I shot another glance between him and the dog. “That was it? The dog?”
“Is not enough for you?”
I shook my head, mind officially blown, and looked to Mateo for help. He’d joined us on the road and we’d left Saint out there somewhere, guarding our backs.
Mateo shrugged. “Fuck it. You don’t want the dog, we’ll take it.”
He swung a leg off his bike and approached the hound, crouching a few feet away. I waited for her to give him a scar to match the one he already had on his face, but the dog just yawned.
“Is not that I don’t want her,” Jakov said quietly. “She is very important to Viktor. But I cannot search for him with her by my side. There are places I must go where she will not.”
“Like where?”
“Abroad. My heart tells me Viktor did not leave this country, but we are running out of places to look, and every time I drive to the airfield, Lida pulls me back.”
Mateo edged close enough to touch the dog. He scratched her ears. “Maybe she knows something you don’t.”
Jakov sighed. “That, I do not doubt, but if I am wrong, I will not forgive myself for not upturning every stone.”
He’d said enough to convince me this bizarre conversation was real. I gave Mateo the signal and he picked the dog up, passing her over. With Saint on point and Mateo tail-gunning, I was the sucker that got to carry her.
She smelled of cigarette smoke and dog, and she was soft as shit.
All right.
Maybe she wasn’t going to eat me. “There’s really nothing else you wanted to talk about?”
Jakov shook his head, making eye contact with the men he’d brought to guard him, ready to move out.
“Not so fast.” I held up a hand to stop him. “I need Ranger back.”
“Ranger?”
“The nomad,” I clarified.
“I know who you mean. Why do you need him?”
“No offence, but that isn’t your business. We just need him back with us for the time being, unless you have a compelling reason why that can’t happen.”
Jakov glanced at Mateo, perhaps wishing he was somewhere else, but Mats was a soldier. He wasn’t leaving my side unless he was dead. “Very well.” Jakov acquiesced with a slow nod. “I will pass the message on, but if I know anything about your nomad, it is that he does not care for doing as he is told.”
“By you, maybe.” I had no doubts that Ranger would follow my order. Whether hecaredfor it or not was something else. “Are you coming back for this dog?”
At that, real grief returned to Jakov’s hard gaze. “I hope I’ll find a reason to. I apologise if that is not enough, but it is all I have.”
There wasn’t much else to say. He’d agreed to give me Ranger without a fight, and I had Viktor’s dog in my lap. “What does she eat?”
“Apart from blond biker men?” The barest hint of a smile warmed Jakov’s sad eyes. “If you ask Viktor, gold-dusted fillet steak, but I feed her raw meat from the pet store. She likes it.”
Okay then.
Jakov left, climbing into his fancy car and disappearing into the night.
I looked at Mateo. At the dog in my lap. And then at Saint who emerged from the shadows.
“That’s a dog.”
“It is,” I agreed, texting the good news to the group chat I was in with the dark side of the council. Me. Saint. Folk. Alexei. Mateo when Cam allowed it.
