Guns.
Silencers.
A fuckinggarrotte.
I pointed at it. “Who gets that?”
Saint shrugged. “You want it?”
No. I wanted Viktor to look at me. Iwantedhim and Alexei to speak English so I had a cat-in-hell’s chance of keeping up with whatever fuckery they were cooking up between them. And there was definitely fuckery afoot. Me and Alexei, we weren’t besties,but I knew that mad bastard loved Cam and Saint more than the sun loved the sky. There was no way he was letting them walk into a losing fight, andno waySaint didn’t know that.
I’d smoked more since we got here than I did in a whole week on Satsuma Island. I flipped the top from the box me and Cam were ploughing through at record speed.
Saint took it off me and tucked it in his pocket.
“Dick.”
He passed me a water bottle instead. I was irritable enough to think about tossing it in his face. Smart enough not to do it.
I settled for studying him instead. Saint was harder to read than Alexei speaking Russian. In everything except how hard he loved that weird fucker and Cam. This had to be killing him, right? I couldn’t be the only one dying a slow death to this shit.
“Stop staring at me.”
Saint’s actual voice made me jump. It had more effect on me than any fucker with a gun would later. “I’m not staring.”
Without looking, Saint planted a hand on top of my head and turned my gaze away from him.
I wrenched it back. “Dick.”
Saint almost smiled, but movement upstairs caught his attention. Jake. Cam. Both. He stared at the ceiling for the longest moment before he turned to me. “You trust me?”
Course I did. Back in the day, Saint had been my enemy for more years than I could count, but I’d still been a Crow when he’d risked his life to save Rocco. When he’d almost died for him. There was nothing about this man I didn’t trust. “Please fucking tell me something’s going on in that big head of yours. Something better than whatever mad shit they’re cooking up in there.”
Saint glanced at the kitchen, where Viktor and Alexei remained. And at the ceiling again, where the big bosses moved around each other, low voices filtering down the stairs. “I’m notsure,” he said, eventually. “But I need to know you’re ready to go when I say.”
“You gonna tell me where?”
Saint checked the safety on another strap. Then handed it to me, leaving the garrotte where it lay. “No.”
Amazing. But I’d spoken nothing but truth when I’d told Vik that I wasn’t a dude who needed to know every fucking thing to make a decision. The gun was heavy in my hand, but my answer to Saint flowed as free as the wind. “I’m ready.”
Jakov’s hacking operation was wild. He had eyes everywhere in that fucking building. Knew when any fucker inside took so much as a breath. But somehow it wasn’t enough.
“They have a hacker of their own.” He leaned forward, tapping buttons, annoyed. “Minor league. But they are in my way.”
I was alone with him, on kettle duty. No cleverer cunt to take the reins and have this conversation.
“They know you’re watching them take a piss?”
“No. But that could change at any moment, especially later, when I am distracted by bullets.”
“Not in the mood for a shoot-out?”
“I am never in the mood for a shoot-out. Vitka is the soldier.”
“Vitka?” That turned me around. “What does that mean?”
Jakov muttered something at his screen. Then gave me the weight of his stare. “That he is my friend, my close friend. Why? What do you call him?”
