“Stay down,” Cam ordered. “We’ve got you.”
“Move,” Nash growled.
He pulled a knife from his boot and threw it, embedding it in the gut of the nearest Crow bearing down on us.
The Crow fell, but they kept coming and coming until I couldn’t see the fucking trees beyond them.
Butch Crow started to laugh, loud and maniacal, which confused the shit out of me, as rumour had it, McGif was the tapped motherfucker.
McGif. Still didn’t know who he was, but as I scanned the Crows flanking Butch, it dawned on me that he wasn’t here.He’s with the shipment.
Fuck. If they killed us all now, these kids were headed to the port and onto the ship, doomed to whatever brothel and strip clubs they landed in.
Sex clubs.
Dungeons.
Worse.
Acid rose in my chest. Still gripping my pipe, I slid a hand into my jacket and found the burner phone, switching the vibrate mode to silent. I thumbed wildly at the screen in the hope that it somehow connected to the last call I’d made. ToAlexei,and that whatever was about to go down he’d hear enough to find that fucking shipment.
Butch Crow stopped in front of Cam.
I slipped my hand free of my jacket and widened my stance. No one was hurting Cam before I was dead. That shit was written in blood.
Like he’d heard my thoughts, Cam wrapped a hand around my arm.
Butch saw it and laughed, the sound familiar, as if despite the fact we’d been fighting him foryears, this wasn’t the first time we’d truly fucking laid eyes on him. “I heard you were banging your brother, but as inbred as you Kings are, I wondered if it was your blood—the young one in Porth Luck. Pretty little shit, isn’t he?”
Rubi lunged.
Nash caught him, groaning in pain as he held Rubi back.
Cam’s fury was quieter. Silent, almost, if you didn’t know him.
But I knew him, and his rage was fucking deafening. Only protecting the rest of us kept him still. “What do you want,” Cam spat. “This is a trap, right? You wanted to fight us here? In the most obvious place?”
“I did.” Butch drew close enough to Cam that I smelt his unwashed clothes and stale sweat. “Never thought you’d be stupid enough to come, though. Told McGif as much.”
McGif. That fucking name. He wasn’there. I nudged Cam.Ask him. We’re dead to him anyway. Let him milk it.
Somehow, Cam understood me.
Or maybe he didn’t need to. We’d spent years rolling onto the same page and off again. Burning the book and starting again.
Either that, or it was so fucking transparent that stringing this out was our only chance that Cam didn’t need my silent instructions.
“Where’s McGif?” Cam said. “I wanted to see him again.”
“You didn’t see him last time. We made sure of that.”
“Why?”
“So he could operate under your radar.” Butch glanced at me. “We know how sharp this one is. Your eyes and ears. Maybe I should take them before I put a bullet in his skull.”
Cam solidified. I nudged him again.They have no guns. Firearms had never been our area of expertise, but Alexei had schooled me. No fucker here had a piece or at least one of us would already be dead, not surrounded by the Crows we’d put down with our bare fucking hands.
Not that it changed much.