Something that was gonna burn if I didn’t rescue it soon.

  I found a cloth and opened the oven. A bubbling dish that was fast turning dark, dark brown greeted me.

  Shit. I yanked it out and dumped it on the thick wooden chopping board. It still smelled good, but it needed to simmer down before we even thought about eating it.

  I let it be and grabbed my joint and lighter, sparking up as I took the ashtray with me back to the living room.

  Embry was still on his back, staring at the ceiling, but he’d pulled his jeans on.

  I passed him the joint and did the same. “Dinner’s ready. Needs a few minutes to settle down.”

  “Is it lasagne?”

  “No clue. Didn’t ask.”

  “Dick.”

  “Chill. I’m putting it away.”

  “I love this.” Embry stuck the blunt in his mouth and gestured between us. “I thought it was going to be difficult forever, but it gets easier every time, like Alexei said it would.”

  “Alexei?”

  “I told him some stuff earlier today. Not on purpose. He caught me at a moment, you know? Asked the right question and it all came out.”

  I finished tugging my jeans up my legs and sat on the edge of the couch. “I never thought it’d be Alexei you’d spill to, but it’s probably good that you did.”

  Embry shrugged. “Maybe. But it got me thinking about how hypocritical it was of me to go postal on you when I’ve kept so much of myself hidden too.”

  A frown creased my face. “It ain’t the same thing, Em.”

  “Right. Your secret was fucking beautiful. Mine’s a nightmare.”

  I couldn’t deny that. “But it’s not who you are. You think we know everything about Saint and all the horrible shit ever happened to him?”

  Embry sighed, still smoking the joint. “I know you’re right, but logic is so hard to find when it comes to myself.”

  “Stop looking, then. Let it find you.”

  That made him laugh. He passed the joint back, our fingers brushing, before his expression sobered. “I got the feeling earlier, when I was talking to Alexei, that there was a lot he wasn’t telling me. And I didn’t ask because I was scared to know. But I want to know. I need to. Will you tell me what’s happening?”

  It was my turn to sigh around a cloud of herbal smoke. “I don’t know it all. It’s bigger than me now and what I’ve done. Esteban’s at war with Alexei’s old boss, and whatever happens is between them.”

  “You’re a pawn?”

  “Alexei made it sound that way, but I don’t think he’s telling me everything. He’s gone a lot and Saint is antsy as fuck.”

  “What about Sambini?”

  “Lorenzo? Him and Carlos are besties now, and he’s definitely getting braver. We’ve been fighting every other night, and there’s too many on the ground to just be old Crows.”

  “Too many for us?”

  “Not yet.” I cracked my knuckles, blunt jammed in my mouth. “But we’re taking hits. Losing muscle to injury. Even Alexei got hurt the other day. It’s only a matter of time before they get lucky. Catch us right and they could wipe us off the map in one brawl.”

  Embry took it all in. Fighting talk riled him up, but he seemed calm enough. “What happened to Alexei? He looked okay and Cam didn’t mention it when I spoke to him.”

  “Don’t think Cam knows. Or Saint.”

  “For real?”

  “For real. I think he showed me as a test, to see if he could trust me.”

  “Why? If you told them, it would only be because you gave a shit.”

  I thought back to my interactions with Alexei over the past few weeks. He’d always been strange, but the bullshit I’d thrust into his new life with Cam and Saint had made him harder to predict than ever. He was on my side, I had no doubt. But what that meant, I had no idea. “He’s been talking with his old boss, trying to find out if he’ll stand for us when it matters.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Right? But at what cost?” My real fears bubbled to the surface. “I think Saint’s worried Alexei is going to do something stupid to save me—to save Cam, and they’re going to lose him, and it’ll be my fault.”

  My voice cracked. I covered it with a cough, but Embry sat up and muscled his way into my space, doing that thing he always did when he needed me to listen, straddling my fucking waist. As if my dick pressed against him there would help me think better.

  As if.

  I stubbed out the smoke and gripped his hips, letting him snare me. “You think I’m wrong?”

