“They didn’t say.”
“What did mybrothersay?”
“Nothing.”
“Sure about that?”
Anger, coloured with hurt, flickered in Rubi’s gaze. But there was something else too, a defiance that let me know he was perilously close to falling off a precipice we wouldn’t come back from. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Pres. Not even for him.”
Not even for him. I’d heard variants of that phrase too much recently. “Call River. Tell him to bring Sol back where we need him so we can get this shit done.”
Rubi made the call and I watched a piece of him die as he put the club before his undisclosed feelings for my baby brother.Tell me you love him.But it wasn’t the time, and perhaps it never would be.
Sol Bosanko agreed to meet us in the quiet cove where he kept his boat. I took Saint with me, leaving Nash with the others, and we descended the cliff path in silence, picking our way down the unlit stone steps. In the distance, the town danced with life, but this spot was dark, dangerous, and inaccessible enough that only fishermen and smugglers ever bothered to try.
By the water, our friendly fisherman waited beside his small boat. “You’re a dickhead, O’Brian. I don’t want anything to do with this shit.”
I stepped onto Sol Bosanko’s boat, ignoring both him and the fact that I’d fucked him ten years ago.
Saint followed, stone-faced, as if he wasn’t going to puke his guts up the second we hit open water, and joined me at the bow. “We’re just gonna stalk any random boat we come across, boss? Or you got an actual plan?”
“Now he speaks.” I waited for Sol to come aboard, then faced them both. “Sambinis use trawlers for muling, then bring their shit ashore in loud-as-hell speedboats because they’re fucking idiots. All we have to do is find the trawlers surrounded by dickmobile boats and we’re golden, right, Sol?”
Sol rolled his eyes. “I know this coast better than any other fucker, with or without lights, but that doesn’t mean I’m down for this bullshit. I already told Rubi to go fuck himself.”
“You wanna fuck little girls?”
Sol blinked. “What?”
“Because that’s what they’re bringing to the rocks to load onto those boats and send across the Atlantic.” I lit two cigarettes and passed one to Saint. “And if they get away with it this time, they’ll do it again and again and again. I get that you think I’m the fucking devil, but we move a bit of weed, some blow when it falls our way. These pricks? They don’t give a shit, so better the cunt you know.”
Sol looked like he wanted to die, and I didn’t blame him. He was a good-hearted dude who didn’t deserve to be caught up in this and I liked him a lot, but I didn’t have time to make him feel better.
I pointed to the black horizon. “This is your ocean. Help us clean it up.”
We set off into the night with a vague idea of where to look, trusting Sol to keep our approach hidden.
“You’re lucky I was a pirate in a former life,” he grumbled.
I snorted, but my focus was on Saint. To anyone else he was stoic as hell, but I knew him well enough to spot the tension in his set jaw and the death grip he had on the side of the small boat. Being brave wasn’t about not being afraid. It was about facing your fears head-on, and Saint was doing that right now, like he had a thousand times for the club.
For me.
I spared Sol a glance. “Your dad smuggled contraband cigs for years and I know he taught you all about it, so don’t pretend you’re an angel.”
“Never said I was. You saw to that, back in the day.”
He wasn’t flirting with me. We’d had a one-night stand so long ago I could barely remember it and he’d been young enough that he’d lived a lifetime since, but Saint glowered all the same. In the pitch black, Sol didn’t notice. But I did. I saw everything about Saint when I had time to look.
Focus.
Sol steered the boat west for what felt like hours, scanning the horizon until he nudged me and extended his arm. “Look.”
I followed his gaze. There were lights in the distance, but to my land-person’s eyes, they could’ve been anything. “What is it?”
“Three boats close together: one big, two small. They’re by a fishing post that isn’t used in winter.”
“Can you get us any closer?”
