The Cruelest Chaos (Unsainted Book 3) Read online

  I don’t really like that.

  She swallows, hard, and I worry she’s going to choke but she just wipes the back of her hand over her mouth and bursts into a child-like laugh. “Yeah but where does your money come from?”

  Strange way to phrase the question. Either way, I’m not answering it. “What’s The Ark?” I ask instead.

  She glances down at her empty bowl, a small crease between her brow when she realizes she’s got no more noodles to shove into her mouth.

  I roll my eyes and push my bowl across the table toward her.

  She grins up at me and uses my fork to continue eating. She looks so happy, and so...young.

  I think she isn’t going to answer me and I want to throttle her but she finally says, while chewing, “It’s a...school.” She shoves another forkful of noodles into her mouth, no embarrassment at the fact that she’s eating like she hasn’t in days.

  “You’re nineteen.” And there’s no college called ‘The Ark’ in Alexandria.

  Her pale face turns a light shade of pink. She sets down her fork, puts her hands in her lap. “It’s not an academic school.”

  I don’t say anything, waiting for her to finish.

  She’s looking down at the table. Then she sighs, shaking her head and meeting my gaze. I already know before she opens her mouth, she isn’t going to give me anything else. “Doesn’t matter. This is all over when I leave here, right?”

  I give her a slight smile. I mean, probably. One-night stands aren’t exactly foreign to me, although I don’t usually cook two meals for them, so that’s new. But then again, the kind of sex she likes...I fucking love it. Not many people are into that. If she is, and I am, we could make this a regular thing.

  “Do you want it to be over?” As I ask the question, I wonder how many one-night stands she’s had but I don’t really want to know so I don’t ask.

  She shrugs, glances at her bowl. “Don’t you have a girlfriend or something?”

  I can’t help but laugh. “If I had a girlfriend, why would I have fucked you?”

  She frowns as she looks up at me. Her eyes never leave mine. I know she’s seen the tattoo on my face, but she never really looks at it. I like that. “Maybe you two had a fight. Shit happens.”

  “God, Ella, what kind of relationships have you had?”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “So you don’t have a girlfriend?”

  “No.” Just a girl locked in my basement.

  She nods, as if to herself.

  “And you?” I press. If she has a boyfriend, I’ll just throw him off of a cliff so I can keep fucking her. “Do you often cheat on your boyfriend with strange men you meet in the woods?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend. I just moved here a few weeks ago. And you weren’t strange. You were Natalie’s friend.” That’s probably the most words she’s said to me at one time.

  “That’s pushing it.” I cross my arms and lean back in my chair. “Natalie and I aren’t exactly friends. She dates my brother.”

  Her eyes widen. “Atlas is your brother?”

  Oh boy. “No, no. Not literally. I’ve just known him my whole life.”

  She bites her lip, looking down at the table, as if she’s thinking.

  “Where did you move from?” I ask her to get her out of her head. It seems when she disappears in there, she doesn’t talk much, and I’m not done asking her questions.

  She squirms a little. “Originally? West Virginia. I move a lot.”

  “Fuck boys everywhere you move?”

  “Chase girls every night into the woods?”

  “Maybe.”

  She laughs, pushes her—my—bowl away. “Sometimes,” she admits, answering my question.

  I don’t like the answer, but I don’t know why. I tell myself it’s because she’s just a kid. A kid I hit and fucked and bruised, but still.

  “Let’s go upstairs.” I stand to my feet, chair legs scraping on the floor behind me.

  She shifts in her seat. “I need to get home.”

  “Work?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Parents?”

  Another non-verbal ‘no’.

  “Damn, okay, just spit it out then.”

  “I just want to be alone. I don’t like to talk.”

  I’m momentarily stunned into silence. Not many people would have the balls to say that to anyone they just met, let alone someone who just cooked for them, even if it was processed noodles.

  I’m not entirely sure she’s even telling me the truth. It seems more like she wants to get away from me, but she likes me.

