“And you think I should let that happen?”
“I think you should give them a chance. Nash is good at talking when this life doesn’t force him not to, and Locke’s more reasonable than most of us combined. They’ll figure it out.”
It dawned on me then that Rubi hadn’t seen Locke’s face. He couldn’t have while spouting that nonsense at me.
I peeled his hand from my arm and shoved him away. “I’d take you more seriously if I believed for a single fucking moment that you wouldn’t already be out there for River.”
Not waiting for his reply, I fled the chapel and hurried across the yard.
The garage doors were up and I saw their booted feet first, toe to toe, Nash against the wall, Locke all up in his face.
I’d seen them like that before, in my kitchen, kissing next to the coffee machine.
But they weren’t kissing now. With River nowhere to be seen, Nash had his hands up, as if he could push Locke’s sneer away, anguish searing his gaze. “It wasn’t like that.”
Locke pressed closer, shadows descending over his features. “How? Explain it to me. Cos you let me ride around thinking I’d left this bullshit behind, when the whole time those cunts were coming at me while I was supposed to be keeping Orla safe. When I was with my goddamndaughter.”
Despite his distress, Nash’s gaze remained steady, the way it always did when it was me or anyone else blowing a gasket in his face. “We were with you every step. You were never alone with this.”
“Cos you didn’t give me a fucking choice!”
The shout exploded out of Locke, reverberating around the garage, stalling me on my path to them.
This isn’t him.
Locke didn’t shout. Like Rubi, despite every horrid thing that had ever happened to him, he was love, not hate, and Nash knew that as well as I did.
He reached for Locke with cautious hands. “Easy. You’re tired. You wanna come home so we can talk about this?”
Locke didn’t move, his muscles tensed, his jaw ticking.
Nash tried again, squeezing Locke’s shoulders, mindful of the injuries he still carried. “Hey. You know me. I’d never do anything that put your kids in more danger. Maybe I should’ve told you, and I’m fucking sorry you’ve found out like this, but you have to believe it was for the right reasons.”
“What reasons?” Locke spat. “So you could make all my fuckin’ decisions for me? Why don’t you tell me when to take a piss while you’re at it.”
Devastation flared in Nash’s gaze. “That’s what you think this was? Control?”
“Feels like it.”
“Locke—”
“Fuck off.”
Locke reared away, the movement sudden enough that I took a step back. He’d never hurt me. No one here would. But he was volatile right now in a way I’d never seen, and I’d been around enough angry, emotional men to know when to keep my distance.
I flattened myself against the wall, waiting for Locke to notice me, but he didn’t see anything except the tangle of pain he’d brought in here to throw in Nash’s face.
He spun around again. “You let me drive my kid around even after we knew they had fuckin’guns.”
“We were with you,” Nash repeated. “Me, Saint, Alexei. I told you, you were never alone with this.”
“You didn’ttellme anything. I had to hear it from Ranger.”
“Then Ranger’s an idiot,” Nash snapped, his patented calm evaporating. “He knows I brought him back here so you and Folk didn’t have to deal with this. Why’s he shooting his mouth off now?”
“Maybe he thought your little pact was over.” Locke rotated enough that I saw the malevolence marring his face. The bitterness that didn’t belong. “Thatyouwould’ve told me instead of letting me think I had to spit a life story to explain why a bunch of washed-up Crows wanted to kill me all over again.”
“You don’t have to explain anything?—”