He smirked like a haunted fucking corpse, but something else laced his expression—a deathly aggression he made little effort to hide from me, and it slowly dawned on me why.
He knows.
How, I had no clue, but at this point, it didn’t matter. I had an ally in the room and I was all over that shit.
I tipped Nash the nod. “Stand me up, brother.”
Nash frowned. “This ain’t a joke.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“This prick has pissed you off enough to take a seat at the table?”
“Yup.”
“And you’re not going to tell me why?”
“Nope.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Nash scrubbed a hand down his face. “I was in the market for an early night.”
Lucky him, and for a brief second, I felt bad about ruining his good time. Then Alexei stole my attention before he abandoned his post at the door, and my path solidified.
Fuck it.
I took the extra patch for the leather cut I never wore and stuffed it in my back pocket. No ceremony. Zero fucks given.
Nash shook his head and followed Alexei out into the chaos of the yard.
Locke remained, gawping like he’d never seen me before. “You been snorting fuckin’ monkey dust again?”
“That was one time. Five years ago. Don’t go on.”
“If you take a seat at that table, they’ll expect you to sit in it.”
Fuck my life. “I know.”
“AndIknow you’ve spent the last decade telling me you’d rather set yourself on fire than have any kind of responsibility. What gives?”
“You’ve asked me that three times already. You’re not getting a different answer out of me.”
“What if Cam asks you? Or Saint? They’re not as nice as Nash.”
“Leave him alone, Mishka.” Alexei reappeared in the doorway. “Find the nomad some food he will eat so he is not fighting on an empty stomach.”
Locke was one of the bravest souls I’d ever met. He cemented his boots to the floor, prepared to go toe-to-toe with the maddest, baddest Russian hitmanfor me. But I shut that shit down. “I’m fucking starving, bro.”
That earned me a daddy growl, but I could take it.
Locke left.
Alexei came closer. “I saw what you saw.”
“I figured.” I dropped my spent rollie in a nearby beer bottle. “You should’ve let me kill him.”
“I would have.”
“For real?”
