Rubi’s house is fifteen minutes from Kara’s.A fact I now knew had been subconsciously deliberate on my part. Not Rubi’s house, but my ex-wife’s, all those years ago when I’d encouraged her to move as far across the county as she could, letting her believe I couldn’t be arsed to take care of her.
“Leave me alone, Kay. I’m too young for this hassle.”
Funny story: now I was too old for it, but I didn’t give a shit. I’d told Willow—through Nash—that I’d meet her there, but the longer I didn’t have eyes on her, the more real Priest became. His straggly hair and rancid teeth. His cruel?—
“Hey.” Nash rubbed my arm, throwing up a roadblock to my racing thoughts. “It’s safe here. There’s more security on this building than GCHQ.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
Nash grabbed his phone from the bedside table and opened a message thread—an unnamed group chat with Saint, Mateo, River, and Alexei, a combination that made little sense until it dawned on me that these were the brothers guarding my kids.
The last communication was from Saint, confirming that he’d joined Mateo for the graveyard shift.
“Mats is going with her to Rubi’s in the morning.” Nash put the phone back. “Saint’ll stay on Kara’s place until first light. Longer if Nicky’s going somewhere.”
“Mateo doesn’t need to go to Rubi’s. I’ll be there.”
“Brother, he’s going anyway. Liliana’s already there with Juana and Hope.”
Hope.I missed my little pal. Lida too. It was disarming to be in Orla’s bed without the sound of her paws clacking on the hardwood floors for company. “Nicky won’t go anywhere. It’s Sunday tomorrow... right?”
“Sunday Funday.” Nash unzipped Orla’s bag and dug out a blister pack of codeine and a box of ibuprofen. Changed his mind and swapped the ibuprofen for paracetamol. “Take these. They won’t knock you out too much.”
I hadn’t told him that’s what bothered me about the pile of pills he was building in the palm of his sweet hand. Or that I was hurting in the fuckin’ first place. I’d told him the opposite and he’d seen through me like the friend he was. The brother. Thelover. A mantra that should’ve been old by now, but it wasn’t. The only old-as-shit thing in this room was the pain seizing my body and it didn’t have to be that way.
I need a fuckin’ break.I took the pills, washing them down with the water. The relief was instant. Psychosomatic. But who gave a fuck?
Not me.
I belatedly noticed the AirPod in Nash’s ear. Stole it and eased it into my own—the one that didn’t have a live static orchestra residing in it. A band he listened to when he wanted to be quiet added to the chill already seeping into me from the opiates in my belly. My eyes fell closed and I drifted to Nash’s mellow humming and the warmth of his touch on my bare skin. To Orla’s silky body wrapped around my other side.
Was I even alive right now?
That thought sent me down a rabbit hole that led straight to Priest. Agitation threatened the comfort Nash had given me. My eyes flew open and I reached for him.
“Shh.” He eased my flailing arm back down. “We’re gonna get him, brother. I promise.”
“You don’t know that.” The jagged clench in my heart annoyed me. Put me in a ring with Priest, a fair fight—no weapons or goddamnrestraints—and he’d have been dead before his boots touched the mat. So how, with an army of Kings on his fuckin’ tail, did this cunt still have such a hold on me?
“I feel it.” Nash kissed my shoulder, reminding me we were having an actual conversation outside of the angsty monologue in my head. “I thought I did before... the night you and Viktor escaped. We found the rest of them dead and piled up in the room, and this craziness came over me. I knew you were out there somewhere—I knew you were alive, that Priest was too, and I knew if you didn’t get home that night or we didn’t find him and kill him... fuck, it felt like endgame, you know?”
I needed him closer. I needed every inch of him pressed to my side, his hair in my face, his jaw, his neck.
He got the memo and brought his hand back to my abdomen. “Anyway, there was this mad moment?—”
“When you had it in your pretty head to swim the fuckin’ river?”
“How do you know about that?”
“Saint. He gave me a hug.”
Nash processed that. “We didn’t do it, to protect each other.”
“I know. I’m glad you weren’t alone.”
“Youcrossed the river.”
I gave him a look as dry as I could manage while I was naked in bed with him. “And look at the fuckin’ state of me.”