Page 51 of Princes of Carnage

He brings his free hand up to trace my jaw, turning my head so that our gazes meet. “The tattoo on your chest—and the one on mine—beg to differ, mia cara. You certainly felt like you were mine last night when you were taking every inch of my cock.”

My pussy throbs at the reminder of what that felt like, a flash of pain and arousal shooting between my legs.

Jesus. I expected this alliance and marriage to be an inconvenience, upending things a little… but I had no idea just how quickly everything in my life would be turned on its head. It’s messier and so much more confusing than I thought it would be.

And we’ve only been married a day.

Nico’s face is only inches away from mine, his mismatched eyes staring down at me. I can feel Killian watching me from just a couple feet away, standing so close that I can pick up the warm whiskey and leather scent of him.

The combined focus of the two men is more than I can handle right now, so I step smoothly away from Nico, who lets his arm drop from around me.

It hits me suddenly that Atlas is missing from his usual place at Nico’s other side, and my brows furrow.

“Where’s Atlas?” I ask, glancing around.

It doesn’t take long for me to spot him standing several yards away, talking to a beautiful woman. She’s tall and willowy, built like a dancer or a yoga instructor or something. Her dark blonde hair is streaked through with lighter chunks, and even though it’s just tied up into a messy bun, she appears effortlessly pretty. Like she just rolls out of bed looking flawless.

She’s clearly a member of Carnage, but not one of the ones I’ve seen before.

“Who is that? The woman Atlas is talking to?”

Nico follows my gaze and then snorts. “That’s Zoey. His ex.”

“Oh.”

He frowns. “I’m surprised they’re chatting like that, honestly. Well, surprised Atlas is entertaining it. Zoey’s been wanting to get back together with Atlas ever since they broke up, but it hasn’t been going well. She’s even resorted to trying to win over Killian to get back in Atlas’s good graces.”

Killian grunts in agreement but doesn’t offer up anything else.

A surprising twinge of… something shoots through me as I watch the pair of them talk. To my surprise and disgust, I recognize it as jealousy. As quickly as the emotion welled up, I shove it back down, not understanding where it came from and definitely not wanting to feel it.

Zoey laughs at something Atlas just said and puts her hand on his arm, leaning in close. I turn away before I can see how he reacts to that, swallowing down any other feeling but annoyance.

“We’re out, boss!” someone calls from a little ways away, I look up to see a few of my crew heading for the exit—Emmett among them.

They lift their hands to me, and I nod back. Emmett’s eyes linger on the sight that I must make, standing with Nico and Killian, but he doesn’t say anything. He just nods in my direction and strides out with the rest of them.

That sets off the dispersal of the rest of the gathered members of our two gangs, people leaving in clusters. More than a few of them glance over to see the three of us standing together, and while I can guess what my gang is thinking about all of this, I have no idea what to expect from Carnage.

Nico and Killian don’t seem worried though, so I suppose I’ll just have to trust in that.

Atlas makes his way over to us a few minutes later as Zoey joins a few other Carnage members and leaves, his scowl set firmly in place. It’s hard to tell if he looks so pissy because of me or because of the conversation he just had with his ex, but I’m not dwelling on that. There’s business to handle.

I take a step away from Nico, putting more distance between us so that I can focus better. The whole point of this is to keep our people safe, to figure out who’s been behind these attacks and how to stop them. Everything else is just background noise. My people are looking to me to lead, and that’s what I’m going to do.

“Alright,” I say, catching the three Princes’ attention just as Nico starts to lean in to say something to Atlas. “I’ve held up my end of the deal, and now it’s time for us to get to work. We still have someone out there trying to take us down, and all those people we called here today are counting on us to actually make something of this alliance. So we’ve got to do that.”

Nico nods, for once not arguing. “You’re right.”

“Where do we start?” Atlas asks, and I’m surprised that he’s speaking to me. Even with us all being in this together, I guess I still expected him to only take Nico’s word seriously.

“Let’s go over what we know,” I say. “It’s better to start there than dwelling on what we don’t know yet. How many attacks did you guys deal with?”

“Three,” Nico responds. “That we know of. There are always skirmishes and scrapes, but that’s just the cost of doing business.”

I nod because that’s definitely true. Sometimes other gangs get too close. Sometimes other, unaffiliated criminals try to move in and take money drops thinking they can get away with it. It’s what makes this shit so hard to track when someone else gets involved.

“Were they all in the same location?” I want to know.

---