CAM

CAM

This is set between Love Thy Brother and Reluctant Renegade. Sacha and Jonah can be found in Angels In The City.

Alexei's cousin wasn't prettier than him. Didn't exactly make Sacha Ivanov-Gray ugly, though. Jesusfuck, no. With his dark beard and golden-hazel eyes, he was anything but, and if I'd been a different man living a different fucking life, there's no way on earth I wouldn't have noticed him.

As it was, he'd noticed me first in the swanky private club Alexei had sent me to alone , and he'd pulled what I'd now decided was the patented Ivanov party trick. He'd snuck up on me and dazzled my senses with his sharp charm, and now here I was, drunk on ludicrously expensive vodka, while a clever Russian talked circles around me.

Though, Sacha wasn't as mean about it as Alexei. He smiled more. Also, being around him didn't have me torn between crying in frustration and whacking my dick out, so there was that.

"Tell me about your other lover." Sacha poured more vodka into crystal glasses. "I have friends who are a three and it is educational to learn what makes such a thing work."

I bought myself some time in my vodka glass. Alexei had warned me that I wouldn't get through this meeting without talking about Saint. "He is inquisitive."

Code for nosy as fuck, apparently.

"Saint's good for Alexei, if that's what you're asking." I swirled my drink around. "I don't always understand either of them, but I do know what they get from each other, they couldn't get anywhere else."

"And yet, without you it would not work."

I tried for an easy grin. "That's the hope."

"That is the truth." Sacha drew an ashtray towards him and lit up—like all things Ivanov, this club had its own rules. "It is like the friends Jonah and I have. They were a two for many years, but without their third, too many things were unsaid and undone. A whole is whatever it was meant to be, and sometimes it is not what you expect. Besides, Alyosha is a complex person. I cannot imagine one man being enough to contain him."

"Contain him—wait. Alyosha? What does that mean?"

Sacha exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Is a nickname. In Russia, my name was Aleksandr, but Sacha is the diminutive. Your name is Cameron, correct?"

The way he said it was so eerily similar to a long ago conversation with Alexei that my head began to spin, though that might have been the vodka. "Alyosha is the…short version of Alexei?"

It made no sense. To my uncultured brain, at least.

Sacha smiled. "The affectionate version. I do not think anyone else would call him that."

Of course they wouldn't. Alexei's parents had lost him in a poker game to a child-trafficking monster, and to my knowledge, Sacha was the only other soul on this planet who gave a shiny shit about the enigmatic hitman who'd healed me and Saint enough to love each other properly. "I call him Lexi."

"I know. He likes it."

"He told you that?"

"Not me. Jonah. My husband is very sweet. It is hard even for Alexei to be anything but nice in return."

"That must be why I have a cat called Jonah taking up residence in my fucking house."

Sacha chuckled, the sound as rich and mellow as he was. "There was a cat when we were children. Skinny and red. Alexei was always the smallest boy in the room, but he would take the eye of any child who bothered it."

"He's still like that."

"I have noticed, but you have definitely tamed him. Before he found you, it would be many months, sometimes a year, between messages from him. It is different now. You have taught him to enjoy being loved."

"You think so?"

"I do. Tell me about your family. It is big? Lots of brothers?"

I hesitated, unsure of what he meant, the club, or the decimated wreck of the O'Brian clan. Then I figured he knew exactly what he was asking. He was a fucking Ivanov after all. "I have a lot of brothers, some I like more than others."

"Some you like very much, no?" Sacha smirked around his cigarette.

I grinned back, though I tried my hardest not to. "You could say that."

Sacha coaxed me into saying other things too, a state of affairs that usually annoyed even vodka-drunk me. But with him, I didn't mind. Every question he asked me was cloaked in concern for Alexei's welfare, and I couldn't dislike a man who gave a shit about that.

And Sacha did give a shit. Enough to keep me in that smoky club until it was early enough that my belly began thinking about breakfast.

