“Shut the fuck up.”
I blinked, too slow to figure out who was talking before Carlos answered in a flurry of Spanish expletives too rapid even for me.
He lunged at his bodyguard, at the smirking, bearded man pointing a gun in his face. “Jago, you treacherous little shit. I’ll burn you alive.”
“It’s Jakov, actually.” The bodyguard’s accent thickened and his smirk turned truly wicked. “Pavel sends his regards.”
Sidorov.
Jesus Christ. I’d known all along that this bullshit was galaxies bigger than me. Than the club. But this shit was insane. Carlos ran his organisation with more secrecy than the fucking IRA. And he was ruthless, snuffing out betrayal with an iron fist and a deep-sea trawler specifically for dumping bodies in the Med. For this dude to fool him, he’d have to have been tight foryears.
I tried to compute it all, leaning harder on Nash, letting him fuck with my smashed up arm. I wanted to ask him about Liliana and Embry. About Rubi, Juana, and Decoy. But I couldn’t. Not until Carlos had his brains blown out, andJakovdidn’t seem in a hurry to comply with my wildest dreams.
“They’re safe,” Nash muttered.
“Huh?”
He didn’t repeat it. Just waited for me to catch up, but Carlos distracted me, spitting more curses at Jakov’s feet.
“Sidorov won’t kill me. I have too much collateral.”
“You have nothing,” Jakov retorted calmly. “He does not want the child you offered him as payment for the territory you tried to steal, and he doesn’t take kindly to that currency.”
He spoke in Spanish, but now he wasn’t trying to hide it, the Russian edge to his voice was obvious. His dark hair and tanned skin were generic, butChrist, he was fooling no one.
Because he doesn’t need to.
As the thought completed, there was movement at the random-as-fuck helicopter. The doors opened and the pilot stepped out, striding casually across the dilapidated scrapyard. His gait seemed familiar. The set of his elegant shoulders.
His clothes.
Viktor.
Fuck me, I was done trying to understand this epic fucking mess. I gripped Nash’s elbow, forcing him to look at me.Tell me Embry’s okay. Saint too. His absence prickled my skin, that feeling I always got when my brother was close but out of sight.
But Nash had nothing for me, and the persistent panic in my veins flared back to life.
Viktor reached us. He glanced around, then eyed the barn as men I hadn’t noticed dragged Lorenzo Sambini out. “It will make your lives easier if we tell the world that was me.”
Cam folded his arms across his chest. “I’m still not sure why making our lives easier matters to you.”
Viktor smiled, like Alexei did sometimes, vague andclever, at Cam and atme.“Pavel doesn’t tolerate crimes against children. It is why Alexei is yours and not his.”
Cam snarled.
Viktor nodded, unaffected. “In time, perhaps. For now, we have another mess to clean up and I feel your presence will slow us down.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Cam jerked his head at Carlos. “I want him dead.”
“And so he shall be.”
“I want to see it.”
“Very well.”
Viktor drew a gun.
Cam didn’t flinch. How could he when every brother, even me, still clutched a firearm?
