Forever Rebel (Rebel Kings MC #11)

1. Cam

1

CAM

Alexei once told me he’d been raised to believe birds were the souls of the dead visiting from the afterlife.

No.

Not Alexei.

I watched the crow hop across the picnic bench and remembered Teddy Jones murmuring about Slavic mythology, about a lost bridegroom, and marvelled that I’d been thick enough to believe that was his name.

You never believed it.

Not really.

But I’d believed in him . In the rebirth he’d gifted my heart, even if I’d lacked the clarity—the fucking vision—to understand what it was yet.

And I understood now, because he’d stayed.

So had the birds. But this crow flew away, and I tilted my face to the sky.

Dawn.

It had taken me thirty-five years to realise I enjoyed it backwards. That’s to say, watching the sunrise after a long night was one of my favourite things to do, alone or with company. Though this morning, as I sat on the compound roof, enjoying a solitary smoke, I had the oddest sensation of both.

They’re leaving .

In the murky light of the early morning, I tracked Saint as he crossed the yard with a bag slung over his shoulder—one that had to be Locke’s. Saint didn’t own any bags. Or enough clothes to fill one. I hadn’t checked the cab of the HGV he was about to call home for the next week and a half, but I knew if I did, I’d find a toothbrush, a handful of my fucking underwear, and not a single other thing he gave a shiny shit about.

He needs more clothes. What if it gets fucking cold?

It was already cold. The December breeze was fucking Baltic, and I blew on my hands, missing the heat of the coffee mug I’d already drained. Missing the warmth of Saint’s unpredictable embrace and?—

“There you are.” Arms slimmer than Saint’s wound around me from behind, the scent of spicy, expensive cologne filling my senses as Alexei slotted against me and dropped his chin on my head. “Are you already moping, my love?”

My love . I craned my neck to find his gunmetal gaze. “You said it in English.”

“Said what?”

I repeated the phrase he usually spoke in his native language. The one I’d had to ask Folk to translate for me.

Alexei smiled and it was a hundred times better than any sunrise. “Maybe you have fucked the Russian out of me.”

If only. The fucking part, at least. I’d been up with the rigs all night, supervising the loading and checking the mechanics—jobs that most often belonged to Decoy and Nash. But Decoy was about to head out on the road too, for even longer than Saint, and these days, my sister needed my VP more than I did. If that meant I missed out on a night in bed with my men, somehow I’d survive it. “Maybe Saint fucked it out of you.”

Alexei smirked, giving nothing away. And I let it pass, loving how they loved each other when I wasn’t around. Imagining it had kept me going all night, though I couldn’t lie, I’d love it if one of them— both of them —ever came round to the idea of sucking my dick too.

“Are you thinking about it?” Alexei rubbed his cheek against mine. “You should not.”

Busted . “You have no idea what I’m thinking about.”

“Do not ever believe that.”

“Great advice.” I leaned into Alexei, instinct telling me I could smell Saint on his skin. That I wanted to, because knowing they’d spent the night together made me whole. “Could’ve done with it a year ago.”

“It has been longer than that.”

It had. But we’d been in survival mode so long that time had lost all meaning. Weeks. Months. Years. The blink of an eye or a slow crawl through wet sand. Either way, that we were still here was all that fucking mattered.

I kissed Alexei as the sun rose higher and broke through the sea fog, revelling in how pliant he fell under my hands. How my touch quieted a mind I knew to be as ferociously loud and clever as Saint’s. How could a motherfucker as simple as me ever compete? And yet somehow, in this moment, he was all mine.

His neat beard felt like velvet. I rubbed my calloused fingers through it, hooking him closer, tasting coffee and mint on his lips. I sat on the edge of the roof, my legs dangling free. It became the only reason I didn’t manhandle Alexei into my fucking lap.

What a life.

Some days I could hardly believe he was real. I bit his bottom lip. He snatched a breath, and?—

My phone buzzed, reminding me I couldn’t reconfigure our positions and fuck him on the icy screed of the roof.

Heart thumping a riled beat, I pulled back and fumbled for the phone.

Alexei pressed it into my hand. “The old one.”

I dragged myself down to earth and squinted at the screen. The message was benign logistics I’d already set in motion, but discovering that brought me back to an older text I hadn’t had a free moment to contemplate overnight.

Rubi: Something’s up with the Fruit Pickers

Decoy and Folk. Wasn’t sure how they’d coined their nickname, but somehow over the past however long, it had stuck, and it suited them. They were wholesome people—they were happy, last time I checked, which hadn’t been all that long ago. Had it?

