“Hmm?” He opened his one eye and rolled his head my way. Gus was on the floor in the opened doorway. At our voices, his head popped up, and we could hear his tail starting to thump.

“Bronski said he’d heard rumors about the canary.”

“Yeah. I heard ’em, too. It’s why I came to get you at that game.” He frowned at me. “We didn’t talk about it before.”

I shook my head and nudged him again. Something had been bugging me. I remembered tonight. “They used to use canaries in coal mines.”

“You know those stories.” He rolled to his side, propping his head up on his hand. I stared up at him as he fingered a lock of my hair, showing me the blonde.

I nodded. “They’d keep one down in the mines with them, and if it stopped chirping, it’s because toxic gases killed it. That would alert the coal miners to get out. It’s silence signified death was coming.”

“Yeah.”

“Canaries sing to save lives. I sing and someone dies.”

A deep shudder went through me.

I pushed up, angling so I was resting on my elbow and staring Raize right in the face. “Don’t use me that way again. I can’t do it. Not anymore.”

He studied me in the dark, seeing what he could see. I didn’t know. I was able to make him out, but I felt like I was still in the shadows. He sighed, and it was soft and low. It seemed almost surrendering. He touched a strand of my hair. “When Marco learns you’re the one who can tell him about his brother, he’s going to come for you.”

I sobered, feeling him tense next to me.

His hand slid around my neck, cupping the back of my head. He leaned forward, another soft sigh and his forehead touched mine. “I won’t let that happen.”

I slid my hand up his stomach, his chest, over his arm, his bicep, and then back down to his stomach. I tucked my hand under his boxer brief’s waistband and opened my fingers, pressing against him. “I know.”

He hadn’t untensed, and his rough words drew my attention. “Roman is smart, but he’s not as ruthless as Marco. I fear Marco. I don’t fear Roman.”

“But he’s not sending sicarios after you?” I asked.

“He will.” Raize’s eyes flashed, and he flipped, sliding his hands up my arms and his feet down on the insides of my legs as he lowered himself over me. He pushed up against me, grinding a moment before he paused. “We’re in a pocket of time right now—between one war and the next.”

“Against Marco?”

He ducked his head, his lips nuzzling my neck. He slid a hand down my side, causing me to arch my back. I wound my arms around his neck.

“There are other players, and with Roman pushing to take over for both his brothers, I don’t know what the fallout will be, but yes—Marco won’t stop.” He skimmed his nose up my throat, his mouth settling over my jawline as he tasted me. “Shit will change when he finds out about you.”

He switched to his side, wrapping his arms around me and taking me with him.

He held me there, tucked close, propping his chin on my shoulder.

“Do you miss Mexico?” I didn’t know why I asked, but he lived there. He had a whole life down there.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m fine here, but Mexico is beautiful. It’s not all about the cartels there.”

“What do you miss about it?”

“The culture. The history. It’s family-oriented. There’s a warmth to the people down there, even to me. People smile a lot down there. Friendly. Helpful. It’s… I had to get used to it at first, but then they’d learn who you are, who you're working for, and that’d go away. But there’s wine country. We have the best tacos. And the beaches. The whales. It’s a world away from a world, if that makes sense.” He chuckled. “Gifts are opened on Christmas Eve and Santa’s gifts come the next day. In the south, January 6th is when the three wise men bring the gifts.”

“You celebrated Christmas?”

“Yeah. With my sister a few times. Just a few times. And for Halloween, it’s The Day of the Dead. We celebrate it in November, putting out altars with food, photos, and candles. It’s an offering for the dead.” He drew me close, dropping a kiss on my shoulder. “Yeah. I miss Mexico.”

“What about the women?” I had to know.

He tensed, before lifting up to look at me better. “The women?”

“In Philly, you had so many women. They’d come to your room. I heard them, Raize. Do you miss that?”

He stared at me long and hard before his hand lifted, cupping the side of my face. “I was a different persona then. Had to be. Carloni must’ve learned at some point I worked for Roman, but for a while, he didn’t know. I needed to be a different person.”

He hadn’t answered me. “The women? Do you miss them?”

His mouth curved up. “They were cleaning my room.”

It was the mouth. Everything was straight face, monotone voice for that monotone answer and I hit him in the shoulder. “Are you kidding me?”

He laughed before lowering his head, pressing a kiss to the crook between my neck and shoulder. “I don’t miss any woman except you, my sister, and my mom. I never will.”

Well.

I might let it slide then.

Moving my leg between his, lifting it, twisting the curve of my foot to slide down the outside of his leg in a caress, I smiled at him.

He looked down, grinning at me.

“What do you think is going to happen with Marco?” I asked, knowing we needed to talk about it.

He held my gaze a bit and loosened his hold on me. “I don’t think he’ll make any move to progress into the US until he’s taken over the Morales Cartel. That would require him killing his father, and I don’t know what he’d do to my mother and sister. We share our sister, so he might leave my mother alive.”

“But if he did that? Took over the Morales Cartel?”

A darkness flared in Raize’s eyes, and he looked over my shoulder. “Then he’d come for me, and since I’m tied to Marakov, he would have to declare war against the Marakov family.”

“Will there be fallout for Roman?”

His gaze came back to me, softened, and he shook his head. “No. It’s him and his uncles now. They’re in Russia. Marco is here. They’ll follow the stronger Marakov, and that’s Roman. He gets everything and everyone now. He’s put himself and them in a position where they have to accept what he did.”

“And if Marco comes for you?”

“Then I’ll go to work.”

He pulled me up and in one motion, stripped my underwear down my legs.

He said, “Enough war talk.”

Rolling me to my back, he slid a finger into me. His mouth fell to my neck and he breathed there, his finger moving in and out of me. Pleasure and other emotions were rolling around inside of me, but for now; I let it go. I only felt him, what he could do to my body, how he could make me feel.

I was addicted to him.

My mouth found his, and I yearned for him to be inside of me.

This time felt different.

Every time with Raize was different, but right now there was an almost desperate, frenzied need to get our fill before that call would come, before the world changed again. Raize let me rest for a bit after the first time, but then he flipped me over to my knees, and he worked us both up all over again.