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His words are almost flippant, the usual devil-may-care tone he takes when it comes to serious shit. But there’s a gleam in his eyes and a tension in his shoulders that tells me he’s serious. Our plan got fucked, and Knox knows how bad it is.
“Fuck,” Gage grinds out, pacing the kitchen floor. “It was a fucking mess from start to finish. We should have known. We should have planned for this.”
“Planned for the plan to go wrong?” Ash asks, lifting an eyebrow as his amber eyes glint behind his glasses. He sounds tired too, but there’s agitation in his body. He’s got a coin in his hand, turning it over and over and over again between his fingers like he can’t be still.
I can feel the same agitation I see in Knox and Ash in my own body.
The anger, thefurythat someone hurt River.
“It must have been the cartel that sent the fucker who tried to shoot River the other day too,” I put in, shaking my head. “Their assassin didn’t succeed in killing her, so they picked a different location and ambushed her. Ambushed us.”
“Fuck.” Gage curses again, the scar on his lip curving as he scowls.
“There was no way we could have accounted for the fucking cartel,” Ash says. “We didn’t even consider them.”
“They were in our blind spot,” Knox replies, running a hand through his shaggy dark hair.
He’s right. I was there with River after she accidentally took out the leader of the Cartel, Diego. I killed the three members of their rank who threatened her after they chased her down. I should have remembered they would be a threat.
But there was too much going on. Too many other things to focus on.
We had a blind spot, and it almost got all of us killed.
“Could it have been the cartel that put Ivan’s body on display?” I throw out, wondering if it’s all connected somehow, and what else we might have missed.
Gage considers that, then shakes his head. “I doubt it. It doesn’t make enough sense. Ivan’s body being hacked up and placed on that art piece at the gala was subtle. It sent a message, but it doesn’t track with the way the cartel came into the church with guns blazing. They wanted something big and loud and showy.”
I curl my hand into a fist at my side. I feel… on edge. Like all the control I usually have in spades is slipping out of my grasp.
“I didn’t realize the cartel had managed to connect River to Diego’s death,” I tell them. “But they clearly did.”
“Yeah,” Gage echoes. He rubs at his face and finally stops pacing. “I’d ask her if more cartel fuckers saw her after that incident when she tried to kill Ivan, but…”
He gestures helplessly with one hand, and we all know what he means.
Right now, River has bigger issues than the cartel. They want her dead, but she’s struggling to even be present. Struggling to keep her spirit alive.
“I hate seeing her like that,” Ash murmurs. “So fucked up and out of it. It was like she barely knew who we were.”
“She got there,” Knox cuts in. “She stopped fighting once she realized it was us.”
“But then she was just blank. Unresponsive. I had to say her name a few times before she even realized I was talking to her.”
“Yeah.”
Knox stares down at the table, his nostrils flaring as his jaw clenches. It must be hard for him to know he can’t kill or maim someone to make this go away for her. None of us are all that skilled at dealing with emotions. We don’t know what to say or how to act to make things better, and considering what just happened to River, it might be a while before she can surface through all that pain.
Ash looks to me, and there’s something hesitant in his gaze at first. Then he takes a breath, clearly deciding to just go for it.
“How did you survive?” he asks. “After Jade.”
My stomach tightens immediately. Normally, the other Kings of Chaos don’t mention Jade around me. It’s just sort of an unspoken agreement that they don’t bring that shit up or poke at the old wounds. We all do it for each other, not dragging up crap from the past that can only hurt to think about in the present.
But I know why Ash is asking about her now.
I think about how to answer him, and I realize I’m not really sure. Jade was the only woman I’d ever loved as a young man, and watching her be burned to death by a vicious gang to teach me a lesson ripped out a part of my soul.
It was a dark time for me, and there were so many times that I almost slipped away into that darkness, losing myself to the pain. It definitely seemed easier sometimes—easier to give myself over to it than to keep fighting.