  Maybe that’s why she wants to get away. I get that.

  I flash her a smile. “Good. With my belt around your throat, you won’t be able to talk.”

  Night comes too soon.

  Ella seems to float down the stairs, as if whatever I did to her up there left her with a spring in her step instead of bruises on her skin.

  “Hurry your ass up,” I snap at her, shoving on my hoodie. “I’ve gotta drop you off and I’m already late.” I told her I was meeting my ‘brothers’. Which is true.

  She jumps down the last two steps, her green eyes holding mine as I rake my hand through my hair. She doesn’t say anything—she never seems to say much—and just takes her sweet ass time putting on her thigh-high boots, sitting on the bottom step of my stairs.

  I sigh, leaning my head back against the door. “Where do you live anyway?”

  She snorts.

  I dip my chin to glare at her. She zips up her boots, stands to her feet and smooths down her dress. It’s wrinkled. Her lip is swollen. Hair a mess on top of her head.

  She looks fucking amazing.

  “Far from here.” She runs her hand over the messy bun, tied up with a rubber band she made me find for her since obviously I don’t have hair ties. “I’ll get a ride.”

  She pulls a phone I didn’t even know she had out of her bra.

  My mouth falls open as she scrolls through it, like she actually thinks I’m going to let her get a fucking ride. The gates to the neighborhood are guarded with armed men, anyway. And yeah, sure, if she was just an okay lay, I’d probably just give ‘em a call and tell them to let the cab through.

  But she’s more than okay.

  I grab the phone from her hand, and she glares up at me like she wants to slap me, for the fourth time.

  I press my finger to her lips. “I’m taking you home.” I slip her phone in my pocket, other hand still on her mouth, and she makes to bite my finger. I snatch it away before she can. “You’re a crazy bitch, did you know that?”

  She doesn’t say anything, just walks past me and lifts her middle finger as she pulls open the door. This kid is full of fucking surprises.

  She does live far, and she lives in a trailer park. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a trailer park in my life, but it’s fascinating. There’s a dirt road, full of potholes that I have to steer carefully around—she laughs at that—and there are cars worth more than the fucking trailers themselves which just…makes no sense.

  My car is a little extra. But my house…it’s worth four times as much as the McLaren.

  Whatever.

  “Which one is yours?” I ask her.

  She doesn’t answer for a few seconds as I maneuver around another fucking pothole and I want to strangle her. If I pass it and have to turn back, I’m gonna be pissed. I’m already fucking late, my back is on fire, and I might never see this girl again which would probably be for the best but also makes me irrationally annoyed.

  “Last one,” she finally answers me.

  I turn in, notice that there aren’t any lights on outside, and no car in the muddy driveway. The screen door is nearly hanging off the hinges, and the porch looks like it could collapse at any minute.

  She reaches for her seatbelt.

  “Wait,” I say, turning off my lights. I don’t know this area of Alexandria well, but I don’t want to have to stab anyone that tries to come bum some money
off of me. I realize maybe that’s a stretch and I’m being a snob, but then again…stranger things have happened.

  She glances at me but undoes her seatbelt anyway. She brushes a stray lock of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Her lip is still red and swollen, and it’s making me hard and making it difficult to think about just what it is I want to say to her.

  “Stay with me again tonight.”

  She snorts, looking out the window. But she’s not getting out, so…

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t have fun today.”

  “Do you work?”

  “Excuse me?” It’s Sunday. Even if I had a normal job, chances are I’d be off today.

  She turns to glare at me. “Do you work?”

  Yeah. I kill people for a living. Sometimes for fun, too. “Yes.”

  “What do you do?”

  I wonder if Natalie mentioned the name Unsaints to her, but I’m not about to bring it up. “That’s none of your business.”

  In the dash lights, I see her mouth pull up into a smile.

  “Is anyone here?” I ask her, gesturing to her house, remembering she’s fucking nineteen. So damn young.

  “That’s none of your business,” she parrots me.

  I scrub my hand over my face, think of letting it go. Letting her get out.

