He didn’t seem that drunk to me, but I let it go all the same, my head too full of other things to absorb much of anyone else’s.

  I ate my pizza and listened to Cam and Nash talk shop, all the while stealing glances at Mateo while he stole glances at me.

  We both failed. Rubi caught every single one.

  He knows.

  Maybe.

  Did I care?

  No.

  I got up to clear the mess from the table for no other reason than I wanted to brush past Mateo. But he wasn’t there. In the split second I’d looked away, he’d disappeared.

  “He went for a smoke,” Rubi supplied.

  “Didn’t ask, brother.”

  “Don’t ask the stars to shine either, but there’s some shit you can’t control, ain’t there?”

  “Cute.”

  “Profound. Off you fuck.”

  Rubi’s grin expanded to Cheshire-cat territory. I flipped him off with both hands and ducked out of the open back door.

  I smelt weed smoke the second my boot hit concrete, but I forced myself to trek to the bins before I followed the trail to Mateo.

  Then it was like I had a magnet in my chest and Mateo was made of steel. I ducked through the shadows until I saw his silhouette beneath the security light by the gates.

  Folk was on duty, but for once he’d escaped Mateo’s nuclear glare and was going about his business without a target on his back.

  “You got the memo then?”

  At the sound of my voice, Mateo turned and his lips turned up in a gentle smile. “What memo?”

  “About him.” I tipped my head at Folk. “He passed Alexei’s test.”

  “Lucky him.”

  “Still unconvinced?”

  “Ask me tomorrow. I’m not thinking about Crow rejects right now.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Mateo sucked on his joint, taking a deep inhale that he let out slowly, tendril by tendril. “Lots of things.”

  “Like?” I stepped closer before I remembered the CCTV watching us. “Or do you want me to guess?”

  “Guessing is good.”

  “It’s long. Be easier if you just told me.”

  “Less fun, though.” Mateo narrowed the distance between us and brought the blunt to my lips. He watched me drag on it, gaze hooked on my mouth, and it was all I could do not to kiss him.

  I craved that as much as I wanted him to fuck me again.

  It mattered more.

  I blew herbal smoke from my lungs and reached for the hand that lay dormant at his side. With Saint off his nut on edibles, it would be Alexei who saw us, but I felt reckless.

  And realistic.

  Every brother knew what me and Mateo were. It was only the fear of breaking something fragile that kept us in the dark.

  Be sensible.

  Eh.

  Mateo ashed the spent joint on a nearby wall and flicked it in a bin with perfect aim. “I was thinking about how we slept together after we fucked, and . . .”

  “And?”

  “And how we fucked on the bed before we slept in it.”

  “Panned out, didn’t it?”

  A brief, soft smirk flickered through Mateo’s features. “It did, but that don’t mean I’m expecting shit to change around here. I wanted you to know that.”

  “Your dick isn’t medicinal?”

  “It’s never cured me of anything.”

  I hummed a low laugh, Mateo’s potent joint hitting me harder than the gentle ones I rolled for myself. “I wasn’t worried that you’d be jumping me upstairs as soon as we got back. And I can’t promise I’ll ever want you to, but I want you. If you can put up with al fresco fucking for a while . . . I don’t know. Maybe I need a chaplain.”

  Mateo sidled closer still and I smelt the Mateo layered beneath the weed smoke. “I ain’t got nothing to complain about if you wanna alfresco fuck me, cielito.”

  Still wasn’t convinced he meant literally, but okay. I didn’t have much to complain about either, and my resolve to be sensible crumbled.

  I stretched up and kissed him, a soft brush of lips that was a promise more than anything else. A sentiment. The details weren’t important. Just the sweet sensation of Mateo’s lips working with mine. His scruff scraping my jaw. In a faraway place, I knew there were complications I hadn’t thought of yet. Complications I’d thought to death and somehow forgotten about. But whatever it was I’d pushed from my mind, it was a static speck in the distance and easy to ignore.

  Everything was easy when Mateo held my face and whispered Spanish shit to me.

