“Aleksi!” I shouted, and Aleksi paused with his fist drawn back for another punch. “Move, big man!”
Aleksi rolled to the side off of Kastelani. K had just enough time to see the gun pointed at him, and to see who was behind it before I pulled the trigger. His head slammed back against the pavement with a hole in it just above the left eye, and a halo of blood spread out over the asphalt. Kastelani didn’t move.
The field went quiet.
Somewhere behind me Niko said something in French, soft, almost reverent, and Gregori said something back in Russian that wasn't, and the two of them started across the open groundtoward us. EJ was on his knees in the gravel where he'd fallen off K's legs, both hands torn to red ribbons round the wrists, staring at the body like he couldn't work out whether he'd done a good thing or an unforgivable one.
“Aleksi,” I whispered to no one and dropped the gun, and went to him.
Aleksi stood and swayed as I slammed into him. “Easy. Easy! Watch the shoulder!” he hissed as I took his face in my hands and started kissing him all over. There was blood and dirt, and sweat everywhere. He looked like something they'd dug up. A bloody revenant.
My revenant.
I held him and kissed him and pressed my forehead to him, willing the tears to stay back. "Ye absolute fucking eejit. Ye didnae text."
"I know."
"Ye never text and then yedidnae textand I thought—" I pulled back to look at him. "I thought ye were gone. I thought I'd come all this way to bury ye in a field."
"I'm here." He pressed his forehead back to mine and closed his eyes. "Fin. I'm here."
"Aye. Ye are." I kissed him then, hard, with teeth, the way he liked it, the way that meantmine, and he made the broken sound into my mouth and kissed me back like I was air.
When we broke apart, he didn't let go. He held my face in both hands and looked at me for a long moment. "I love you," Aleksi said. "I should've said it before. In the garage, I thought I'd die without saying it, and that was the thing—" His jaw worked. "It was the thing that kept me alive, knowing I had to get to you to say that."
"I ken," I said. "I love ye too, ye great daft Russian bastard. Have done for ages." I huffed a wet laugh. "Took ye getting shot to manage it, but I'll take it."
"Don't push it."
"Bit late." I kissed him again, soft this time. "Bit late for that, Aleksi Laskin."
Niko and Gregori closed on us.
“Glad to see you alive, boss,” Gregori said with a nod, which was as good as a kiss from the big, stoic bastard.
Niko grinned and threw his arms around both of us like he’d been invited. “That was the most fun I’ve had inages!” he said and twisted to look at EJ, who was still on his knees. “Hello there, mon gars. Come on. Join the party.”
Aleksi kissed my cheek and gave me a strange look before stepping away and going back to offer a hand to the lad. The younger man took it and let Aleksi pull him to his feet. Aleksi gave the lad a firm clap on his shoulder and walked him back to us.
“Nikolai, I want you to meet Evander.”
Niko’s eyebrow shot up. “Oui. We met before. The cleaner, yes?”
“EvanderLaskin,” Aleksi said, and the smile went all the way out of Niko.
Something passed between the two of them then, brother to brother, in a language that had nothing to do with French or Russian. Niko looked at the lad properly for the first time, the way I'd watched him look at a false seam in a four-thousand-dollar bag, reading it for what it was hiding. Whatever he found, his face didn't give it up.
"Evander Laskin," Niko repeated, and stuck his hand out. "Welcome to the family, mon gars. It is a terrible family. You'll fit right in."
The kid looked at the offered hand like it might bite him. Then he looked at Aleksi, and Aleksi gave him the smallest nod, and EJ took it.
I'd a feeling there was a great deal under it none of them had said out loud, the way there always was with the Laskins. Every one of them carried a war in three languages they'd rather die than discuss. I'd get it out of Aleksi later. In bed, probably, when he was cum drunk and stupid and couldn't help himself.
For now, I just put myself back under his arm where I belonged, nine fingers and borrowed shoes and all, and let him take my weight, and watched his ruined family stand in a dead man's field and decide, without a single one of them saying it, to be bigger by one.
"Right," I said, because somebody had to. "Can we go the fuck home now? I'm freezing my balls off and I've a Russian to put to bed."
"Bossy," Aleksi muttered.
