Page 6 of Chaos & Carnage
Cain spins to face me, his green eyes vibrant with the threat of destruction. “Like fuck you are.” He takes one menacing step toward me. “You’re not going anywhere near my house or my sister. I’d put a bullet through your fucking skull before I let that happen.”
I roll my eyes at his dramatics. His threats and posturing might make lesser men cower and obey, but not me. He’ll have to try a hell of a lot harder than that. Instead of backing down, I step forward, jutting out my chin. “Do it,” I coax. “Shoot me.”
His steps falter, his eyes flashing with surprise. “Go on,” I encourage when he makes no further effort to follow through with his threat. “I said, shoot me. Your sister’s already said she’s fine with us being in your house, so you can stop throwing that excuse at us. You know we didn’t fucking touch her, that we didn’t fucking know she was in that building, and in case you fucking missed it, we threw our entire goddamn lives away that night to save her, to help you out, to rescue Luc.” The words spill out of me as anger stokes along the edges of my soul, caressing it and sparking it to life. “You got your sister back, and you got vengeance on the man who kept her captive, but we lost fuckingeverything. Our family, friends, job, houses. Every. Fucking. Thing. All that’s left is Sawyer, and I don’t give a shit what you dictate or demand, I’m not fucking leaving until she’s back safe and sound.”
Tension spills into the air, the weight of my words swirling with the hostile aggression radiating off all of us. The atmosphere is so thick, you could strike a match and send the whole room up in flames. One wrong word. One wrong move. That’s all it would take.
Cain and I lock eyes. He doesn’t reach for his gun, but he doesn't back down either.
After a long moment where no one moves, Dante’s brisk voice eventually breaks through the tension. “You’re not going to fucking pull your gun, so can we get the hell out of here already?”
After a grunted response from Cain, he storms past me and out of the apartment. Oliver flicks a glance between Dante and me, keeping whatever he’s thinking carefully hidden before he stalks after Cain.
When we’re alone, I rub my eyes, trying to fight off the headache beating a steady rhythm behind them. This day might just be the day that kills me.Theymight just be the thing that kills me.
“They’re infuriating,” Dante grumbles, making me snort.
“You’re telling me. I thought you were difficult to deal with, but he’s on a whole other level.”
Dante pins me with such a menacing glower, you’d think I’d just stabbed him through the heart instead of making a joke at his expense.
With a smirk still tugging on one side of my lips, I jerk my head toward the door. “We better go before they decide to slash our tires just so we can’t follow them.”
Dante’s face is filled with disdain as I turn on my heel and head for the exit.
“I still vote that we kill them,” he grumbles.
I sigh. That’s at least the fourth time today he’s brought that up—an option that isn’t actually an option.
“I’ve already told you we can’t.” He knows this, despite his volatile threat to Cain earlier. “Sawyer would never forgive you.”
He grumbles something under his breath that I can’t quite hear, but it sounds a lot likeshe’d get over it, eventually.
I shake my head, refusing to even acknowledge that or his stubbornness because, no, I don’t think she would get over it, no matter how much time he gave her. I just have to see the way she lights up when she’s around them to know that to be true. Killing one or both of them would kill a part of her too, and even though he may want to—hell, I want to—neither one of us would willingly kill any part of Sawyer, even if that means the two insufferable assholes have to keep breathing.
***
The journey back to Cain’s house is mostly silent. We’ve been searching the city all night, and the pale pink of dawn is just brightening the sky. Store owners are pulling up shutters and opening shop fronts as we drive past, delivery men dropping off goods, and men and women stumbling home from a night out.
All around us, the world goes on, people going about their lives like nothing is out of place. Because nothing is out of place in their world. Meanwhile, mine feels like it’s been torn apart. My outburst earlier only opened up the festering wound I’ve been keeping carefully sealed, but now the bandage won’t go back on and that wound is leaking; the feelings pouring out in a constant stream that shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.
Fear is the primary emotion. Fear of ending up like my father. Fear that I am exactly what Giovanni has always said I am—a traitor, disloyal, not to be trusted. Fear for Sawyer, for what she might be suffering through right now, and fear of leaving her behind if something were to happen to me. Fear for how we’re going to get out of this situation unscathed.
Fear.
So. Much. Fear.
It eats away at my insides like an infection, corroding them and turning them black, until all I can feel is the raw agony of fear pulsing with every beat of my heart, the tunes in sync, intrinsically tied together as though one will never exist without the other.
As we pull up outside Cain’s house, I shove every inch of that fear deep down, slamming a lid on the box and locking it securely. Fear is a weakness, one I refuse to show in front of these assholes or their gang. As far as I’m concerned, they are still our enemies, and enemies thrive off of weaknesses. They deliberately poke holes in your armor, toying and exacerbating you until those weaknesses come to light. They already know my greatest weakness—Sawyer. I won’t give them another.
Cain throws our car a disgusted glance before he marches up the front path, Oliver beside him. Dante and I are only a few steps behind as we climb out of the car and follow them onto the front porch. The screen door creaks on its hinges, alerting everyone inside to our presence as Cain yanks it open and steps into the house, not offering so much as an invitation over his shoulder, even though I wasn’t expecting one. Afuck offwould be more appropriate, but either way, we’re coming in, and we won’t be leaving until Sawyer is back.
One man I recognize from the night we rescued Luc is already standing in the hall, giving a small nod in greeting to Cain and Oliver as they enter before flicking his gaze over their shoulders to Dante and me. His shoulders stiffen, but he doesn’t question our arrival.
I’m too busy assessing this guy, watching closely to make sure Cain doesn’t give him some sort of secret signal to put a bullet through our skulls, that I don’t realize Luc has appeared until he speaks up.
“Did you find my sister?” His voice is full of the optimistic hope of youthfulness, one that will surely fade in another year or two. I’m surprised it hasn’t already, especially given what he’s endured at Santos’ and Giovanni’s hands.