Pain forced its way forward. My palm. My fingers wrapped around the blade, pressure a feather away from slicing my hand to bits.Do it. Watch your blood ooze out. You’ll feel better—
I released the knife. It fell to the dirt, leaving me with shredded leather to deal with. I dug a fresh pair of gloves from my pocket and replaced the destroyed one, feeling the heat of Mateo’s gaze as he backed off. “Saint trained you well.”
A guess, but a good one. Nash was easier company. Friendlier. Warmer. But he drifted, zoning in and out with his basic emotions.
Mateo was as raw as I’d believed when I first met him, but he knew it, and that changed everything.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You were Saint’s recruit. Like Decoy?”
Mateo grunted again.
I pushed my luck, because Ineededto, clearly. “Tell me why you don’t like me.”
“You’re a liar,” he snapped.
“So? This is not new.”
“You lied toCam.To Saint. I don’t give a fuck about anything else.”
This... it made sense. Not the accusation, but his motivation for making it. Cam’s brothers were loyal, blood in, blood out. At times, it made common sense elusive, but I respected it.
I was still intrigued, though. As hard as I tried, I could not think of a single thing that could’ve offended Mateo so deeply. “You will have to tell me this lie. I do not know it.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“True, but it would make this conversation shorter and that would please you, no? I am annoying you.”
“You’re annoying me on purpose. Embry does it when he’s freaking out that he’ll never ride again. You might think I’m gullible as fuck, but I’m not fucking stupid.”
I raised a brow and drilled a stare into the enforcer’s brain. He was far from stupid, but his personality type was simple. He fought hard but loved harder, and whatever the hell this was, his desire to fix it for Cam and Saint would override his rage.
“What’s your name?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Your name. And don’t say Alexei, or Teddy, or fucking Frodo or whatever. What’s yourrealname?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“Do I look like a magician?”
I shifted on the wet grass, forcing my gaze away from him and back to the Crow compound. It was quieting by the second.It’s almost time. “I do not understand. I told you my name—I told yourentire worldmy name. How did you not comprehend this?”
“I looked you up.”
Surprise jolted me again. I turned my head sharply. “Looked me up? Where?”
“Google. I searched the birth records of your hometown with the birth date you gave Ivy. I found the death record, so I know you lied.”
Dear lord. Tension, at least the tension from this ridiculous conversation, left me. “It is interesting that you assume it was Cam, the Italian mafia, and a Romanian cartel I told the mistruth to and not Ivy. So you believe I am an idiot as well as a liar.”
“If you’re a liar, I think you’re a lot of things, and Cam and Saint deserve better.”
I moved fast, in motion before I knew my own mind, striking Mateo like a snake, seizing him by the throat and jamming my elbow into the pressure point I’d need to kill him with one blow. “You do not need to tell me they deserve better than anything I can ever give them. I know this.”
Mateo fought me, but as fierce and brave as he was, he lost. Because Iwantedto kill him, and no man was stronger than that.
He fell slack, his amber eyes gleaming in the darkness. “I never said you didn’t love them.”