If ever. Wars kill people. Perhaps it will kill you.
I did not mind that scenario as much as living without Cam or Saint. As much as watching one of them try to survive without the other.
Then finish this. Help Cam find the life he needs.
But then what? I could not leave him, of that I was certain, but without a war to fight on his behalf, where did I fit? In Cracker Delaney’s office at Kings Building Ltd? Gracing Cam’s bed? Drowning myself in the river with Saint?
The picture was not complete, and agitation prickled my skin. I did not understand how I had become a man who needed such things, but I did. For this. For them. I truly did.
With renewed impatience, I finished up on the iPad. Wiped it and cast it aside, following Nash’s stare as another wave of Crows arrived at their compound. To me, all bikers that were not the beautiful Kings looked the same. Dirty. Loud. Riding bikes that were a substitute for the inadequacies they had elsewhere. The rat Crow, Rocco, was an exception to that rule, but I did not see him, a fact Nash had texted to Cam a while ago, leading to Decoy’s dispatch to the home where his mother and twin sons lived. For some reason, worry for a family that was not his own had become something Cam could not let go.
“Do you know any of these faces?” I didn’t look at Nash, but I felt his heavy frown as he leaned forward.
“Not many. Reckon those lot are Rocco’s boys, though. I’ve seen them about.”
I studied the cluster of bikers he pointed at. They were younger than the rest, around Embry and Mateo’s age. Four, like Rocco had said, and they seemed agitated enough for me to believe they were not happy. “Remember them. I think we promised we would not kill them, no?”
“Rocco was worried about blow back. Retaliation if he got caught.”
“That is still a risk.”
Nash sighed and I wondered how he felt about the bloodshed that was heading our way. Of all Cam’s brothers-in-arms, he seemed the least suited to it.
“Are you okay?” I asked out of curiosity more than anything else.
Nash heaved another heavy breath. “I hate waiting. Rather just get it over with, you know?”
“Waiting can be good. Sometimes if you deliberate long enough, what you think you have to do is not there anymore.”
“We’re not deliberating, though, are we? We’re waiting for Armageddon.”
“It might not come to that.”
“It always comes to that, and I’m the one who’s gotta go home and tell Orla someone else she loves is dead at the side of the road.”
Cam. But then, he could’ve meant any of them. I didn’t see Orla much, and I’d yet to fulfil my promise to spend time with her, but her closeness to the entire council was hard to miss.
As was the fact that Nash’s love for her was entirely mutual.
The words to tell Nash this danced on my tongue, but new bikes appeared before I could speak and my breath caught in my chest, cold tension flooding me. I knew a leader when I saw one, flanked by a lieutenant I assumed to be the mysterious McGif. The man who’d stabbed Embry.
My muscles solidified, but somehow I found the flexibility to lean forward, gaze narrowed, as I watched the men sweep into the compound and dismount. Registered the switch in the atmosphere. The heaviness in the air as the Crows, old and new, looked on.
“That is him,” I murmured. “Butch Crow.”
“He’s an ugly cunt.”
Nash’s heartfelt grunt almost made me laugh, but we were too close to the devil for humour to penetrate. I pulled out my phone and fired off a text.
Alexei:Are you listening?
The reply was instant.
Rubi:don’t distract me, bro.
Another smile threatened my lips. I swallowed it down and cracked the passenger door open, rattling Nash with the bitter wind.
His gaze widened. “What are you doing?”