I agreed with the last part. But my family was bigger than it had ever been, and as much as Alexei Ivanov bemused me, he was family too. He’d proved it a hundred times in the last month. “There’s a meeting soon, a parlay, maybe. Sambini, Sidorov, Esteban. Alexei doesn’t know if they’ll want Cam there, but Sidorov already asked Alexei to go. I think he’s going to stand by protecting us but take Alexei back as payment.”
Embry paled. “No.”
“Yup. They’re gonna lose him, Em, and I don’t think Cam will survive it.”
“What if Alexei says no? What does Esteban even want?”
“Liliana. My head on a fucking spike. And the whole world to see that he took it from under Sidorov’s nose.”
Rage vibrated in Embry. “He needs to die.”
“Then what? If Sidorov kills him, he’ll still want something in return. Someone to do whatever fuckery Alexei was to him before he came here.”
“Alexei was free before he came here. It makes no sense that he’d go back.”
“Cielito, he’d do anything to protect Cam and Saint, but he shouldn’t have to—”
Embry gripped my face. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it. You can offer yourself to them on a plate and it’ll never be enough. And then what happens to Liliana? She needs her dad, Mateo. More than Cam and Saint need Alexei.”
Not true. Cam didn’t breathe right unless both his lovers were safe in his arms. And Saint? Fuck. He needed that all-consuming love. He deserved it. I couldn’t be the reason he didn’t have it anymore.
Give yourself up.
If I thought it could solve anything, I’d have done it already.
Kill Carlos.Fuck it. Kill them all.
But even Alexei had lost his thirst for that.
“What are you going to do, enforcer? Kill everyone across three families until there’s no one left?”
“If I have to.”
“You do not have the skills for mass murder.”
There’d been a compliment in there, I was sure of it. Either way, I was still fucking stuck. I was still aliabilityto the people I cared about most.
“You’re still thinking things you shouldn’t.” Embry’s glare intensified. His fingers dug into my jaw, but all it did was make my dick swell and pulse in my unbuttoned jeans.
I licked his thumb.
He leaned down and took my bottom lip between his teeth, hard too. Down to fuck until he pulled away with a low growl. “You need to eat before we do this again.”
I wanted to protest, but my empty belly got there first, rumbling up a storm that people in the next street over probably heard.
Embry almost smiled. He sprang to his feet, agile body ethereal in the dim light of the room. “Wait here. I’ll get it.”
I watched him leave, obsessed by every subtle movement in his lean back, the sway of his hips, but torn in the opposite direction all the same.
Liliana.
I found my phone and sent Rubi a text.
Mateo:ok?