  “We should go back,” he said. “Before Rubi comes out here to join in.”

  I cringed.

  He arched a brow. “I meant the ganja, chaparrito.”

  Regardless, he was right. I knocked my head on his chest and headed back inside with him half a step behind me.

  The bar was dead, only a handful of old timers at the pool table while my brothers kicked back in the alcove. Nash had disappeared and I’d lost my spot on the couch to Saint, who was lying down, his head in Cam’s lap while Alexei crouched beside them both, leaning forward so he could peer into Saint’s face.

  Cam was smiling, his big body free of stress. At some point, we’d have to hash out the Crow attack on the convoy, but not tonight.

  “We are going home.” Alexei materialised in front of me. “The cat will be happier at the cottage.”

  Alexei was a strange dude, but that was probably the oddest thing he’d ever said to me. Leaning back in my seat, I nodded. “Can we talk about Locke and Folk tomorrow?”

  “We can. But not too early, chaplain. It is the weekend, no?”

  As if Alexei gave a shit, but I humoured him and he left.

  Cam and Saint lingered to say goodbye in simpler terms. Cam hugged me, fraternal and paternal all rolled into one.

  Saint kept his physical affection to himself. He typed a message into his phone and held it up for my eyes only.

  Saint: trust what you feel

  He melted away without waiting for a response. Cam followed him out, leaving me and Mateo with Rubi’s smug grin.

  Rubi’s wide smug grin and Mateo’s habitual irritation.

  He jabbed a finger in Rubi’s face. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Why?” Rubi hooked a bottle of whisky closer and poured himself an unhealthy shot. “I’m drunk and you’re right in front of me. Piss off somewhere else if you don’t like my company.”

  Mateo had form for punching people—even his brothers—with too much force to be ruled brotherly. But apparently his good mood knew no bounds.

  He mussed Rubi’s hair. “Works for me, bro.”

  Then he strode out of the bar, whistling, and it took a split second and Rubi’s deep chuckle for me to follow.

  We jogged upstairs. Mateo stopped on the landing to open a window. Outside, it had begun to rain, warm summer drizzle that made even tarmac smell alive. I stuck my head out, letting it hit my face and the bare skin of my arms, before Mateo pulled me back in, rumbling a growl, his lips to my neck.

  “No climbing tonight.”

  “No?”

  “Sleep, cielito.”

  I had no problem with that. After the hotel slumber party, we’d slept in shifts on the road, but I knew him, and I’d felt his gaze all over me when he should’ve been dreaming of something else while I took my turn guarding the convoy.

  My bedroom door was five feet away. I was tired too, but I wasn’t ready to give him up yet.

  I turned from the window. He was right behind me. A heartbeat. A hair’s breadth. Then he wasn’t, and the kiss we shared now was nothing like the gentle brush of lips from the yard. It was every scrap of wildness we’d grown into on this trip. Every door we’d kicked open. Every dragon Mateo had killed with his brighter flame.

  He stole my breath.

  My common sense.

  Recklessness returned, but Mateo pulled back before I asked him to do something destructive and crazy.

  “Come on.” He kissed my forehead. “I need your bed.”

  Those words meant as much to me as anything.

  As much as how I felt when I woke up sometime later, surrounded by Mateo Romano.

  He was behind me, an arm around my waist, a muscular leg draped over mine. The skin of his bare torso was hot, his chest to my back, and his breathing was deep and even enough that I knew he was asleep.

  A rush warmed my heart. I’d dreamt of a lot of things when it came to him and me, but this had always seemed the most unattainable. That the co-dependant bed-sharing bullshit—my bullshit—we’d fallen into, would ever heal enough to become something else.

  Something real.

  I found Mateo’s hands.

  Squeezed them.

  There was no response save the twitch of his lips against my shoulder, and I smiled, turning my gaze to the window.

  Early morning light misted through the glass. It was almost dawn, but not quite. Sunrise was still a while away and the compound was, for once, silent and still.

