Page 266 of Chaos Kills

“I didn’t know you got out of prison.” My eyes flick to the white French doors that lead outside, but they’re currently being blocked by a bunch of people mingling and talking nonsense. “I just want to talk.”

I can’t.

I don’t want to.

Cairo told me to stay away from her. Reeve advised me to punch her in the vagina if she ever dared step up and attempted to start a conversation with me. While Torin flat-out suggested stabbing her where she stood.

The latter would cause a lot of screams and blood, and while I wouldn’t mind that, I’m not sure I could bear seeing Vivian bleed by my hands.

“Ozzy…” A small hand lands on my bicep, and I flinch away, bumping into a table filled with food I can’t pronounce and margarita glasses in a tower for people to grab. “Don’t be like that.”

“Go,” I order, but it’s barely audible. It holds no power behind how much I want her to go and leave me alone.

She’s not supposed to be here, but she is.

“We need to talk.” She steps out in front of me, blocking my view of the exit and my need to move. Her olive-green eyes appear so sad and slightly lonely when she looks back at me. Her high cheekbones are still there, those slightly rosy cheeks I remember are hidden by makeup and heavy eyeliner. “I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding.”

I rock my head back and forth because there isn’t.

I didn’t understand it before, but I do now.

Especially after my brothers sat me down and explained to me that Vivian used me to kill the guy she had an affair with behind Cairo’s back so he wouldn’t talk. That she allowed me to take the fall and manipulated the situation because of how I felt for her.

It wasn’t like I would ever steal her from Cairo, I wouldn’t. My relationship with him superseded all else, but I cared deeply for Vivian. I enjoyed how she looked at me and smiled. I became fond of the way she’d hold my hand sometimes and tell me how special I was.

That there was no one in the world like me.

But then things became weird, and I felt as though I was betraying Cairo with the things she was doing. How she’d lean in and hover her lips over mine, taunting me to kiss her. How she spoke of a future as though I’d always be with her and Cairo.

Forever.

“You know I’d never have you do something and get you in trouble, right?” I don’t respond because I don’t know that. Cairo says she’s a liar. He wouldn’t tell me that just to tell me that. It’s why he’s not with her anymore, despite her efforts to change that. “I told you we’d go away together.”

“No.” The word isn’t hard to say at all. Things have changed, and the years in prison pried me away from her clutches.

Those days have to remain dead.

“They turned you against me,” she mutters, frowning with a flood of tears brimming around her eyes. “Cairo doesn’t understand. He wouldn’t listen to me, Oz. How much I love you and him.”

Like Bay.

I stare at her, observing the way she averts her gaze as if she can’t stand to talk about this any more than I want to listen to it. How downcast and hopeless she appears.

“I’ve tried for years,” she continues on. “Why would I do that if I did what I did? I would’ve just let it go and moved on.” She purses her red-painted lips together. “He replaced me…” Her eyes flick back to me. “With your wife. He won’t admit it out loud because he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings, but I’m frightened for him. I’m afraid she’ll get him killed.”

How?

He has me. And Reeve and Torin.

Nothing will happen to Cairo when he takes the Titan seat, and we’ll remain at his side to make sure things happen the way we’ve always wanted them to.

“Levi Wallace…he doesn’t like Cairo. He and Bay are going to team up and take him down.”

That’s not true.

“I know he’s your cousin,” she fills in. “I know you don’t have any family, and it feels nice…but he’s using you. Why would he allow Bay to marry you if he wasn’t planning on getting on the inside? It’d be stupid not to.”

“No.”

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