  Let it go.

  Instead, I reach across the console, grab her by the throat. Her breath comes out in a rush but it’s not my imagination that sees her eyes light up.

  “When I ask you a question, Ella, I want you to fucking answer it.” I’m not sure if this is a game. I don’t treat girls nicely, but I don’t always do…this.

  Is this a game? The lines from all the sex we’ve had and…reality…are starting to blur.

  I like it. She’s an escape and god, she’s good at letting me forget myself in her.

  Her breath comes out in soft pants, and my dick swells in my jeans. I’m fucking late. My father will be there. Lucifer might kill him before I get a chance to, and Elijah will have my head.

  We don’t miss Council.

  Ever.

  “No,” she says quietly. “No one is home.”

  That means someone in her family owns a car, which is good, I guess. But I think back to how she ate more of the mac-n-cheese than I did. How she was the one to suggest we eat again after I’d made her eggs, because when I’m not high, sometimes I forget all about food.

  How she offered to cook.

  I did it, because she’s a guest and one that I was fucking at that, but still… She’s not a small girl. She has thick thighs and a fat ass, big tits, but her waist is narrow, and I don’t think it’s just from good genes.

  “Do you at least have food?”

  Her eyes widen and then narrow in quick succession and she yanks out of my grip, grasping for the handle of the door. It flips up, cold air rushing in, and she jumps out of my car like I bit her.

  I did that earlier and she didn’t run away like this.

  “Go fuck yourself, Maverick.”

  I roll my eyes, turning my head and groaning as I do. I didn’t mean to offend her but for fuck’s sake, the state of her house, her stomach grumbling, the way she dove headfirst into fucking processed cheese and noodles…

  Whatever.

  I don’t have time for this.

  I close her door, wait until she lets herself inside—without a key, I realize with no small amount of horror—then I head to Council, turning up Erased by Essenger. Seems fucking fitting.

  I lean against my car, a joint between my fingers as my brothers circle around me. Seems I wasn’t late after all.

  Lucifer lights up a cigarette, his gloved hand around it to block out the bitter wind. It’s fucking dark out here, and it’s not even six yet. Lucifer’s lighter illuminates the pale planes of his face, the hollows of his cheeks as he inhales, getting the thing lit.

  I saw him glance at the expansive lawn behind Sanctum when he got out of his BMW, but otherwise, he’s said nothing about his dead father. Not today, and not since he killed him.

  No wonder he thinks it should be so damn easy to kill my own father.

  Ezra has his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, his dark hazel eyes on me as he stands to my right. I can smell the alcohol on him from here. I want to say something about it, but I’m getting high right now, so what exactly is there to say? His Audi is out of the shop, good as new, and I wonder how long it’ll be before he fucks it up again.

  “Look, he’s going to ask you about Ria. It’s been long enough,” he says in that deep voice of his. I remember being jealous of it as a kid, the way his voice changed before ours. The way he got girls before we did. Girls he wanted.

  Because I think we all got a few things we didn’t want, some involving women. And I think whatever he’s been running from since he found out what Jeremiah did to Sid has a little something to do with that.

  As usual, no one asks. No one tells. Lucifer was the only one among us to admit the truth of his torture, and that was only because I saw Pammie’s hands wrapped around his dick myself one day at the strip.

  I’d wanted to slit her fucking throat right then.

  He’d pled silently with me through her cracked window not to say a word.

  I hadn’t.

  I think about how good it felt to hear her scream. To bring that hammer down over her fucking skull.

  I don’t say a word, just keep smoking, waiting to see what advice Ezra’s got for dealing with his father. The new Dominus. Ezra was supposed to speak with him this morning, before this Very Important Council meeting, where my pussy of a father is going to make an appearance.

  Elijah is all right in my book, but that doesn’t count for much. My book is full of sins. Evils meant for torture porn, haunted houses. Psych wards.

