“Nothing you need to worry about right now.”
“Worrying about something else would do me a favour.”
Cam glanced at Folk. He hadn’t moved since he’d put his head down in Devon and I couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing. My brain was soup, while my heart had a carving knife of concern stabbed through it.
The metaphor made my stomach churn.
Cam noticed the hand still pressed there and sighed. “Viktor told me some fucked-up shit when I was out with him the other night.”
“When you stole a horse?”
“Rescueda horse. What’s that fucking cousin of yours been saying?”
“That he likes Dodger better than you.”
Cam grunted. “Fucking prick.”
“Viktor or Joe?”
“Joe.”
“Okay.”
Cam shot me another look. “Don’t be like that. You know I love him really.”
“Do you?”
“I respect him, if that counts.”
“Not enough to stop you banging his girlfriend.”
“Fifteen fucking years ago. Not my fault he can’t get over it.”
Joe was most definitely over it. He just enjoyed calling Cam a cunt too much to ever stop, but Cam already knew that, so I didn’t bother saying so. “What did Viktor have to say?”
“He told me Jakov did a deep dive on our personal shit, the whole table, before Sidorov agreed to vouch for us.”
I rewound a little—a lot—landing on the night I’d first taken a blade to my stomach. I hadn’t been there when Alexei had revealed his true identity, or when Viktor had stepped over the Sambini ranks to greet him, and the rest of it was a pain-filled haze for me.
The process made sense, though.
Due diligence.
We were better at it now we had Alexei. “So... they know I was inside and what for. That Nash’s cousin married a copper, and... what? That you’re banned from EasyJet?”
Cam didn’t smile. He white-knuckled the steering wheel, letting me know I was way off the mark.
I sat up a little straighter. “What else is there?”
“A fucking lifetime, apparently. Shit I had no idea about—about Saint, about Nash.”
“Nash?” My brows shot up as Folk stirred behind us, moving without sound to sit up and pay attention as if he hadn’t been asleep at all. “What is there to know about Nash?”
“That his child protection file was more fucked up than Saint’s.”
“In what way?”
“I didn’t fucking ask. I was spinning out too much that Viktor knew who Saint’s ma was—thatheknew her goddamn name and I didn’t.”