Nash was still out cold.
Mateo was awake.
Alexei unbound him, all the while speaking rapidly in a language I didn’t know to the man I’d already pegged as closer to his ethnicity than the Sambinis.
The man paled. Even in the darkness, I saw it—the twist of a man’s face when he saw a ghost. He said something to the men still looming over Saint.
They backed up like they’d been burned, rejoining the men who had already retreated from me. Then he faced Alexei and said something else.
“You will wait,” Alexei snapped in English. He took a car key from his pocket and pressed it into Mateo’s hand. “My car is in the undergrowth behind the rear fence. Your chaplain is in the back seat. Take him to the nearest hospital and hurry. There is not much time if you want him to live.”
Mateo’s bleary eyes widened. He scrambled to his feet, then seemed to remember himself and turned to me.
“Go,” I ground out. “Don’t stop for anything.”
Mateo sprinted away, staggering a little as whatever fucked-up thing these cunts had done to my brothers lingered in his system.
Rage filled me, but before I could take a step, Alexei was back.
He stood next to me, one arm held out, guarding me, as his gaze fixed on Saint, watching as he started to come round again. “No one touches a Rebel King.”
His voice was pitched low, but it sent a shiver down my spine, as if my body knew I was witnessing something I’d never been meant to see.
Saint opened his eyes and sat up. He glanced around, blinking, taking in Nash unconscious beside him, the Crows slowly slinking back, and the huddle of worried Sambinis.
Then his gaze fell on me and Alexei, guarding me like a goddamn lion. I waited for the confusion to hit, but it never came.
The motherfucker smiled. AtAlexei. And sank back on his elbows. “You’re late.”
28
Alexei
Cam’s confusion was painful. It hurt almost as much as seeing him so badly injured and not being able to help him yet, but I jammed a lid on the rising distress in my soul and kept my gaze on Saint, anchoring myself to his steady calm.
His wisdom.
Somehow this man knew me better than I’d known myself before I’d met him.
Before I’d met Cam.
“You’re late.”
I smiled without humour. “No, friend. I am right on time.”
Barely. But this wasn’t the time for details. I was here. We all were. And only some of us would make it out.
Satisfied that Saint was contained, and that Cam was too injured to do anything drastic, I forced myself to leave him and bore down on the Sambinis.
Sidorov’s man had extracted himself from them. He met me halfway and spoke in rapid Russian. “I was warned something was coming. I never imagined it would be you.”
“Imagination is dangerous. I speak passable Italian, but I think this would be better coming from you. What is your name?”
“Viktor.”
“Good. Now tell them who I am and what will happen to their entire organisation if they don’t do exactly as I say.”
Viktor obeyed, giving the Italians the good news. It should’ve pleased me to watch the disbelief colour their faces, and then horror-laced realisation dawn as they pulled out a satellite phone to validate Viktor’s claim. But I was distracted by the final Rebel King—the VP—waking up and Cam lurching towards him.