He steered me to the exit at the back. Paparazzi waited for him out front. Alexei's cousin was kinda famous. He was also more tactile with men he didn't share a bed with than his cousin, and his hug caught me off guard. Like Alexei's did when he gave them out to brothers who weren't expecting them—Rubi, Nash.

Embry .

Nope. I was too drunk to think about the good father right now. Couldn't imagine that Sacha wanted that version of me. I absorbed his embrace, then pulled back to find his elegant grin had faded.

"You know," he said, his accent thicker than it had been when we'd sat down to drink vodka all those hours ago. "The name, Alexei, it means defender, but in most boys it never manifests. Like…um, it is lost in translation, and perhaps they lack the spirit. But Alyosha is different—he is special, no? It is hard for him to love, but when he does, it is absolute."

"I know that." I dug my cigarettes out of my pocket. Course I did. I'd seen it so many times now. "We love him too. There's nothing we wouldn't do for him."

Sacha tilted his head, a gesture that had bled out of Alexei and into Saint. Or maybe it had been the other way around. I was too tired and bleary headed to remember right now.

"I know you believe what you say," Sacha elaborated. "But make no mistake, Cam. No one is like Alexei, and when the time comes, there is nothing he will not do to save you, and only then will you understand what those words really mean."

It was a terrifying way to say goodbye. And it sobered me as I left the smoky club and emerged into a dim alleyway that might've unnerved me if anyone else had been waiting for me.

Saint stepped out of the shadows, green eyes gleaming in the dawn, his chestnut hair messier than ever. God, I loved him. With Alexei on my mind, my first love was everything I needed, and I gave in fast to the urge to wrap my arms around him, damn near lifting him off his feet, delirious in the joy of his rare laugh.

He shoved at me. "Put me down."

"No."

Saint laughed again, before he wrestled out of my grip, fixing me with a curious stare. "Okay?"

"Yup."

"Drunk?"

"Little bit."

He jabbed a thumb behind him. "Car's that way."

"I don't want to get in the goddamn car."

Saint tilted his head. Then what?

"Walk with me?"

"Here?"

I shrugged. "It's London, not Baghdad."

To Saint, it was probably the same thing. He wasn't a city boy.

Neither was I, but we were away from home with only Alexei's hidden gaze on us. I wanted to be normal with him, just for a few fucking minutes.

I held out my hand.

Saint stared at it. "It's not safe here."

"It's not safe anywhere. Besides, you think anyone in a city this big gives a fuck about two blokes holding hands?"

Saint didn't know the answer. Or he did and he couldn't say it.

Either way, I knew this was a battle I'd lose. I'd known it before I'd stuck my damn hand out, but sometimes the loss was worth it, just to let him know I cared.

"Come on," I let my hand drop. "At least walk with me for a bit."

I pushed on, trusting he'd follow.

He did, and for the sake of my soft heart, he walked so close that our hands kinda brushed every step. "Where are we going?"

I turned left for no reason whatsoever. "Nowhere. Unless you want to have a breakfast date with me in…" I scanned our surroundings and by pure luck, found an all-night caff across the street. "That place over there."

"Only if you want to get whacked. We're on Russian turf."

"No, we're not. Sacha isn't mob. That club is for rich queers, not gangsters."

"If you say so."

I did. And I was right. But I also knew the chances of herding Saint into a random greasy spoon were as negligible as him holding my hand. Didn't stop me trying, though. With him, with Lexi, I'd never give up on them, any more than they'd give up on me. "All right. No breakfast. There'd better be more booze in the car."

Like magic, Saint produced a hip flask from his pocket. For me. He didn't drink much anymore. No idea why. He'd never said. But he didn't say lots of things. His silence wasn't a good enough reason for me not to know shit.

Ask him.

I swigged rum from the flask and offered it back to him.

He waved it away and I took my chance.

