35. Viktor

[ 35 ]

VIKTOR

Folk’s sister was as beautiful as I’d assumed. She arrived in the afternoon, taking her brother by surprise.

Not Ranger, though. He’d known she was coming, which explained why he had endured the record fair for so long when it was obvious to everyone and anyone that he did not care for such things.

Me . . . I did not mind it. Orla had a nineties house music collection that intrigued me, and it was her that alerted me to the pink-haired woman stepping out of her electric car and striding across the yard.

“Damn.” Orla rubbed her stomach. “I think I just turned lesbian.”

Alexei peered out of the chapel windows where we had both come to hide from the masses, less enamoured with the record fair than even Ranger. “That is your type, koroleva?”

Queen.

“It isn’t yours?” Orla elbowed him out of the way to take a better look.

Alexei retreated to the vodka bottle Mateo had given me and poured another glass. For him, not for me. I had to drive Ranger’s grandmother home and I liked how that felt. Especially now Lida was with us again.

I replaced the vinyl I’d been studying, feeling Alexei’s gaze on me as I observed Ranger’s tall frame cutting through the crowded yard to intercept his onetime lover.

He swept her off her feet, making her shriek with laughter, and I contemplated if his life would have been easier if they had loved each other the right way.

“Wondering if we are worthy wastes the time we are lucky to have.”

Alexei spoke Russian, like he aways did to me. We were still not overtly friends, but he called me Vitka more often than not, and he had heeded my request that he would not murder my brother for putting Cam in mortal danger. So far, anyway. He’d also given me the location of the Doherty family, but I was saving that for a time when I needed a distraction, and that would not happen here, around these people who poked fun at me almost as much as Ranger did.

Nash rolled into the chapel, drawn to his pregnant woman. “Where’s Locke?”

I pointed at the window. “With Ranger and Finch.”

“Finch?” It was Nash’s turn to peer out of the window at Folk’s beautiful sister. “Damn. So that’s what he’d look like with great—” Orla thumped him. “Hair, babe. You think I’d say pervy things about Folk’s sister?”

“You wouldn’t say pervy things about anyone, but speaking as someone with tits on the floor right now, I don’t need to hear how hot Folk’s sister is when I can see for myself.”

“Orla is now a lesbian,” Alexei supplied. “And she has not seen her own vagina in weeks.”

Nash grinned, as if conversations like this with the most feared assassin of a generation were routine. And I supposed, for them, it was.

The sweet normality of it all made me miss Katya, though I had only seen her yesterday. Most of all, it made me miss Jake, but not enough to want to be anywhere but here.

“I’ll be done with the black Ducati in a few days.” Nash broke into my thoughts. “Not the red one, though. Tyres are bald as fuck and the pistons could do with some TLC.”

“You don’t have to work on my bikes.” I knew he was busy, like every man around here. “I have no plans to ride them anytime soon.”

Honestly, I did not know why Jake had sent the red Ducati with Ranger’s Harley. Or why Nash was already shaking his head. “It’s my job to keep our family safe on the road. As long as you’re here, that includes you.”

“Then you must start calling on me for things you need, friend. It is only fair.”

Truly, I did not think the Kings would ever put me to work however long Ranger and I remained in Devon. I was a soldier. A veteran of wars they no longer wanted to fight, and I had little interest in construction work. I also did not need the money; it was not about that for any of us. It never had been. Still, unless Cam O’Brian wanted to found an orange grove in his back garden, for now, I remained committed to nothing but Ranger.

Like he had heard my thoughts, my brother called.

I excused myself and went outside. “I am with company.”

“I know where you are.”

Of course he did. I did not care how. “Are you well?”

“Well fed. I am home.”

Home. The island. We had just missed each other. “You have news?”

Jake tapped a keyboard. Always busy, never still. “It is done,” he said simply. “We have less than we asked for but everything we wanted.”

I found myself by a hammock hung between a fence post and a sycamore tree. “It is done?”

My voice was faint, even to my own ears.

Jake laughed, soft and free. “You doubted me, brother?”

“I thought they would kill you.”

