“Good. What do you need me for?”
“He didn’t want to talk to him either.”
“Maybeyoushould talk to him then.”
I scoffed. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“He thinks I’m a fucking idiot.”
“You said that about Locke and it wasn’t true then either.”
I chewed on that, still craving a hit of toxic smoke to settle my thoughts. “Okay, maybe I haven’t pissed Locke off as much, but I fucking know Folk’s still salty about the Doherty thing.”
“How do youknow?”
I didn’t, but that wasn’t the point. The point was... actually, I didn’t know. Or maybe I did and the answer was as basic as I was: Folk intimidated me, intellectually at least, and I didn’t fucking like it.
Another sigh rattled from my lungs. Saint would’ve known the answer, but he wasn’t here, and I couldn’t have this kind of conversation with him over the phone. I needed to see his face—his forest-green eyes—and understand every nuance of what he was trying to say. I needed to touch him, and that wasn’t happening until he came home, and there was a whole other conversation I needed to have with him.
You’re Polish by the way, in case you didn’t know.
Fucking hell. Contemplating that gave me goosebumps. I forced my mind back to Folk, but it only drew my thoughts to Alexei—a presumed Folk expert, but I’d learned recently that he wasn’t. Not about stuff like this. Folk understoodAlexei,but that shit was one way.
“Veles is a simple man, but that is what makes him so intricate. I do not understand men like him. Trust me, I have tried.”
Fuck’s sake. What did that even mean?
I had no idea, and festering over it got me nowhere.
Back in the room, I caught Nash staring into space. I pulled my foot back to kick him. Remembered he had a bum leg and poked him instead.
He blinked. “What?”
“Sure there’s nothingyouwant to talk about, brother?”
His gaze flickered with a conflict so brief I swore I imagined it. “I’m all good.”
“You must have a lot on your mind.”
“Yeah, but I’m trying not to lose brain cells to things I can’t control.”
Not for the first time, I saw the parent Nash was destined to become. As calm as Folk, as patient as Decoy. As fierce and protective as Embry and Mateo combined, and as self-contained as my sister had always been. Somewhere along the line, Orla and Nash had become the same person, and this brother was giving me nothing.
The conversation returned to business. Nash was shit with numbers but efficient as fuck at everything else. We got a lot done, even down to conspiring to make sure River was elsewhere for the health and safety audit happening next month.
“Locke’s too nice to chin him,” Nash mused, “but he keeps unfixing all the fixes and I don’t even think he’s doing it on purpose.”
I snorted. “Sounds like River.”
“Does he have ADHD?”
“What?”
Nash was eating again. Another sandwich. “Locke said he’s a lot like Willow, so I wondered.”
“It’s not ADHD. They went through all that with him when we were kids. Remember that push-bike accident... no, you don’t. You weren’t there.”