Page 2 of The Cruelest Chaos

I just look at her, waiting for whatever it is she really wants to say.

“Thank you.”

I swallow down the lump in my throat, keeping my gaze on her even though I have the strange urge to look away. “Thank you, too, Angel.”

And then she fumbles with the button to open up the doors of the McLaren, muttering something about excess, and the cold late December air of Alexandria sends chills down my spine.

Or maybe those chills are from the way her small hips move as she walks to the rear entrance of Liber, a guard hurrying over to get the door for her. The way the bitter wind blows her shoulder-length brown hair away from her neck, and I catch a glimpse of her own black bandana. Think of the way she wrapped it around Pammie’s throat, choked her while I used the hammer.

My back aches with that memory. Swinging a hammer nearly a hundred times isn’t good for someone with a good back. And someone with open wounds down their spine? Pretty fucking miserable.

I hang my head, consider going home. But I don’t want to leave Sid, just in case Lucifer becomes...too much. I wish we had talked about him more.Them.I wish I had asked her about her life, instead of just giving her a pep talk for Murder 101.

Too late for that now.

Too late for so much now.

I blow out a breath, wonder why in God’s name I left my weed at home. I guess I should cut myself some slack. Murder requires a little prep, even if I do have the resources for someone else to clean up after me.

I decide to fuck it all and go inside. I could really use a distraction. The anger crawling under my skin makes me want to kill someone…again.

It hasn’t always been this way. For a while, it was dulled. And then with Sacrificium, and Sid, and Lazar and my fucking father…

Some things never really go away. They just live inside of us, like a dormant virus, waiting to fucking strike again when the time is right.

Guess learning your father sold your own sister to a pedophile ring is just the thing to feed life into the virus.

The guard gives me a nod as I head in through the back door and I stand in the empty corridor a second, eyes closed, blowing out a breath. It’s loud, and I didn’t expect anything less. New Year’s Eve is big anywhere, and for the Unsaints, it’s a time to get lost: we don’t celebrate Christmas, and this is the only holiday break we have in between Sacrificium (which went to hell this year) and Noctem (eight weeks away and already too close).

I don’t want to think about Noctem.

I want to get high as fuck and let a girl I don’t know and don’t give a damn about suck my dick.

But first I guess I should make sure I don’t have any more of fucking Pammie’s blood on me.

The third floor is quiet, the music nothing more than a dull thud. I head toward my room at the end of the dark hall, but halfway there, I freeze, my blood running cold as I hear a familiar voice ask, “You think you can make me cheat on my wife, huh?”

My hands clench into fists as I stand outside of the only door that’s slightly ajar on this hallway.

A girl’s laugh. “It’s not cheating if you don’t touch me.”

Oh, but I’m gonna touch you.I’m gonna fuck both of you up. My shoulders are sore from swinging that goddamn hammer, and my back is on fire, but I don’t care. If he dares...

But I give him a chance. Because he wouldn’t.

And then I hear a whimper. And I think I’m going to kill the very man I just killed for.

I slam the door open with my aching shoulder, and hearanotherfamiliar voice say, “What the fuck?”

I’m about to lose my mind when I walk into Lucifer’s bedroom and see him sitting on a chair with his shirt off, feet on the floor and cigarette in hand, and Ezra completely naked on the bed with a girl I’ve never seen before in his lap, straddling him.

Ezra’s dark hazel eyes are on me, his hands on this girl’s ass, and Lucifer is grinning at me from ear-to-ear, which is coincidentally how I’m going to slit his throat with the knife in my back pocket.

He exhales a cloud of smoke and I lock eyes with him as he asks, “Where have you been?” as if nothing at all is wrong with this situation.

It smells like cigarette smoke and sex but something about Lucifer’s smile and the girl’s sudden fit of laughter makes me think all three of these assholes are on another drug entirely.

I meet Ezra’s gaze, his fingers hooking under the girl’s lacy underwear. “What in the ever-loving fuck are you doing?”