"You used to like getting mashed up from time to time. What is it about booze that fucks with your head these days?"

Saint waited for me to drink more and pocket the flask. We were still walking and we'd come to the gates of a big park. Strolling through it with him felt like a dream, and…

It was destined to stay that way.

He hustled me past, but my reward came in the form of actual words. "It doesn't fuck with my head, it makes it hurt. Like, gives me this unholy headache if I have more than a couple of beers."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Rubi has worse headaches than me."

"The fuck difference does that make?"

"Paper cut vs amputation."

I didn't believe that. For Saint to admit that something hurt meant it had bothered him far more than I could deal with. "Your head injury wasn't a paper cut. You were unconscious for the best part of a fucking week."

Saint said nothing.

I sighed. Did I really want to argue with him about the severity of the injuries that had nearly taken him from me forever?

No. I just wanted to enjoy him, even if he wouldn't stop hawk-eying black cabs as if everyone we'd already killed was about to jump out and exact their revenge. "Sacha calls him Alyosha."

Saint stopped walking and tilted his head. Why?

"It's a nickname." I searched for the word Sacha had used. "Diminutive."

"But it's longer."

"It is what it is." I was way too drunk to explain it any better. "And they love each other, which makes Sacha our family too."

"I know."

"What about your family?"

Saint started walking again. "Shay?"

"And his parents. You never told me much about them."

"What do you want to know?"

"If they're nice. If you like them."

"I liked them."

Liked . "They're dead?"

"Shay's mum is. Frank is alive."

Frank . We had bad memories associated with that name. Crow memories. But I'd learnt to be better at reading Saint's emotions over the last year or so, because he'd let me, and I wasn't getting negative energy from him right now. Despite his hyper-vigilance, his mood felt kinda mellow. "So you still like him?"

"Who?"

"Frank."

Saint caught my arm as a car drew alongside us, stepping in front of me. But there was no need. Even drunk me recognised the white SUV.

Alexei. Alyosha . He'd come for us.

Saint turned to face me again. "I like Frank. He was good to me, and he still would be if I let him. But I can't do that, can I? Because I'm the same fucked up shithead I've always been."

It was the most he'd said in one breath for as long as I could remember. Every word hurt, because he meant them, but there was peace in what he'd said too. I'd known Saint a long time, and I'd love him forever. But I knew fuck all about his childhood save the tiny snippets he'd shared over the years, and every single one of those was a fucking awful anecdote that haunted my worst dreams. The dreams that came when I was awake, ripping me from reality until someone yanked me back. Can't lie, it was nice to hear something good for a change.

Alexei's window descended. His flinty gaze swept over us, but I saw the affection there. "Are you wandering the streets all day, biker boy? Or do you want to go home?"

"Depends." I braced my forearms on the car roof. "Where are you going?"

"Wherever you are."

"All day?"

"And all night if you behave."

"What does that entail?"

"You will see."

Alexei raised the window as Saint opened the rear door of the Jag. Saint wasn't as blunt as Alexei, but it was clear he was done with our leisurely stroll.

I admitted defeat and ducked under his arm, sprawling onto the back seat. I expected him to get in the front, but he crawled in after me.

Alexei's car had blacked-out windows, keeping the back cool and dark. The air smelled of Alexei and I watched it hit Saint. Watched him relax, as if a switch in his fucking soul had been flipped.

I'd grown out of worrying that his reactions to the outside world were all about me. That his every nuance was somehow my fault. I made myself comfortable on the leather seats and lifted my arm, coaxing Saint to lean on me.

Years ago, he'd have refused. But he'd grown up too, and he knew this was the shit I was good at.

The shit that he needed.

While I fought off an incoming hangover, he fell asleep to me tracing hazy, tipsy patterns on the back of his hand.

Alexei caught my eye in the rearview mirror. "Ya tyebya lyublyu."

"What does that mean?"

He smiled. "To me? Everything."