Page 240 of Chaos Kills

Cairo drops what he’s doing and rounds the kitchen island, finally giving up, because he’s going to waste making good food when no one here is going to eat it.

Stopping in front of Reeve, Cairo plucks his blunt from between his fingers and puts it between his lips.

“Hey,” he whines, reaching for it. “Grab your own shit, man.”

“You’ve had enough,” Cairo grinds out, sitting on the coffee table in front of Reeve and me so we can talk the rest of this shit out. Ozzy is doing what he does best, hovering over the three of us like we need protection from ourselves or each other. “Alright…tell me what you want to do. Because if you guys want out of prying from Emilio, let me know.”

“Why?”

He looks over to me. “Because I need to know if I’m dealing with just my family or with my brothers, too.”

I tow my eyes to Ozzy and set my unhappy glower on him. “What do you plan on doing, Cairo? Because I’m not eating out of this bitch’s hand.”

“We need South Shore. We need their allegiance.”

I rock my head back and forth because that idea is already fucked. “You’re never going to get it. Not with Wallace in the way.”

Not when I tried to kill her.

Cairo inhales deeply on Reeve’s blunt, and then asks like an unknown moron, “Why? It’s not even?—”

“Because if she tells Wallace I almost ended her in the Atlantic, on top of me shooting him the other week, then it’s really game over, brother. You don’t stand a fucking chance in hell.”

A deafening silence fills the room, and I can hear my blood pumping furiously in my veins before Reeve shifts a bit on the couch next to me like I’ve officially lost it.

I did.

A long time ago.

“What the fuck did you do?” Reeve presses, acting as though he didn’t hear me right when I’m the one with the hearing impediment. “When did you?—”

“Weeks ago. I snapped.” I do exactly that with my fingers. “I wanted her gone. I still want her gone. I just couldn’t…”

I just couldn’t.

There’s no world for me where she doesn’t exist. I thought I could disassociate my emotions from her to be loyal to my family.

To Judah.

A righteous man would be able to handle business. I notice Ozzy step a bit closer, but he doesn’t make any other move or say anything.

“You literally…” Reeve gapes at me from my peripheral as if my words are a hazy fog. “What the fuck did you say you did?”

His voice dips, just enough for me to know that he’s high and about to do something extremely fucking stupid.

Like jump my ass and break some shit.

He may be insanely pissed at Bay, but he’d never press the button to knock her off the face of the Earth.

But I planned to.

Almost did.

Stepping in between us, Cairo towers over me and beats down a glower. “Are you fucking stupid or just suicidal? Emilio would…dude, he’d off your ass.”

“That’s the thing, Black,” I snarl out, clutching my fingers tighter around my beer. “There is no going back after this. She’s gone. And whatever little thing you thought was going to happen—some fuckin’ miracle about us working together—you can consider me out.”

“You’re notout,” Cairo sneers. “We’re a brotherhood.”

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