these are not bad people; they spend their lives saving people when they can.
I give this book 4 out of 5 sheep!
Mary Kirkland
Dark Thoughts Blog
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One
It
was rather ironic that Lazar "Keys" Alexeev had been undercover for
three solid months and not one incident had occurred. There had been no
leads to find. No criminal activity that he could sniff out, and he was
excellent at that. After three months of absolutely nothing, Czar, the
president of Torpedo Ink, his motorcycle club, had shut down the
mission.
It sure as fuck should have ended there, but like an
idiot he'd returned to that little nothing town in the middle of nowhere
on the pretense of getting his hair cut. Then he spent time there he
shouldn't have because he was breaking every rule Torpedo Ink had. Now
he was facing the consequences.
There was nothing like waking up
with a blinding headache in a coffin-sized box with holes drilled in it
so you knew there was torture coming. Hands behind his back with idiotic
cuffs he was out of in about two point three seconds. But the best-or
worst-was he was lying on top of another body.
Female for damned
sure. He'd know a female body if he were half-dead. His head was
pounding like a mother, so it was possible he was close. He'd been close
many, many times, and he was still alive. Mistake on their part.
Bashing him in the head and throwing him in a box with the intention of
torturing him later was just about the fuckup of all fuckups.
He
took a breath and let it out slowly, almost afraid of checking out the
woman lying beneath him. She was very slight, and that told him who she
was. He'd known her for that first three months and had been coming back
for an additional two-so five months. She wasn't his type at all. He
preferred women with tits and ass and lots of experience. He didn't give
a damn if they were married or not. They had taken marriage vows they
were willing to break, so what difference did it make to him? Pussy was
pussy.
But there was Lyric Johansen. She made no sense to him.
None. Zero. Nothing about her made sense. It wasn't that she didn't have
a figure-she did, mostly because she had that little tucked-in waist.
The rest of her was tiny. Dinky. She wore clothes that completely
covered any assets that she had. She was incredibly strong. She climbed
boulders and did all kinds of backpacking. Alone. He'd seen her a few
times in clothes she wore to boulder and hike, and they showed her
shapely legs and toned body. Mostly, she hid from the world in baggy
sweaters and far-too-big jeans.
She wore a cap or scarf over her
hair. That didn't make sense either. He'd only seen her hair once. Just
once. He'd gone to her shop early and had seen her through the window.
She had the thickest, reddest hair he'd ever seen. Sheets and sheets of
long, straight, glossy red. Not orange. Not blond red but a real, almost
ruby red. He doubted anyone, even a brilliant hairstylist like she was,
could get that color. It had to be natural. From the first time he saw
all that red, he'd wanted to drag down her panties and look to see what
she was hiding. But she was everything he didn't want or need.
Now
she was lying so still, he couldn't detect the rise and fall of her
chest beneath him. He knew that if she was dead, he was going to go on a
killing spree to end all killing sprees. He swore under his breath and
maneuvered his body in the tight space so his hips were cradled in hers
and he could press his ear to her chest.
"You'd better be alive, Wildfire. If you're not, this dumbfuck town is going to be razed to the ground. Wake the hell up."
To
his relief, he felt the slight lift of her chest beneath his ear. The
relief was ridiculous, completely out of proportion for a man like him.
He didn't care about much other than his club and fellow club members.
Even then, he was more of a lone wolf than anyone realized, even men he
considered brothers and his closest friends.
Women came too
easily to him, and his body was always demanding he indulge. And he did.
Sometimes several women in a day. He didn't care about them, and they
didn't care about him. He was good at what he did, and there was mutual
satisfaction-most of the time. Truth he never wanted to admit to himself
nagged at him-sometimes he was bored out of his mind. Maybe lately it
was more often than he was satisfied.
He didn't understand why
he'd come back alone to spend time in the town. Spend time getting a
haircut. Going to the country bar that made him grit his teeth at the
amateurish music that was often more enthusiastic than on key. But he
did know this particular woman was a pain in the ass, and he spent far
too much time thinking about her.
