Page 138 of Love Thy Brother
The urgency in the unfamiliar voice wrenched me from Rubi.
I spun around.
The big Crow—Locke—raced across the yard, drawing attention from other brothers milling around.
He reached me with a skid, barrelling into Rubi’s bike, phone clutched in his big hand. “It’s the garage, mate. I’m so fucking sorry. They lit it up and it’s gonna blow.”
24
RUBI
We missed the explosion. It would’ve bothered most people that it was the second building we’d seen fall in twenty-four hours, but I was used to chaos. Destruction. Pain. Heartache.
My only concern was River, and his mood was hard to read as we stood, en masse, behind the police cordon, silently staring at the smoking shell of his garage.
Cam’s rage was so palpable it tainted the air.
River was quiet.
Passive, almost. Taking it all in with a muted gaze, stance relaxed, hands loose at his sides. The only concern he’d voiced was the loss of Nash’s tools. Axel and Bear’s. Nothing of his own.
“Is that van lurking around yet?” Cam growled.
Mateo was watching the road. “Not yet. What do you want to do when they show up?”
“Surround those fuckers. Show face but not hands. Not yet. Not until the feds go home.”
“That could be awhile.” I inched closer to River. “A fucking five-year-old would know this was arson.”
Locke shook his head. “There’s a lot of flammable shit in there. Accelerants. Old appliances. Arson isn’t the obvious answer when there’s no record of any harassment complaint, and River doesn’t have form for dodgy insurance claims.”
“I don’t have form for anything.” River flashed him a distant grin. “I’m a good boy.”
No, he wasn’t. My mind descended to the gutter for no other reason than I was fucking exhausted. I pictured all the filthy things he’d done to me. How he’d teased me. Edged me. Made me come so hard I’d cricked my neck with the force of it. All appropriate stuff for the apocalypse we were staring at.
Locke said more helpful things. I didn’t take much of it in, though it struck me that he seemed more distressed about this than the old lady he’d dug out of the house on my road this afternoon.
You mean yesterday.
It was six in the morning. I guess I did.
The feds came to talk to River.
Cam wasn’t good with uniforms.
Nash was shite with numbers and information overload.
That left me. And Locke, who answered my unspoken plea and ducked under the cordon with us.
The police officers led us as close to the garage as the fire service allowed. A firefighter joined us. Locke spoke their language, and for the umpteenth time since we’d adopted him and Folk, I was grateful that the Crows had discarded him.
Their fucking loss.
“Where were you tonight?” A police officer asked River, casual like.
“At the Rebel Kings motorcycle club.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
