14. Nash
14
NASH
We rode in two groups of three. Folk, Ranger, and Locke in front. Decoy, Viktor, and me behind. Somewhere on Folk’s hog, he carried Rocco’s ashes.
Inland, the rain had stopped, giving way to mist rising from the ground. Visibility was poor, but though I knew I should’ve had eyes on every brother leading me east, my attention kept drifting to Locke.
To his powerful thighs that gripped his hog.
His broad shoulders that carried so much fucking weight.
I hadn’t been there two nights ago when he’d learned Saint and Alexei had brought Rocco back from wherever he’d been this whole time. I’d been in bed with Orla, asleep and unaware he’d got up and left us.
By the time I’d found him, the decision had been made that Folk would take Rocco home to Norfolk. That Locke would go with him, and Ranger if he wanted. It had taken less than a moment for me and Orls to decide I was going too. Less than an hour to recruit Finch Whitlock to travel west to stay with Orla while Locke and me both were gone.
It should’ve killed me to leave her just weeks before her scheduled C-section, worry wedged in my heart for her and our unborn children. But as we rode through the dead of night to wherever Folk wanted to lay Rocco to rest, I felt no fear. Our babies would wait for us—they’d wait for him . For Locke. Of course they fucking would.
We rode on, Folk leading, Viktor guarding the rear, and the air changed, mist giving way to sea fog, the harsh winter breeze picking up. Like home, except it wasn’t—not mine, anyway.
Folk left the main road and we followed him through the marshy fenlands to the coast. Eventually, we came to a gate where we left our bikes and hiked to a beach not visible from the country lane. Fine sands and shallow bays, even at night it was beautiful. Easy under foot, which my mashed leg appreciated, the wind gentler than it was at home.
Didn’t stop Locke checking on me, but the others—Folk and Ranger—they didn’t look back, and I knew why.
Rocco .
They’d known him longer. A childhood friend as much as a brother, and this... as much as this chapter in our lives had hurt Locke and the rest of us, it had hurt them more.
Another gust of wind whistled up the beach, blowing ashore from the sea. The tide was in, but in this part of the world, the ocean still lay a good distance from us, even as we reached an invisible line in the sand and Decoy stopped, catching my arm, the words he didn’t speak clear in his steady gaze.
Wait .
I stopped, my boots sinking. Viktor flanked Decoy and the rest of our brothers—our lovers —kept walking, Folk still leading, Ranger and Locke mirroring me and Viktor. The symmetry was kinda beautiful, but my heart was heavy as the distance between us grew. I longed for Orla and the wriggling mass of lumps and limbs her belly had become. Her fuller lips and sweeter scent. Her wise words.
Need her.
My phone burned a hole in my pocket, the secret folder of ultrasound pictures we’d showed no one, the photographs Locke took of her growing bump every week.
“You think you’ll remember, queenie, but the years fly by so fast, sometimes you don’t.”
Beside me, Decoy took a measured breath as quiet as he was, but it snapped me out of a hard daze. In the distance, our brothers had reached the sea and Folk knelt by the lapping waves, opening the bag he carried.
Damn.
I shut my eyes, fingers itching to mark the cross on my chest like my nan always had whenever death lingered close, my chest tight with grief I still didn’t really understand. Rocco St John had been in my life a long time. We’d fought as teenagers and he’d put me down. Not because he was stronger, just brighter. Smarter. In hindsight, it was easy to see how he’d been Folk’s best friend, but I hadn’t known he was a dad too until the last time I saw him.
Twins.
A shiver passed through me, and instinct coaxed my eyes open.
Folk scattered Rocco in the wind and walked into the sea.