Saint opened his mouth, but Nash’s phone cut him off.
“Locke.” Nash rose. “Probably just him and River coming in.”
He stepped out to take the call. Cam crushed a biscuit in his tattooed fist. “I need a fucking cigarette.”
“Sucks to be you then,” Mateo grumbled. “Seeing as we’re grounded and shit.”
Cam’s eyes flashed. I braced for him to explode out of his seat and round on Mateo. But his untameable rage didn’t seem to be there. Instead, he spoke quietly, and with reason. “You want to leave your kids here unprotected? Cos the last time I checked, Alexei and Folk were better equipped for an ambush than they are.”
Mateo’s glare was epic, but perhaps fatherhood had mellowed him too. “I ain’t leaving the girls, boss. It’s just hard to do nothing.”
Cam let pulverised biscuit dust fall from his clenched palm. “I feel that more than you’ll ever fucking know.”
Nash reappeared as Cam’s words settled, still clutching his phone. His gaze met Cam’s. “Ranger’s coming in. He needs the table.”
“What the fuck for?”
“Didn’t say. Just that it was fucking urgent. Locke and River are outside. They’ll see him up.”
“He alone?”
“I think so.”
“Fucking check.”
Nash melted away. A tense silence held the room, but he was back before anyone broke it. “Incoming. He’s alone.”
“Deeks.” Rubi nudged me with his foot. “Maybe you should check on the kids.”
“Maybe if anyone ever asks, you should say I fucking did.”
The snap in my voice surprised even me, but Rubi had no time to react. The door to Orla’s place opened and shut, boots clomped the wooden floors, then Ranger was on us, his dark gaze sweeping the room. “Where are they?”
“Who?” Cam was already on his feet. “Andwhy?”
“This place safe?”
“Speak.”
Ranger squared his tense shoulders. “Tell me first. Did they do it? Was it them?”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
Ranger’s gaze swept the room again, spearing every face at the table. “You really don’t know?”
“Knowwhat?!” Cam finally detonated, kicking his chair, wood splintering across the floor. “Don’t play fucking games with me, I swear to fucking god—”
Saint caught his arm. “Kids.”
Cam snapped his mouth shut. But his glare remained lethal enough that Ranger raised his hands.
“I’m not playing games. I came here to ask you who annihilated the entire Sambini clan, but by the faces missing at your table, I’m wondering if I already fucking know.”
There’d been a lot of heavy silences tonight, but none as sudden and shocked as the one that cloaked the table now.
“Whoa.” Rubi darted a sharp glance into the living room, then shut the kitchen door. “Rewind. Say that again, motherfucker, with context this time.”
Ranger drew a sharp, impatient breath. “How many ways do you want me to say it? Those bastards aregone. All of them. Gianni, Mario, the fat uncle with the pork-pie hat. They were on a converted trawler in Dutch waters and some crazy cats blew it up in the middle of the North Sea.”
