“Cartel check point. A mile out from the port road.” He fixed the silencer to his weapon. “Jakov knows to behave like a drunk construction worker.”
Lingering softness faded from Cam’s face, eclipsed by a heavy scowl. “You didn’t think to share that half an hour ago?”
“You are awake now, are you not? We all are.”
I hid my amusement with my hand.
Ranger snorted. “Fucking batshit Russians.”
I had half a mind to argue that the split in our merry band of warriors didn’t look good for non-Russians either, but the tension bleeding through the van derailed my humour. “What do you see, brother?”
“Two vehicles.” Jake spoke into his radio mic. “Four men.”
“Radios?”
“Only phones.”
From the front, he was the only man who could see, both the narrow road ahead and whatever technology he was using to monitor our target’s communication, but we had fostered a necessary trust between the six of us, and the bikers took him at his word.
“Get out.” Alexei finally rose. “Stumble. Urinate into the ditch. I will handle the rest.”
It was a good plan. Cam and Saint did not like it, but if they were to mentally survive the next few hours, they would have to withstand the same paralysing fear that squeezed my heart as my brother and Alexei exited the van in perfect synchrony, the slam of Jake’s door concealing the near silentthunkof the one at the rear.
Cam audibly growled. In other circumstances, I might’ve sent Ranger a droll look, underlining the wolf-pack theory I’d unloaded on him while we’d been naked in bed, but those intimate conversations, as murder descended on us, they began to feel as though they had happened to someone else.
Ranger was closest to Cam.
He muttered something that made Cam’s gaze flicker. Then shutter, catching my attention. But the van doors opened before I knew if Saint had seen it too.
Jake and Alexei had returned.
Alexei slipped inside, closing the door a split second before the van was in motion again. Cool. Calm. “We will need to come back this way.”
If we got that far, but I packed the black thought away, searching for the soldier I had become so many years ago in exchange for my life and for Katya’s. Trouble was, that soldier... he was a different man now, and as I fought to clear my mind, to purge it like scorched earth, Ranger endured.
Grinning beneath the Mediterranean sun. Dancing in my living room. Grumbling that he didn’t like children, all the while nurturing a permanent spot on his hip for my infant niece.
It was more than sex.
More than love.
In another existence, I would have kept him for as long as he’d have me—forever—and perhaps in the next life I would.
The van stopped again. Jake left the engine running and got out, and we waited in the dark for him to secure the area he’d been keeping tabs on all day. Long seconds that drew Cam, Saint, and Alexei closer together while Ranger and I stared at each other in the murky shadows of the vehicle.
I shouldn’t have been able to see Ranger’s eyes, but to me, they had always been a light in the dark, and I sank into them now, hands tightening around my weapon, radio static thick in my ear. A split second of pure heaven before Jake wrenched the van doors open and swept us with the same droll stare he had a few hours ago when it had become clear that everyone but him had spent their evening fucking.
His humour didn’t last. We had run out of time to just be men.Ihad run out of time to tell Ranger that I loved him, and it hurt worse than I was prepared for, squeezing my heart in a vice as we piled out of the van and I took my position beside Alexei, the gun in my hand a second limb.
This was it.
We gathered in a loose circle, all of us, silently accepting that these quiet moments might be the last we spent together. I expected Cam to say something, but he simmered his love at Saint and Alexei, then jerked his head at my brother, moving out to take position.
Jake and I did not need words any more than Saint and Alexei. We locked eyes, he grinned, and that was it. We’d said our goodbyes many years ago, prepared for nights like this. He was my brother. I was his. Alive or dead, that would never change.
Jake walked away. I dropped my gaze to give Saint and Alexei some privacy. Ranger’s boots stepped into my line of sight. His smoky sandalwood scent invaded my senses and I closed my eyes to it. To everything, until he brushed his thumb along my jaw, coaxing them open again.
His eyes were an onyx flame. “I love you, Vik. I wanted you to know, just in case we come out of this all dead and shit. And in case we don’t. Remember that when you’re thinking about doing something really fucking stupid.”
