Page 2 of Chaos Kills

Besides, what did I really have to live for, anyway?

Reeve, Cairo, and Torin are always hovering over me when they think I’m getting too deep. Prison will and could do it to you, I guess.

But that night, I had a mission—kill the man inside who just happened to be Bay’s so-called father—but what I found out was so much more.

I found her.

And since then, I’ve been obsessively watching and protecting her from afar. Yet, I misjudged and failed her the moment Torin sent off her sisters and got Levi Wallace locked up.

Nonetheless, as my uncle stares at me with disappointment in his eyes, I’m surprised he believes I’m so exceptional of an idiot that I wouldn’t recognize his bullshit plan.

I also didn’t identify that Bay Astor had more sitting behind her until I was approached about it.

And then I discovered my illuminating purpose.

Preservingher.

“If you can’t do it,” Emilio huffs, hovering his glass over his lips. “Then I’ll have Ramsey?—”

“No.” I keep my expressionless gaze on him because he’s royally fucking up around here. If he’d stop acting like a selfish prick, maybe he’d see what he could do to make her happy.

That’s the name of his game, isn’t it?

He has some backward-ass notion his power is going to drive her into turning around and accepting him for who he’s supposed to be—her father.

But what do I know?

Ever since I got out of prison, he’s taken me back in like a puppy. Little does the fucker know that I went to prison and stayed put because I wanted to get away from society and how I painfully didn’t fit in.

At least behind metal bars, I read how to blend in. I learned how to fight. I mastered how to be a nothing. I was never going to be Torin, and I sure as hell don’t have the mindset or energy of a fucking looney tune like Ramsey.

Who’s leading to pose another problem in my agenda.

“It’s not her decision,” Emilio grinds out, as if his word is final when it comes to her. And we both know it doesn’t work that way. “It’s mine. And I advised you to kill Matteo De Leon slowly for murdering Lennox and attacking my daughter.”

And the only reason he knows about that is because of me.

“And if it fell on her?” I mutter. “Then what?”

“What do you mean if it falls on her?”he snaps back. “IownSheriff Muncy.”

“De Leon has specifically told his men, very clearly, that if something happens to him, it’s either Torin’s or Bay’s doing.”

Emilio’s nostrils flare. “Then make it look like a fuckin’ gang-bang duel, for all I care. I don’t give a shit. Just do it. She’s due to marry Ramsey with her stupid requests, while I…” He continues, but I don’t listen.

All I hear is that she’s marrying Ramsey, and my heart stops.

She can’t.

She belongs to us.

Torin, Cairo, Reeve…me in the background.

When The Stowaway started to burn down, I carried her out. When Reeve fake-raped her in front of The Void, I was the one who put rounds in every single one of those motherfuckers’ heads. I took her home. I chased Matteo De Leon out of her house when he broke in and tried to harm her father.

I’ve been there.

I’ve watched her, studied her…she’s…

---