Mateo gave me a grim nod, understanding without the need for chapter and verse. “Do the others know?”
“Not yet. Fill them in for me, will ya? I got somewhere to be.”
“Where?”
“Not far. I’ll be back soon.”
I left it at that. Nash and Saint knew where I was. No other fucker needed to.
After checking on Rubi one more time, I took a shower and wheeled a bike that wasn’t mine out of the garage. I’d ditched my cut before the fight and my jacket was plain. I switched out my helmet and stole Nash’s spare boots; then I left the compound without a goodbye to anyone.
I felt eyes on me as I rode away but trusted my ability to lose any fucker who tried to follow me.
No one did, and it was late enough that the roads were pretty much deserted until I reached the outskirts of Bristol. This close to Alexei, I took no chances, circling the city twice, immersing myself in traffic before I zipped into a quiet residential street and parked the bike in an unlit dead end. I ditched my jacket and shrugged on a black cotton hoodie to cover my arms.
Then I abandoned my helmet on the bike and walked away, alert for any fucker stupid enough to follow me.
Again, no one did. I reached the pub where I’d met Alexei without incident and found myself staring up at his penthouse castle in the sky, consumed by a sudden need to be as close to him as possible. A desperate need that made my stomach churn and my hands shake.
I approached the door without stopping to think how I’d get past the ageing concierge at the front desk, and as luck would have it, I found it open and the doorman distracted carrying shopping to the lift for a pregnant woman.
It was too easy to slip around them and head for the stairs. The climb was harder and my ribs throbbed with every step until I came to the penthouse landing.
I didn’t knock. Alexei wasn’t the only mofo who could pick a lock, even one as robust as his front door.
It took me less than a minute. I pushed the door open and stepped into his home. The hallway was dark, and so was the living room, the only low light coming from the kitchen. Anyone else might’ve thought he wasn’t home, but I knew he was. I felt it, goddamn it, in my tingling skin, rushing blood, and clattering heart.
I shut the door behind me, closing it with a quietsnickthat was deafening to my ears but undetectable from the kitchen.
Ditching my jacket and borrowed boots, I padded through the penthouse and reached the kitchen, following the light to the phone propped up on the counter.
A Russian voice filtered through the speakers, old and lost, while Alexei crouched on the floor staring, his unseeing gaze more haunted and broken than I’d ever felt in my life.
14
Alexei
Cam was an illusion, sent from the dark depths of my imagination to rescue me from the pit I’d fallen into the moment I’d swiped my phone screen.
He crossed the kitchen like a poltergeist and crouched in front of me, hands on my shoulders. “Alexei?”
I barely heard him, drowning in the ocean while he called my name from the moon. His grip on me tightened, strong fingers gouging bruises into my skin, but I didn’t feel a thing.
He stood and moved back, taking his shadow with him. I wanted to close my eyes and summon him back, but my brain didn’t work that way, not when it was paralysed like this, stuck on a loop I couldn’t break.
My mother grew louder, the words indistinct, but the reedy pitch of her voice like nails on a blackboard, grating and shrill.Make it stop. But who was I asking? Imaginary Cam? Or myself?
A silent cry echoed in my head. I fought my frozen muscles, desperate to bury my face in my knees, cover my head, and block the universe out, but nothing happened. I couldn’t fucking move.
Cam appeared again and my soul wept.Don’t leave.
And this time he didn’t. He snatched the phone from the counter and glared at the screen before sweeping his molten gaze back to me. “Fuck. This.”
He ended the call and dropped the phone into the sink. The clatter made me jump, a sensation that was almost alien to me. But he was in front of me again before I could acclimate to it, taking my face in his big hands.
“Lexi.” His voice was hoarse, laced with a heavy exhaustion that lined every inch of his face, but his eyes were fierce, like a wolf tending to his mate. “Whoever that was who’s making you feel like this, they ain’t got no place in your life.”
I still had nothing. My throat was a sealed dam and I couldn’t speak, not even to him.
