Page 22 of Chaos Kills

Then he disappeared.

Emilio claimed murder and tore Matteo’s sacrifice apart, but that prick could be lying.

Judah was his right-hand man. There is no denying that. No reason why he’d murder my brother at the time.

“Stay away from her.”

My shaky focus slices back up to my cousin, whose blue eyes just decided to pay attention to me.

I quirk a brow before I repeat his words one more time and challenge, “Or what? You think you’re going to save her from me? You believed I was going to let this all go because you changed sides and took her for yourself?”

He doesn’t answer me, the son of a fucking bitch.

“Why the fuck did you do it?!” I see the slight flex of his brow, as if he can’t decipher if I’m fucking slow or stupid. Nonetheless, this cannot be happening. “If you attached any feelings to her, Oz, lose them now. Because she’s as good as dead from where I’m standing.”

I harden my gaze with my promise, which might as well be a smile because Ozzy doesn’t register it, nor does he react.

A beat goes by before any other words are said, and it fucks me up more than before finding out that she was going to link herself to my oldest brother.

“Stay away.”

“Or what, Oz?”

He doesn’t falter for a fucking second when he replies, “Or I’ll kill you, too.”

SIX

torin

“It wasn’t supposedto be this way. I thought I had it.”

“I know,” I mutter as a gentle breeze brushes against my cheeks. “I just—fuck, why didn’t you just leave it? Why didn’t you just come home?”

My brother scoffs at me. “For what? Emilio wanted nothing to do with us. And Ramsey was…he didn’t get it.”

I stare back into his honey-gold eyes. I still don’t agree with him leaving. That he entrusted people he knew he couldn’t be loyal to. “Did she do it? Did she…”

Judah turns his head away from me and stares off at something else.

I can see every memory pass through his brain. All the thoughts of the woman I loved pass by and skew the meanings we both believe we understood.

“I wanted to save her,” my brother says after a few moments. “From…Matteo and what he would do to use her once he found out, but…”

Apprehension picks at my skin because he didn’t tell me the answer I needed to hear.

It’s killing me.

With Ozzy putting himself at risk, and Emilio doing nothing about it, I feel responsible for what’s about to take place because it all lies on me now.

My future.

Reeve, Cairo, and Ozzy.

Everything and everyone who has ever meant something to me.

“Ramsey is trying to play sides,” I convey at the same time my stomach knots. “I don’t trust him.”

“Don’t,” Judah says easily enough. “He’s lost.”

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