The near perfect echo of words already spoken made me angry all over again. I wanted more rum, but I knew my limits. A joint would calm me down. I let the others shoot the shit while I took inventory of all the places Mateo hid his weed. We didn’t keep large stocks of it on site in case we got raided, but there was enough of it around that I didn’t have to worry about going without.
“How do you know so much about divorce?” Nash said.
To me, the question felt sudden and out of context, but as I dialled back into the conversation, Locke gave an easy shrug. “Been there, done that, and got the shitshow T-shirt. Best thing you can do with an ex like that is be nice as pie all day long. Kids grow up, man. I never wanted to be the one they remembered being a cunt to their mum.”
Nash dropped his elbows on the bar, muscles bunching, wavy hair flopping into his face. “How old are your kids?”
“Sixteen and twelve.”
“You should bring them around.”
Locke laughed. “You think a sixteen-year-old girl wants to hang around with her dad? Nah, she’s out vaping and chasing boys. And my son is mad for football and Fortnite. Don’t see him one week to the next sometimes. Thanks for the offer, though.”
He boshed another shot, then saluted Nash and left. Orla drifted away too, leaving me with Nash.
The Rebel Kings VP was a chilled-out dude, his easy-going nature more natural than the mellowness I forced on myself. But he was tense now. Brooding. And definitely not chipper enough for a dude that just—probably—got laid.
I nudged his arm. “What weighs you down, brother?”
Nash took a swig from the rum bottle, fair brows drawing together. “Loose ends, man. Sometimes I think I’ve got a handle on them all, then something like this happens and I feel like I’m missing something huge.”
“Like what?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be stewing about it, would I?”
Probably not. Nash didn’t ruminate much. It was what made him the perfect righthand man for our deep-thinking president. If Cam lost his head, Nash was always there in the wings, steady and reasonable, keeping the ship on course.
Before I’d understood the bond between Cam and Saint, and Nash and Orla, I’d wondered if they’d have made good lovers. If the natural balance between them would translate to flawless alchemy.
Yin and yang.
Fire and water.
Mateo was a Sagittarius. I was aLeo. Fire and fire, no natural balance there. Did that mean we were fucking cursed?
Only if you’re mapping your life out according to the horoscopes in the back of the Whitness Citizen.
I left Nash alone with his thoughts and went to the chapel to dig out a two-inch blunt from the stash we kept for meetings where tempers ran high.
Mateo’s temper, mostly, but every brother needed the help from time to time, even Alexei.
I found what I needed and went outside again, crossing the yard to the residence. There was a drainpipe around the back with perfect handholds to climb onto the roof. The sun had started to sink, casting a golden glow over the whole compound. With rum in my blood and a joint wedged between my lips, it was the only alone time I ever craved.
The back of the compound was deserted, like it had been the day I’d been stabbed. Rubi had paved over the bloodstained dirt and etched a crude sketch of the Rebel King insignia into the wet cement. At some point, someone had helped Ivy pour glitter into the grooves. Pink glitter, naturally.
Not gold.
“Embry!”
I had one foot on the pipe, hands stretching skyward to haul myself up to the roof. With a sigh, I dropped down and spun around.
Nash jogged up on me, phone in hand, face drawn tight. “Need you, brother. We got trouble on the road.”
9
MATEO
I skulked in the shadows, hiding and watching the fed lead Decoy to a panda car, our empty lorry abandoned on the hard shoulder while I looped around it and took cover behind an SOS call box.
