Page 21 of The Chaos She Brings
Kai
Fuck.
How the hell am I supposed to stick to my routine with her around?
This is how I like my days:
Wake up. Go for a run—clear my head.
Come home. Coffee and toast.
Start work, either from home or the office.
Spend the day glued to my screens, break for lunch—chicken, chorizo, and mozzarella sandwich with chilli jam.
Dinner—depends.
Research Nate’s next victimorclean up his crime (with adequate prior warning).
Sleep.
Repeat.
Since Carina came into Nate’s life, I had to adapt a little on this. Cleaning her crime scenes without any warning. But she’s settled down now the two of them work together. Still, for the most part, my routine was intact.
This is how it’s been sinceshecrashed into my life:
Ahhhhhhh.
I’m fucked.
I watch the security footage from Tess's building on a loop. Three men go in, each wearing balaclavas to hide their faces, then come back out again less than twenty minutes later. There are no cameras inside her building which is infuriating, but I zoom in enough to catch a glimpse of one of their tattoos. It’s a skull with a crown of thorns, just poking out from his top at the back of his neck.
Enhancing the image, I run it through various policedatabases to see if there’s a match. I use the Interpol system for good measure too.
While I wait, my mind drifts to Tess downstairs. She’s shaken, understandably so. But it unsettles me to see her like this—so quiet, so… lifeless. The silence between us on the drive home was too heavy. I should have relished it, but instead, I found myself wishing she would chatter about something utterly pointless, anything to fill the empty space in the air.
What the hell was I thinking, kissing her?
I can’t let that happen again. She’s too disruptive to the fragile order I’ve built around myself. Control—it's the only thing that keeps my past from clawing its way back, from drowning me in memories of my mother’s abuse. The weight of it is always there, hovering just beneath the surface, ready to break free the moment I lose my grip.
When you let someone in, you give them the power to destroy you. I know first-hand how badly that can go.
I can’t afford that.
I have to pull back. Keep my distance.
Friends. I can do friends.
My computer beeps, signalling that it’s found someone. On the screen there’s a profile; Mikhail Petrov. He’s not in the typical criminal databases but he is on a watchlist. Russian Mafia.
Why would someone in the Russian Mafia be after Tess?
“Kai?” Tess calls from downstairs.
I pull open my door so I don’t have to shout. “You good?”
“Yeah. I just… thought I would make us some dinner.”