  Cain shifts on his feet to my left but doesn’t say anything. Atlas adjusts his hat across from me, beside Luce, rubbing his eyes. No one got a lot of sleep last night I take it, considering the goddamn fire alarm at Liber was pulled.

  Ezra blows out a breath, a puff of cold in its wake. “He said, since she’s signed the NDA, as long as she keeps to it, she’ll be okay.” He stares at me for a second and I know he’s not done. I know these things aren’t that easy. “For now,” he finally adds.

  I blow smoke through my nose, drop the spliff and grind it out beneath my boot. No one says anything for a moment.

  I tip my head up and check out the stars. Out here, they’re really fucking bright. Even the dark clouds blotting out the moon can’t hide all of them. I keep my eyes up there as I repeat, “For now.”

  “Yeah,” Ezra continues. “But you know we can’t trust her with everything she knows.”

  “You mean how our parents are running a sex trafficking ring?” Atlas throws out, annoyed.

  I stiffen, dip my head down to look at him, but he’s staring at Ezra.

  “I mean, don’t you guys think we should, I don’t know, fucking do something about this?” Atlas continues, now looking around at all of us, his jaw ticking.

  Guess he’s gonna ask me to kill my dad, too. Fantastic.

  Cain is the first to answer. “Let’s not pretend like we didn’t know this was going on,” he says calmly. With his usual indifference. Sex trafficking, drugs, cars, the goddamn weather; it’s all the same to Cain. He shrugs his massive shoulders, the wool coat he’s wearing tailored to fit his fighter’s frame. “And let’s not fool ourselves into thinking there’s anything that can be done.” He’s staring at Atlas. “This is our life. We’re not here to be revolutionaries. Change the world.” He glances at the cathedral in front of us, candles flickering in the stained-glass windows. “We’re here to do as we’re told. To honor our families. The rest? Save that hero shit for someone else.”

  Atlas looks annoyed, which is interesting. He’s not indifferent, like Cain. He’s just usually more laidback, jovial. Tonight, though, something is pissing him off. So, me being me, I just go for it.

  “You an
d Natalie get home okay last night?” I ask him, hands in my pockets.

  Lucifer smirks as he drops his cigarette, looking down at the damp pavement. Yeah, he can laugh because he got his girl. I’m not too concerned with what happened with Atlas and Natalie, but something about Luce’s fucking gloating pisses me off.

  I keep my eyes trained on Atlas.

  “We got into a fight,” he admits, a hint of irritation in his words. “Things aren’t going…well.” I think about how edgy Natalie seemed last night. Maybe they fought about the pills.

  “Might be for the best,” Ezra says at my side. He looks around the group. “None of us are old enough to be getting married.”

  Lucifer’s eyes lock onto his, his smirk gone, but Ezra keeps talking. I wonder if he’s thinking about last night. Lucifer shirtless in the chair across from him and that girl. But that was Ezra’s fault as much as his. Maybe Ezra is just trying to fuck up Sid and Lucifer. Interesting.

  “I think Luce here proved that just a few weeks ago, at Sacrificium. A lot of people had to die for him to get his girl—”

  “Hey, man, why don’t you shut the fuck up?” Luce growls.

  I feel a little thrill, now that he’s pissed. I know it makes me a bad person; but I already know that I’m a bad person. So who fucking cares? He doesn’t have a girl locked up in his basement while he decides her fate. He’s already decided Sid’s fate, and now he just keeps her locked up in his house. I wonder how bad he gave it to her last night, about fucking Pammie.

  Ezra laughs. “You think you got shit all figured out with Sid?” he challenges Luce, taking a step toward him, breaking our circle. “Last night it didn’t seem like you were so sure.” Oh, so he went there. Glad someone else did. “You think everything’s all settled down?” He shakes his head. “I don’t think so, man. Jeremiah Rain?” I tense a little when he says that, my back screaming in pain at the movement, but I keep quiet. Ezra scoffs. “You think he’s gonna let you keep her? Where is she right now? Those guards can’t be paid off? You think Jeremiah wouldn’t do what you did for her?”