Page 24 of Chaos & Carnage

He smirks back before passing me my clothes, and I quickly towel off and get dressed while he does the same.

“Where did you get those?” I ask as he pulls up a pair of faded light blue jeans.

“Marcus dropped a bag of clothing off for us. While I am partial to a suit, they were not made to be worn several days in a row, and since I didn’t think there would be a spare one sitting around here, I figured this was better than nothing.”

“That was nice of him,” I say, towel-drying my hair.

“Yeah. Seems like he meant what he said yesterday.”

“I wonder what the opinion of the rest of the Rejects are.”

“Guess we’ll find out when we talk to Cain.” There’s a tightness around Enzo’s eyes, and I reach out to iron out the creases.

“Do you want them to accept you?” I ask, unsure what the goal is here or what they want.

“I don’t want them tonotaccept me,” he says with a frown. “I’m not a Reject, and I don’t want to be, but we are allies, and as such, I’d like it if we could build some sort of alliance with them. Except, alliances only work if there’s trust on both sides.”

I hum my agreement. “Well, yesterday can only have helped things, right?”

He nods, but there’s still a hesitancy in his eyes as we pull open the bathroom door and step back into the fray.

Chapter 9

I slide a palm over my face, weariness tugging at the last of my patience as I sink into a moth-eaten sofa in Oliver’s childhood home. I bought this house when I purchased my own, but I had no idea what to do with it. Until we moved into the clubhouse, some of the guys would sleep here occasionally, but I never found the time to modernize any of it. When Oliver was released, I handed the deed over to him. I’m not entirely sure if that was the right thing for me to do or not, but I had no need for it, and I thought he might want it.

As of yet, he hasn’t done anything with the place. I’m not even sure if he’s set foot inside, but it’s come in handy, what with the overcrowding situation going on in my home. At least it’s quiet here, no bickering or farting challenges or the constant drone of the TV on in the background. I thought living in a clubhouse with errant teenagers was bad, but it’s fucking bliss in comparison to living in a cramped, three-bedroom house with them.

I brush a hand through my still-damp hair. As soon as my car pulled up, I was bombarded with a million questions from the kids, all of them wanting to know who’d been hurt, who’d died, how they could help. It took a while for me to field all of them, as well as catch up with Marcus and check in on Evie, before I could finally go for a shower and then come over here. I’d wanted to come straight here, but I knew it would be even harder for me to leave once Red was in my arms again. No, I knew I had to deal with everything else before seeing her.

Now that I’ve finally stopped and finally sat down, the silence presses in around me, sounding too loud after the noise and chaos. I don’t remember the last time I got a solid night’s sleep or how long I’ve been up for, and even though my body feels wrung out, my mind can’t shut down. Every action and inaction, every decision I made or didn’t make, plays out in my head as the confidence I displayed earlier in the heat of battle, in front of my people, gives way to insecurities. It’s always the same, especially when there is loss of life involved. You always wonder if there’s something you could have done differently. If you’d donethisor not donethat.

After Sawyer and the suited pricks left, my men and I dove straight into damage control. We had to re-arm our perimeters, check the structural damage of the building, not to mention count the dead.

Five. Five of my men died today. Well, yesterday now, I guess. It’s all been one never-ending day to me. Some people might think five deaths isn’t too bad, and it’s not, but for me, it’s still five deaths too many. Five deaths that I now have to carry with me, that will forever tug on my soul and hang like a cloud over any bright days there may be in my future.

On the upside, we killed all twenty-five attackers. Mostly Grim’s men, with a handful of Giovanni’s. My men are already demanding payback for this attack, for the lives lost. I am too. I will not let this go unpunished. Giovanni is a challenging opponent, one I’m not yet sure how to defeat, but Grim… Grim, we can definitely handle. He’s just climbed to the number one spot on my kill list, and I can’t wait to see how he fucking likes it when we show up at his door, shooting his men down one by one.

The last—and the most complicated—problem I had to deal with before I could come here, was fielding the men’s questions about Dante and Enzo. It’s safe to say none of them were happy when I first showed up with them on my heels. I could see the skepticism, the hate in their eyes, the flickering uncertainty directed at me when I walked past with them behind me.

Nevertheless, many of the men witnessed Dante and Enzo fighting alongside them. They saw the fact that they stayed—and not so they could attack from the inside and give Giovanni the surprise advantage. It left them confused, to say the least, and raised many questions. Questions I wasn’t sure how to answer. Everyone wanted to know if we were allies, if we were working together, if I trusted them.

I didn’t know how to answer a single one. Are we allies? Can you be allies and hate the person’s guts? I guess, since we’re all on Giovanni’s shit list, that alone makes us allies. At this point, we all want the same thing—to be rid of Giovanni. After that? I have no fucking idea. That’s probably a conversation Dante and I need to have sooner rather than later because his answer might determine everything.

As for whether or not I trust them. Yes and no. I trust that they’ll protect Red, that they will keep her safe and take care of her when I’m not around. I saw how they were with her today—the way we all worked to protect her the best we could. Honestly, knowing they were there allowed me to focus solely on the situation at hand.

But do I trust them with my men? Trust them to do what’s right for my people and for the city of Black Creek? Hell no. It’s kind of fucked up when you think about it. I trust them with the one woman who means absolutely everything to me, but I don’t trust them with anything else. Then again, the only reason I do trust them with Red is because I see the way they are with her. I fucking hate their possessive posturing over her and the way they look at her, although I recognize all of it for what it is.

They fucking care for her, the way Oliver and I do. I might not fucking like it, but it does mean I can trust them when it comes to her safety. Even though simply the thought of sending her away with them after the fighting ceased was harder than any other decision I made in the heat of battle. All I wanted was to keep her by my side, where I could watch her with my own eyes. Even after they left and I was helping clean up alongside my men, my thoughts kept drifting to her, wondering what she was doing, whattheywere doing, and every fucking time, the images that assaulted my mind would make my blood boil. Nevertheless, I knew it was the right decision to make. She couldn’t be there to see the destruction left behind, and I couldn’t havethemthere any longer, either.

A presence in the doorway pulls me out of my thoughts as my gaze snaps up to Dante’s stoic expression. Even now, that bubble of hatred wells up.I really don’t fucking like him.However, it’s no longer as fucking simple as liking him or not, because he fought alongside us yesterday. Not only that, but he saved my life in the stairwell. I probably owe him a fucking thank you, but I can’t make my mouth form the words, so I don’t.

As silent as always, his oppressive aura seems to fill the room as he steps into it, his eyes fixed on me. He’s dressed differently today, like someone born in Black Creek, in jeans and a cotton t-shirt, and yet the clothes don’t look right on him. It’s not that they don’t fit, they just look out of place. It’s jarring, drawing my attention for a long moment as I run my gaze up and down his tall frame.

He rolls his shoulders, as though trying to stretch the fabric out and make it more comfortable, and I realize he feels just as out of place in those clothes as I do at seeing him in them.

“Where’s Red?” I ask, flicking my gaze to the empty doorway before focusing back on him.

“Sawyerwill be down in a minute.”

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