“Figures.” Priest leered some more. “Guess that’s what happens when a club goes faggot.”
Cam stared, cold and calm. “If you say so. But hear me when I tell you thisfaggotis going to let our queen take your head, so if you have any last words better than that, you’d better spit them now.”
“You don’t want to kill me, O’Brian. I know too much.”
“You don’t know shit,” Cam retorted. “If you did, we wouldn’t be here, would we? Sambini would’ve picked you up and given you everything they promised for holding Viktor Petrenko all this time.”
Priest spat again. “What makes you think they still won’t? I’ve got bigger friends than you.”
Cam laughed. “All right. You keep flogging that network. See how far it gets you. But tell me this... tonight when we caught you heading into town—ourfucking town—where the fuck did you think you were going?”
“What do you care?”
“You’re on our turf. And you took one of my men.”
“Who? The Russian? He’s not yours.”
“I’m not talking about him, though the outcome would be the same if you were gonna live long enough for us to pass you to his people.”
The cogs turned in Priest’s slow brain and incredulity took hold. “Halliwell? You fucking serious? This is about him?”
“He’s our brother.”
“No, he ain’t. He’s a Crow.”
“He’s aKing.” Cam got low, a snarl breaching his lips. “That’s why you’re on your knees at our fucking feet, and it’s why you’re going to tell me where you were going.”
“Flushing him out, weren’t I?” Priest wrestled with River’s absolute hold on him. “Knew the Russians were probably after me, so I thought, fuck it. Might as well keep my promises to the overgrown lurch while I had the chance and have myself a little treat along the way. And you know what? I’d have fucking loved it, to see that smug git’s face while I fucked that pretty little girl?—”
Cam’s fist beat my foot to the punch, striking Priest so hard in the throat that only River’s grip kept his head on his shoulders. “Shut the fuck up.”
Priest hacked, his eyes rolling around the world and back. But despite the ferocity of my brother’s hit, the leer remained, and he redirected it at me. “You’re a pretty one too. Got your picture on my phone somewhere. Been wanking over your tits for fucking years?—”
It was River’s fist this time, a savage blow to the side of Priest’s head. But it didn’t seem to matter how hard my brother’s hit him, this cretin would not shut up.
I reached my limit, catching River’s eye across the carnage on the ground before I turned to Cam. “It’s time.”
Cam held my gaze as if there was no one else on earth. Not River or Priest. Not Saint, Alexei, Nash, or Locke. “You can get on your hog right now and ride away. Forget you ever saw him.”
The mist from the forest began to swirl at our feet, creeping up Cam’s legs, in my head, at least, as if Mother Nature was trying to silence him. But I didn’t need her help.
I didn’t need anyone’s help.
Under the light of the fading moon, I smiled at my oldest protector. Then I turned away from him and back to Priest, crouching so my face and my Rebel Queen tits were the last thing he saw.
“You were dead the first time you ever touched him.” I held out my hand. “Brother, the knife.”
19
NASH
Cam:I have her
Orla:Stay with him
Cam:Church. 1 hr. Every1
The first and last messages were four hours apart. I laid a careful hand on Locke’s chest, waking him with a light touch. “Can you ride?”