  Embry leaned down. “I have no idea where Alexei’s head is at, but there’s no way he, or anyone else, is going into this blaming you. The only thing you could’ve done differently is tell us sooner.”

  “I never told you at all. Juana and Lili came running, and it’s only pure chance I was there. What if they’d come a couple of days before?”

  “Saint would’ve helped them. You told them to run to him for a reason.”

  Terror rose in me like a sudden hurricane. I pictured my girls wrestling with Locke and Folk at the gates, tearing across the yard to meet a crowd of stone-faced bikers. Fuck, what if they’d run a year ago and found no one but Cracker Delaney waiting for them? He was long dead, but he’d have sold them out quicker than I could say cunt, and I’d have thrown myself in front of a train the moment I’d ripped his head from his body.

  “Hey.” Embry sounded far away. “There’s so much you can’t control here, least of all Alexei. You need to focus on the things you can. Like taking care of yourself and keeping your family safe.”

  I agreed with the last part. But my family was bigger than it had ever been, and as much as Alexei Ivanov bemused me, he was family too. He’d proved it a hundred times in the last month. “There’s a meeting soon, a parlay, maybe. Sambini, Sidorov, Esteban. Alexei doesn’t know if they’ll want Cam there, but Sidorov already asked Alexei to go. I think he’s going to stand by protecting us but take Alexei back as payment.”

  Embry paled. “No.”

  “Yup. They’re gonna lose him, Em, and I don’t think Cam will survive it.”

  “What if Alexei says no? What does Esteban even want?”

  “Liliana. My head on a fucking spike. And the whole world to see that he took it from under Sidorov’s nose.”

  Rage vibrated in Embry. “He needs to die.”

  “Then what? If Sidorov kills him, he’ll still want something in return. Someone to do whatever fuckery Alexei was to him before he came here.”

  “Alexei was free before he came here. It makes no sense that he’d go back.”

  “Cielito, he’d do anything to protect Cam and Saint, but he shouldn’t have to—”

  Embry gripped my face. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it. You can offer yourself to them on a plate and it’ll never be enough. And then what happens to Liliana? She needs her dad, Mateo. More than Cam and Saint need Alexei.”

  Not true. Cam didn’t breathe right unless both his lovers were safe in his arms. And Saint? Fuck. He needed that all-consuming love. He deserved it. I couldn’t be the reason he didn’t have it anymore.

  Give yourself up.

  If I thought it could solve anything, I’d have done it already.

  Kill Carlos. Fuck it. Kill them all.

  But even Alexei had lost his thirst for that.

  “What are you going to do, enforcer? Kill everyone across three families until there’s no one left?”

  “If I have to.”

  “You do not have the skills for mass murder.”

  There’d been a compliment in there, I was sure of it. Either way, I was still fucking stuck. I was still a liability to the people I cared about most.

  “You’re still thinking things you shouldn’t.” Embry’s glare intensified. His fingers dug into my jaw, but all it did was make my dick swell and pulse in my unbuttoned jeans.

  I licked his thumb.

  He leaned down and took my bottom lip between his teeth, hard too. Down to fuck until he pulled away with a low growl. “You need to eat before we do this again.”

  I wanted to protest, but my empty belly got there first, rumbling up a storm that people in the next street over probably heard.

  Embry almost smiled. He sprang to his feet, agile body ethereal in the dim light of the room. “Wait here. I’ll get it.”

  I watched him leave, obsessed by every subtle movement in his lean back, the sway of his hips, but torn in the opposite direction all the same.

  Liliana.

  I found my phone and sent Rubi a text.

  Mateo: ok?

  The reply was instant.

  Rubi: she just drew me with a nose the size of a traffic cone.

  Mateo: she’s observant

  Rubi: or her dad spawned a wind up merchant

  Mateo: she’s really ok?

  Rubi: I promise, bro

  I needed to see her.

  I knew I couldn’t.

  Not yet.

  Fuck, I loved Rubi so much. If I didn’t survive this, I wanted Liliana to have him forever. I wanted Embry to—

  An ear-splitting crash punctured the night. Breaking glass. Splintering wood.

