His brothers were already in place, exhaustion heavy in their faces, especially the enforcer who’d come from the hospital.
Only Saint seemed unaffected by fatigue, a facade, I assumed, as I knew he’d been awake as long as I had.
Cam took his seat. He gestured to one of three empty chairs.
I shook my head and propped a shoulder against the wall. Sitting with them would send a message they had not voted for. I was not one of them, and I didn’t want to be.
Cam gave me a hard stare, then pounded his gavel on the table. “We’re three men down on the council alone. Cracker’s dead, Embry’s laid up, and we ain’t had a treasurer for so long I can’t remember what it was like when Whistler was counting our money. When the dust from all this settles, I’m gonna need names of the brothers you think could step up.”
“I have some ideas,” Nash said.
The road captain raised a hand. “Me too.”
Cam nodded. “We’ll talk again in a couple of weeks.”
A murmur of agreement went around the table, then Cam pointed his gavel at the enforcer. “Embry?”
“Lost a ton of blood like you, and the shank damaged his guts. Surgeons repaired the damage overnight and he spent the day in ICU.”
“He’s out now, though, right?” Cam frowned deeply, trying to remember.
The enforcer nodded. “Woke up this afternoon. Took himself for a walk already. He’s doing good, Pres.”
Cam blew out a breath. “Motherfucker scared the hell out of me. Did he tell you what happened?”
The enforcer’s gaze flitted to me. “Said he heard someone coming over the fence. There was no one around and he didn’t have his phone, so he challenged them on his own, thinking we’d see it on the cameras.”
I snorted. “Your system at the boundary fence has always been weak. I have disabled it many times.”
“Why?”
“To show you.”
My answer made no sense to the enforcer, not yet. He thought I was playing a game. He did not know I loved Cam. “Anyway, none of us showed up and a couple of dudes jumped him from behind. Got him on the ground and shanked him. He doesn’t remember much else except...”
“Alexei,” Saint supplied.
The enforcer blinked. “Alexei. Yeah, he remembers you pulling him up and carrying him to your car. If you hadn’t done that and tossed me your keys, the doctors said he’d have bled out.”
“Thank you,” Cam said. “From all of us. I don’t know if we could survive losing Embry.”
I believed that. The enforcer was rough around the edges. Untrained and raw. But the bond he had to the chaplain showed in every inch of his haunted and scarred face. “You did not lose him. It seems that you’ve only cut your obvious dead weight.”
Cam nodded. “Saint, where are we at with that?”
“Loaded and ready to deliver later tonight. Nash helped me.”
Cam’s VP cringed. “Freaky motherfucker didn’t even puke.”
“You get used to it,” Saint replied flatly. A pause stretched out before he spoke again. “And puking just leaves me more work to do.”
“You’re an efficient grim reaper,” Nash concurred.
A ghost of a smile warmed Cam’s face, but it was brief. “We haven’t heard from the Sambinis yet. I think we can trust their word from last night, but we still need to stay sharp. Wouldn’t put it past them to retaliate if their boss man decides we’ve taken the royal piss shutting them down like that.”
“They won’t retaliate.”
Cam flicked his gaze to me. “How do you know that?”
