“Believing something doesn’t make it true.”
Alexei exhaled smoke, slowly, like a cartoon snake studying its prey. His gaze flickered to the bite mark on my neck. I waited for the barb, but understanding warmed his cold eyes. “It is not easy to love them.”
“Who?”
“The ones who choose us.” He tapped ash onto the ground and rubbed it into the grass with his boot. “But to fight it wastes time we do not have. It will be hard, nomad. To wage this war now everything has changed for you. But if you want a future beyond the time you have spent here, you have to put your faith in the risk.”
I pointed my smoke at him. “That’s the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard.”
Alexei watched faint clouds whisper over the full moon above us. “Everything is fucked up. And still we fight. Because if we don’t, we lose it all.”
He walked away before I could think of an answer, disappearing as abruptly as he’d arrived, and I knew that was it. That he was gone, and I didn’t like how I felt about that. Alexei was a weirdo, but I couldn’t deny, even in the most fucked-up circumstances, I always felt safe when he was around.
Or maybe I’d felt safer when I’d had less to lose. When loving Vik had been a distant dream.
We lose it all.
Nope. Not on my watch.
I ditched my cigarette and went inside. Viktor was where I’d left him, but he saw me coming and abandoned the blueprints, stepping into my arms.
It was the sweetest thing he’d ever done.
I kissed him.
He kissed me.
Then he pulled back with a droll fucking smile. “You called my brotherJakeyto his face?”
“Didn’t know Alexei was a grass.”
“He was confused. He did not realise that you are as much our family as you are his.”
“Said that, did he?”
“He did not need to.” Viktor took my hand and led me back to the counter. This cute bastard had made me a sandwich. “I have told you already that his relationship with Cam changed everything. Is what he said, no? That he cares about the people who love you? Cam is one of those people. It is what makes him a good leader.”
“Are you talking to me or yourself?” Honestly, it was hard to tell. Vik had a lot on his mind, and my role suddenly became crystal fucking clear.Don’t give him more shit to worry about.
I ate the sandwich.
Made him one.
Then I sat with him for the rest of the night while he planned a mass murder.
I didn’t know these men. Their names meant nothing to me. But as the hours ticked by and Vik told me more about them, a bigger picture clicked into place.
“This one.” He circled a name with his fingertip. “He has ties to the Aldea cartel. He controls the trafficking routes to North America, and Alexei believes it was him who ordered the assassination of Cam’s father and conspired with Mario Sambini to kill Cam too.”
“He’s the one who shat himself when Alexei shacked up with the Kings?”
“Among others.”
“What about this one?”
Viktor studied the name and the grainy photo below it. “It is odd that you ask about him.”
“Why?”