  I surged upright, adrenaline pumping before my bare feet hit the floor, and charged to the kitchen, shouts piercing the air before I’d taken two strides.

  The dark hallway enveloped me. Then the scent of Rubi’s cooking. For a split second, my fucked-up brain told me everything was okay. Then bodies spilled out of the kitchen, masked and armed, and I decked only two before I was thrown to the ground.

  Blood filled my mouth, wrist bone crunching as a heavy boot stamped me down. A guttural yell ravaged my throat, but a gloved hand over my mouth kept it inside.

  “Quiet.” The Spanish voice made my skin crawl. “Watch what we will do to him if you fight us.”

  Another hand wrenched my head back, a knee pressed to my neck, ready to snap it if I fucked up.

  It took a moment for my vision to clear.

  Then I saw him. Embry. Two men unconscious in front of him, another three restraining him, while one waited for my attention.

  He approached Embry, his hand distorted by a thick knuckle duster.

  No. I fought the weight on me, ignoring the searing pain in my mangled wrist. But nothing shifted, and the masked man was up on Embry before I could snatch a fucking breath.

  The blow was brutal.

  Loud.

  Embry’s gaze met mine, then rolled. Lights out. He fell to the floor, crumpled on his belly, blood seeping from his skull.

  He was gone.

  26

  EMBRY

  I came round on Rubi’s kitchen floor, glass in my hair, blood on my hands.

  It was my blood, and my stomach wrenched, but reality kicked in before I could puke.

  Mateo.

  Heart lurching, I scrambled from the floor, my equilibrium protesting the more upright I became. Head throbbing. Bare feet slipping on the mess on the floor.

  I staggered to the hallway, tripping over a broken picture frame and boots that weren’t mine.

  My phone.

  It wasn’t in my pocket, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen it. Holed up with Mateo—naked with Mateo—it hadn’t seemed to matter, but urgency ripped through me now.

  Terror.

  They took him.

  Esteban. Juana’s dad.

  And they were gonna kill him, slowly, the only benefit that it gave me time to raise a fucking army to save him.

  I need help.

  It was the only thought in my mind as I tore into the living room and ripped it apart. Then back to the horror scene in the kitchen.

  But my phone wasn’t there. Neither was Mateo’s, and Rubi didn’t have a landline.

  “Fuck!” I hurdled the broken back door and dashed around the house. Mateo’s hog lay smashed on the ground, pieces of it littering Rubi’s narrow driveway.

  Alexei’s Ninja wasn’t there. Somehow, I’d had the foresight to park it up the road, a minor miracle I thanked every deity I didn’t believe in for as I charged up the street.

  It was early morning. While I’d been knocked out on the floor, I’d missed the night fading into the first strains of a bright summer dawn. Rubi’s neighbours were starting to wake up and open their curtains. Put their bins out. One called out as I blazed past him, shoeless and covered in blood, but his voice was white noise.

  I reached the Ninja, the key still stuffed in my pocket. The goons that came for us must’ve assumed Mateo’s bike was the only one. Did that mean they thought I’d been there all along?

  Or had they followed me instead of him from Alexei’s penthouse?

  Where Mateo’s whole reason for living still were. Where Rubi still was.

  Decoy, if he’d stayed the night.

  Ivy’s face flashed into my mind and another wave of panic hit me. I threw myself onto the bike and gunned the engine, tearing down the quiet street with a violent roar.

  Rubi’s house was a fifteen-minute ride from the compound, but I made it in ten, pushing the Ninja to its limits, tyres squealing as I skidded to a stop at the locked gates.

  Folk popped up from nowhere, a frown already creasing his face as he ran forward to let me in, but I couldn’t wait that long. Muscles bunched, I sprang at the gates and climbed, hurling myself over the barbed wire and plunging to the ground on the other side.

  I landed hard, jarring every bone in my body through my bare feet, pain flaring in every joint.

  Folk reached me. “What the—”

  I pushed him off and ran, sprinting for the clubhouse. “Cam! Cam!”