The rival family Jake had been negotiating with for months to hand over his entire enterprise. To walk away from everything his father had built for the sake of the same thing Cam O’Brian had craved all these years: freedom.

It was almost too good to be true. “The island?”

“It is ours.”

“The Kings?”

“Safe, as long as they behave. No man in that room had the appetite to fight Ivanov.”

“Perhaps they are not as stupid as they look.”

Jake laughed again. “They did not want to fight you either. I think sometimes you forget what you are.”

“And what is that?”

“A survivor, brother.”

“Well, I suppose we did survive, so many things, but what becomes of us now?”

“Now?” Jake heaved a slow sigh, pushing back from a table I could not see. “Now, brother, we thrive.”

The call ended. For a moment, I stared at the blank phone, as alone as I’d ever been, but my body knew better than I did that everything fell into place when Ranger was near.

I found Cam and divulged Jake’s news. He did not seem surprised. He hugged me and pointed to the pizza ovens where Ranger was with Locke and Folk. And Finch, the woman who had taught him to love everything I got to do with him forever.

“Go eat,” Cam said. “We can talk about this another time.”

“I appreciate that.” I returned his embrace. “All of it.”

“Back atcha.” Cam acknowledged the wealth of words I did not need to say. “Without you, most of us would be dead. And you’ll probably wish we were when you get home.”

I trusted him enough not to concern myself with what he meant by that, and I carried that sentiment to Ranger and stole the pizza off his plate.

Finch watched us with big blue eyes as pretty as her brother’s. “You must be Viktor.”

“I am.”

“I’m Finch.”

“I know.”

She smiled and it was easy to see why Ranger had loved her, and as the day turned into evening, why he loved her still.

“Did you come to check up on them?” I sat with Lida on the ground by her seat, by the firepits that had been lit as the sun had set and only Rebel Kings family remained, where I had been since I had returned from driving Jean home, and Locke’s daughter had begun singing with her guitar.

Finch had spent most the night observing Folk, Ranger, and Locke. “It’s nice to see them happy. They deserve it.”

“You think Ranger is happy?”

“You’re an idiot if you don’t.”

I had been called worse things.

Later, I drove home with my heart and my soul-dog to the house in the cliffs that neither of us cared that much about, save that it was close to where we wanted to be but far enough that Ranger could breathe. “You are hungry?”

Ranger pulled his head from the fridge. “I just ate four pizzas.”

“So why are you in the fridge already?”

“Habit.”

“Maybe you should switch from the kitchen to the living room.”

To the stacked boxes of paw-shaped crisps that my brother had clearly conspired with Cam to deliver to the house while we were gone.

Lots of things made Ranger laugh.

Me.

Jean.

The men he called brother.

But I had never seen his eyes light up the way they did as he spied the boxes. “Was beginning to think your brother was full of shite.”

“And you are hungry now, yes?”

Apparently so. I retreated to the bathroom for the briefest of showers.

I came back to find Ranger on the mattress we called our bed. I retrieved the only other thing I’d brought from the island with Lida and took it to him.

Ranger did not notice, too busy sifting through a box of crisps and finding the playlist he wanted.

Heady beats seeping from the speaker he’d installed in the corner of the room, I pulled his shirt over his head to get his attention.

He gave it to me, music and Monster Munch instantly forgotten. “Did you get a dodgy phone call earlier?”

“Dodgy?”

“Rubi said you looked squirrelly.”

“You trust a man who agrees with you about my eyeballs being coloured gelatine?”

“You got eyes like Jelly Tots, luv. Accept it and move on.”

I needed to tell him what Jake had told me. What I had told Cam. But like Rubi, Ranger had a way of making every conversation too ridiculous to weigh me down, and I loved him for that, perhaps more than anything. “It was Jake. He made the deal. He is free—we both are.”

It was so much more than that. But for now, for tonight, it was all Ranger needed to hear. “Fuck.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t mean literally.”

I laughed, flopping back on the mattress as Lida trotted past, casing the space to find a favourite spot. “Neither did I, but when you play this album, it makes me feel a certain way.”

Ranger covered me with his body, bearing down on me with the perfect pressure. “I always feel a certain way about you. You know how hard it is to be around people all day when I’m used to having you all to myself?”

