19. Embry
19
EMbrY
We need to go .
I handed Hope to Juana without stopping to ask why and spun back into the hallway, snatching my phone from the stair post, heart sinking as the screen lit up with a flurry of messages from Decoy, all sent in the half hour I’d spent failing to settle Hope.
Decoy: m’s pretty sick
Decoy: might take him to a walk-in centre, get something to stop him puking all the way home
Decoy: has he still got his appendix???
Shitshitshit. My thumb hovered over the Call button, but Cam appeared at my elbow.
“I spoke to Decoy already. He’s gonna pull into the first A he told me that.”
“He needs you to stay here and behave.”
“No!” Liliana shouted, wrenching her arm free of my hold and pushing her way to the front door, snatching the first pair of shoes she found—mine, naturally. I hadn’t got round to stamping into them. “I’m going and you can’t stop me.”
She crammed her dainty feet into my boots and threw the front door open, already scanning the bikes and cars outside, looking for Cam’s SUV, sharp enough to have spotted the keys in his hand.
The commotion emptied the kitchen into the hallway. Suddenly there were so many bodies between us. I couldn’t get to her and white noise filled my head, merging with Hope’s distress to become a wall of sound I couldn’t shove past—an obstacle that usually afflicted Saint, not me. A brother who kept moving regardless, and fuck, I wished he was here right now.
I found my way to Liliana and guided her outside, letting her feel the bitter wind blowing in from the sea. “I know you’re scared, but I need you to stay here and look after your sister while I go get Pápa and bring him home, okay? He’ll feel better knowing you’re doing that for him.”
Liliana speared me with a glare that could slay a man where he stood, but unshed tears shone in her eyes. “I know what an appendix is. If it’s bad, they’ll have to cut him open, and what if he dies like you did? What if I’m not there again and I never get to say goodbye?”
“You don’t need to say goodbye. He’s not dying. Even if he needs his appendix out, it’s nothing to him. He’ll be fine.”
Silence heavied the air, the words sour on my tongue. I’d never spoken such shit in all my life, and Liliana knew it. Not because I hadn’t spat facts, but because she’d survived an existence where nothing was ever that simple. She’d seen men die. Stepped over their bodies to escape. And she was right about what had happened to me every time I’d gone under the knife. That was the thing about telling your kids the truth; you could never un-tell it and lie to them.
Hope stopped crying. A taller figure than even Cam filled the doorway and Locke stepped out of the house with her safe in his arms. He squeezed my shoulder and held out a hand to Liliana. “My brother had that operation a while back, and Nash had it a few years ago. They’re both fine. Why don’t you come inside and we’ll give Logan a call? He can tell you all about it.”
Liliana didn’t move, her defiance fixed on me.
But Locke... he had this way with the kids the rest of us had yet to learn. Somehow he got through to her with the power of his kind gaze alone, and she broke, those tears finally falling. “What if he dies?”
“He won’t. Probably just feels like he wants to right now.” Locke tucked her under his big arm, lifting her enough that my boots slipped from her feet, before setting her inside the house. “But you know he’ll feel better if he’s got your dad with him, so we need to let him go, okay?”
His gentle tone left no room for argument, and I knew I possessed that skill too. But it was lost right now. I had nothing but a hug for my distressed children and a soul thankful for the brother who’d watch over them while I was gone.
Locke took the girls inside.
I reclaimed my boots, shoving my feet into them as Cam jogged out of the house, and we made a dash for his car.
“I’m driving,” he growled. “Don’t fight me on it.”
I didn’t even know where we were going—what medical facility Decoy was headed for. Christ, I didn’t know what fucking county they were in, so I threw myself into the passenger seat without argument.
Cam slid behind the wheel and started the engine. A split second passed, as if he were waiting for something. Or some one , as the backdoor opened and another brother rolled into the car.
Folk.
Cam shot the SUV into a sharp reverse, spinning us around before he gunned it out of Juana’s quiet cul-de-sac. I turned as we hit the main road.
“You didn’t have to come.”
Folk was already folding his jacket into a pillow, knowing there was a chance, however this went, he’d have to drive a shift later in the night. “It’s no problem.”
“But Ivy?—”
“She’s fine , brother. Let it go.”
I was missing something. I saw it in the wise stare of my friend—a stare that had become so weary in recent months. But Folk shut me out, pulling his hood over his face and falling asleep the way only a soldier and Rubi could.
Defeated, I slumped back in my seat and reached for my phone again.
Decoy: at a&e, gonna be a while
Embry: How’s he doing?
Decoy: bellyache’s pretty bad, he’s mainly annoyed
Embry: With who?
