Page 6 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

“Yeah, real good looking out there, Chaos. She’s real safe, isn’t she?”

I don’t even think, not with my head at least. My fist cracks against his jaw, catching him off guard. Spittle flies from his mouth as his head jerks to the left.

He lunges for me, but his contact gets interrupted by Carver and Sneak.

“Everyone’s thrown off by this. Brothers fighting brothers ain’t no way to fix the situation,” Duke bellows. “Chaos, get your shit together or you’ll deal with me. Blood, quit antagonizing the man. He loves your sister and he’s right. You should be thanking your lucky stars she’s got a brother like Chaos in her bed. What if she took up with some asshat outside the life? You’d never know what she was into. Sneak, Scotch, you’re with me. Now, men, break.”

As insane as it makes me to have to stay behind, it feels good to see my brothers scramble.

Blue and Blaze make their way back out front to guard the gate. Until we promote our new recruits, as the newest brothers, the job stays with them. Elise walks over to me, her golden blonde hair swaying against her back. It’s gotten longer since she and Beau got back together. Most women tend to cut their hair once motherhood hits, but not Elise. Boss told her he likes it long, she let it grow long. It’s how those two work, always doing for the other. I thought that’s what Liv and I had.

Elise wraps both her arms around my shoulders, pulling me in for a hug. “We’ll find her, Chaos. They’ll bring her home, then you can get her some help. But don’t give up on her.”

“Give up? Girl, how could I? I’ve loved her my whole life. My whole fucking life. Only stayed away for Blood.”

“I know.”

“No. Only Boss and Duke really know what a man’ll do for the woman he loves. Something happens to her, I don’t know that I’ll want to go on breathing.”

“Don’t say that,” Elise reprimands. But what I tell her is the God’s honest truth. A world without Livvy isn’t a world I want to be a part of.

“Brother.” Boss shifts Gun from one arm to the other. “We’ll find her. She’ll be safe. You get her help, then put a ring on her finger just like I did with my beautiful wife.”

Then he turns to walk toward the hallway leading back to the member rooms. “Come on, lil’ dude. Got you some squishy drawers. Let’s rectify that.”

Elise sighs, love written all over her face. “Those two are my entire life.”

“He was born to be a daddy,” I offer, shoving my hands in my front pockets because I don’t have any idea what to do with myself, let alone my hands.

“You want it, you’ll have it. Just got to get Liv back to good.”

“I was trying. She promised if it got to be too much she’d talk to a therapist.Damn it. I’ve been trying so hard with her, Elise. So damn hard. What if… What if she doesn’t love me the way I love her?”

“No. I lived with Liv. She loves you. She’s just scrambled right now is all.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“You will. I promise, Chaos, you will. Now…” She shoots me a sly smile. “I’m going to go help Beau with the baby.”

Yeah, “help Beau with the baby” would be code for change the kid, get him down for a nap and then fuck Boss’s brains out. We’ve all been privy to hearing her “help him with the baby” since they moved back into the compound. That’s the last fucking thing I need to be thinking about right now, seeing as before she took off, Liv and I hadn’t been intimate in a few weeks. I thought she backed off because she was hardly sleeping. But now I know it was her pulling away.

“God!I’m such a fucking idiot!” I yell into the empty common room.

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