“Is it about Locke?”
“You know it’s not.”
Then it was about Bear, and I couldn’t have given less of a fuck. “If you’re going out again, I’m not coming. Nothing matters to me except being here when they wake up.”
“Jesus-fuck.” Cam heaved a slow sigh. “You’re in the crosshairs of this. You trust me to make the right choice?”
I thought about it for less than a second. “More than ever.”
There was so much more that needed to be said, but I was done. I left Cam to his brooding and made my way through the compound and back to the clubhouse.
It was late, Orla and Locke had slept all day, and I expected at least her to be awake.
But it wasn’t brown eyes that met mine as I opened my bedroom door and slipped inside.
Locke raised his head, his gaze sleep heavy, sea-green, and laced with everything me and Orls had ever dreamt of.
I took a seat on my bed and laid a palm on his good arm. “I love you.”
It wasn’t what I’d meant to say.
But it’s what I meant, and Locke dropped his big tattooed hand over mine. “I love you too. Can you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Put some music on.”
“Any preference?”
Locke closed his eyes again. “Something that sounds like you.”
I pulled my phone out and thumbed through my playlists, realising it was the first time I’d opened Spotify since he’d been gone. That without him, I’d been empty of something I’d always believed was woven into my DNA.
A Beatles album caught my eye—a track I knew Willow played for him when he was grumpy. I cued it and ditched my phone, reclaiming the space beside Locke, breathing him in. I wouldn’t sleep again, not for a while, but fuck me, I’d remember this moment forever.
14
LOCKE
Viktor left me a note. It was in Russian, and I hadn’t got round to getting Alexei or Folk to translate it. Wasn’t sure if I would.
Didn’t chuck it, though. I carried it in my pocket like a radioactive reminder of everything I wanted to forget.
I was clever like that. Just like I was a fuckin’ genius to have dinner with my kids at the noisiest place on earth. A burger bar we’d been coming to since they were little. Cheap. Cheerful, except me. And soloudI wanted to die.
An ache bloomed in my broken ear, filtering into my temple, making a faded bruise on my cheekbone throb.
I rubbed the side of my head.
Across the plastic table, Willow caught me, her lively gaze narrowing with the type of concern I never wanted to see in my kids. “Did you hurt your ear when you fell off your bike?”
The story I’d told her to explain the piss-poor state of me. A grain of truth stretched so damn far it had become a lie. “Yeah. It’s fine though.”
“Can I eat your chips?” That was Nicky, already reaching for them.
Willow slapped his hand away. “Orla said you had to eat all your dinner.”
“Orla’s not my mother. Nicky, eat them if you want them.”