Mateo caught me. “You fucking drunk or something?”
Or something. I emptied my brain of everything but the task at hand. Left my heart in the mud to collect later.
I shook Mateo off, his touch like acid to my skin. “Shut the fuck up. They might have better surveillance now.”
We crept forward, scanning the horizon for guards and the looming buildings for security cameras. For long minutes, it seemed business as usual. Then a flashing red light caught my eye. A camera that hadn’t been there a month ago.
Three cameras.
Fuck.
I dropped low, signalling to Mateo to do the same.
He rolled to where I crouched.
“What?” he mouthed.
I pointed at the updatedexpensivesecurity system. “They got fresh eyes. We need to go round the front. Act like we’re regular gawpers driving past.”
“In what? They’d spot the van a mile off.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
I fired Nash a text, then we backed up before veering off piste to the rocky cliffs that surrounded the Crows’ nest. Below us, the sea pounded, waves crashing, the roar deafening to me. Despite that, it was a calm night.I hate it. I couldn’t say why, I just did, as if I remembered being held under water, then left for dead at the side of a forest lake.
You don’t remember. You don’t know if it even happened.
But I did. I felt it. I didn’t need the stray page of a nameless social services file to tell me.
“Bro.” Mateo touched me again. “Keep going. If we twoc a car, we can take the scenic route back.”
“Don’t talk like a fed.”
Mateo’s amber eyes gleamed in the moonlight. He said nothing else and let his hand slip from my shoulder, but his distraction method worked.
We pressed on, leaving the cliffs behind and emerging onto the seafront. We pulled our hoods up—we wore no club colours—and schlepped inland until we came to a quiet street, narrow and residential.
Keeping a sharp eye out for doorbell cameras, I pointed at a nondescript hatchback that was old enough to hot-wire.
Mateo nodded and slunk closer, jimmying the doors with a tool he drew from his back pocket.
It took seconds. He opened the driver’s door and got in. I slid in the passenger side and we drove away, as subtle and silent as it was possible to be with a car that didn’t belong to us.
The streets didn’t belong to us either. Slouched low in our seats, Mateo drove like a grandad, slowing only a touch when we reached the front of the Crows’ compound.
He eased us past, keeping his gaze ahead as I stared with mounting disbelief at the dozens and dozens of bikes parked outside. At the sheer number of men milling around their yard, clustered around firepits and outdoor heaters. “Fuck.”
“What?” Mateo shot a glance to the left. His gaze widened. “Damn. Who the hell are all these fuckers?”
I shook my head. I had nothing. “Nash.”
We’d left him alone with a van full of suspected Crow puppets. If he was caught by muscle we didn’t know...
Fuck.
Mateo cruised along the street until we were out of sight, then hit the accelerator and burned back to where we’d left the van.
My heart was in my throat. I didn’t want to purge my soul to Nash, but I loved him.