Those were the words I fell asleep to.
12
DECOY
Three days seemed to last a year. Threequietdays, both me and Mateo in our feelings and not in the mood to talk about it.
Mateo smoked a lot. I fluctuated between staring out the window and restless naps, with the added bonus of scrutinising every text message Folk had ever sent me.
Fun times. The only positives were that we didn’t get jumped and that we were home in plenty of time for me to do something I’d been putting off for weeks.
Months.
All right. A year.
I drove my car to Cam’s house and parked next to his hog. Couldn’t see any sign of Saint or Alexei, but that meant nothing. Those brothers only left a trace when they wanted to.
The front door was open and Cam greeted me in the hallway.
He wasn’t alone, but his companion was a lot smaller than I’d expected, the sleeping baby in his arms only five months old.
Hope Romano-Carter. Goddamn, she was cute. And she slept like an angel.
Still, Cam didn’t speak as he waved me inside and pointed at the living room, a place I’d never been. On the rare occasions I’d been here, it had always been the kitchen.
Cam’s living room was nice. Big couches and an open fire. Family photos on the walls that held the same faces as the ones I’d found in the home he’d all but given me. A white wooden frame housed a polaroid of Cam holding Ivy. It was a few years old. Taken before he’d found a way to let the love he felt for Saint run free. Before River had come home and Alexei had saved us all. So much had changed since then, but this dude still loved my kid as much as he ever had.
A warm hand landed on my shoulder. “Take a seat, brother.”
Cam passed me and folded his towering frame into an armchair.
I found a spot on the couch opposite and searched for a way to begin my confession. Another man might’ve pressed me, but Cam was used to waiting on better men than me. “Where’d the baby go?”
“Upstairs. She’s staging an intervention between Alexei and his laptop.”
I couldn’t quite picture that and I was too frazzled to try.
Cam regarded me for a moment. Then leaned forward. “What’s on your mind? You don’t want Folk in your house? I can ask Nash to switch him with Locke.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what? Ivy all right?”
“I won’t know till later. Lauren doesn’t let her speak to me.”
“She went into school okay,” Cam said. “Locke saw her when he took Juana and Lili.”
I knew that. Locke had messaged me himself. Because he was a good brother. Didn’t want him living in my house, though. Sharing my bed, platonically or otherwise. I wanted Folk, and it blew my mind that I’d be spending the next three nights with himifCam didn’t excommunicate me for what I was about to say. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”
Cam’s demeanour changed. The shift was subtle, but I saw the easiness fade from his posture and the guard flare in his dark eyes. “Okay. Is it something serious?”
“Maybe. Depends how you look at it.”
“Is it going to get anyone killed?”
No.I shook my head. Slowly. “But it might’ve done if my gut had been wrong.”
“About what?”
