“Yes.”
“Why?”
Cam passed me a picture of a beautiful woman I knew to be his mother. “Because Saint is going to be somewhere else and I don’t want you out there alone.”
“I was going to take Nash.”
“Fuck, no.”
“Then I go alone. It is safer that way. Mateo is a strong fighter, but I will not need that if I can operate without worrying about him.”
“You’d worry about him? That’s sweet.”
“Do not be cute. It does not become you.”
“If you say so, mate.”
Cam’s soft grin was horrendously disarming. I studied the photograph in my hands instead. “Why are you looking at pictures of your mother?”
“I forgot her face.”
“You were close?”
He shrugged. “We tried to be, but I was my dad’s sidekick, so I was never home. River was her baby more than me. It killed him when we lost her.”
“How did she die?”
“Valium overdose. Saint found her. He tried everything to bring her back, but—” Cam shook his head. “She didn’t want to live. Losing my dad hurt too much. When Saint called me, I told him to let her go.”
Cam was an emotional man. An honest man. I wondered if this was the moment he’d cry in my arms, but he didn’t. He reclaimed the photograph and put it back in the box. “If anything happens to me, I need you to give these to River.”
“Why would anything happen to you?”
He speared me with a glare so dry it sucked all the moisture from my mouth. “Rocco told us Butch Crow wasn’t interested in fighting us, but I think he was wrong. I think the first truck run will be a dummy, to draw us out into the open. They don’t know who you are, but they knowme, even if we’ve never fucking met. They know I can’t live with trafficking.”
“So they seek to fight you first? Eliminate the threat? It sounds messy when they could just shoot you properly this time.” My words were cold, but my heart was an inferno of dread and rage, the ominous foreboding I couldn’t shift wrapping a tighter vice around my chest.
Cam pulled me down beside him.
I allowed it, sinking into his embrace, revelling in his warm hands as they dove beneath my clothes, sweeping my skin with love. “They already tried to take Saint out,” I realised distantly.
Cam snorted. “Yup. Rubi’s still pulling their plan together, but he’s already told me that. Reckons they must’ve come up with it on the road when they clocked Saint on the move with just you at his back, but they’re talking about it now. We’ve got our list. They’ve got theirs.”
“You?”
“Of course. And Saint. Mateo if they can find him.Embry, as they still seem to think your exploits are his. They aren’t too worried about Nash and Rubi.”
“They should be. I showed Nash how to blow up a building today, and Rubi is a clever man.”
“That ain’t news to me, apart from the terrorist-in-training part. But my point about the first trafficking run still stands. They know we’re going to hit it and they’ll be ready.”
“With an empty truck?”
“Nope.” Cam shoved the cardboard box under his bed. “It’ll be stuffed full of fighters, no doubt.”
“With guns?”
“Unlikely. Only one man had a firearm when they came for us last time.”