RANGER

RANGER

I paid for fucking Vik on the couch.

Didn't regret a thing, but hells bells, my brain hurt.

I took to my borrowed bed and stuffed my head under that pillow again. With Viktor close by, I could almost convince myself it smelled of him. But it didn't, and as the jackhammer in my skull began to get on my tits, I grew restless enough that Rubi threatened to sit on me.

" Roo ." My name now, apparently. "Just take the good drugs. Vicky's not going to break."

I was going to break him if he kept referring to Vik as Vicky , but my rage was on ice until I could move without wanting to decapitate myself with a rusty spoon. "Get fucked."

Rubi patted my shoulder. "All right. We'll wait for the cavalry."

He'd been saying that since he got here—whenever the fuck that had been. But I still had no idea who he meant, and the black glitch in my brain hated that, rolling me over again until Viktor got on the bed with me.

Rubi left.

I think.

Viktor was quiet, playing with my hair while I rotted beside him. "Asher, you really can take the better drugs."

"I don't want to."

"Because of me?"

"No, because they're fucking shite."

Viktor sighed and went back to playing with my hair. I sulked my way into falling asleep for the rest of the day. Or at least passed out long enough for it to get dark and Viktor to be gone, and it was fucking horrible to wake up and know he wasn't there.

Panic wasn't my thing. But I missed him, and lurching upright to search for him was the worst idea in the world.

"Motherfucker." I brought both hands to my head, screwing my eyes shut as my lack of balance did a number on me, swaying as if I'd necked eleven pints.

Didn't fall, though. Someone caught my shoulders, steadying me, and I was awake enough to know it wasn't Viktor. Or Rubi or Locke. To smell herbs and the ocean—to smell family , and old friends.

Folk.

My vision cleared to reveal the deep-water blue eyes that were so like Finch, and the tawny hair that was a world away from the coral-pink she'd been sporting the last time I'd seen her. His patient gaze so close to parental that I almost pushed him away.

Couldn't though, cos I needed me a Whitlock hug. Those hippie fuckers gave the best I'd ever had. Apart from Vik. Vik was the best at everything.

Folk held me for a long time—at least, it felt that way. Then it didn't, and a hard blink splintered my vision.

"Take these." Folk dropped two pills into my palm. "Trust me, seeing you in this much pain is hitting him harder than anything else ever will."

It took me a second to compute that he meant Viktor. And to remember that Viktor most definitely wasn't in the room. My gaze slid to the pills, stark white against Folk's palm. "What are they?"

"Tramadol. Finch said they'll help with the light sensitivity as well as the pain. So did Rubi, and he knows more about this kind of pain than any of us."

"What the fuck are you handling trammies for?" I snatched them out of his palm. "Fucking lunatic."

"You think I'd take them?"

I grunted an answer. Folk seemed more amused than annoyed, but he was a clever cunt and I hurt too much to keep up with him. And I missed Viktor. I'd missed Folk too, but without Vik close, everything felt fucking wrong.

Cold, I shivered.

Folk slid a tanned arm around me, rubbing my shoulder.

Silent.

Waiting.

For me to comply, and we both knew I would. I'd been born a stubborn bastard, but Whitlocks had the power, and I was so fucking tired. All I wanted was to sleep without a boombox in my head and fuck Viktor again, and both things involved Folk fucking off, so…

I took the pills. "These better not make me puke."

"With your iron constitution?"

"It's broke." I lay down and covered my face with my hands.

Folk moved around the room. I thought he might leave.

He didn't. He tugged me upright and tipped a bottle of water down my throat and forced me to look at him. "I know what you did."

I scrubbed a hand down my face, noting that I was wearing clothes I thought I'd never see again. Had that been a thing already? I had no fucking clue, and I was starting to wonder if I'd imagined the break I'd got from this bullshit to bang Vik on the couch.

Folk was still eyeballing me like a friendly geography teacher.

I sighed. "You're gonna have to be more specific. It's been a mad few days."

"For Ivy," he clarified. "Cam told us what happened with Doherty."

Us. Decoy then. Unless he meant the whole fucking council, which I could do without. "It was nothing."

"Brother, it wasn't nothing." Folk took my face in his hands and pressed a fraternal kiss to my forehead. "I didn't see it. If he'd hurt her, I don't know what I would've done."