"Wake up, baby." He moved again
so his face could be directly over hers. It was hot as hell in that
box. He didn't like that she'd been out so long.
He could feel
the movement of the truck and knew they were on an unpaved road. It was
extremely bumpy, throwing the damn wooden coffin all over the back of
the truck. That hurt his head and likely would hurt Lyric's if she ever
woke the hell up. He was a man known for being calm in all situations.
He could explode into action when needed, but he did so thinking clearly
and sanely. If Lyric didn't wake up soon and let him know she wasn't in
a coma, he wasn't going to be so calm.
He bit at her chin. "Come on, baby, open your eyes."
Why
the hell had she come running out of her shop to save him? She didn't
show the least good sense. There were five of them, big mothers, armed
and showing they were willing to kill him. Hell, they hit his head from
behind with what felt like a baseball bat. Once he was on the ground,
they kicked and punched him as viciously as he'd ever been attacked-and,
sad to admit, it had happened often when he was younger.
The
idiotic woman, not more than five feet nothing, had come to his rescue
when she saw him being attacked. He remembered the determination on her
face, the fire in her eyes. He hadn't considered that she had all that
passion stored in her, but he should have known with her fiery hair and
the hobbies she chose to pursue. She might appear quiet, but after
seeing her play the part of warrior woman, he was more intrigued than
ever.
And she'd saved his life. He had no doubt in his mind that
the five men attacking him planned to kill him. She'd left the safety of
her shop and waded in like an avenging angel, hitting the nearest man
with a blow-dryer. A fucking blow-dryer. They'd overpowered her, hit her
in the head, and he'd seen her go down before one of them kicked him in
the head, and it was lights-out. He had no idea how long he'd been out,
but he couldn't map out the road the way he normally would have. He
wasn't too worried. Once they made their escape, he would find the way
home.
He needed to ascertain just how injured she was. He didn't
understand why they'd hit her so damned hard. She'd gone flying. They
were going to pay for that. He was used to the members of Torpedo Ink
having his back. They'd been doing so since they were all little kids
raised in that hellhole in Russia, but other than those men and women,
no one had ever stood up for him. It was unexpected. And puzzling.
Worse, it fucked with his brain when he needed to be clearheaded and
thinking about survival. His own survival, not some dinky woman whose
fault it was he was there in the first place.
"Wake up, Lyric."
He poured command into his voice. He was good at that. Very few dared to
defy him, men or women. Deliberately, he feathered his lips across hers
in a whispering, light rub, catching her faint breath in his mouth. For
some reason, his entire body tightened. Hardened. Demanded.
What
the fuck was wrong with him? Now he was so hard up he was going after a
woman who was half-dead? In a coffin? A flimsy one, but still, a
coffin. And Lyric, of all women. He tried to remember when he'd been
with a woman last. It couldn't have been more than a few hours earlier,
yet he was as hard as a rock at the first touch of her full, pouty
mouth.
Pouty. He despised that kind of woman. Manipulative.
Emotional. Whiny. Okay, he hadn't heard Lyric ever be any of those
things, but those full, pouty lips gave her away. He had fantasized far
too often about those lips wrapped around his cock. Which was insane. He
was far too experienced to think she'd know what she was doing. He'd
have to give her instructions. Tedious. But if he was being truthful
with himself, he'd dreamt of her until he'd left Caspar, his hometown,
and taken the ride to her nowhere burg, all the while telling himself
she wasn't the kind of woman he would ever go for.
For one thing,
it was obvious she was innocent. He wasn't about to waste his time on
some untutored pussy that he'd have to expend energy trying to teach.
Worse, she'd fall apart after and expect him to stick around. Innocents
were off the table. He didn't have much of a code when it came to sex,
but that was sacred. He'd never once broken that rule, nor was he ever
tempted to-unless it was now. With her. And he had no idea why. She was
worse than a pain in the ass.
Damn it. Why wasn't she waking up?
The asshole who'd hit her from behind had used some weapon Keys hadn't
seen from his position on the ground, but probably a baseball bat, just
like the one used on him. He'd hit her hard. Keys smelled blood. "Come
on, woman, wake the hell up."
