Cam whenweallowed it.
This week, he was in there, but it was Folk who messaged me back with a warning that caught me off guard.
Folk:Don’t touch that dog until I get there.
Well, fuck.
The message also implied that we should stay where we were, which honestly, I found more annoying than having a dog dropped in my lap.
I showed the message to Mateo and Saint, earning me a double round of pissed-off frowns.
Then Mateo’s resigned sigh. “It ain’t like him to be dramatic. Maybe you should put her down.”
Maybe. But as Mateo spoke, it started to rain, and I wasn’t about that life. I tucked my leather jacket around the dog and waited for Daddy Folk to come and rip me a new one.
And as it happened, I didn’t have to wait that long. We were ninety minutes away from home, but Folk roared onto the deserted farmland half an hour later, Alexei a heartbeat behind on his Ninja.
Folk ripped his helmet off and closed the distance between us. “I told you not to touch her.”
“I was already holding her when you said that.” I had to speak through the rain pelting my face. “I told Mats to fuck off, though. He’s over there.”
Folk didn’t bother looking, and I noticed how slow he was moving. How deliberately he eased my jacket back to reveal the dog inside. “Jakov gave you this dog?”
“He asked us to look after her. Said she was Viktor’s.”
“What else did he say?”
“That he got her from the paratroopers at Al-Shaafa, andyou’dknow what the fuck that meant.”
Folk said nothing. Just eased the dog from my lap and set her on the rain-soaked ground. “Move out, Nash. Now.”
“Why?”
“Just fucking do it.”
Mateo was right. Folk wasn’t dramatic, and he didn’t swear unless shit got monster real. I hadn’t heard a cuss fall from his mouth since he’d come back from blowing up the Sambini family and some weird deep-sea shit had made him sick. Doubt he even remembered, he’d been so out of it.
He wasn’t out of it now, though. He was laser-focused on the dog, running his hands over every inch of her, looking under her tail and palpating her stomach.
“What are you doing to her?”
Folk ignored me, closing his eyes as he pressed the dog’s belly again.
A long second passed before he opened them. “I told you to move out.”
“You never told me why.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered if they’d stuffed this girl full of TNT and blown her up in your face.”
“The fuck?” Instant nausea slammed and curdled my stomach. “Who’s doing that? Give her back to me.”
Folk finally relaxed. He let me take the dog before he fixed me with a stare that did fuck all to ease the horror he’d chucked my way. “Listen to me, Nash. Somewhere away from this life, Viktor’s a good man. But I knew him before you ever knew me, on the other side of the world, and where we were, no one would think twice before using a street dog as a walking bomb. You need to be more careful.”
He strolled off as if he’d just given me directions to everlasting happiness.
I glared after him. “She’s not a street dog, she’s Viktor’s.”
“Looks like she’s yours now, brother.”
