Page 116 of The Chaos She Brings

Shakes wrack my body.

A deep sense of despair and numbness settle over me all at once.

A hand on my knee has me flinching until I see Carina’s concerned face in front of me.

She only has to take one look at me before she’s nodding then pulling me into her arms.

Carina’s hand gently strokes through my tangled hair, her touch warm and steady. She doesn’t say anything at first—just lets me cry, offering the kind of quiet comfort that feels like a lifeline.

“Come on,” she whispers, “we’re going to get you showered, then me and you can talk.” She pulls back, just enough to observe my expression. “Okay?”

I nod, letting her pull me from my seat and towards the bedroom at the back of the plane where there’s a private bathroom.

We don’t speak. She just helps me out of my clothes, turns on the shower, then manoeuvres me under the spray.

Only once I’ve scrubbed every part of my body, as if that alone can remove his touch from me, do I step out into the towel waiting for me.

Carina guides me to the bed, and the two of us get under the covers, huddling together.

She doesn’t force me to speak.

But I find myself opening up anyway.

“His friends watched,” I whisper, choking back the pain. I don’t need to tell her anything more. She knows what it means.

“I wanted to die out there. I thought the pain would end, that I could just escape the weight of everything. The thought of not having to feel anymore... It was tempting. But now? Now that I’m still here, I don’t know what to feel. Relief? Regret? Or something between?”

She nods knowingly. Which she does. If anyone would understand me, it’s her.

“I’ve been where you are, Tess,” Carina says, her voice soft but steady. “That emptiness, like the weight of the world is too much to carry. Like you’ll never see the light again. I won’t lie—there were days I thought it would never end. But it does. It gets better. I promise.”

Tears flow down my cheeks and I swipe at them angrily, pissed at how much I’ve cried recently.

“What do I tell Kai?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with. Everything, or nothing, it’s your story, Tess.”

I nod, slowly, as the weight of Carina’s words settles in. It doesn’t make everything better, but it makes me feel just a little less alone. A little less broken. Like maybe there’s a way forward from here.

Kai

We arrive back in New York and Enzo gets behind the wheel of his Lamborghini, the rest of us piling in after him. I sit in the passenger seat, needing the space to stretch my leg.

Tess sits behind me. There’s an emptiness in the space between us. I stretch my hand back, palm open, needing to feel her. Her hesitation lasts a heartbeat before her fingers slip into mine, squeezing as if to anchor both of us to this moment. The silence in the car deepens, but at least she’s here. At least she’s not slipping away.

There’s a pain in her eyes, one that’s hard to ignore. She hasn’t told me what happened with Nikolai. But I know it must have been bad.

His body is in the boot, and now we’re heading to the Ivanov’s compound on the edge of the city to return it. Like Enzo, Nikolai is—was—their leader’s son, so this is risky, and could be a suicide mission, but we’re hopeful the evidence we have against them will hold up.

It’s quiet in the car, everyone lost in their own thoughts until Nate says, “Put some tunes on.”

His eyes meet mine in the mirror before they flicker to Tess, his intent clear.

This is what Nate’s good at.

Making you forget your problems.

Enzo rolls his eyes but passes the aux back to Nate.