  The quiet gave me a moment to appreciate every facet of being with Mateo. Every sensation. He had one hand on top of my head, like he was ready to comfort me at any moment. The other rested on my hip, fingers splayed. I knew I’d slept through him rubbing soothing circles into the bone with the pad of his thumb.

  I closed my eyes again, imagining it, sinking into Mateo’s embrace, all the while fighting sleep. I’d been tired before we’d fallen into this bed, and I was tired still, but with war hanging over us, these moments were too precious to miss.

  Drifting, I let Mateo’s stillness ground me—

  Mateo snatched a sharp breath and bolted upright. It was abrupt enough for me to realise I hadn’t been truly awake at all, and the violence of it jammed raw fear into my throat.

  I reached for him, but he was already scrambling out of bed. Then I heard it, the sound of a commotion outside.

  Mateo flung the door open and disappeared. I fought the haze of sleep and staggered to the window.

  Locke was at the gates, struggling to contain a figure I couldn’t quite make out.

  I wrenched the window up and climbed out onto the roof, traversing the tarmac and slates in bare feet.

  The picnic table was further out than it had been the last time I’d hurled myself onto it, but I didn’t give a fuck. I jumped. Landed on the weathered wood and hit the ground running, stones biting into my feet.

  Locke wound his big arms around the intruder at the gates. A woman with short hair and golden skin. She fought like a lion, screaming, her gaze fixed on a smaller figure I hadn’t noticed from the roof.

  A girl.

  A child.

  Locke couldn’t contain them both. The clubhouse doors burst open as the girl slipped free, evading Folk as he appeared from the bunkhouse, light on her feet and full of speed.

  She pelted across the yard, dark curls misting behind her, round, amber eyes wide and scared.

  I darted to intercept her, but like Folk, my hands found air.

  The girl screamed, tripping over her own feet, but she didn’t fall. She found balance from nowhere, threw herself beyond me, and leapt into Mateo’s open arms.

  “Papá!”

  17

  MATEO

  She had amber eyes. And long black hair that curled at the ends.

  Her name was Liliana.

  She was my daughter.

  I watched her sprint across the yard with fire in her eyes, evading my brothers, her tiny feet dancing over the dusty tarmac. Her body collided with mine, slender arms a vice around my neck, and I knew in that moment that nothing would ever be the same again.

  Her hair smelt like hay and bubble gum. I buried my face in it, the world closing in to just us and this precious split second of joy.

  She was here. In my arms, in my home, and I was never letting go.

  Reality was a kick in the dick. Footsteps approached. Heavy boots and the lighter tread of a woman.

  I raised my gaze and there she was. Juana Esteban. The girl who’d stolen the heart of fifteen-year-old me and made my life ever since a fucking misery.

  God, I loved her.

  Hated the fear in her eyes as she sidestepped Locke and came to me.

  The grief.

  I lifted an arm to embrace her, closing my eyes again to the tiny swell of her belly, Spanish forming on my tongue like I spoke it every day. “What happened, Ju? What did he do?”

  “Raul,” she whispered. “They found out about us and they killed him. They were going to get a doctor—I couldn’t—I can’t—so I took Liliana and ran. I’m so sorry. Will your people kill you now?”

  Unlikely, but the penalty for a brotherhood built on lies was worse.

  I kissed Juana’s temple and steeled myself.

  Then I faced them, my brothers. Decoy first, then Nash.

  Embry.

  Embry. He stepped into my eyeline, like he was fucking drunk. Still half asleep, caught in that horrible place where he didn’t quite believe he was awake. Confusion lingered in his gaze, but it was fading fast. Realisation crept in. He took the pieces of my shattered life and built his own picture, and my battered heart broke in two. “I—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t.”

  The venom in his voice, the anger, shattered the stunned silence that had taken hold of the others. Locke and Folk appeared in my peripheral. Rubi too. And Nash stepped forward, his measured calm belied only by the faint tremor in his hand as he pointed to the chapel. “Take them inside. We’ll follow you.”

  When I didn’t move, he inched closer. “Now, brother.”

