Mateo didn’t need telling twice. He slipped away, his footsteps light on the hardwood floors. Cam watched him go, concern pinching his eyes, but he was still raging with Mateo for something, and the disquiet in my gut grew deeper roots.
He turned back to me, and fuck, even when he was a million miles away, his gaze never got old. His dark eyes swept me, less subtle since Alexei had lit the fuse beneath us all. He didn’t care if Rubi smirked. If Nash grew wistful as he watched us, dreaming of the love he wanted for himself. Cam fuckingdevouredme, and I let him.Take me. All that I am, it’s fucking yours.“Where are you at on this?”
His voice caught me off guard. The question. The expectation that I could string a coherent sentence together. But my answer, when I found my words, was absolute. “We need to destroy them. Everything. Their manpower, their morale, their financial capacity. In every way we can, we need to burn these motherfuckers to the ground.”
Rubi banged his fist on the table. “Amen.”
Nash concurred.
Cam held my gaze, sucking me in again, his molten heat taking me hostage. He nodded, just once, but it spoke a thousand words.
We were going to war. Again. And as usual, there were no guarantees we’d make it out alive.
* * *
Cam
Alexei didn’t come back. I tried to convince myself there was no way he’d overheard my conversation with Mateo and done a bunk, but my brain wasn’t in the mood to be kind. My heart believed he loved me. That he loved Saint. But the reality was I’d spent my entire adult life drifting from one doomsday to the next. Why would this be any different?
Lots of reasons. One of them is right the fuck in front of you.
Saint. He was in the garden of the three-bed semi I’d grown up in. My parents’ house. It had once belonged to the club, but I’d bought it out a few years back and chucked it on Airbnb. I’d made a killing, but money wasn’t everything.
I offered the key to Decoy, the leather chain decorated with a gold ribbon. “Merry Christmas.”
Decoy blinked. I’d lured him here under the pretence of him installing a new mantel over the ancient fireplace—which I still wanted him to do—but really, I wanted him and Ivy out of the damp-ridden flat they currently called home. He was a brother, and he deserved better. They both did. “Local agent handles the rent, so you’re safe even if you left the club.”
“That’s sweet, pres, but two hundred quid a month is daylight robbery. I can’t take that from you.”
“Nah, but I can force it on you. Make you sign a three-year tenancy agreement as part of your club membership.”
I was joking, but Decoy didn’t smile. He didn’t much, stoic motherfucker. And his deep gaze turned serious. “Are you doing this because you want me to be club secretary?”
“No. I still want that, but this ain’t contingent on it. It’s more, I want this place to have a family in it cos I know that’s what my ma would want. A real family, not city cunts just passing through.”
Decoy glanced out of the window. Ivy was halfway up my dad’s old and gnarly lilac tree, hanging the pink lantern Saint had bought her for Christmas. One day, I’d learn how he found the time for shit like that. Since operation Crow had begun in earnest, I’d barely had a minute to wash my damn clothes. “She’s always wanted a garden. She don’t have one at her mum’s either.”
“Then let her have this one. Ben too. I know you’re not seeing him right now, but it won’t be like that forever.”
“You reckon?” Pain filtered into Decoy’s flat gaze, and I hated his evil ex-wife more than ever. “It’s been nine months. She only lets me take Ivy because the little shit would escape and come find me regardless.”
I found a smile I didn’t own and plastered it on. “She’s industrious.”
“She’s a terror. Don’t deny it.”
“Met worse kids than her, mate. And she loves you. Ain’t nothing bad about that.”
Decoy hummed, lost in thought.
I pressed the key into his hand and left him to it, calling Saint to my side, where he was meant to be.
We hit the road, steering our bikes out of town and to the other side of the county, where Saint regularly disappeared to conduct his own brand of surveillance. I followed him without question. But I hadmanyquestions when we climbed a goddamn cliff to find Alexei already waiting for us. “The fuck have you been?”
He shot me a dry glance. “It has been twelve hours since you saw me last. Calm yourself, biker boy.”
“I am calm. Just confused. Did you shimmy out of my bedroom window?”
“Maybe. I like heights.”