I searched my brain, but Alexei rising and stepping away distracted me. “Where are you going?”

“You know where I am going.”

On the road, to shadow our convoys, keeping watch over our brothers, over Saint , while I kept shit together at home. “I meant where are you going now ?”

Alexei didn’t deign to answer. Just melted away, leaving me alone on the roof as the purr of an approaching vehicle pierced the quiet.

Rubi and River .

They rolled into the yard in my fucking car. River cut the engine, slammed the door hard enough to kill someone, and disappeared into the garage without looking back. Rubi hollered after him and threw up his big hands, admitting defeat and sweeping the compound with his keen gaze until he found me on the roof.

I lit another cigarette and waited, enjoying the peace while it lasted. Rubi was my oldest friend. Sometimes, when I didn’t think about the fact that he fucked my little brother on the regular, I found it hard to accept we didn’t share blood. He was annoying enough to qualify as my actual sibling, and I loved him as much.

Though, not enough to help him out as his belt caught on the window-ledge.

“Mother of Dragons, you cunt— fuck’s sake.”

He tumbled onto the roof.

I kept smoking to the soundtrack of River ripping open the garage doors and shattering the tranquillity of the early morning with angry punk music. “What’s up with him?”

“I don’t fecking know.” Rubi righted himself, pushing his mane of gold hair out of his face. “Actually, that’s not true. He found out I’m on the longest route of the run and it upset him, so he’s got to be all violent about it instead of just saying so.”

On brand for my fiery kid brother, but he’d evolved enough over the past few years that I knew it wouldn’t last. Gone were the days where River could rage for weeks at a time. Months. Years . I gave it ten minutes before he came looking for Rubi, and believing that made me long for Saint. For Alexei. For the next few weeks to be over already so I could have both of them back.

Rubi drifted closer, moving subtly enough that I had no time to react before he snatched my smoke and stamped on it. “No cancer sticks. Queen’s orders.”

“No, it fucking isn’t. My sister doesn’t care if I smoke.”

“Everyone cares that you smoke. Live forever, bro.”

“Fuck off.”

“Give it half hour, mate.” Rubi dropped down beside me and surveyed our kingdom. The compound we’d renovated beyond our parents’ wildest dreams, and the HGV hub we’d expanded so much over the last six months that I couldn’t see all the trucks from where we sat. Beyond it lay a swathe of land we’d just cleaned ourselves out of legitimate funds to buy, a reality Rubi understood better than anyone, except maybe Alexei, and it was on the renegade land that his gaze settled. “You figured out what the fuck we’re gonna do with it yet?”

“Nope. You?”

Rubi sipped tea from the mug I now realised he’d face-planted through the window to protect. “Only that it needs to be something fun. I can’t handle another dry business, Cammie. Life’s too fucking short.”

“You read that on a toilet door?”

“Cosmopolitan, as it goes. The Chuckle Brothers have all the good mags in the garage.”

Rubi had been part of my life as long as I’d been alive to live it, and I still lacked the ability to tell if he was serious any day we weren’t facing certain death. I lit another cigarette, fighting off his grabby hands. “Fucking stop. Unless you want to fall off this roof in a terrible accident.”

“You’d never do that to Riv.”

“Try me.”

Rubi grinned but let me smoke, and I was grateful for it. We didn’t spend much time together. Our busy lives and conflicting personalities kept us apart most days, and so I lived for moments like these, even if I rarely got round to telling him.

He knows .

And the quiet didn’t last, naturally. Rubi knocked his head on my shoulder and sighed. “You ever wonder what they’d make of it all?”

He meant our parents. Two couples who’d been the best of friends to the bitter end. And fuck me, it had been bitter. Rubi’s dad had gone first—heart failure brought on by years of hard living, fighting, and drinking on the road. Then his ma had succumbed to breast cancer. With Lark gone too, he’d lost his entire family in ten years. Except he hadn’t, cos I was still here.

I stubbed out my half-smoked cig and slung an arm around him. “Clare would’ve loved the art walls. My ma would’ve got a kick out of watching Mateo paint over them every other week.”

So Liliana could have as many fresh starts as she liked.

Rubi hummed a quiet laugh, leaning on me. “That’s cos Mary was a frustrated psychologist. She knew how everyone ticked, even complex motherfuckers like you.”

“I wasn’t always so complicated.”

“You’re not now, to be fair.” Rubi sat up again, leaning forward as more bikes and cars trickled in. “Bitta sex, maybe a hot dinner, and you’re happy enough.”

“How much is a bit?”

Rubi laughed for real this time. “All right, a lot of sex—you are a fucking O’Brian after all. But that’s why you’ve got two stallions in your stable, innit?”

