Page 250 of Chaos Kills

It’s dark, and the door softly closes behind us, when I’m whipped around by my bicep, and Cairo’s mouth crashes viciously into mine.

He’s so fucking tall I rise a bit on my toes to get better access. My fingers thread through the fade of his hair and up to the back of his head where I can get a good grip.

I’m assaulted in the best possible way by his tongue next, lashing out and coaxing mine for a deeper kiss. A vibrating buzz thrums throughout my body as I ground myself into the moment when he tears his lips away, and I’m left heaving and breathless right before his fingers wrap around the edge of my jaw.

The pads of his fingers press slightly into my cheeks, alluding to the fact he may have just given me something sweet, but he’s not about to forget what he came to do.

And I bet, that’s going to be sour.

“You didn’t fuckin’tellme,” he snarls out, his hot breath brushing along the bridge of my nose.

“Tell you what?”

“Bay…” My name is a warning shot. A break in his normally cool demeanor. Yet, since I’m still in the dark here—literally and figuratively—I don’t know what to do for him here.

“Cairo,” I slightly mock. “You wanna get a little more specific?”

“You thought…” The pad of his thumb grazes softly against my cheek in a comforting yet hostile caress. “You were gonna go to the grave with a secret that would obliterate my family, didn’t you?”

The hairs on my arms stand on end as I stare into darkness and the slight outline of his face. “What secret?”

“Were you biding your time, Little T? Did you think no one was ever going to find out that Torin dropped you in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean so no one could find your body?”

I freeze on impact when his words finally hit my ears because there’s no way.

No one knew.

No one.

We were the only two there.

“What are you talking about?” I force from my lips because I can’t rat him out.

I just can’t.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t want to be with Torin, or that the sheer nearness of him makes me quiver. It’s his mind that’s the most powerful thing of all.

A haunted man who is starting to get a little psychotic with his actions and how can I blame him when he believes I murdered Judah?

In hindsight, I’m nothing to him but a crush. Someone he always wanted. A girl on the other side of a line he can’t cross without Levi making a stink about it.

Every man wants what they can’t have.

And, thanks to Matteo’s and Torin’s stubborn asses, I’m suspect number one in his brother’s murder. Pretty Boy is too much in his grief to see color. He’s living in a world of black and white with no gray.

“Tell me it isn’t true,” Cairo argues, digging his fingers harder into my skin. “That it’s not why you look at him the way you do. It’s different. You shudder when he’s near.”

I shake my head. “It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? I want you to stand here…and lie right to my face.” I say nothing. “C’mon.”

“Let me go.”

“You lied to me,” he claims. “I asked you, and you flat out dodged that shit?—”

“You’ve got five seconds to fuck off me, or I’m poppin’ you in the fucking balls, Sinatra.”

His chest presses into mine, sandwiching me even harder into the door. “Lie to me.”