Cam eyed the screen, his expression as unreadable as Saint’s. He answered without cluing me in to the caller’s identity. “Yeah?”
The caller spoke. Cam’s brows climbed an inch. Then another. “You’re fucking sure?”
He didn’t speak again for a few beats. I watched him for signs of stress. Of anger. Offear. But I saw nothing in my old friend but incredulity tinged with a vague amusement, and I let myself relax a touch. Let myself tune out the conversation and smoke without choking myself to death.
Ranger’s name yanked me back in.
I jerked my gaze up from my boots.
A deep frown creased Cam’s face. “We’ve talked about this before. I’m not giving him that order. If he rides for you, it’s because he wants to— The fuck does that mean?”
He listened some more, his glower fading. I went back to my smoke, finishing it up and tucking it back in the box like the good boy I was.
Love you, Saint.
Cam hung up, rolling his lips together as he tossed the phone on the ground. “FuckingChrist.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Jakov.” Cam didn’t give me a choice. “Bear didn’t come because he’s dead.”
My jaw dropped—without the mind-blowing orgasm that usually gave it a life of its own. “What?”
“Died in acar wrecklast night.” Cam punctuated the words with air quotes. “The other dickhead was driving. Both dead on impact with a laptop full of kiddie porn for company, no record of a corruption investigation anywhere fucking near them.”
I shut my mouth. Let it fall open again as I took a breath. “I knew that fucker was a nonce.”
Cam stared like I’d grown an extra head. “That’s not important right now. Focus on the rest of it.”
“It’s always important. Smoking pedos has shaped our fucking lives.”
“Wedidn’t smoke them,” Cam said dryly. “Jakov did. Then he told me to go home, enjoy my family, and not worry about this shit anymore.”
“Nice of him.”
Cam shook his head, bemusement still written all over his face. “That’s the weird thing. Hewasfucking nice about it. Made me feel all warm inside until I remembered who the fuck I was talking to.”
I shrugged, resisting the urge to light another cigarette. “Maybe you were right earlier. What would Alexei do for someone who’d saved you like Locke saved Viktor? What would Saint do for someone who saved him?”
“Folk did save Alexei. Saint bought hima hammock. That’s nowhere near as batshit as slaughtering bent coppers.”
A sudden laugh bubbled out of my chest. I leaned forward, bracing my hands on my thighs, palms to the soggy denim of my jeans. I didn’t point out that Saint wasn’t the newfound king of the Russian mafia. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t a garbled mouth-sound of hysteria.
Cam processed that, flicking his gaze to the rain. It was such a Saint thing to do, to look for answers in the sky, and I saw the moment he realised it. The wry smile. The longing in his eyes that matched my own.
Let’s go home, brother.
“What did he want with Ranger?”
Cam faced me again. “A favour.”
“From us or from him?”
“He wasn’t specific, but it sounded personal.”
“Personal?” I frowned. “That makes no sense.”
Cam shrugged. “To us, maybe. Ranger’s been around Jakov and Viktor a lot more than we have. Sounds to me like they’re fucking friends or some shit.”