“Where did you land on that?”
“Nowhere. I know it’s not the same. I got to look at Saint, hold his hand, and tell him I loved him while being scared as shit he’d die. And Alexei chose his own path. If it had killed him, I’d have found comfort in that.”
“Fair enough.” I reached for my vape.
Cam’s hands twitched like he wanted to steal that too. Or punch me. And the violence I’d felt with Ranger surged in me again. Itburned, and I glowered at my brother—my president—begging him to hit me.
He didn’t. Cam was cleverer than Ranger, and he knew me better. Knew that if I hit him and I hurt him, it’d break me. That if he hurt me—highly likely—it’d break him too.
There was a reason we rarely sparred with each other. Our fighting styles were too similar—and you know what? Who cared? We didn’t have time for this and I knew it. I just didn’t know how tostop.
“Nash.”
“What?”
“Please.”
“What?” My constricted lungs kept my voice hollow and flat. “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Guilt creased Cam’s face the moment he set that O’Brian rage free, but his temper was a light in the dark. A flare of normalcy Orla had spent the past week protecting me from, as if her anger could ever scar me. Couldn’t she see? Couldn’t Cam? I needed them to shout and scream because I couldn’t. To raise fucking hell and smash it to smithereens so I could escape.
SoLockecould escape.
But it wasn’t happening tonight. Cam’s lapse was short-lived. He hugged me and I hugged him back, because however fucked up I was, I knew he needed it.
We hit the road again, no better off than we’d been when we left the compound. Nothing had changed at all, and I wondered if this was it now—our lives stuck in this limbo of ignorance. Of never knowing. That counterbalance of hope and unending fear.
Was knowing for sure that Locke was dead worse than an existence dreaming that he’d somehow survived, only to live another day without him?
I couldn’t say, and my fluctuating state of mind was starting to dizzy me. My shield had holes and it hurt.
Cam was ahead of me, riding slowly on purpose, giving us both some time to calm the fuck down. A gesture I appreciated and hated him for in equal measure. It was the early hours of the morning. If we rode hard, I’d be home in time to go out again.
But going home meant facing reality—Locke’s empty bed and my phone lit up with messages from his beautiful kid. The collective grief and guilt weighing my brothers down. Orla’s sad eyes that even her indomitable strength couldn’t hide.
I loosened my grip on the throttle, hopelessness consuming me. My bike wobbled as I lost pace and balance, and only the fact that we were rolling up on the drop site kept me from crumpling at the side of the road.
That and the appearance of a pissed-off Russian on the horizon.
Alexei.
I fell off my bike for real, letting it clatter to the ground as I scrambled to my feet. “Did you find something?”
Alexei skewered me with a steely glare. “I foundyou.”
“Locke—”
“No. I am sorry.”
My sudden burst of energy ebbed away. That meant Alexei was here for Cam, not me, and as my tunnel vision faded, allowing me a proper study of Alexei’s demeanour, I knew that look. Cam was introuble—a state of affairs I usually found hilarious, but I’d lost my ability to laugh weeks ago.
Three weeks ago.
I found a tree and sagged against it, yanking my helmet off and dropping it without care where it landed.
Alexei eyed me, his keen gaze missing nothing. Then he rounded on Cam. “What is your plan, biker boy?”
Cam took his time tugging his helmet off and shaking out hair that was still uneven from the haircut Rubi had taken great delight in giving him at a Birmingham truck stop.International Haircut Day.Why couldn’t everything be fixed with silliness and love?
