Rubi blew weed smoke to the ceiling. “Been looking for Nash’s for years.”
Nash flicked a bottle cap. “Fuck off.”
“Children.” Cam thumped the gavel and glared, then swung his gaze back to Alexei. “I have plans for Decoy when he’s ready. We only kept him at grunt level so long because we were up to our necks in the kind of shit he didn’t want to know about. Things are changing and he can be as involved as he wants to be.”
“Choices. Yes. I know. The free world of outlaw motorcycle clubs.”
Alexei’s leer was more seductive than derisive. Cam licked his lips, an unconscious swipe of his tongue, and I smiled into the lemon balm tea Embry had brought me until Cam steered the discussion back to a topic that made the scars on my body throb and burn.
“We got eyes on Rocco yet?”
Silence cloaked the room. Rubi shifted in his seat and Alexei’s sardonic humour faded.
Cam sighed. “I’ll take that as a no. No one’s been to his mum’s grave?”
“If they have, they left it in the same shit state it’s always been.” Mateo drummed his fingers on the table. “Why do you want to find him so bad? If he wants to be in the wind, fucking let him.”
Cam’s molten gaze turned from chocolate to fire in the split second it took him to slam his fist on the table. “Saint almost died so his kids wouldn’t go into the fucking system. Then it happened anyway. He needs to take those boys back and build a life for them.”
“You want to be a single dad to a pair of toddlers, Cam?” Embry leaned back in his seat. “With no club when it’s all you’ve known since you were a teenager? No family because a psychopath broke into your mum’s house and killed her?”
Cam cringed, remembering the mess Rubi and Nash had dealt with in his absence. While he’d been at my bedside in ICU and I’d been floating on a cloud of morphine and yearning. Missing him. Loving him. “He still has brothers. We rounded up his mates and gave them work in the yard, remember?”
“It’s my job to mentor them,” Embry said. “So yeah, I remember, and they don’t know where he is either. But that doesn’t change the rest of it. Maybe he’s staying away because he’s not fit to be a parent right now.”
Cam was a reasonable man when his temper was placated, and no one was better at placating him than the good father. “All right. We’ll keep looking, but I’ll give him the choice when we find him, okay? Let us help him, or stay wherever the fuck he is forever. Happy?”
“If you are.”
The conversation moved on to things I didn’t care about. I drifted, a habit I’d yet to crack since a burning ceiling bracket had whacked me in the head and stomach. I thought about Rocco. About his mother, murdered by McGif as punishment for dissent from Butch Crow’s sick plans. About the rest of the Crows and the total annihilation they’d suffered at our hands, every brother half capable of exacting revenge long dead and buried. The rest scattered and broken.
Only the surviving members of Rocco’s crew remained: Folk, Ranger, and Locke. Jury was still out on Ranger and Locke, but I didn’t hate Folk. He’d rescued an injured fox from the side of the road and built a shelter for it by the abandoned hostel accommodation we’d resurrected to house the Crow refugees.
Still might be a dickhead, though.
But he had my attention.
“Saint?”
I’d lost track of the conversation. Everyone was staring at me, except Alexei. He didn’t look like he was listening either.
Used to my lingering habit of zoning out, Cam spoke. “Nash wants us to donate money to redevelop the Crow site.”
I raised a brow.Into what?
“A community hub,” Nash said. “We didn’t just take the cunt farm off the map when we blew it up; we took the home and livelihoods of innocent families. Figured if we give something back, it might stop the next generation wanting to fight us all the time.”
The Crow dynasty was dead. Alexei and Rubi had done their research to make sure there were no more vengeful nephews and their lunatic sidekicks floating around. But... it felt too easy. The disloyal Kings Cam had kicked the shit out of were in the wind—we’d lost track of them months ago—and... I drummed my fingers on the table and looked at Mateo. “How do you know you killed McGif?”
Nash sighed. “That’s not the topic, dude. No murder on Sundays, remember?”
I ignored him. Mateo shot me a frown that clearly wanted to know why I was only now asking the question, then glanced at Alexei.
Alexei shrugged. “We found his wallet. There was no photo ID, but there has been no activity on his bank accounts or phone since that night. We have no guarantees, but for the moment, the evidence makes us believe it was him.”
“Do you remember his face?”
“He did not have one by the time I reached him.”