“Not true, biker boy.” Alexei’s eyes glittered as he stared Cam down. “We all had reasons for keeping it close, and they are still valid.”
“Valid or not, we still wound up in an epic mess.”
Alexei spun a lighter on the table. “That is life, no? Unless you plan on sharing every secret that crosses your path from now on?”
Cam glowered.
“For fuck’s sake.” Rubi dropped his elbows on the table. “Is this a domestic or can anyone join in? Some of us have Operation Bread to get back to.”
“It is what it is,” Cam retorted. “And I’m almost done, so shut the fuck up.”
Rubi grunted, genuinely anxious about the bowls of bread dough still crammed in the boot of Cam’s car, and another laugh bubbled up my throat. This place, these people. There was nothing else like it.
Cam finished up, rattling through outstanding business that I didn’t listen that closely to. I already knew the haulage schedule was fucked and would take weeks to unfuck. I knew Alexei was going to harvest my free time to bleach the earth of any remaining Crows. Iknewwe had to be careful as the dust settled. The turf war between the Albanians and the Russians up north was still active, and we were more tied to the Russians than ever.
I knew it all and I didn’t care.
Not right now. Drifting to my weed buzz, I let my attention slide to Locke again.
He wasn’t listening either, his gaze chill but distant. I wondered what he was thinking about. Which version of Orla he was picturing—the one who’d loved the shit out of him last night, or the one who’d Bobbitised and killed his worst enemy. I couldn’t tell by studying him, but I did it anyway. Locke was too hot to look away from for long.
Those eyes.
That jaw.
The dark blond hair that had grown enough to curl at the nape of his neck. It made no fucking sense that Willow thought he’d cut it, but I’d never bothered trying to catch her logic. She was magic and mayhem, and I needed this loaded sit-down to be over so I could steal her from Rubi and spend the rest of the day jamming with her.
“...moving forward,” Cam said, his gaze as pinned on Locke as mine, tuning me back into the room. “Whenever you’re ready to come back to work full time, I want you to stay on Orla’s detail. There’ll be a few haulage runs while we catch up with the backlog, but I’d rather your focus was on keeping her safe.”
Locke stared.
Then helaughed, a genuine bellyful of amusement that lit his whole face up. “You wantmeto guardher? Fuckin’ hell. You cats are out of your damn minds.”
The tension in the room broke. Even Saint laughed, and I took it as my cue to pinch Cam’s gavel and shut this shit down.
I pounded the table. “That’s all, folks and Folk. Go enjoy your Funday Sunday.”
“Finally.” Rubi shoved his chair back and hightailed it out of the chapel a heartbeat after Saint.
Embry and Mateo weren’t far behind him. With Rubi on babysitting duty, I was one hundred percent sure they were going home to fuck.
Lucky them.
I flexed my legs to stand.
Cam yanked me down. “Not you.”
Amazing. I flopped back in my chair with a heavy sigh, raising a middle finger to Alexei’s sardonic amusement and watching every other fucker leave me, even Locke, though he had the heart to flash me some sympathy until he caught sight of Folk rotating his sore wrists.
Cam saw it too. “Go home,” he told Folk. “I don’t want to lay eyes on you for a couple of days, and I mean that with love.”
Folk nodded and let Locke guide him out.
“We should cover Decoy in the yard.” I rubbed the ache in my chest at Locke’s absence, missing him, missing her. “Give them some time.”
Cam lit a smoke. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll handle it. You need time too. Get your head around all this.”
“My head’s fine.”