I’d do it in a heartbeat. “You said it was more than Butch Crow wanting the trafficking routes back. What did you mean?”
Rocco’s gaze flickered between me and Alexei. “He wasn’t at your place the night of the attack. Sambini and the cartel have cut him off, so he doesn’t know Frank was killed by a mob hitman. He thinks it was the chaplain and he wants blood for it.”
I blinked. “Embry? What the fuck?”
A humourless laugh escaped Rocco. “We had a spotter on the ground the night that went down. All he saw was a dude smaller than the rest of you and he made five fucks out of four when we figured out it couldn’t have been Malone.”
Alexei pursed his lips. I couldn’t tell if he was amused or pissed that he’d lost the credit for two kills and a kidnapping he’d shown zero remorse for. “What is stopping you from telling them the truth now? Why let them think it was the Kings’ chaplain?”
Rocco shrugged. “Butch’s righthand was the one who shanked him while the cartel dude held him down. If they get distracted by other things, they might leave it at that.”
“They’re coming after Embry?” Saint’s voice was darker than death. He stepped forward and crouched at Alexei’s side. “And the cunt that stabbed him is still here?”
“Dude by the name of McGif. He’s at our table. Gunning for my patch, by all accounts, but I don’t give a fuck anymore.”
“What do you give a fuck about, dude?” I’d almost forgotten Nash was with us. In his own way, he was as good at fading into the background as Saint and Alexei. But he stepped forward now, a frown creasing his face. “If you’re not protecting your position, what’s this about?”
Rocco’s gaze shuttered with real pain, the deeper kind that I understood more than I wanted to. “My missus. She’s been gone three years and she didn’t have much time for the club. Thought it was macho bullshit until she realised we couldn’t pay the mortgage without it, but she’d cut my dick off if I let this trafficking shit fly. I wasn’t there when she died. I owe her this.”
“What about your kids, man? This ends you, they got no one.”
“Better that than some cunt who didn’t give a fuck.”
It happened like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. The transformation that took Alexei and Saint from the sharpest blades to young boys who’d been discarded like they meant nothing to anyone. It was fleeting in Saint, he’d beensoyoung, and briefer still in Alexei, the master of the mask, but I saw it. The moment Rocco’s words connected and his passage was safe.
They believe him.
More than that, they wanted to.
Fuck, I love them.
I blinked, snapping back to reality.
Alexei did too. “You have not given us enough. Just that Butch Crow still wants to turn a profit from a trafficking route that does not exist, and that he will try and kill a King if he finds the time in his busy schedule.”
That wasn’t fair. Rocco had revealed the name Embry wanted and his location, given up the fact that most of the Crows had no idea who Alexei really was, and showed us his fucking heart. But I let Alexei run free. He was better at this than we were.
Rocco sat up a little, desperation beginning to fray his edges. “The trafficking route does exist. Butch owns every road the Sambinis don’t give a fuck about, and he’s got all the contacts he needs up north. He doesn’t even need your territory anymore. He’s got access somewhere around Plymouth—bought it off the Albanians. It’s just logistics at this point, piecing it all together.”
I took a slow breath, digesting the mess of information and what it meant. My first concern was Embry’s safety, or at least containing him when he found out it really had been Crows who’d put a blade in his guts. But that aside, the picture was a world away from what I’d imagined. The Aldea cartel was gone and the Sambinis had washed their hands of the trafficking operation, but everything we’d survived to reach this point had been for nothing becausenothinghad changed. Same problem, different face. ACrowface, for fuck’s sake.
It’s not our turf. Let it go.
Fuck, I wanted to. I wanted my brothers to live to old age and not spend every waking hour fighting for a life that wore them down.
But I also wanted Embry to have closure. I wanted to look Alexei in the face and know I’d done every-fucking-thing I could to stop another child enduring what he had.
Fuck, Ineededto visit my parents’ grave and know they hadn’t died for nothing.
“There’s something else,” Rocco said when we collectively failed to answer him. “Cracker left behind a whole crew of brothers more loyal to him than they were to you. Some of them already crossed over, but you should know there’s more.”
“We do.” Saint lit a cigarette. “Would help if you gave me a list, though. Save me some time.”
“So you can smash their skulls in like you did Eric?” Rocco gave a dry half-grin. “Party line is he came off his bike, but given the state of Wheeler’s entire posse, I’m guessing you sniffed them out.”
The fog in my brain started to clear. I abandoned the pallets and loomed over Rocco. “They didn’t mention it?”
“Nope. And Butch doesn’t like them, so I can’t see them sticking with us if the nomads patch us over.”