I wasn’t here for the horse metaphors. Despite Saint and Alexei both packing some serious heat, I’d been around the block enough to know big didn’t necessarily mean good .

Rubi had too, but he’d lost interest in pigeonholing my personality, distracted by our brothers collecting in the yard.

Nash, Mateo, and Embry on their hogs. The others in cars, carrying precious cargo. I watched my sister’s SUV pull into the yard, driven by Locke, Juana behind them, with Decoy and Folk bringing up the rear. A full house, nearly, but not for long.

Embry rolled his Tiger to a stop and stood on his seat, gazing around before he jumped off, wild and fucking free.

Beside me, Rubi rumbled his approval. “Don’t get old, does it?”

Seeing Embry as agile as he’d been when I’d first scooped him up from the prison gates all those years ago. And no, it fucking didn’t. Not when we’d spent so long terrified we’d lose him. I’d had nightmares about that shit, and I knew Rubi had too. “Does that fucker ever wear his own clothes anymore?”

“Uh...”

I turned my head to catch Rubi’s sheepish pout. “What did you do?”

“Me?”

“You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The same one you had when you paved bellend into that copper’s driveway.”

“That was fifteen years ago.”

“Have you changed that much, brother?”

“Maybe not.” Rubi sighed. “But I don’t like thinking about Embry’s clothes. Makes me picture him all dead and shit.”

“Why?”

Rubi sniffed. “Cos I shrank them all in the dryer when I couldn’t stand them hanging off him when he was so sick. Not my fault he got better and grew out of them again, is it?”

Truthfully, it probably was. Rubi had saved Embry’s life, and he’d been there for him every step of his recovery, like he had for Nash, for Saint, for me . But he didn’t seem in the mood to be reminded, so I hauled myself to my feet, still half watching our brothers vacate their vehicles, the sensation I’d forgotten something gnawing at my brain.

I left Rubi on the roof and made my way downstairs with an endless night of manual labour heavy in my limbs, emerging into the yard the same moment Ranger popped out of the bunkhouse, dishevelled and grouchy, a smoke already jammed in his mouth.

No Viktor.

Didn’t know where he was. Just that he wasn’t here and I’d come to accept that I didn’t like how that felt. That whether he wanted us or not, he was family.

I greeted Ranger. “All right?”

He grunted around his roll-up, something else I’d learned to live with in recent months—that this brother wasn’t himself without his lover at his side. And how could I judge him for that?

“You didn’t have to sign up for this,” I reminded him. “Your name got added to the CPC course by accident.”

Ranger exhaled a cloud of smoke, scowling at me with black eyes that were nothing like the sweet cornflower stare of his lovely nanna. “You didn’t think I’d pass.”

Guilty as charged. Driving HGVs took more than skill. It required patience, and I’d assumed enough about Ranger’s personality to lump him in with Embry and River on that front.

But he’d proved me wrong, and now here he was, about to hit the road for a month with Rubi for company, a Saint-inspired combination I couldn’t be sure was brilliance or bald madness.

Time would tell. I pressed a roll of cash into Ranger’s hand. “For expenses. Don’t be shy.”

“I don’t need your money.”

“It’s not mine, it’s ours.”

I moved on before he could argue, a luxury Rubi wouldn’t have over the next few weeks, and again I questioned the sanity of teaming them up. They were both clowns when their moods were right, which brought its own problems. But they were also a pair of belligerent shitheads who didn’t know—or care—when to shut the fuck up.

They might kill each other.

A risk, but one we had to take if we were gonna weather the black hole in our finances from buying that fucking land.

The fuck are we going to do with it?

My mind grew too busy to focus—a fault-line that had spread through my brain when some cunt had shot me and jabbed a ketamine-laced syringe into my neck. A lifetime had passed since then, and I was stronger now, in every sense, than perhaps I’d ever been. But it was the one trauma symptom I couldn’t shake unless Saint or Alexei were with me, and they weren’t. Alexei had already gone—that kiss on the roof, I realised now, had been his goodbye.

And Saint?

I had no fucking idea. Just that I needed him, and?—

Soft lips touched my neck, the scent of hemp and the wilderness washing over me. I turned in the same moment Saint filled the space beside me, and every stress, strain, and busy thought evaporated.

These forest-green eyes. I’d been a fool for them so long it was hard to remember I’d lived a whole fucked-up existence before I’d found him. That if my dad had lived, Saint might not have stayed.

Goddamnit.

