Page 20 of Chaos & Carnage

Luc frowns. “No. I didn’t think of that.”

“Well, try that next time,” I suggest softly.

“Should we take this conversation inside?” Enzo asks, stepping up beside me, although his gaze bounces all over the street, as though he’s expecting the chaos to have followed us back here.God, I hope not.

Luc immediately tenses, glancing up at him before flicking his gaze to Dante. “I see you two made it out alive,” he drawls.

Reaching out, I shove him in the shoulder. “Hey! None of that!”

With another roll of his eyes, he moves back toward the house.

“I think he’s warming up to us,” Enzo says when he’s out of earshot.

Tearing my gaze away from Luc, I turn to cock a brow at him. “That’s him warming up to you?”

Enzo just shrugs, not enlightening me as he says, “It’s been a bit of a process.”

Well, considering the last time I talked to Luc, we were arguing because I was defending Dante. I guess the fact that he even acknowledged their presence is a win—I think.

Dante, who had stayed back to give Luc and me some privacy, steps up to my other side, his hand landing on my lower back. “Come on. You’re dead on your feet, you need to lie down.”

“I just want to talk to Marcus first.” At his sheer look of frustration, I tack on, “Then I’ll lie down.”

His lips purse, but applying pressure to my back, he ushers me toward the house. “Have you been staying here?” I question, suddenly curious.

Dante grunts out something unintelligible, but the derision behind it says everything about what he thinks of his current living arrangements. I bite back a laugh, not sure if I’d love to have been a fly on the wall these last few days or if I’m better off not knowing what threats of violence and sarcastic jibes were tossed back and forth.

“Haven’t the kids, Marcus, and Evie been here too? Where the hell is everyone sleeping?”

“Well, we haven’t done much in the way of sleeping,” Enzo admits, “but the kids have been bunking together—something that very quickly turned sour—and Marcus, Cain, and Oliver have been taking power naps in the third bedroom.”

“And what about you guys?”

Enzo juts his chin toward the house on the left. “Cain put us up in there.”

“Cain owns that house too?” I question aloud.

My guys just shrug. “He must,” Enzo says, uncaring.

I run my eyes over the house next door. It’s shabbier looking than Cain’s, not having received the same level of renovations. I wonder why he purchased it. Enzo and Dante won’t have the answer, so I store the question away to ask Cain when things settle down a bit.

Marcus meets us as we step into the house, his face drawn and downturned. The events of today hit me all over again as we share a look. It can’t have been easy for him to have stayed here while the clubhouse was under attack. He’ll have received an alert as soon as the ambush started, but since Cain has him on guard duty here, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—have left.

“How bad is it?”

“It could have been worse,” I say, going for an optimistic response, or as optimistic as one can be considering there are a few less good men in this world. On the plus side, there are a few less bad ones too.

“I’ll grab us all some whiskey,” he says, gesturing for us to head into the living room before he stalks off to the kitchen.

The second I step into the living room, the kids all jump to their feet, firing a hundred and one questions at us.

“What happened?”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“We should have been there!”

An ear-piercing whistle breaks through the cacophony of noise, all of them going silent as their gazes snap to Dante.

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