Saint reclaimed his phone and dropped it in his pocket. He started to say something, but nothing came out.
Sometimes, if I waited, he ground it out eventually, but others I knew whatever he wanted to say was stuck in the pit of his throat and it wasn’t coming out.
Tonight, his wisdom was forever lost.
I knocked a fist to his shoulder. Saint was a weird friend to have, but I was more grateful for him than he knew.
Even when he refused to leave the beach until I’d finished tapping out that damn fucking text message.
Mateo:i’m sorry i woke you up
I was sorry for a thousand other things, but it was all I had.
* * *
Three weeks.
I drove my knuckles into a Crow’s face, smashing his nose with a sickening crunch.
Blood exploded everywhere, splattering my skin. I curled my lip in distaste and hit him again.
He stayed down, KO’d, but not dead.
Shame. Fighting Crows had never been about killing them, but mood I was in I really didn’t give a fuck.
I stepped over him and surveyed the building site. It was a fucking disaster. Water pipes cut, wires hanging from every ceiling, foundations and brickwork demolished. The only thing the raiding Crows hadn’t done was light the whole place on fire, and I knew why. Smoke in the sky meant feds, and it wasn’t feds they wanted to draw into open ground.
It was us.
So here we were, fighting like dogs when no matter how you looked at it, atthem, we were the fucking Kings.
There were eight of them, four of us—Me, Saint, Alexei, and Folk. We annihilated them, naturally, but why? The Crows had nothing to gain by getting the shit kicked out of them week in, week out.
It made no fucking sense, and I had piss-all energy to worry about it. It wasn’t my job—a sentiment Cam had made crystal clear to me a few nights ago when he’d found me sleepless in my bedroom, pacing the small space, twisting Liliana’s hairband in my fingers as I stared at my blank phone screen.
“I need your fists, brother. Save everything else for your family.”
Nice of him, but not knowing what the hell was going on with ninety per cent of my life was every bit as exhausting as knowing every nitty gritty thing about how fucked up it was. I felt unstable. Unhinged. Sporadic doses of Liliana’s sweet voice were my only comfort, but it was still only a matter of time before I did something stupid, and tonight I was ragey as hell.
Saint appeared from the shadows, clothes torn, eyes feral. He glanced at the knocked-out Crows at my feet, then at the destroyed wall behind me. “They fucked up Embry’s work.”
I scowled, unwilling to admit the latest fuel for the fury in my belly, all the while knowing it was pointless because Saint was fucking Yoda. “They’re cunts.”
Saint made a sound that might’ve been a laugh and signalled for me to clean up before moving on.
I did what had to be done. Having Alexei and Folk with us was a recent thing, but me and Saint rolled through this part of the life like an oiled machine. We got the job done. Especially me. I wasn’t paid to think. Didn’t need to be when we had Alexei at the table.
Back at the compound, the rest of us slipped into the masses as if we’d been there all night, showing our faces in case the feds came knocking.
Alexei disappeared. I figured he was banging Cam somewhere until he popped up behind me in the bathroom.
Couldn’t deny I jumped a fucking mile. “Fuck’s sake. What do you want? We going out again?”
Alexei leaned in the doorway. “You would like that, enforcer?”
Yes. No. My body was fucked from three weeks of constant fighting and no sleep. My heart was fucked from missing Liliana, Embry, and even Rubi. And my brain—Jesus. I couldn’t take another knotted, gnarly thought. I’d have a fucking stroke; I was sure of it. My black fucking soul, though... yeah. I needed to fight. To hurt and to maim. To feel that sick adrenaline zip through my veins.
I shrugged and folded my face into something bland and amenable. “You need me or not?”