I knew that.
Iknewit.
But after a moment, I got up and checked all the same.
Read the error code on the flashy control panel. Pressed the reset button.
It was fucking fine.
I crept back to bed, ninja-ing past Embry’s door as he rolled over, sparing him the sight of me in Rubi’s underpants.
Orla stared at me in the dark, her face so close I felt her breath on my lips. “You’re not staying, are you?”
I didn’t bother denying it. The call to the road was already making my skin crawl despite the exhaustion weighing me down. “I’m taking the day shift.”
And the night shift too. But I needed this precious time with her. Even if we did nothing but close our eyes and dream of him.
“I spoke to Logan tonight.”
My eyes flew open. “What?”
“Folk said it couldn’t wait, so I messaged him from my phone.”
A new wave of fear flooded me. Nothing about our reality felt distant or surreal. We weren’t that lucky. But telling Locke’s twin he was missing changed everything. “What did you say to him?”
“The truth without the details.” Orla pressed closer to me. “I said he was dealing with something and it was taking some time to put right, but that we were doing everything we could to help him.”
“And?”
Orla breathed slow and deep before she answered. “He was polite but blunt. He’s on nights until Monday morning. If he hasn’t heard from Locke by then, he’ll do exactly what Folk said he would.”
“He’ll come here?”
She nodded. “He said he didn’t care what Locke thought he could handle on his own, he wasn’t going back to how things used to be. He said he loved him too much, and it made me realise that even ifwedidn’t love Locke how we do—even if he was a stranger to us—we’d have to get him back. They need each other, Nash. Logan can’t lose him.”
Willow couldn’t either.
Nicky.
Folk.
I didn’t think about us—me and Orls. With her in my arms, I couldn’t or I’d break.
Instead, I bent my brain in ways it didn’t care for and did the maths.
Three days.
Logan’s deadline was the same as the one I’d imposed on us with the feds.
Three. That number. Was it magic, or a curse?
“What else is going on?”
Awareness filtered back. While I’d been in my head, Orla’s gaze had hardened to the same sharp edge I’d left her with all those hours ago. An edge I couldn’t dodge without leaving her, and I wasn’t doing that until I had to. Until I’d slept a couple of hours and eaten more of Rubi’s witchcraft toast.
But I couldn’t tell her about the feds. Even if I’d wanted to—and I didn’t—the words stuck in my throat.
So I gave her something else, a truth I’d shared with no one but Cam, Alexei, and Saint. “We think the Crows might have Viktor too.”