Jack finds me on theSirona. He locks in as a tenacious ray of winter sun breaks through the heavy cloud. And gods, he’s so gorgeous with his earnest gaze and strict stance I’d sacrifice every limb for another few seconds to soak him up. A longer reprieve before the sky falls in.
Smile, Jackie. I love you.
For a split second, I think he might. Then the clatter of motorbike engines shatters the moment. Shatters everything as Porth Luck turns as one to face the violent sound that used to define this town as much as the seafarers, shanties, and cider.
Bikers.
The Rebel Kings are here.
And they’re here en mass. A horde descends, a dozen or more, and though I’m not an expert on Harleys, there’s one I’ll recognise till the day I die.
The lead rider rumbles to a stop and lifts his visor. He glances around and I know the second I see his hard gaze and familiarfeatures that he’s looking for me. And let me tell you, despite losing my dude virginity to this man fifteen years ago, and even though he remains almost demonically attractive, nothing about Cam O’Brian gets my motor running.
Sometimes I wonder if he ever did.
Either way, I suppress a sigh and jump from theSironato meet him as he strides down the jetty like he owns it.
We meet halfway.
He pulls me in for a fraternal hug, and he’s the kind of man who leans in. But I know him well enough to gauge this isn’t a friendly visit—even if we are friends—and Cam O’Brian doesn’t mess about. “We had our copper nicked from down the road last night. The Porth Ewan site too.”
Buildingsites. The lifeguard base on the beach right here in Porth Luck, and the lifeboat station in the next town over. The Rebel Kings are regenerating both at barely more than cost, and it’s such a Cam thing to do. But there’s another side to him. There has to be, or he’d be as dead as his gangster father. And…I know where this is going.
“Was it my dad?”
Cam nods, grim and dark. “Bold as brass. How can someone so fucking stupid be such a sneaky cunt?”
I have no idea. The Kings run a tight ship around any site they’re connected to. And they don’t take incursions on their turf lightly. It’s the most twisted thing to know the innocence I gave Cam all those years ago is the only thing between my dad and the hiding he deserves. Almost as twisted as wishing he’d just die.
My dad, not Cam.
You don’t want that.
Jack’s voice rescues me. And I wish he was here, at my side, a buffer between me and the kindness I know Cam is about to offer me. Kindness cloaked in a warning of all the things I know he’ll never do to my dad because of his affection for me.
“Is something going on with your old man?”
I retune to the present. To the hulking figure shrouded in smoke and leather and the shrewd gaze of a leader. Cam makes an impatient sound. As ever, I’m playing fast and loose with someone else’s time.
“I’m sorry,” I say, with what’s left of my whole heart. “I knew Dav was off the rails again, but I didn’t realise he was desperate enough to do something this tapped.”
“Is it tapped, though?” Cam tilts his head in a way that’s unfamiliar to me, reminding me how many years have passed since I really knew him. “He knows I’m not going to hurt you, which means he knows I won’t hurt him.”
“Maybe you should hurt him.” The words tumble out of me, unchecked and I’m so horrified I choke on them.
Cam rotates a little, angling his shoulders so no one can see his features soften as he almost echoes Jack. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?”
“Fuck, no.”
He’s right. I don’t. But I’m so sick of things I can’t control ruining my life that I can’t contain my frustration. I want to scream at the moon and break things. I want my dad to bleed so I don’t have to. I want Jack toremember?—
“Listen.” Cam moves closer to me. “Whatever you say, I’m not sending anyone I don’t trust after your dad. I told him last time he crossed my table that I’d kill him myself if he fucked up again, and I’m not going to do that either. But it can’t look that way to anyone else, or I’ll have a hundred versions of your old man trying to fuck with us, and I haven’t got room for that. Not anymore.”
I dissect what he’s saying. Match it with the Rebel King history of gang wars and violence and the battle they’ve fought to leave it all behind. It can’t get out that Dav Bosanko robbed themand got away with it. I know that. Iknowit. But gods, I wish it wasn’t something I gave a toss about. “What are you going to do?”
Cam lights a cigarette, and this I do recognise; the way he blows smoke to the sky like Jack used to. It’s where their similarities end, and yet…Yeah. Maybe it’s not so hard to see why I went there.