Keys was born in hell and lived
there for years, but he had been given gifts that he'd taken the time to
develop. He could play any instrument and had an ear for perfectly
pitched music. Truth be told, that was what landed him here. Lyric
laughed often with her customers and with him. Her laughter was sweet
most of the time, but when she laughed at-or with-him, she had the
absolutely purest notes he'd ever heard. He found himself wanting that
laughter just for himself-and she gave it to him.
He had a major
affinity for wood. Any wood. He touched it and read its history. He
worked with wood, building beautiful things. Just touching wood could
bring peace to him, just as his musical instruments did. This coffin . .
. not so peaceful.
He and Lyric weren't the only ones who had
been inside that box, but the others weren't alive anymore. They'd been
tortured and then died in the makeshift coffin. The wood itself was on
the flimsy side. Whoever had constructed the box had done so with haste
and no pride in their work. That was good for him.
"All right,
baby, I'm telling you to wake the hell up." Because he wasn't a man who
felt fear. He'd lived through too much. He was a trained assassin and
had been since he was a child. He had nothing to live for, therefore he
didn't fear death. But he did fear for her. The pain-in-his-ass woman
who he couldn't stay away from when there was absolutely no sane reason
to keep her in his life.
"Your fault we're in this predicament,
darlin', so open your eyes." He dipped his head and locked his teeth on
her full lower lip. That damned lip he'd spent far too much time
fantasizing about. He bit down and tugged gently before feathering his
lips over hers again, just to catch her breath in his mouth.
She groaned. Tried to turn her head, but he wanted to see her eyes. Assess the damage.
"Look at me, Wildfire. Open your eyes and look at me."
"Not yet. I can't feel my arms. At all. I'm afraid to look."
"Open your eyes. You were hit in the head, and you've been out for a while. I need to know how hurt you are."
"Suffice
it to say my head exploded and my brains have leaked out." She murmured
the words, a whisper of sound that sent a ripple of heat through him.
That voice. When she was unguarded, like now, her tone played over his
every nerve ending.
"Good to know you'll rely on my judgment since you're admitting you have no brain at the moment."
Her
lips did that now-familiar moue he found himself looking for when he
was with her. That dimple that made him want to trace it with his
tongue. Lately, that had been often-too often. He'd broken every rule
his club had to visit her, and he still didn't have a clue why.
"Why
are you on top of me? I can barely breathe. Get off. I can't breathe,
and I can't feel my arms. They're trapped under me. With your weight on
top of me, I can't move them." Her eyes remained tightly closed, as if
she knew better than to examine the world around her.
"You can breathe, and you're unable to move your arms because they've gone to sleep."
The
coffin slid to the left and then pitched to the right, hitting the side
of the truck's bed, shaking them both up. The road was even rougher
than before. And steep. He felt her breath catch in her throat.
"That hurt you?" He detested that he couldn't examine the wound on the back of her head.
"My
head really does feel like it exploded. And I'm hot. I hate that my
arms are trapped, and you have to get off of me." She whispered it to
him like she was embarrassed. "I know this sounds silly, but I have
horrible claustrophobia. I don't like the feeling that I can't move."
That wasn't great news. "I'll get us out of here."
"Where are we?"
"At
the moment we're prisoners, and we're being hauled up a mountain,
presumably into the forest, where I believe our captors think they're
going to have fun torturing us."
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. "I can't say as I'm looking forward to that."
I
write every day and have done so since I was old enough to pick up a
pen. (I spent a lot of time getting in trouble at school for writing
instead of doing the things I was supposed to do.) Once I create my
characters, I try very hard to have them react to situations as they
really would. Sometimes I have preconceived ideas of what I would like
them to do, but they don’t mind me, because it would be out of character
for them. They take on a life of their own. Sometimes when I throw
difficult situations at them in the hopes I’ll get a certain reaction
and they don’t do what I want, I complain bitterly to my husband and he
laughs at me. Still, it is important to me to have them be real, not
perfect people, so they make mistakes we lesser mortals might make.