“You speak as if these things do not afflict me too.”

“You’re not an affliction, Vik. You’re everything.”

And this was the other thing about Ranger—about Asher. That he could stop time with a sentence that rooted me to the world, when there had been so many moments in my life I’d wanted it to swallow me whole.

“Can I ask you something?”

Brain shunting, I blinked. “Of course.”

“Embry got in my face about how you’re doing with the junk shit. I told him to do one, then I got to thinking that it had been a while since we talked about it.”

Embry. The man the Rebel Kings called chaplain, a title that had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with all the things I had lacked most of my life. “What did Embry want to know?”

“Nothing specific. It’s his job to be a nosy cunt.”

“Is not nosy to wonder about a drug-addicted criminal moving among your family.”

Ranger bristled, already locked in to defend me from myself.

I quieted him with the kind of kiss he gifted me whenever I found myself needing the most. “It would be a lie to say I never think about it. I do, almost every day, but it is easier here than it is on the island. I see Locke, and . . .”

Emotion choked me.

Ranger waited.

“I see Locke and how strong he is, and it reminds me what men can do when they are loved enough to choose life.”

Because that is what Ranger was to me—life. Love. Laughter.

I rolled him onto his back and fucked him on the mattress in our empty house. Raw. No condom. And it was such a magical thing that I almost could not bear it. Sometimes, it was only Ranger’s laugh that kept me together. And he knew it—like he knew so many things about me that I could never tell him.

We lay together in the dark, music still playing, watching Lida build her nest. With his arms around me, sweat cooling on our skin, it was a while before I remembered what I had brought to our bed on the floor.

I sat up, retrieved it, and passed it to Ranger.

His bag. The one that held the entire life he’d given up to fight for me. For Cam. For the family he did not always believe he had.

Those battered headphones.

His father’s precious rock.

I had never seen Ranger cry. But as he swiped his face with the heel of his hand, perhaps I was seeing it now.

“Vik, I don’t think you’ll ever know how much I love you.”

I wrapped my hands around his, around the amethyst stone that meant so much to him. “Asher, I love you too.”

Thank you so much for reading Divine Heart! I hope you loved Ranger and Viktor as much as I do.

I’ve had SO MANY messages begging for this not to be the end of the Rebel Kings MC, and I’m pleased to announce that it’s not—no quite, anyway.

There are two more titles to come: Every Missing Moment: Volume Two, and Forever Rebel: The Long Goodbye.

Both titles are now available to preorder. Forever Rebel has a long preorder date. It will be released much sooner than that, so no flames in my DMs please, haha.

And while you’re at it, preorder my 2024 Christmas novel, Christmas On Stardust Lane. It’s super cute—for me, anyway, and you’ll meet Bhodi and Tam briefly in Every Missing Moment: Volume Two.

I do strongly advise that you read Every Missing Moment: Volume Two after Divine Heart. If you’ve made it this far into the series, you’ll want to know what was happening back at the clubs while Ranger was living it up on Satsuma Island. So many bonus scenes to share with you. Don’t miss out! <3

ESSENTIAL PREORDERS

Every Missing Moment Volume 2

Forever Rebel: The Long Goodbye

Christmas On Stardust Lane

FURTHER READING

In love with the Halliwell twins? ME TOO. I’ve rectified that with Logan and Remy’s very own love story, Christmas On Firefly Hill. (Coming soon in audio).

Joe, Embry’s cousin, has his own book in Whisper.

Shay, Saint’s brother, has his own book in The Edge of the World.

Finn, Nash’s cousin, has his own book in Lucky Man.

Joss, Rubi’s cousin, has his own book in Wildfire.

Sacha, Alexei’s cousin, has his own book in Angels In The City, which has been re-released as part of my Christmas Collection, with a bonus epilogue featuring Alexei. This collection also has a cameo from Embry!!

And not forgetting Doctor Marc…

He has his own book in Soul To Keep, and he’s a side character in Between Ghosts, and Rented Heart.

And finally, the first collection of bonus scenes is available in ebook and audio. Every Missing Moment- The Outtakes: Volume One