He'd have killed him and anyone who tried to get in his way. Folk was the wisest, calmest motherfucker in town, but every man had triggers and Decoy and his monstrous little bean had been born to be his.

Still, as nice as his grateful affection was, I didn't want to rehash the Doherty carnage. It was done, over, forgotten. An old headache replaced by a bigger one that remained, raving up a storm in my skull, and honestly it could fuck the fuck off already.

I hunched over. Folk rubbed my back for a bit, but as I started to sway with his touch, he made me lie down again.

The good drugs started to work. I missed Vik something rotten, but knowing I was off my box on opioids stopped me asking for him while Folk lounged beside me, all long legs and good health, the bastard. "Do you even own trousers?"

He turned his head. "I have Rocco's old jeans somewhere. The grey ones with the oil stains."

"Nice. They were shite when he wore them."

Folk shrugged.

Easy.

Or maybe it was me. I'd never boshed pharmaceuticals. Never seen the appeal when a little dab of dizzle, or a handful of ‘shrooms did the job without worrying about becoming a fiend for it. It's a different high . I knew that. I'd always known it, but as the trammies kicked in hard, maybe I hadn't understood it.

"Fucking hell." I let my arm drop from where it been covering my eyes. "Did you give me a horse dose of this shit?"

Folk glanced up from the battered paperback folded in his hand. I'd seen it before— Moonfleet —when we were much much younger. "You're smaller than Nash and Rubi."

"Really."

Folk didn't react to my sarcasm. He rubbed my arm again and went back to his book, until I got all aggy and sat up again. "He's upstairs with Locke."

Viktor.

"I didn't ask."

"What else would you get up for?"

"To piss."

I left the bed and staggered out of the room, bypassing the bathroom to scout out the rest of the flat, eyeballing the couch for any mess me and Vik might've left behind.

There was none, but I had a vague memory of Viktor cleaning up before this cunty-bollocks headache had come back to stomp on my brain, and even my favourite mobster was scared enough of Queen Orla to do a good job.

He was also not fucking here. No one was, save Folk who had, of course, followed me out. "You hungry?"

"No."

"Sure? Rubi stocked up with stuff you like."

"Bet he didn't, unless he loaded the freezer with smilies and dippers."

Folk chuckled and opened the fridge, rooting around in it, probably looking for something green and horrendous.

I leaned on the counter, the banging in my head subsiding in favour of some weird floaty shit that made my heart ache for Viktor as hard as I was missing him. I didn't want him to see me like this, but fuck, I needed him.

Folk thunked a plastic bottle in front of me.

I eyed it with well-founded suspicion. "Milkshake?"

"Yup."

"It's from fucking Waitrose."

"So?"

"So it's a trick. Blended hessian."

"It's milk and sugar. Stop being a twat."

Folk hadn't called me a twat in years. It wasn't his style. He had better words and a bigger brain. But maybe I didn't deserve that right now. Maybe I didn't deserve anything, and that's why Vik wasn't here.

He's not here because you took Tramadol.

Fuck.

My stomach gave an ominous lurch and I leaned harder on the counter. Being sick could get in the bin. Wasn't doing it. Not now, or ever again.

It took a minute, but I forced the nausea away, shoving it back to the devil pit where it had come from, dimly aware of Folk getting all up in my business again, like he thought I might keel over.

I didn't fall. I found my equilibrium and claimed the chocolate milk, chugging it down, ignoring Folk's warning to take it slow.

Cold, wet sugar hit my belly. It wasn't as good as the nuggets Rubi had brought, but it did the job. Nausea faded and the sparse kitchen—the cold kitchen compared to Vik's island home—stopped melting at the sides.

"How's the head?"

"Better."

"You want to sit?"

Folk gestured at the couch.

Fuck no. I shook my head. "I need to be horizontal."

The words bumbled out of me without my consent. But there was no fucking way I was letting Folk put me to bed. I waved him off and made my own way back to the bedroom. He didn't follow straight away and I let myself hope he might've fucked off. Then I panicked, cos if Vik and Locke weren't here, there was no one I trusted more than Folk.

Scared of being alone? I'd never been before—I'd grown up used to it. But I'd also grown used to living in Viktor's pocket. To a phone that, when I switched the fucker on—was rarely quiet. The time I'd spent in my own company over the past year had been my choice, and I was fucking over it.

