Page 114 of Chaos Kills

You’d think that an asshole with barely a kingdom wouldn’t be so hard to locate, but maybe that’s what makes it so difficult. He doesn’t really have a home. He’s a nomad even though most of Shoreline Peaks knows him as its so-called ruler.

Or terrorist.

Matteo is very particular about who he allows around. He has a set schedule of how he’s protected, and he’s paranoid.

As he should be.

I never said the boy was stupid.

Making my way toward the pool tables in the back, I pass the large, still-standing bar, and memories of Torin meeting me there when he wasn’t supposed to brim through the edges of my brain.

“I wish your fingers were wrapped around another part of me, Wildfire. I love how you feel on me.”

I go to jerk my hand back, shame filling every inch of me because I have a so-called boyfriend. And I’m touching a man I shouldn’t be. An enemy of state and country and all that.

Yet, Torin catches my wrist and tenderly runs his thumb back and forth across my skin in silent support. “I’m watching him. Don’t worry.”

“I am worried,” I retort. “Someone else might see us. And all it’s going to cause is a fight.”

“And why would that bother you?” He steals a look at me, those pretty tawny eyes soothing away my trepidation, and I like the way he looks at me. I love that he’s here when I don’twant to be. “Why do you think I’m standing here keeping track of your boyfriend, when all I want to do is look at you?”

A huge body steps into my path, stealing those thoughts and placing me right back into reality, when all the hairs on my body rise, forecasting the inevitable.

This is not a safe place for me.

Never has been.

My eyes lock with green ones, familiar ones, Tarzan’s.

I blow out an unsteady exhale through a small opening of my lips and quirk a brow. This dude is almost as big as Levi but taller. He’s known to be inhumanly wild, barbaric, and unpredictable.

And he is.

I’ve seen Tarzan do unspeakable things. No one is safe in his grasp. Not even an elderly woman whose sons didn’t pay Matteo back.

He sexually assaulted her and then jacked off all over her face while Matteo made us watch. Her screams and pleas are still something I can hear if I dig deep enough to find them.

“Bay Astor,” he announces for me, him—who the fuck knows? I’m fully aware of who this asshole is. “I knew I’d see you again.”

Fuck the pleasantries. I’m not having a conversation with this sick prick. I’ve seen his dick way too many times in my life, and I didn’t even want to play with it.

But he did.

I’ve had his cum smeared all over my body, my tits. He loved rubbing the tip of his dick along my nipples to get them to tighten, believing in his fucked-up mind I was getting turned on.

I wasn’t.

“Where’s your puppet master at?” I inquire flatly. “He has something for me.”

Tarzan’s mouth curls into a wicked smirk. “The first person to bring you to him gets a prize.”

My stomach screws up in a very uncomfortable knot because that wasn’t the deal.

Good faith.

Good faith.

I’ll obviously have to remind Matteo of that because the stupid prick conveniently forgets shit. But hurting me is only going to hurt him.

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