Page 44 of Rose
“You wanted her number... and didn’t even ask for her name?” Khaos shook his head slowly, his disgust genuine. “It’s pussies like you that make good men look bad.”
Bernard sobbed. “Please. Please.”
“It’sAhzii Carter, nigga,” Khaos said, a twisted smile forming on his lips.
The name sounded right. Too right.
He knew he sounded crazy—claiming her, protecting her, hurting men for her. But he didn’t care.
She stirred something in him he didn’t know existed. And now? He wanted to know everything about her.
And maybe, just maybe...
Spend forever doing it.
“Now we gonna try this shit again,” Khaos said coldly, starting the recording once more.
Bernard trembled, blood streaking his face, eyes red and drowning in fear.
“I... I sincerely apologize, Mrs. Ahzii Carter,” he croaked, tears spilling as he struggled to stay upright. “You’re not a bitch. You’re a beautiful, smart, Black queen.”
Click.The video ended.
Khaos pocketed the phone.
Then shot him in the knee.
The scream that followed ripped through the walls, louder than the gunshot. Bernard clutched his leg, body convulsing in agony.
Khaos tilted his head, almost curious. “Did you just call my wifebeautiful?”
There was no time for Bernard to explain. To correct himself. To beg.
Bang.
A single shot silenced everything. Right between the eyes.
Khaos stared at the body—empty, useless—and holstered his weapon like he’d just finished a job, not a life.
“Clean this shit up,” he said to his men, tone sharp but calm. “I’m buying this run-down dump and renovating it. Put it on the market for cheap. Find a good family who needs it—someone who’ll treat it better than this sorry nigga did.”
That was the paradox of him. Khaos could take a life without blinking... and still think of giving someone else a home.
Because buried under the blood, behind the bullets, was stillSavior—a man with a soul trying not to drown in the darkness.
He paused at the door. Whispered a quiet prayer for Bernard’s mother.
Then vanished. Ghostlike. By the time the city blinked again, Khaos was gone—cutting through the night toward his estate. Another soul taken.
But the only thing on his mind?
Ahzii.
Not the screams. Not the blood.
Her.
He needed to see her again. And this time... he wouldn't just be protecting her.
