“Rubi, mate.”
I glanced at the enforcer. “And you?”
“Mateo.”
Cam chuckled. “Sorry. You seem to know everything else without me telling you, it didn’t occur to me to make formal introductions.”
“It’s okay. I did not need to know their names before today.” I kept my gaze on Rubi. “There will be no other incursions from Europe. At my request, Pavel Sidorov has made it known that your territory is unavailable for the purposes the Aldeas wished to use it for.”
“How long for, though?” Rubi looked to Cam, to Saint, and then back to me. “He’s protecting us because you asked him to. What happens when you leave?”
“What makes you think I would leave?”
Silence. I could only hear my own heart thumping.
Rubi cleared his throat. “Okay. But say you did, what happens then?”
I shrugged because I did not know, and I did not feel like explaining that it wasn’t Sidorov’s reputation that would keep wolves from their door. “Maybe you will not have to find out, but whatever the Sambinis make of what occurred here yesterday, your business with them is multifaceted. You should prepare to encounter them again.”
It was a good enough answer for now.
Rubi nodded, his curious gaze not unfriendly, and rubbed his temples. “This shit is getting complicated. I feel like I’ve had my head in a gas oven for weeks.”
“Ain’t you that got gassed,” Nash grumbled.
I liked him. He was the easiest man to read at the table, and straightforward people kept the world turning.
“Are you doing okay with that?” Cam addressed the brothers who’d been incapacitated in this very room.
Nash shrugged. “I’m not spinning anymore.”
“I forgot about it,” Mateo said.
Because of Embry.
Saint said nothing.
Cam sighed. “We should wrap this up. At some point we gotta talk about the fact that half of you wanna bang my siblings or each other, but I haven’t got the head for that right now.”
Rubi tensed.
Nash too.
Cam held up his hands. “I said talk, not fight. We’ll figure it out. Lord knows, I’ve spent too many years telling myself no. I can’t live with myself if I put you through that fucking pain too.”
“You can’t leave it at that. What about the rest of it?” Mateo leaned forward, dropping his elbows on the table. He still looked as if the bottom of his world had fallen out, but as he glanced at me and then Saint, it was clear where his mind had tracked the deeper hurt in Cam’s gaze and found the battered jackpot.
Cam saw it too, and I gave him an out. I did not need to be here for this.
I stole Saint’s cigarette pack and gifted him a smile I hoped wasn’t too sardonic.
Then I strode from the room and made it all the way to the stone steps before my heart decided it was as far as I could be from him right now.
It was late. There were a few brothers dotted around, but none paid me much attention.
I smoked Saint’s cigarettes and considered where I would find my next cup of coffee. I did not think about when I would eat or sleep. Such things didn’t bother me.Cam needs those things, though.
He did, and as the thought took root in my gut, the door behind me opened and Saint folded his long body into a crouch at my side.
