“We doing that, boss? Cos it’s been days and you ain’t said shit.”
“I’m going to say it at church later.” The decision solidified in my brain. In my fucking soul. “We’ve got too many reasons to obliterate these cunts for good and it’s time we got on with it.”
It was what Mateo needed to hear. He simmered down and nodded. “We going all the way?”
“As far as we can without mass murder.”
“Works for me.”
“Sure about that? I’m gonna need you on point, not losing your head when he gets under your skin. I need you to focus. Listen to me. Listen to Nash. And take a hard look at Saint before you listen to him.” I said the last part with a grin. Mateo knew as well as I did that Saint played his own game.
Mateo searched my face with his fiery gaze. “What about Alexei? You said before he’s not gonna be your old man, but what is he? I ain’t ever refused an order from him cos they’ve all made sense. What do I do when they don’t?”
“What makes you think that will happen?”
“I’m speculating. No offence, boss, but I’m not dick drunk on him. I don’tknowhim.”
“You knowme. I love that dude as much as I love Saint, but the club—my family—comes first. If you don’t believe that, one of us doesn’t belong here.”
I spoke mildly despite the irritation I’d carried outside still lingering in my veins. The kind that made me want to lay Mateo out on my front lawn. Because I meant what I said. The club came first. Blood in, blood out, it was my soul. Mateo’s gaze daggered me, but I was the motherfucking sword.
He blinked first, blowing out another breath that misted the cold air. “For what it’s worth, I like that crazy cunt.”
“Alexei?”
“If that’s even his name, but yeah. I like him. He’s battle-ready, pres.” Mateo followed up with a phrase I comprehended even less than when Alexei spoke Russian, which was mainly in bed, when we were fucking, so the sentiment was implied.
I had no fucking idea what Mateo was talking about in Spanish, so I latched onto what I understood. “You know his name. Every dickbag in the underworld does.”
“His car belongs to Teddy Jones. So does his flat. I checked.”
A weird sensation gripped my heart. “Why?”
“Cos Saint wasn’t going to. He’s as caught up in him as you are. Deck me if you want, but I was doing my fucking job.”
I wasn’t a man who hid his feelings. The few people I allowed to get close to me knew I wore my heart on my fucking sleeve. But despite the unease blooming in my gut, I stayed stoic, pushing forward. “You think a retired hitman would buy a flat inBristolunder his own name?”
Mateo shrugged. “I don’t know shit about that life. I am who I am, man. We all are. But...”
I stepped up to him, aware of the conversation behind me quieting. “Butwhat, brother?”
Mateo’s gaze shifted over my shoulder. I had no clue what—or who—he was looking at, and I didn’t care. I stayed in his orbit, marbleised, ready for whatever he wanted to throw at me.
And he threw it hard. “He told Ivy his birthday and where he was born. I looked him up, and the only Alexei Ivanov born on that day is already fucking dead.”
18
Saint
Church was excruciating. Cam called it at the fucking dinner table before anyone had put a fork in their food. And Alexei was MIA. He’d disappeared while Cam had been out the front and I’d washed dishes by the back door. No one had seen him leave, but somehow he was gone, and he’d taken any semblance of normality with him.
For a dude that was a-normal, that was some feat.
“We need a plan,” I reminded the room. The table. Where no idiot but me was talking, and wasn’t that just arse fucking backwards? “There’s too many Crows for us to pick them off.”
Silence. Cam stared into space. Mateo kept eye contact with the wall. And Embry, the good chaplain who always knew how to handle this bullshit, for the first time in his life had nothing to say.
No one was eating either. I kicked Nash under the table and picked up my fork.