  The door burst open. Cam tore into the yard in his underwear, his bullet scar vicious and gnarled against his tattooed skin, Nash a heartbeat behind him.

  We collided in the middle. Cam grabbed me, holding me up. “What is it? What the fuck happened?”

  “They came for him—”

  “Alexei?”

  Fuck. I was riding the Ninja. “No—” I couldn’t catch my breath. I dug my fingers into Cam’s forearm, fighting. “Mateo. They took him. Esteban. They took him, Cam. They’re gonna kill him. I—”

  My legs buckled.

  Cam caught me. “All right. It’s all right.” His voice was quiet. Too quiet. I could barely hear him over the noise in my head. “Fuck. Where’s Saint?”

  Nash already had his phone to his ear. “Not back yet. Locke’s here. He can help.”

  The yard blurred. It became the clubhouse and Locke appeared, as undressed as everyone else seemed to be.

  He approached me with his hands raised. “Can I look?”

  “At what?”

  Locke pointed at my head. “You’re bleeding.”

  Dazed, I swung my gaze to Cam. He was on the phone too, yanking on clothes, barking orders at every brother that came near.

  He grasped my arm and sat me down. “Em, you’re hurt.”

  “They took him.”

  “I know. We’ll get him back, I swear. But you need to get fixed, okay? You’re no good to me spreading claret everywhere.”

  Locke took his cue and muttered something to Folk, who disappeared and came back with the bag Saint used when he was patching up brothers.

  They stood behind me, Crows that Mateo didn’t trust, but I did. I ignored them poking at the sore spot on my head and fixated on Cam as he finished dressing and came to stand in front of me, vibrating with an anxious fury that matched mine. “Tell me everything.”

  I garbled it out. He seemed confused that we’d been at Rubi’s house, together, but he didn’t waste time asking why.

  “Where’s Alexei?” I asked.

  His gaze clouded with fear. “I don’t know. He left the penthouse after you did on Monday and we haven’t heard from him since. That’s why I thought he was with you.”

  “Monday?”

  Cam glanced behind me. “Em, you’ve been gone since the day before yesterday.”

  Sickening horror hit me. I pitched forward.

  Cam caught me before I tumbled. “You’ve been out the whole time?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they gave me something too.”

  “You have a needle mark on you?”

  “I don’t fucking know!”

  “All right.” Cam tightened his grip on me. “Just fucking breathe, okay? We’ll find him.”

  “Where’s Saint?”

  “Out there somewhere. Searching, watching, I don’t fucking know.” Cam scraped a hand over his face. “Goddamn, I thought we had more time.”

  “Before the meeting?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Mateo told me.”

  “How does he know about it? We didn’t tell him in case he did something stupid.”

  Locke pressed something wet and astringent to the back of my head. Violence surged in me, but I swallowed it down. “Like what? Give himself up?”

  Cam shrugged, but Nash called him away and I was alone again with Locke and Folk.

  They said nothing. Just taped me back together, cleaned my face, and brought me clothes and boots.

  “You feel sick?” Locke asked. “Dizzy?”

  “Not from this.”

  “Sure? If you ride out concussed, you could hit the dirt before you get wherever you’re going.”

  “I’m fine.” I stood on steady legs as Nash filled the space in front of me and put a hand to my face, staring hard, his easy demeanour swamped with hard lines of worry.

  “You didn’t puke?”

  “No.”

  “Are you gonna?”

  Mother of Christ, I was going to kick him in the nuts. “No.”

  Nash nodded and spoke over his shoulder. “He doesn’t look like Rubi did when he got clobbered. His eyes are fine. Let him go.”

  I hadn’t realised someone was holding me back until the restraints slipped away and Folk rounded me, an apology in his eyes.

  “Sorry. Boss’s orders.”

  I nodded and moved to where Cam was tucking a knife into his boot. “We’re going to get him?”

  Cam straightened. “We’re going to try. Saint found their base a week ago: a disused scrapyard Sambini took over last year.”