Decoy: me
Embry: Sorry about that
Decoy: i can handle it
Embry: We just left. Keep me posted
Decoy: always
Decoy went offline. Tension flooded me, threatening the hard-won calm in my gut, and I pressed a hand to my abdomen, as if Mateo’s pain were mine and I could fucking feel that shitty little organ coming apart inside him.
You don’t know it’s that yet.
Logic. We were friends, but apparently not tonight. My stomach twisted again. Fuck . I gritted my teeth, swallowing whatever sound barrelled up my throat.
Cam heard it all the same and pressed a fist to my shoulder. “Tell me if you need to pull over.”
“I’m good.”
“I’m here if you’re not.”
“I know.”
I tipped my head back and shut my eyes, wishing I could sleep the next six hours away. But my brain didn’t work like that, not when it came to Mateo, and I was wide awake when my phone buzzed a few minutes later.
Cam chanced a glance from the road. “What is it?”
“They gave him a bed.”
“They admitted him? What for?”
“Appendix. Waiting for a doctor to confirm it.”
“Okay.” Cam blew out a breath. “So they’ll whip it out and he’ll be fine. Nash’s burst and they still got it out with that keyhole thing.”
“Keyhole thing?”
“It was a big fucking word. I didn’t write it down. You all right if I smoke?”
“Couldn’t give less of a fuck.”
Cam eyed Folk for a moment, then cracked a window and lit up, blowing as much smoke as he could outside for three drags before he tossed the whole thing.
“Was that really worth it?”
“Probably not. You need water or anything?”
“No.”
“All right. Just let me know.”
The only thing I needed was to lay eyes on Mateo, and Cam knew it. We lapsed into silence. Cam smoked a bit more. I stewed in my thoughts, willing my phone to light up. But Decoy had nothing else to tell me, and eventually, I shut my eyes to it all. Not asleep, but not awake either. Just freaking the fuck out a little more with every mile that passed, gaining a new appreciation for what I’d put Mateo through every time I’d nearly died on him.
He’s not dying.
My eyes flew open, a gasp caught in my chest.
Cam rubbed my shoulder again, eyes on the road as we passed a string of HGVs on the motorway. “Bad dream?”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“Drink some water.”
I obeyed on autopilot, checking my phone as I did. A message had come through while I’d lost myself, but it was from Locke.
Locke: little miss is asleep, lili’s drawing my feet again. everything’s fine
He’d sent evidence—two photos. One of Liliana hunched over a sketchbook while she studied Locke’s oddly elegant feet, another of Hope sprawled on Nash’s chest, both of them crashed out on the sofa.
I flashed Cam the photo of Nash. “He’s got this shit down.”
Cam almost smiled, but trouble lurked in his dark gaze, the kind of trouble that kept him up at night when the rest of us had settled enough to sleep like babies.
“Something on your mind?”
“Nothing you need to worry about right now.”
“Worrying about something else would do me a favour.”
Cam glanced at Folk. He hadn’t moved since he’d put his head down in Devon and I couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing. My brain was soup, while my heart had a carving knife of concern stabbed through it.
The metaphor made my stomach churn.
Cam noticed the hand still pressed there and sighed. “Viktor told me some fucked-up shit when I was out with him the other night.”
“When you stole a horse?”
“ Rescued a horse. What’s that fucking cousin of yours been saying?”
“That he likes Dodger better than you.”
Cam grunted. “Fucking prick.”
“Viktor or Joe?”
“Joe.”
“Okay.”
Cam shot me another look. “Don’t be like that. You know I love him really.”
“Do you?”
“I respect him, if that counts.”
“Not enough to stop you banging his girlfriend.”
“Fifteen fucking years ago. Not my fault he can’t get over it.”
Joe was most definitely over it. He just enjoyed calling Cam a cunt too much to ever stop, but Cam already knew that, so I didn’t bother saying so. “What did Viktor have to say?”
“He told me Jakov did a deep dive on our personal shit, the whole table, before Sidorov agreed to vouch for us.”
I rewound a little—a lot—landing on the night I’d first taken a blade to my stomach. I hadn’t been there when Alexei had revealed his true identity, or when Viktor had stepped over the Sambini ranks to greet him, and the rest of it was a pain-filled haze for me.
The process made sense, though.
Due diligence.
We were better at it now we had Alexei. “So... they know I was inside and what for. That Nash’s cousin married a copper, and... what? That you’re banned from EasyJet?”
Cam didn’t smile. He white-knuckled the steering wheel, letting me know I was way off the mark.
I sat up a little straighter. “What else is there?”
“A fucking lifetime, apparently. Shit I had no idea about—about Saint, about Nash.”
