Page 7 of Chaos Kills

Levi is locked up.

I’m alone.

I don’t have a place for Mae and Ellie to stay. I haven’t even told them about Dad yet because they’re not here, and I said it was going to be okay.

It wassupposedto be okay.

It’s not okay.

“Haven…” Emilio’s pet name—because that’s what it is; I don’t care if it’s my legal name—flits around me, and I feel as though it’s choking me to death.

The father I didn’t want is what I have.

He’s alive.

Evil has a way of withstanding life, doesn’t it? It’s always the good ones who go first.

“I’m so sorry.”

I want to tell my sperm donor to go fuck himself, but an argument means standing in this room for another minute, and I have to get out of here.

“Am I married?” I croak out, balling my fingers into fists. “Did you?—”

“Ozzy is your official husband,” Emilio confirms gently. “And you needn’t worry about a thing. He has it all handled.”

Handled.

Emilio was supposed to have it handled for me, but he doesn’t do anything. He hands off orders and agrees to them. All he wants is for me to be a part of this stupid family and for me to be okay with this.

To accept it.

I have to go.

Starting for the door, I’m only a step toward getting the hell out of here when Ozzy decides to move. I freeze, feeling his eyes on me and an unsettling wave of goosebumps running up my arms.

Torin is always a step ahead of me. Now he’s going to have his cousin make my life a living fucking hell.

More than it is already.

“So what does Torin want you to do with me first?” I solicit sharply. The pit of my stomach has already started hollowing itself out at the many possibilities. I finally meet his eyes, but I can’t make out the kind of blue they are because I can barely hold on to them. “What does he have on you to agree to this, or are you just his lackey?”

Because it has to be something.

I don’t care if this dude is his nephew, Emilio put me—his only daughter—with him for a reason.

Or Torin somehow got involved.

Ozzy is an unknown character, which means the plot just thickened.

“I’m already liking this arrangement,” I assert placidly, glancing around the overly decorated office of Emilio’s that screams I like power and fucking people over. “The conversations are just too tantalizing to contain.”

Ozzy reaches behind him and levels me with an unamused and zero-fucks-given stare.

A folded piece of paper is handed over to me, but I don’t take it.

“What is it?”

Silence.

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