Page 289 of Chaos Kills

“Why are you staring at me like a freak?” Cairo grumbles, pulling me a bit closer to his warm body. “Go back to sleep, Little Terror.”

“Says the freak who crawled into my bed to begin with, Sinatra. Why are you here?”

“You summoned me.”

I hum the use of his words because it’s not like I have the complete capacity to do such a thing. “I’m sure you already know.” He bobs his head, eyes still closed. “And I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

“That’s the second time you’ve saved Torin.”

My nose wrinkles at his accusation—or truth as most people would probably call it. “I was doing my due diligence. Don’t read too much into it.”

“I’m reading into a lot of things.”

“That’s just looking for disappointment.”

“Maybe. But I’m reading that you’re still not done with him.”

I shove at his arm because he’s starting to irritate me now. “I can assure you, I am.”

“If you say so.”

“Where’s Ozzy?”

“I dunno. Go to sleep.”

I roll over to my side to get out of his hold, when his steely arm wraps around me again and yanks me right back to where I was.

This time, he props the side of his head with his palm and peels his dark brown eyes open to look down at me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To remove myself from this conversation.”

“We haven’t talked yet.”

“And we’re not going to. Not when you want to keep bringing up my non-existent relationship with your brother. We’re not together anymore. I don’t want to be with him anymore. Just because I didn’t open my big mouth about the ocean incident and was going to talk to you about Emilio’s genius plan doesn’t mean I want to go deeper than that.”

Cairo smirks, and fuck me and the entire world, he should do it less. “Okay.”

My brows clash. “Okay?”

“That’s what I said.”

I stare at him again, falling back into the silence of my bedroom and noticing the sounds of birds, it still might be early morning. Ellie and Mae must still be sleeping, which is fine by me because I don’t feel like making breakfast.

“Why are you here?” I whisper, eyeing his nose ring and the little scar on his left cheek. Anything to keep some of the anxiety that’s creeping into my veins at bay.

“Ozzy said you fainted. You’re not eating. You’re not you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” He says that next to my ear, sending my body into a detox of reality and not the blackness of sleep. “You’re not fine because I know what that looks like.” A few beats go by before he says, “It looks like me.”

My heart skips a bit at the sliver of vulnerability he just shared. With his brothers falling apart, his new role as the King of Wharf Bay, and the discovery of Reeve’s father, I can’t imagine how overwhelmed he might be.

“Ozzy has fully committed himself to you,” he mutters in my hair. “If you don’t know how invaluable that is, sweetheart, I can’t even put it into words. You’ve gained him for life, and he’ll do anything for you now.”

Somehow, I know that.

Not only with the limited number of words he’s spoken to me, but it’s his eyes. I wonder if mine look the same because something about Ozzy makes me fall in line with him.

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