  An order, not a request. Lili was too big and too old to be carried, but I picked her up anyway, took Juana’s hand, and herded them to the chapel, white noise buzzing in my head, my pulse so slow with dread I couldn’t fathom how I was fucking alive.

  Inside, it was dark, blinds drawn. Saint had always despised overhead lights, but since he’d got hurt, he’d hated them enough to take the bulb from each one and hide them.

  I flicked on a lamp. The warm glow he preferred illuminated my daughter’s face. I set her on the ancient table and ran my gaze over every inch of her. “You’re not hurt?”

  “No, Papá. What happened to your face?”

  “A fight. I won.”

  It was the truth, and no matter the web of deceit we’d lived to get to this point, I always gave her that.

  Juana too. Most days, it was all we had. I watched her fold into a chair—Rubi’s—and rub the tiny bump beneath her clothes. “The young one behind you. Was that Embry?”

  Pain flared in my chest. I nodded. “That’s him.”

  “You really never told him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Mateo.”

  “I know.” Fuck me, I knew. But I stood by every horrific choice I’d made. If I’d told Embry the truth at any point over the last three years, he’d be in this room with us, waiting for the axe to fall and take his whole fucking life away from him.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Juana said. “Outside. Will they kill you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What will they do?”

  The door opened. Nash slipped inside and shut it behind him. Liliana was still on the table, anxious hands curled into fists. She moved to get down.

  He shook his head. “Stay where you are.”

  Liliana froze. I curved an arm around her shoulders and stared Nash down, tracking his every move.

  He held up one hand and pulled out a chair with the other. “I come in peace, Mats. Take a breath.”

  Peace was relative. Cam wasn’t here, Saint either. Or Alexei. They’d driven home last night in Alexei’s car, leaving their bikes behind. Nash could play the grey man all he liked; it wasn’t him I was worried about.

  Nash turned his attention to Juana, scanning her up and down. “Weapons?”

  “A blade,” she said. “Strapped to my ankle.”

  “Hand it over. What about the girl?”

  “I have a pencil,” Liliana snapped in Spanish. “I’ll stab it in your eye if you hurt my dad.”

  “Lili.” I tapped her nose. “Behave.”

  Nash didn’t speak Spanish, but he got the gist and held out his hand for Juana’s knife.

  She passed it over. He took it and tucked it into his belt before fixing his gaze on me. “I’m gonna need to trust you that she’s not carrying anything else. Can I trust you, Mats?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know if she has anything else, but Liliana’s clean.”

  “Liliana.” Nash repeated the name, filing it away. “She’s your daughter?”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Cos I’m pretty sure she just threatened to kill me.” Faint humour warmed Nash’s handsome face before it evaporated and his features darkened again. “Cam’s on his way. I ain’t told him shit except your wife and kid showed up like they were being chased by feds. He’ll want the truth when he gets here, whatever that is. Don’t think I need to warn you what’s gonna go down if you can’t give it to him, brother.”

  It wasn’t a threat, not from Nash. But my kid made this noise in her chest that was all me, and if I hadn’t been scared for her life and mine, I’d have laughed.

  I didn’t laugh.

  I pulled her close and blocked Nash out, thinking about nothing but Liliana’s soft hair and warrior courage until even she wasn’t enough to drown out the fury in Embry’s face.

  No disbelief.

  No am-I-even-awake-right-now negotiation.

  Just pure betrayal, and that was my boy all over. He saw the meat of every man and took them for who they were. By their actions, not their words, and fuck me, he could hold a grudge. He’s gonna hate me forever.

  I’d love him longer.

  Vehicles sounded in the yard.

  I jerked my head up, tracking Nash as he went to the window and peered around the blind. “They’re here.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them. You ready, or you need a few minutes?”

  “We’re ready.”

  Nash nodded and left.

  Liliana squirmed in my hold. “Who’s coming? Is it Embry?”

  “He’s already here. It’s Cam and Saint. And Alexei.”

  She frowned, Alexei’s name less familiar to her, but I didn’t have time to explain that situation. If we survived the next few hours, he could explain it himself.