Agitationcolouring his gaze.
I stopped, feet instantly rooted in place, though I was ready togoat a split-second’s notice. “What’s the matter?”
Mateo gripped my elbow and turned me away from the general population of the busy yard. “You need to go home, man.”
I resisted his manhandling. Mateo didn’t know about the farm. Unless something had happened to put it on his radar, which was every bit as bad as something happening to the people I lovedhere. “Which home? Decoy or my parents?”
“Decoy.”
“He’s not here?”
“Nah. I just picked up Lili from art club and she told me Ivy’s hair got cut off.”
“What? At school?”
Mateo’s expression darkened. “Nope. I think her fucking mum did it and told Ivy’s teacher it was Decoy. Juana heard the teachers gossiping about it in the car park.”
My jaw unhinged, and not in the good way. “I—what?”
“That’s about where I am on it.” Mateo let his grip slide from my arm. “It makes no sense to me, but if it’s true, Decoy’s gonna be losing his fucking mind.”
Mine had already gone. I sidestepped Mateo and darted back to my bike.
Alexei was already there, gaze narrowed on me. “What is the matter?”
I stepped around him and swung a leg over my bike. “Move.”
Alexei didn’t blink. “Tell me. Is how this relationship works, no?”
He spoke in Russian.
I glowered, filling him in, but his expression didn’t change, and if I hadn’t known him, I’d have thought he didn’t care.
But I did know him, and the fury in his gunmetal gaze amplified mine. “You should go home.”
I nudged him with my knee, less afraid of touching him than most other brothers. “I’m trying.”
He still didn’t shift, and I sensed the approach of another brother.
Saint.
He flanked Alexei and shot me a questioning stare.
I said nothing, eyeballing Alexei, willing him to get out of my way.
He didn’t, and his next words were Russian again. “Veles, you need to go home and be calm. And be ready for who we need to be tomorrow. We do not have time for distractions.”
I fired back in the same language. “No one I care about is a distraction.”
“Of course they are. That is why we love them so. But we still have to leave them. Do not forget what is at stake.”
As if I could. But mob wars were the furthest thing from my mind right now, and Alexei needed tomovebefore I ran over his feet.
Saint got the memo and tugged Alexei aside.
Alexei muttered an expletive.
I returned it with enough frustration that Saint’s eyes widened, but I didn’t stick around to find out if his reaction was violent. My Fat Boy rumbled to life, and I gunned it off the compound and onto the main road.
