Page 280 of Chaos Kills

“Judah?” Bay’s questioning fear draws me back to the screen. Her outline is predominant as she cautiously approaches my brother. “Wake up. Judah, please.” She gives him a little kick. “Judah!”

“He’s dead, sweetheart. You stuck him good.”

My nostrils flare at the sound of Matteo’s hero act.

This bullshit video, both the one he showed me before and tried to assassinate Bay with, I’m going to fuck up his entire posse while he watches before I kill him.

“He tried to hurt me. He?—”

“I saw,” Matteo says, void of emotion. “I heard everything.”

“You didn’t…you didn’t save me.”

Matteo raises his hand, a gun in his palm, ready to be used. “I was ready.”

“What do I do? Should I call the police and?—”

Matteo scoffs dismissively and pulls her into his arms. “I got this. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, okay?”

That’s when three gunshots ring out spitefully through the video, and I hear Bay call for Judah again. My fingers fold along the edge of the laptop as I slam the thing closed.

I try my best to draw in a gasp of air, but it comes short.

“You here to kill me like you said you would if I touched her?” I mindlessly ask Oz. “Because it’d be fitting.”

“No,” he croons smoothly. “Bay doesn’t want that.”

My eyes narrow as I jerk my head up to him. “You seriously asked her that?”

“Didn’t need to. Emilio wants you dead.” I stare at him, a million scenarios and reasons running through my head as my skin feels as though it’s on fire. Ozzy doesn’t pull his crystal-clear gaze off me, completely mindful of every move, emotion, and chaotic instance running through my brain. “She told him no.”

“Why?” There’s no reason for her to keep me breathing. Her best bet is to off me so I can’t betray her again.

Not that I could or would.

“Us.”

I shove his laptop off my lap, permitting the thing to fall gracelessly to the hardwood floor and rise from the leather La-Z-Boy I’m in, unable to sit still a second longer. “Where is she?”

“No.” His one word is final, standing up to me—not that he ever had a problem doing it before—and doesn’t move away, almost chest to chest with me as he puts his foot down when it comes to his wife.

And as much as I don’t want to respect it, I have no right to fight him about it. I lost that the moment my brain flipped to convince myself she and I could never be something.

That, even though I wanted it, she’d fuck me over in the end.

When it was I who was the main star in the feat.

I grind my teeth and avert my gaze to the door. “You’re not gonna be able to keep me away from her forever.’

“I will until I don’t need to.”

I lick at my bottom lip, giving me something to do instead of busting him in the mouth for my sins. “Does she know?”

I see Ozzy shake his head before picking up the discarded laptop from the floor.

He’s the constant. He’s the one who didn’t see what I thought I saw.

He believed her.

---