I turned to go back for Folk.

He was already there. "You need to rest."

"I've been resting."

"Have you?"

"Shut up."

"Lie down."

I flopped onto the bed, chocolate milk sloshing in my stomach.

Folk perched on the edge of the mattress, stretching his legs out in front of him. "So…you and Viktor, eh? You could've told me."

"Told you what?"

"How you felt about him."

"What difference would that've made to anything? Would you have looked harder for him while he was gone?"

"No." Folk held my gaze. "It would still never have occurred to me that Priest had him, even if Cam had told me he was coming at Locke, and I'm sorry about that. Hindsight's a wonderful thing. But, to answer your question, I'd have supported you better. I thought you were just salty about being told what to do, and I'll regret that forever."

"I was salty about that. These Kings are bossy cunts."

"You're a King too."

I hummed, remembering the enforcer patch I'd tossed back to Cam before I'd left to be with Vik. I hadn't wanted it then, and I didn't want it now. But Folk was right. Whatever the future held for me and Viktor, I was a patched member of the Rebel Kings MC. Nice as they were— they're more than nice —they owned me.

Not Vik, though. If Jake and Cam's masterplan had worked, he was free as a fucking bird, and I loved that.

I loved him , and maybe I had from the start, but knowing what I did about him now. Where he'd come from—what he'd survived to be around long enough for me to find him. Fuck. It was a deeper thing and only my nanna shared that grip on my heart.

Thinking about Vik's life story jarred my brain.

I glared at Folk.

Unfazed, he waited for me to let rip what I was mithering about, and eventually, I remembered.

"You knew him already and you didn't say anything."

"Who? Viktor?"

"He told me he met you in fucking Syria or some shit. Called you out as Sergeant Whitlock."

Folk's face did this thing when he slipped into soldier mode. Always had, even way back when, before he'd been an outlaw biker. Those wise blue eyes got all hard and shit and he seemed older in a way that had nothing to do with age. "I didn't know it would mean anything to you. You've never liked it when I've talked about serving."

Course I didn't. Cos I remembered his lovely ma's face every time he left to get deployed to some shithole on the other side of the world. The way his dad would hide from the evening news in the poly tunnels. How Rocco had spun more and more off the rails with every year Folk had been gone. I'd always resented it, and maybe in some way I'd resented Folk too.

Now, though…now I just wanted to talk about the love of my life with my oldest friend. "What was he like back then?"

"Young."

"I think he's still fucking young."

"Lucky him." Folk rubbed the wrist joint I knew had hurt like a bitch since chemotherapy had fucked him over so bad. "But if you're asking if I liked him, then…yeah, I suppose I did. He was doing the work the rest of us wanted to do, but couldn't because we had government orders. When you're a mercenary, you make your own rules."

I wasn't worldly enough to know what any of that meant in a global war zone. "Do mercenaries fly choppers?"

"Probably, but he had his feet on solid ground when I came across him. I didn't know he was a pilot until recently, though it makes sense now."

"What does?"

Folk grinned. "Let's just say he was nicking more than dogs from the Americans, and somewhere out there there's an airforce commander wanting his Black Hawks back."

A real laugh found its way from my sore stomach to the outside world, and something in Folk relaxed. "There he is."

There I was. I let Folk dad me a little bit more, then I went back to sleep without the scratchy sensation that anyone other than Viktor was absent from my life right now. That all along, I'd been missing Folk too.

I slept hard and when I woke up, I wasn't spinning out on the bed anymore, I was in it, and Vik was too.

He gazed at me in the dark. "Better?"

"Than what?"

"Than the fool who would not help himself." He moved closer under the covers, the warmth from his body wrapping around me like the sunshine on his island patio. "Locke said only Folk could bully you into taking those pills."

"Locke was right. But they can all fuck off if they think I'm doing it again."

Viktor tucked my crazy hair behind my ears. "They all love you."

"They're all fucking idiots."

"Does that make me an idiot too?"

"Yes, but you're a hot idiot so I'll let it slide."

"You are a ridiculous human."

"Aren't we all?" I pulled him on top of me, loving the feel of his weight pinning me down, his chest and abdomen pressed to mine. I felt his cock too, and soon enough, I'd drown in the need to act on it, but right now, just holding him was enough. "But I'm your ridiculous human, right?"

Viktor smiled. "As I am yours."