He got with the program and did the same. Rubi too.
The others were a lost cause.
I forced myself to clear my plate.
Eventually, Cam noticed, and his gaze raked over me, distant but warm. His mind was elsewhere, but he saw me.
He always did. “You’re right. We need a plan. But before that, we need an objective. It’s not enough to know we’ve got to stop them trafficking. Stop themassassinatingEmbry. We need an endgame too, or this shit never stops.”
“What do you want, Cam?” Embry spoke for the first time since he’d gingerly lowered himself into a chair. An empty plate sat in front of him. “If you could have any resolution, what would it be?”
Cam had answered these questions before. Many times. And it was always a variant of the same.“I want my family to be safe. And I want my conscience clear.”
But the world was different now. He wasn’t alone anymore. He loved Alexei. He loved me.
And he wanted more.
Cam leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I want to wake up in the morning and know that everything I care about is real. That it’s fucking permanent and no one else I love is gonna get hurt. But we’re a long way from that, so what Iwantisn’t important. This club, this table, is more than me, so I ain’t gonna talk. I’m gonna listen.”
“To who?”
“Every fucking one of you.” Cam pointed his fork across the table. Mateo was in his firing line. “You first. What doyouwant?”
Mateo fixed his gaze on Cam. Something simmered between them that made my muscles bind. Mateo was a live wire, but Cam had always handled him so well he’d never boiled over.
But Cam was a live wire too. A born leader, but still human enough that the right trigger could detonate him in a heartbeat.
Mateo took the pin from the grenade.
How, though? He wasn’t in love with Cam’s sister. Hadn’t secretly kissed his kid brother after a Smuggler’s Beat gig in Bude. He wasn’t Embry who likely still wanted to murder the entire underworld and not give a fuck about the consequences.
So what the fuck was it?
Not knowing, combined with Alexei’s absence, made my skin crawl as Mateo shifted in his seat and shrugged. “I got nothing to say.”
Cam snorted. “Okay.”
He shifted his attention to Embry, who pushed his empty plate away and wrapped an arm around his abdomen. “You know what I want. Sambinis. Crows. I don’t give a fuck. I see that cunt’s eyes in my sleep, and he’s got to fucking die. Let them come for me. Use me as bait. I don’t give a shit. They need wiping off the face of the earth.”
“I ain’t using you as bait,” Cam snapped. Then his features softened. “And I’m not down for mass murder. It’s not who we are. If it was, this shit would be done by now. Easy. But I hear you. When the time’s right, you’ll get your shot at McGif, whoever the fuck he is.”
“Butch Crow has to go too,” Nash said. “Or we’re gonna fight this trafficking war for another ten years. Cam’s right. We can’t kill everyone, but those two are non-negotiable.”
Rubi set his fork down. “They’re like ants, though. We cull those two, who’s to say more of these fuckers don’t come down from fucking Winterfell or whatever and we have to do this shit all over again?”
More blood. More violence. I didn’t give a fuck for me, but the cost of it weighed heavily on Cam. He didn’t like killing people. Didn’t like thinking about the ripple effect of death. I agreed with Nash’s assessment, but Rubi was right too. There had to be a better way.
A way that didn’t day by day, hour by hour, destroy the first man I’d ever loved.
He finally looked at me. “I need you to speak.”
I knew that, and for once, I could. My heart was heavy, but my chest was clear. “We aren’t genocidal maniacs. Some hits are necessary, but we couldn’t slot a hundred men even if we wanted to, and that’s on the assumption that the whole nest stands with Butch Crow. Rocco doesn’t. And he has friends. Brothers. We might not have as many enemies as we think.”
Embry shoved his chair back and left the room. His departure was abrupt enough that I figured I wasn’t the cause.
Mateo’s gaze followed him.
“Go,” Cam said. “I’ll catch you up.”