No wonder my bladder felt like it was gonna explode. “Where’s Alexei?”
“Around. He said he wouldn’t leave until you were okay.”
“I don’t want him to go.”
“Why?”
“Hmm?”
“What is he to you?” River peered at my face as if it was doing strange things. “I thought you were in deep with Saint?”
“What?”
“Come on, bro. I called that shit years ago.”
“To who?”
“Orla. No one else.”
I blew out a breath. “I love Saint. And Alexei. It’s complicated.” But fuck, it felt good to say it out loud, and I needed all the good I could get. “Why are you here?”
River helped me stand. He was smaller than me—an inch shorter, a stone lighter, but his gaze was darker, in every sense, and the last time we’d been this close, he’d told me it would be easier if I’d died. “Orla called me. She told me the worst had happened so it was time to decide if I really didn’t give a shit.”
“And?”
“It was never that, and you know it. It was the opposite. I love you and I’ve been terrified my whole fucking life that you’re gonna get killed and it’ll just be me and Orla.”
“I’m still here, Riv.”
He cut me a vicious glare. If I hadn’t been used to it, I’d have flinched. “You got shot because one of Dad’s brothers wanted you gone. Because the shit Dad got involved with never went away. Where does it stop?”
Skylar had asked me that once. I couldn’t remember what I’d told him, and no sensible answer came to me now. “I don’t know. I can’t even tell you what happened to get to this point, cos I’m not fucking sure.”
“Where did Alexei come from?”
“I met him in a bar.”
“Then what?”
I shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t strapped, swollen, and humming with bone-deep pain. “I guess we were more alike than I realised, except I still don’t know the truth of it.”
“Orla thinks he’s a mafia don.”
“Maybe he is.”
“You really don’t know?”
“Nope.”
“But you love him anyway?”
“Yep. Fuck, I need to piss.”
River steered me in the direction of the shower room attached to the bar. It was for non-resident brothers to clean up after a long ride and smelt of sweaty leather and old socks. I staggered to a urinal and took a piss that felt so good I swayed on my feet.
Then I puked in the sink with a violence that shook my fucking bones.
When I was done, I ran the tap and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror. I looked like hell—black eyes, sallow skin, dried blood everywhere I could think of. Worse than that, though, was the darkness weighing me down. Man, I was so confused.
