“You think this was a pot shot?”
Saint’s silence was deafening, punctuated only by Mateo’s hiss of pain as I pressed down harder on his battered arm.
“We were right there,” Saint said eventually. “If they’d wanted to kill us, we’d be dead.”
Mateo growled his agreement. And his discontent. “We calling this in?”
“No.” This time Saint spoke without pause. “Nash and Alexei when we get back. No one else.”
I glanced at Mateo. “Not even Embry?”
“No fucking way,” Mateo said as Saint shook his head again. “I need him to worry about himself.”
Scepticism raised my brows. “How are you going to explain coming home with a chunk of your arm missing?”
“Dunno. Got any ideas?”
“No. But we’ll need a good one to fool your husband. He’s seen too many GSWs to not see what this is with his own eyes.”
Good ideas were short on the ground. So we cobbled together a terrible one, and that’s how I found myself ten minutes later, kicking seven bells out of Mateo’s old Dyna. Dragging it over concrete to make it look like it had survived a hard skid while he rubbed his torn-up skin with a brick, imitating road rash.
“This is fucked up,” he admitted. “Even for us.”
I kicked his bike a little harder. “You can’t ride this home.”
Mateo grunted and tossed the brick aside. “I’ll be your bitch then, mate. Make up for all the times I gave you the stink eye, eh?”
“If you say so.” I wasn’t bitter about the hostility Mateo had thrown my way when Nash had first brought me, Locke, and Ranger home to the Rebel Kings. Who had the time?
I helped him stand. Tried not to laugh as he eased himself onto the back of my Fat Boy.
Saint was less subtle in his amusement, and it made the fact that someone had taken a shot at us less potent. Which it needed to be if we were going to convince anyone who mattered that it had never happened.
I eased onto my bike in front of Mateo, unbothered that his legs were squished against mine. I was used to being in close quarters with other men. The only thing I hated about it was that he wasn’t Decoy. “You good?”
Mateo dipped his newly bashed up helmet and tapped my arm.Let’s roll.
I didn’t need telling twice. I’d wanted to leave hours ago. Now we had a mess of blood and mistruths to deal with, and as I rolled my bike into motion, I realised that for this nonsense to work, I’d have to lie to Decoy too.
Maybe he won’t ask.
He was used to working on a need-to-know basis. But this? An accident that had seen his brother hurt?
Of course he was going to ask, and the thought of deceiving him triggered a new ache in my bones.
I don’t want to.
Which meant I had to find a way to avoid it.
It was an hour’s ride home from the remote construction site. By the time we got there, my hands were on fire. I killed the engine, digging deep for the relief being with Decoy had brought me, but I knew I wouldn’t truly find it until I saw him again.
The chapel door opened. Rubi strode out and Mateo tensed. Of all the brothers he had to mislead, Rubi was the toughest crowd.
Because he cares.A fact underlined by the speed he crossed the yard with the second he spied Mateo easing his bloodied and bruised body from the back of my Fat Boy.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Mateo grumbled, knowing the less words he said, the better. “Some cunt in a camper. You know how it goes.”
