“He has me.”
“He needs youwith him.”
“Not right now he doesn’t.” And I said that with love and confidence. I knew Nash better than anyone. He wasn’t a masochist. If I could fix this, he’d have stayed. “We need to hire agency drivers.”
“Right.” Rubi gave me a hard look. “Because that’s what would make this clusterfuck better.Strangersin our midst.”
“Locke was a stranger once. He was aCrow.” Acid burned my throat. “But if we’d never trusted him, that shitty boiler would’ve killed River.”
Rubi took the tablet from me without comment. Poked at it. “Which agency do you want to use?”
“You’re asking me?”
Rubi sighed. “The king ain’t here, so I’m asking the queen.”
Figuring it out claimed a few hours. With the blinds shut, I ignored the comings and goings of bikes. If anything happened, I had my phone.
By the afternoon, I had Locke’s too.
Folk brought it to me, confirming Rubi’s instinct that dealing with Logan was a step too far for him right now. “He’s sharp, Orla. And when it comes to Locke, he’s laser. I can’t lie to him and get away with it.”
I took the phone, noting the app Alexei had installed to hide its online status from anyone looking, and the missed calls from Willow and Nicky. From Kara. None from Logan so far, but that would change when he got back from Bali. “If he’s so sharp, how did he never figure out that Locke stayed with the Crows to protect him?”
Folk jerked his head up from fiddling with his bootlaces. “What?”
“He told us that’s the leverage they had on him. That Logan had done something they wanted to kill him for, so Locke gave himself up instead.”
Shock blazed in Folk’s weary gaze. He turned his head to the door as if he expected Locke to blow through them and explain this madness to him.
When it didn’t happen, he sank onto the nearest vacant seat instead. “I didn’t know that.”
I frowned. “Locke told Nash you knew everything.”
“I knew what I saw. I never knew why. Rocco—fuck.” The uncharacteristic curse slipped out of Folk. “He carried a lot of guilt for Locke, but all he ever told me about thewhyswas that it happened before he was an officer, and there was nothing he could do about it that wouldn’t get his own family killed. I know you don’t have a lot of love for Rocco around here, but he was as much their prisoner as Locke.”
“I didn’t know Rocco.” I laid a cautious hand on Folk’s arm. We were pals, but the tactile nature of my friendship with Decoy hadn’t spread to him yet. “And if it’s any consolation, Cam and Saint don’t really like anyone.”
“They like you.”
“Saint does. Cam is obligated to love me.”
Folk almost smiled, but it was clear to me that he was tired.
I fixed him some food and messaged Decoy a subtle hint that he needed to take his man home, leaving me stuck with the morose mood Rubi brought back to the kitchen in time to make dinner for the masses.
“Bread Zeppelin died.”
I had my head in the fridge, counting chicken portions to keep myself occupied, glad I’d already fed Folk and I didn’t have to come up with something healthy and vegetarian from the jumble of animal protein on the shelves. “Excuse me?”
“My sourdough starter.” Rubi sagged against the counter, shaking his head. “I haven’t been home to feed it and I think it shuffled off its mortal coil.”
The heavy tread of my big brother saved me from pretending I gave a shit about that.
Cam appeared in the kitchen doorway, windswept from the road, his gaze dull enough to let me know nothing had changed.
He shot a glare in Rubi’s general direction. “The hell are you talking about now?”
Rubi repeated his woes.