Page 3 of From the Ashes

“Looks like our time’s up, son. But I’ll be seeing you soon.” His focus turns to Camilla, and I barely stop myself from stepping in front of her to shield her from his gaze. She recognizes him. She knows him.

I try to rack my brain where they could possibly have met before, but I come up empty.

“Camilla,” he regards, and she grips my hand in hers tighter.

I’m a second away from going after him, from demanding all the answers to questions I haven’t even asked yet, but before I can get a single word out, the ground shudders as another explosion vibrates through the area. We need to get the fuck out of here and regroup.

One of our primary businesses has just gone up in smoke, literally, and having us at the center of mass hysteria is not going to do any of us any favors.

“Kaos,” Camilla whispers, her attention turning from the building back to me.

“Not here,” I rumble and tighten my hold on her hand. “We need to find the others and get back to the compound.”

I’ve never been known for my composure, but right now I have no other choice.

I turn around and see Bishop guiding Crew toward us, his eyes darting around the chaos on high alert like the rest of us.

Kovu is a few steps behind them, and he looks every bit as restless as I feel, but he’s holding it together as he watches his passion project burn to the fucking ground.

“We can’t get anywhere near the car,” Bishop tells us, and I run my hand down my face. We always park on the side of the warehouse, as it makes for a quick escape if we ever need to get out at a moment’s notice.

That really worked out well for us tonight.

Crew pulls his phone from his pocket with a groan, and Camilla closes the distance between them, worry tugging at her brows.

He tugs her under his arm and almost catches the wince when he pulls her against him a little too hard, but Camilla doesn’t notice. She’s too busy staring at the flames.

“I’m calling us a car, but we’ll need to get away from here to meet them,” Crew tells us without looking up from his phone.

I nod once before grasping Kovu’s shoulder to tug him away from the building he spent months building up from nothing and years after that to grow it into something he was proud of.

“We gotta go.”

The silence is stifling the whole way back to the compound.

None of us have said a single word since we started walking the three blocks to the pickup point for the car Crew ordered, and I’m still completely dumbfounded that an hour ago I was balls deep inside my girl, and now my father is back from the dead and our second most profitable business is nothing more than ash.

Bishop passes a wad of cash to the driver as I help Camilla and Crew climb out of the SUV that picked us up.

We move as one up the stairs and to the elevator, bypassing the door that leads to Camilla’s room, despite how badly I’m sure we’d like nothing more than to crash after the night we’ve had.

Camilla takes my hand in the elevator, and I glance down at her in time to see her wipe a single tear from her cheek. Seeing her cry never seems to get any easier, but which one of us is she hurting for?

We file into Crew’s office, and Kovu throws the door shut behind him, making her jump at the sudden sound, but she recovers quickly, walking straight to the liquor cart in the corner and filling five glasses with the most expensive whiskey Crew keeps in here.

A night this fucked up calls for the good stuff.

I help her carry them to the table, and before she has a chance to sit down, Kovu tugs her against him and into his lap. Part of me wants to argue, to pull her back to me because I’m a second away from losing my fucking mind, but he’s closer to that edge.

Once we’re all seated and have each taken a sip of the liquor in our hands, Crew speaks for the first time since we left the warehouse. “What the fuck happened?”

I swallow heavily and meet Camilla’s eyes across the room, but I can’t find the words to tell them. I can’t even figure out how I feel about what happened tonight.

I should be relieved, right? My father’s alive.

That should give me some kind of comfort. But there are too many questions for me to find any kind of relief.

We watched him bleed out on his bedroom floor.

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