Grief and fear fought a bloody battle in my battered heart. I’d idolised my father, and I missed him so much some days it felt like my chest had ripped open again, exposing the festering wound his violent death had left behind. But the thought of life without Saint was one I’d had to contemplate too often, and I couldn’t bear it. Not today, when he was about to leave me.

I coaxed him closer and the yard faded away. With Alexei already gone, it was just us and the clouds already starting to cover the early morning sun, matching my state of mind. “Be careful out there.” We weren’t anticipating trouble. But if we’d learned anything over the past few years, it was that trouble had many faces, too many to fucking count, and not a day passed without me knowing it. “I love you.”

Saint tilted his head with a slow smile. Then he kissed me even slower, the kind of kiss that drowned me atom by atom, stealing my breath until I was gasping for air.

It was how he fucked me, when his mood was right, and it near killed me every goddamn time. It killed me now , and he wasn’t even doing it.

Dizzy as hell, I pulled back and pressed my forehead to his. “Drive like we love you, okay? Fucking promise me.”

Saint nodded. I couldn’t remember when I’d last heard his voice, and that wasn’t about to change. He held my gaze long enough that I believed the words he couldn’t say. Then he squeezed my hands and stepped back.

Time to go.

Sending my brothers out on the road never got any easier. I watched them say goodbye to their loved ones and climb into their cabs, and it hurt. One day we’d live a life where we didn’t have to do all the work our fucking selves, but we weren’t there yet, and it weighed on me like a ten-ton anvil strapped to my back.

Mateo and Decoy led the pack out of the lorry hub. Bertha, their HGV, was the newest and biggest, and the engine shook the ground louder than any hog.

Juana took Hope inside.

Ivy scrambled from Folk’s shoulders to mine to get a better look, her balance on point, which let me know she was pulling my hair for fun. “Is my dad really driving that?”

“Yup.” I pried her fingers from the mess on top of my head. “It’s a big one, eh?”

“Where’s Saint?”

“At the back. With Locke. See?”

I pointed to where Saint and Locke were effectively tail-gunning, while Rubi and Ranger endured the oldest rig—the Bone Rattler—in the middle of the pack of eight trucks assigned to the run. My gaze drew naturally to Saint, watching him manoeuvre the lorry as if he’d been born to, when the truth was, he hated it—the noise, the pollution, the monotony of the motorways. But as he steered the HGV through the gates, Locke caught my attention.

He tipped me a nod, which I returned, but I heard the message as loud and clear as when he’d cornered me last night, his laid-back nature overtaken by concern for everyone he was leaving behind for his part of this run.

Take care of them.

His kids. Nash. My sister. They’d been through a lot, with more to come, and in an ideal world, Locke wouldn’t have been on the road. But an ideal world was a life that happened to other people. For us, thanks to his years behind the wheel of a fire engine, Locke was our best driver. More than that, he was calm— sensible —and honestly, with Rubi and Ranger on the road, Decoy would need the back up.

The engine noise faded, leaving diesel fumes and an eerie quiet in its wake.

River didn’t like it. I’d been too wrapped up in Saint to witness him saying goodbye to Rubi, but I felt his vulnerability now like a kick to the chest. I understood it, and I didn’t fucking want to.

I set Ivy down. Her shoelace was undone. I crouched to fix it and straightened her mismatched socks. “Did you get dressed in the dark?”

Ivy laughed. “No, I just didn’t want to choose and my dad said it didn’t matter.”

“Which dad?”

“My extra-special bonus dad.”

Despite the weight in my chest, a smile split my face in half. This kid, she was better than therapy. “Well, he’s usually right, though when it comes to socks, he might be spending too much time with River.”

“Rubi says River has six brains.”

“Well, Rubi’s usually wrong , so?—”

Ivy pressed her hand over my mouth, smothering my words, protective of the cuddly uncle who encouraged food fights and mayhem. Only Saint ranked higher, and I could live with that. He was my number one too, a place in my heart he was happy to share.

I let Ivy go. It was a weekday—she had school, so did Liliana, like every regular kid, and normality was good for them. Grounding. I’d fucking hated school, but I couldn’t deny I missed those blissful days when I’d had nothing to worry about except my siblings shanking dipshits in the playground.

One fucking time.

My sister’s phantom voice drew my focus from the empty space Ivy had left behind. Everyone had gone, but I felt eyes on me that I couldn’t pinpoint until Viktor stepped out of the shadows, less ghost-like than Alexei but with the same ninja stealth. The same stare that seemed to see everything, and I couldn’t handle that right now. I needed space. I needed to breathe, as much as I ever could without Alexei and Saint beside me.

I nodded at the scarred helmet tucked under his arm. “Brother, let’s ride.”