It wasn’t enough to fix the fractured parts of me, but god, it helped.
19
Alexei
Life became a blur of communal living, clandestine sex, and the kind of honesty I hadn’t known was possible before these men became the sun and moon of my existence.
“Open it.” Saint propped a shoulder on the wall, his quiet presence in my desolate penthouse limning the entire building. “Unless you have skeletons in there.”
“I thought dead bodies were in your job description?”
“Fresh ones. I don’t hoard them.” He slid his gaze back to the door as he ate one half of a Twix bar and offered the other to me. “Is this where you kept Gianni Sambini?”
“Vaguely.” I took the chocolate. I did not want it, but bringing me sweet things to eat seemed to please him.
At my answer, though, his brows rose in a dark wave, green eyes glinting in the moonlight that filtered through the windows. I loved his curiosity. It looked good on him and I was addicted to his fierce intelligence.Where has this man been all my life?I was beyond bemused.
I was also, apparently, powerless to his silent persuasion. I unlocked the cupboard door, revealing the empty space. The skin between Saint’s eyes pleated, and I left him to it, knowing it would not be long before he figured it out.
My kitchen was dark and cool, the only sound the hum of the empty refrigerator. In my pocket, the burner phone I carried buzzed with a message.Cam. Unless it was another brother, but the only one who ever contacted me was Mateo, and he was off duty and catching up on some sleep.On Embry’s bedroom floor.Of course. Cam’s fearsome enforcer was hopelessly in love.
I slid the phone from my pocket. The message was from Cam, and my heart skipped, though his words were sweetly benign.
Cam:storm coming. ride safe.
I humoured him with a reply.
Alexei:Of course.
Hearing movement in the hallway, I pocketed the phone and looked up in time to see Saint entering the kitchen. In his arms, he carried the weapons and tactical gear I’d come to collect. His escort had been unnecessary, but welcome. Life had become hectic, and stolen moments I’d found with Cam had happened when Saint had been elsewhere.He does not want to fuck in a small house full of his brothers.I didn’t mind. The few nights he’d simply slept with us were precious enough.
As were the long moments it took him to find the words to address the armoury weighing him down. “You have enough shit here to stage a fucking coup.”
“That is what we are doing, no?”
Saint thought on that as he came closer and laid his bounty on the kitchen counter. Knives. A garrotte. A handgun with a silencer, and the modified crossbow I’d used to kill a man pointing a gun at Cam’s head. “I don’t know what the endgame is. We never finished that conversation.”
“This is not it? Destroying the Crows?”
“Then what? They won’t be able to function and they won’t know why, but that’s gonna leave a lot of bikers without a home. We gonna patch them over?”
“What do you think? You do not want Crows to become Kings?”
Saint scowled and it was glorious. “We could take Rocco, potentially. His closest brothers too. They’re useful to us. But most Crows are shitheads. I don’t want to share oxygen with them.”
It was a lot for him to say at once. I had noticed that it wasn’t just that his words got stuck before they came out, but that when they flowed, it did something to him that he did not like. He took a breath and clenched his fists.
I reached for the gun to distract him. “Do you know how to use this?”
Saint nodded and waved his hand in a half-and-half measure.
“A little?”
“Yeah. If I had to.”
“What about the others?”
“Cam can. Mateo too. The others don’t like it.”