Cam’s frown deepened, bemusement merging with the heavy grief-stricken fatigue slumping his shoulders. “I have no idea what that means.”
Rubi sighed. “Never mind.”
“No.” Cam stepped further into the narrow space, his broad frame, combined with Rubi’s, sucking the oxygen from the room. “Tell me? Give me something easier to worry about.”
“We were making it for Saint,” Rubi said. “Me and Ivy. He doesn’t like factory bread anymore—Folksie said all that medication has probably fucked with his gut—so we were trying to make him the old-fashioned stuff as a surprise.”
Cam was a crier.
So was Rubi.
I waited for two hulking barrels of testosterone to burst into the tears I couldn’t shed, but it didn’t happen.
Rubi sniffed and stood tall again. “Anyway, this gangland kidnap bullshit is fucking with my hipster life plans, so I’m going to go bang your brother instead.”
He shoulder-barged Cam out of the way and disappeared.
A second later the chapel door slammed shut and Cam released a slow breath. “Was that a real conversation?”
“I don’t know, but River’s gonna get railed.”
Cam flinched. “Jesus fucking Christ. Really? Does that shit have to come out of your mouth?”
“It passes the time.” I kicked the fridge closed and dumped chicken on the counter. “How wasyourday, brother?”
Cam eyed me, caught between the bickering normalcy we both so desperately needed and a concern for me so deep that I wanted to climb into the oven and die. “How much do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Sure about that?”
It was a moment where I’d usually reach for a blunt object to chuck in his direction. Or a sharp one. But I didn’t have the energy. “I want you to tell me so Nash doesn’t have to.”
Cam ventured closer and peered at the chicken I’d piled on the counter. “We didn’t find anything today, but I feel better about that than I did yesterday. I think Locke’s alive. I think they’re moving him every couple of days, and we’re a heartbeat too late, every fucking time.”
“Is there anywhere else to look?”
“Always, but the places we’ve already been are definitely active.”
I reached for the same hefty kitchen knife I’d threatened Cam with all those weeks ago. When my main concern had been how to convince Locke that we wanted him for more than a sexual experiment. “How do you know?”
“Put that knife down.”
“No.”
Cam’s hand twitched as he considered snatching it from me.
After a beat, he stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth instead. “There’s blood on the walls. Old-school torture crap lying around.”
“They beat him with a pipe. Before.”
“And they probably are now.” Cam flatly confirmed my worst fears. “But they had years to kill him back then and they didn’t. You need to hold on to that. We all do.”
I brought the knife down on a chicken leg, severing the joint. “What would you do if it was Saint out there? Or Alexei?”
“The same as I’m doing right now.”
“You wouldn’t be at home, chopping chicken?”
