Embry
Church was noisy tonight. Alcohol flowed, fraternal affection lacing every exchange.
Locke and Folk had accepted their patches. Blood in, blood out, they were our brothers now, a fact Locke and Nash seemed especially pleased about.
Folk was quieter, thinking about Rocco, perhaps. He hadn’t known Rocco’s remains were at the scrapyard when he’d taken the shot at Lorenzo Sambini, but he did now, and I saw the hurt in him every time he thought no one was looking.
Keep him close.
Easier said than done. In his own way, he was as elusive as Saint.
Saint, who was apparently smoking again.
“Just weed,” he said when he caught my nosy stare. “Takes the edge off, you know?”
I did. It was Mateo’s therapy of choice too.
“What else am I going to do, chaparrito? Go full Tony Soprano? Learn the names for the bullshit in my head, so it’s what? A pet that still takes a shit on the living room carpet?”
He didn’t have a carpet.
Or a living room.
But I was working on that. I glanced at Cam across the table. He raised his glass. “Tomorrow, brother.”
“What’s tomorrow?” Rubi dropped into the seat beside me, drunk as a skunk and six degrees less jubilant than everyone who wasn’t Alexei or Saint.
“Nothing important.”Lies. “You okay?”
Rubi grumbled something under his breath. Then he turned his arm over, tracing the swathes of ink there. “I thought it was just on my belly.”
The bank account numbers Mateo had snuck into tattoo designs and a million other things. Yup. They were on Rubi’s arm too—teeny tiny digits on an abstract pocket watch. “There’s enough cash in that account to found an orphanage.”
A slurry smile curved Rubi’s lips. “You fucking young bloods are sly little shits.”
“Thanks, but it had nothing to do with me.”
“You’re still a crafty cunt. And Mats, man. At least someone likes me, eh?”
“Everyone likes you, brother.”
An easy truth, but Rubi heaved a deep sigh, dumped his arms and head on the table, and closed his eyes.
The sadness in his broad shoulders bothered me, but it was a rumination for another day. When Rubi was sober enough to fob me off with banter and bear hugs.
I left him to doze and found Mateo and Alexei drinking vodka in the corner. Proper vodka—the kind Alexei kept buried in the freezer and put the rest of us on our arses. “You give Rubi some of this?”
Alexei glanced around me to where Rubi slumped over the table. He shrugged. “Is big man.Drunkbig man.”
“So are you if you’re dropping articles already.”
Mateo frowned, mystified. “Articles?”
“Do not worry.” Alexei poured more vodka. “Your better half is too clever for me tonight.”
Mateo sent me a grin that wasn’t entirely sober either.
I stole his vodka and necked it.
