Butch carried a zombie knife with a savage serrated blade. The man beside him a machete that had yet to draw blood. If they came for Cam, for my brothers, I’d kill them first, but it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
“Where’s McGif?” Cam repeated. “Running your shipment to the port, you sick fuck?”
Butch’s smirk intensified. He ran his tongue over his yellow teeth.Alexei would kill him just for being so fucking disgusting.
The errant thought calmed me, distracting me from the reality that there was every chance I’d never see him again.
“We’re not taking them to the port.”
I zeroed in on Butch again, blinking.
How much had I missed?
Damn. I wasn’t the one who zoned in and out. Recently, that was all Cam, but he was laser sharp as he glared Butch down.
Hyperfocused. “What did you do with them?”
Butch shrugged. “Seeing as you’re so keen on stealing our merchandise, I figured I’d save you the trouble this time round.”
He’s killed them. It was the obvious scenario, but it was too fucking easy. Kill them. Kill us. Where was the fun in that?
We were missing something.
And Cam knew it. He stepped forward. It took everything I had not to yank him back and cover him.
My jaw ached with the tension, my muscles drawn tight, every tendon crackling with the strain.
“What did you do?” Cam’s voice was a low rumble, the timbre so deep it shook my fucking soul. “Tell me. Go on. You might as well fuck with my head before you kill me.”
“That’s what I thought,” Butch said. “But it doesn’t feel right. All I ever heard from my uncle, and from Buchanan before you rolled him into a ditch, was how fucking clever you were. How far you were going to take the Kings when your dad croaked. But you’ve walked into this with your eyes shut and I’m wondering why. What is it, O’Brian? What is it you think you’ve got up your sleeve?”
Nothing, that I knew of. We’d taken the fight because we had to. It was who we were, our only saving grace that Viktor the Russian had agreed to back us, the lying piece of shit. There were no trump cards. Unless Alexei, by the grace of whatever deity he believed in, made a two-hour drive in ten minutes, we were fucked.
Cam said nothing, doing his best impression of me with his sullen stare.
Butch let loose a frustrated sound and barked an order at the men at his back. “Take their weapons. I want these cunts on their knees.”
Fuck, no.A man came for me.
I cold-cocked him. It was instinct, over before my brain caught up.
“Saint, no—”
But Cam’s warning came too late. Three men joined the other on the ground before Butch Crow led the bundle that tackled me to the dirt, knocking the pipe from my hand.
I was a wild animal. Always had been, but I was just a man really. Steel-cap boots hit my ribs and stomach, kicking the air from my lungs. Hands that weren’t Cam’s or Alexei’s, Mateo’s or Orla’s, grazed my skin and I lost my fucking shit.
Everything blurred. My fists hit out, bones breaking that could’ve been mine or whoever the fuck had their hands on me. Beyond the madness, I heard Cam shout. Rubi too. Then arms closed around me that I recognised. A warm body held me down.
Cam.
No.
Alexei.
Definitely not.
It was Nash, his agonised groan rattling my eardrum. “Stop. Saint. Please. They’ll kill him.”