“Alexei’s AWOL too, and no offence, but last time that happened you nearly died.”
“Did not nearly die. Just felt that way.”
My skull throbbed in protest.
Rubi pulled a face. “Good for you. Not really my fucking point.”
“What is your point? You really think something’s up, or are you just losing the shagging plot?”
“Theshaggingplot? Huh. Maybe that’s what’s been up with you.”
A comment I should’ve ignored, but even Rubi’s wildest bullshit was better than watching him get all mithery and shit. “What does that mean?”
“It means I was right about you living in Viktor’s pocket. You’re not used to postponing the bone, brother. All this anxiety andstress—” He tapped my chest. “Just blue balls, innit?”
“I don’t have blue balls. Being aroundyoumakes me forget I have a dick.”
Rubi almost grinned, but his gaze fell on his phone again and his humour sank, taking mine with it. I wasn’t good at comfort or telling people what they needed to hear unless it was the God’s honest truth, and Rubi didn’t seem in the mood to be reminded that Rebel Kings’ history dictated one of two things: Either River had left his phone under a car and Viktor was taking an extra-long nap or everyone we loved was dead. In our lives, nothing in between existed and Rubi knew it.
He took a shaky breath. “I hate this.”
“We should get drunk.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Think of a good one then.”
“Burn the trucks. Get the bus home.”
It wouldn’t have taken a lot to persuade me. I’d done worse things with far less motivation. But while the haulage firm didn’t mean much to me, it meant a new start for the people I cared about. A family I hadn’t asked for but couldn’t imagine this crazy life without. “Come here, you big twat.”
I gave Rubi an unsolicited hug, snorting at his surprise, and then his obvious attempt to make me stagger beneath his gargantuan weight.
Hisfailedattempt.
I pushed him back and we leaned on each other as if we’d already sunk ten pints.
He almost laughed, but it came out as more of a sniff, confusion clouding his gaze as a familiar rumble filled the air, expanding in volume as we broke apart and spun a dazed one-eighty in perfect sync.
Lights hit the shadowed space between Bertha and the Rattler. Headlights—bikelights, the silhouette of the rider vague enough that I did the most pointless thing I’d ever done in my life and pulled Rubi behind me. As if my lanky frame could shield his bungalow-sized brawn from the fucking wind.
Slower to react, Rubi stumbled. Then he was all up in my business, tuggingmeback. “Get down.”
Urgency laced his words, and it should’ve fucking moved me, but my boots were cinderblocks cemented to the ground, every sense alert as the deep grunt of a Harley became something else. Something lighter. Something brighter. An engine with more than one fucking pin.
It shouldn’t have mattered. An ambush was an ambush no matter what hogs they rode in on. But that engine—the lighter one—it drew me in, and I wrenched free of Rubi’s grip, stepping forward as a second bike swept into the narrow space.
Sound cut off. In my head. In real life. Twenty feet lay between me and a bike that was a gut-punch of familiarity for all the wrong reasons—reasons that made my heart fill the silence with a whooshing thump.
Black, not red.
Not life, butdeath.
At least, that’s how my exhausted brain saw it, even as Rubi made a sound that didn’t belong anywhere near a murder scene and galloped past me like a happy rhino. Even as the Harley rider vaulted over his Softail and landed in Rubi’s steaming embrace.
Joy and love cut through the bitter wind, but I saw nothing but the shape of that black bike. The one I’d refused to look at the whole time it had been stashed at the compound. In bits, restored, I didn’t give a fuck. I hated that bike. I’d dreamed about it for months.
That engine?