He needs us both. I love you.But the words didn’t come.
I jerked away from Alexei again, catching Rubi and Mateo in my peripheral as they sprinted towards me, shouting. In the distance, bike lights breached the night.
Cam.
I watched him near the final stretch of road, a van behind him. An SUV too. Russians? Brothers? I couldn’t tell. All I knew for certain was that he washere, finally. For me. For Alexei. It didn’t matter. I loved them as much as they loved each other.
Tell them. But there was no time to reach for my phone. No time for anything except the certain death of a man who didn’t deserve it.
I backed away from Alexei, spinning from his reaching hands, and darted to the smashed-in entrance door.
Rocco St John was nothing to me and I wasn’t anyone’s hero, but I couldn’t watch him burn.
27
Cam
It happened in slow motion. I roared towards the open gates, Saint and Alexei in my sights, safe and whole as the warehouse burned behind them.
Then Saint darted away, leaving Alexei screaming in his wake, and disappeared into the flames.
I ditched my bike, hurling myself from it, and charged forward on foot, boots heavy on the wet tarmac, arms pumping, laser focused on following the first true love of my life into the hellfire this night had become.
Saint, you fucking idiot.
I ran harder, pulse ripping through my veins, lungs burning, but I didn’t make it past the gate before Decoy threw himself in my path.
The hot, ashy ground met my knees and chest, breath slamming from my lungs.No!I fought his hold. “Get the fuck off me!”
But Rubi piled on top of him, pinning my whole body to the dirt, only my fucking eyeballs left unrestrained, stretched open and fixed on the accelerating blaze.
The explosion came from within me. Then more fire burst free of the crumbling warehouse, lighting the sky, toxic smoke billowing, flames bursting from the blown-out windows.
A scream tore from my chest. I thrashed, rage and panic morphing me into a crazed beast. I fought and fought, tasting dirt, but more weight piled onto my back, a knee to my spine—Decoy. An arm at my throat—Mateo.
I’ll fucking kill them.
And in my head, I did. A thousand times. But I didn’t break free. I just watched as the warehouse burned with Saint inside, feeling every lick of fire against his warm, colourful skin.
“Kill me,” I choked out. “If he’s dead, you gotta kill me too.”
As I spit the words, a crash sounded in the disintegrating structure of the warehouse.
The roof caved in and a howl of pain pierced the air. Pain that was mine.
That wasours.
Alexei.
I pulled my face from the ground, jerking my head to the side. Alexei was on his knees, Viktor restraining him, but he wasn’t fighting like me. He was catatonic, staring, unseeing, at the disaster unfolding before him.
He needs me.
But I was trapped by the weight of my brothers. The weight of my fuckinggrief.
I stilled. “Let me go.”
The fight in me was gone.