Wasn’t sure.
I needed a fucking nap.
IneededJakov to tell me more about Viktor, instead of putting stupid gloves on his hands to touch me. “You don’t have to patch me up.”
Jakov gestured for me to lift my arm and cleaned some blood from my skin. “Someone does, no? And I am here.”
The cloth caught on my broken skin. I hissed through my teeth and contorted my neck to examine the wound.
“It is not deep.” Jakov set the cloth down and reached for some tape. “But you will need to keep it clean.”
“Calling me dirty, Jakey?”
Cam cringed into a low rumble from his chest. “Behave.”
Jakov smiled again. “Is okay. I am used to Viktor.”
Cam still hovered like he worried I was going to get shanked for my big mouth. I glanced at the door, and at the ceiling for cameras, wondering who else had eyes on us. Saint had disappeared, and I hadn’t seen Alexei, but that meant nothing around here.
Jakov taped my torso back together, then moved on to examining my face. More wet cloths. More silence. It took everything I had not to shove him away and scream.
Actually, it took Cam’s hands on my shoulders.
Heavy.
Restraining.
As if I hadgrenadetattooed on my fucking forehead. “Simmer down. There’s no one left to fight tonight.”
There was. Myself. Always, always myself. And somehow Cam knew it and kept his hands on me until Jakov was done. “Tell him why you’re here.”
Fuckingfinally.
Jakov sat back in his seat and snapped off his gloves. “Two reasons. To see for myself that Locke was doing as well as reports suggest. And to see you, Ranger.”
He glanced at Cam, expecting him to leave, maybe.
Cam stayed.
I scratched dried blood from my cheek. “Reports? The fuck does that mean?”
“Nothing complex. I am in contact with Alexei and I ask him about Locke often, but I knew Viktor would feel better if I saw the situation here with my own eyes.”
Viktor. Locke. Viktor. Locke.
Locke had been cleaned up by the time I’d seen him after his crazy escape and evasion adventure, and I hadn’t seen Viktor at all, but unwelcome images bombarded me anyway. Blood that wasn’t mine. Pain I’d take a thousand times if it spared them.“And now you’ve seen him. Right as fucking rain. What do you want with me?”
“A favour.”
I stopped gouging blood from my face in the same moment Cam leaned infinitesimally closer, threading his arms across his chest. “With the ports?”
“Not exactly.”
Colour me intrigued. And relieved. Until recently, aside from getting messy with Viktor thatonefucking time, every moment I’d spent up north in recent years had been violent as fuck, and I was tired—a realisation that took hold with a splintering headache.
I don’t want to fight anymore.
At least, not any time soon.