“Nash?” My brows shot up as Folk stirred behind us, moving without sound to sit up and pay attention as if he hadn’t been asleep at all. “What is there to know about Nash?”
“That his child protection file was more fucked up than Saint’s.”
“In what way?”
“I didn’t fucking ask. I was spinning out too much that Viktor knew who Saint’s ma was—that he knew her goddamn name and I didn’t.”
It spun me out too. I rifled through what little Saint had ever told me about his childhood, added it to the rare nuggets Cam had shared with me over the years. “I asked him what her name was once—he said he didn’t know.”
“Told me that too.”
“Are you going to ask him about it?”
“I think so.” Cam eyed a fed car as it sped past us, after someone else. “I want Alexei to be there, though. In case I fuck it up.”
He wouldn’t fuck it up. Saint was a tough crowd, but Cam was his home. There was nowhere he felt safer, whether Alexei was there or not. Nash, though... “Nash told me his parents were religious. I don’t know anything else about them.”
“Neither do I,” Cam admitted. “We were young and dumb when he came here, then Fergus was killed before I was aware enough to get to know him properly. And now we’re fucking here and I’m realising I’ve dropped a bollock.”
Fergus McGovern. Nash’s uncle. Never met him. Just knew his face from the RIP hall of fame on the bar wall. Blue-eyed and blond, I’d almost forgotten he wasn’t Nash’s father. “Maybe he told Orla and Rubi. It doesn’t always have to be you.”
Cam’s nose flared as he took a breath. “There’s no way Rubi knows something as fucked up as this and I haven’t caught him crying about it in the last seventeen years. My sister, though, she’s a vault and I can live with that.”
“You’re not going to say anything?”
Slowly, Cam shook his head, real grief shining in his eyes. “I love that brother. I wouldn’t be here without him. But you’re right—I’ve never been that person for him, and I owe it to him to accept it.”
“Or you could give him more time.” Folk spoke quietly from the back seat, reminding me he was very much awake now. “Having children changes you, brings things to the surface you never thought you’d think about again. He hasn’t talked about it yet. Doesn’t mean he never will.”
Cam sighed. “Why are you always so fucking right?”
“Because I’ve been wrong a lot.”
I almost smiled, but the fraternal silence that fell over us left room for the anxiety tearing my gut to creep back in, the reason we were speeding north wrapping around my heart with barbed fucking fingers.
Folk’s warm hands landed on my shoulders. “Take a breath.”
“I’m breathing.”
“Breathe better . You’ll be with him soon enough and you’ll get through whatever this is together.”
“Nash didn’t even feel it when they took his appendix out,” Cam reminded me. “He was home the same day. Back on his hog two days after that.”
“You think I’m worrying about nothing?”
Cam jammed a smoke in his mouth but left it unlit, more mindful of Folk now he was awake. “The way things go for us? Not a fucking chance.”
He winced as the words tumbled out of him, aware that he’d likely voiced my worst fears. But hearing them from someone else gave me a blink of perspective. We were conditioned by trauma to expect the worst. But how many times had the best happened instead? Juana’s father had nearly killed Mateo, but in the end, his actions had given us Liliana and Hope. Ivy’s mum had run Decoy down with her car, but she was gone now. Christ, even the never-ending war with the Crows had brought us Folk, Locke, and Ranger.
I took Folk’s advice and found a deeper breath, letting it out slowly as I checked the dashboard map for how much farther we had to go.
Two hours, at the speed Cam was driving. An eternity if I let my pulse run riot again. But with my head screwed on straight it was nothing. A few more junctions on a faceless motorway and I’d be with Mateo. I’d be with him if he needed surgery. When he went down. When he came back. Just like he’d been there for me every second I’d needed him.
Sensing I’d got a hold of myself, Folk let go and stretched in the back seat. I passed him water and the packet of Polos Mateo tucked into my pocket every couple of days.
Folk drank and rubbed his eyes, glancing at the dash map, and it dawned on me maybe he hadn’t come to help Cam manage me. He’d come because he’d reached his limit on how long he could manage himself without Decoy.
Me and Folk. We were close—we spent a lot of time together—but he was still a brother I struggled to reach when he needed it most. Over the past few months, I’d tried so many fucking times and always hit a gentle brick wall.
I took a breath to try again, I’d never stop trying, but my phone exploded with light and sound before I could speak, and I whipped my head to where it lay on the console between Cam’s seat and mine.
Decoy’s name flashed on the screen.
A call, not a text.
Fuck .
I answered with my heart in my throat. “Yeah?”
Decoy’s tense voice filtered down the line. “Surgeon just saw Mateo. They took him straight down.”