“Who’s them? How do you know?”
“It doesn’t matter how—”
“It does fucking matter. How do I know you’re telling the truth? That you’re not working for whoever wants me dead and getting your dick wet at the same time?”
Alexei choked out a laugh that sent a chill down my spine. A beat of terrible silence blasted between us. Then he spoke. “I am not a Trojan horse. The cartel who killed your father took a hit out on you that they cannot call back no matter what I do. The Sambinis are gathering intelligence from Cracker. They will use this to attack the compound and conceal how you are killed, leaving Cracker to take the gavel and form a new council. Even without the cartel, they have much to gain from this. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
I understood every damn word except the ones he hadn’t said—the ones that explained how the hell he knew so many things that I didn’t. My fingers tightened around my phone, cracking the screen. “How can I believe you?”
Silence answered me.
Alexei was gone.
I lowered the phone, violent energy surging through me, and hurled it at the wall, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
Idiot. No one can reach you now, not even River.
Not even Alexei if he called me back.
Fuck.I took a breath, let it rattle around my chest, and searched the yard for Saint, needing him to ground me. But he wasn’t there watching me anymore. He’d vanished into thin air, and all I could see was a tiny little girl who belonged to Decoy, the brother who cut our timber. She had white-blonde hair and the biggest smile, one she bestowed on me when she saw me through the glass.
Her little hand came up in a wave.
Forcing a smile, I raised my clenched fist and uncurled it to wave back, but movement behind me spun me around before I could.
I expected Saint. He’d always been good at sneaking up on me, and I’d never asked him to stop. I lived for the flutter in my heart whenever I turned to find him standing there, his gaze on me, his strong, hard body alive with how he felt, telling me everything I needed to know without him fighting for words.
But it wasn’t Saint behind me. It was a face I didn’t know—a face that screamed danger and had me reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there.
I lunged forward, fists raised, but I didn’t get far. With a smirk Alexei would’ve been proud of, the bastard shot me.
26
Alexei
I drove like a man possessed out of London, praying that Saint was watching Cam instead of tracking me, his full attention where it needed to be.
My phone was plugged into the charging point, the battery flickering in and out, turning the phone off at random intervals, flashing with texts I couldn’t read.
Halfway to Bristol, I ran low enough on fuel to force me to stop.
The phone was alive enough to call Cam, but his voicemail kicked in, over and over and over.
I texted Saint.
Alexei:Plug your leak and guard the boundary. Keep him safe—I will not reach you in time.
His answer came so fast I cursed myself for not reaching out to him in the first place. For letting my addiction to Cam sway my common sense.
Saint:how r they going to hit us?
Alexei:Hard. That is all I know. Is Cam okay?
Saint:worried abt u. how long will u be?
Alexei:A few hours. Don’t wait. I will find you.
I needed to hear Saint’s voice to believe he’d understood me. That he’d sensed the urgency in the few words we’d exchanged. But there wasno time, a fact that spiked my blood pressure and made my head throb with anxiety, my brain a mess of frantic thoughts and the daydreams it defaulted to in a desperate act of self-preservation.
