Kings of Chaos by Eva Ashwood
River
Free to go.
The words bounce around in my head like they’re searching for a place to land and not having much luck.
The four men are all looking at me like they’re waiting for me to leave, but there’s an uneasy feeling in my gut. I’m suspicious as fuck, because I know guys like this don’t just capture people and then let them go out of nowhere. Yeah, the flirty one smoothed things over, but the leader, Gage or whatever, still looks like he’d rather shoot me in the face than let me leave this house in one piece. His full lips are pressed into a hard line, and he doesn’t blink as he holds his gaze on me.
At least he’s not pointing the gun right between my eyes anymore.
Well, whatever. They said I can go, so I do, shrugging Four Eyes’ hand off my arm with more force than necessary and marching past them toward the door that leads out of the room.
I don’t want to turn my back on them, because it probably wouldn’t be out of character for them to shoot me in the back as soon as I take my eyes off them, but I’ve never been one to overthink shit.
It’s a waste of time.
Their house is massive, and it takes a little while for me to find my way to the front door of their big ass house. None of them follow me, either to help show me the way or take it all back with a ‘gotcha’ and a gun to the face.
I yank the door open and step out into the weak early morning light. After spending the last however long in their basement, the cool morning air on my face and skin feels good as fuck, and I tip my head back, breathing it in. Birds are chirping in their nests up the trees, and the grass is all damp with that morning mist. It’s not the first time I’ve dragged my ass home just after dawn, and it probably won’t be the last.
But fuck, what a night. I remember getting dressed in my little apartment, planning out how the night was going to go, but nothing could have prepared me for what really happened. I didn’t expect to spend the night in their fucking basement, chained up and interrogated and flirted with by a bunch of dangerous psychos.
I need a shower and to fall face first into my bed, but first, I have to get out of this weirdly posh ass neighborhood they live in.
I have no idea where I am, since I was out of it when they dragged me here, so I just pick a direction and start walking that way, assuming it’ll lead me to a main road eventually.
No one comes running after me. No gunshots ring out or anything, so I finally breathe a little sigh of relief. I did it. I got out of there.
Not the way I thought I would, but whatever. If they want to think I’m hunting down Ivan St. James for them, then they can think that. Doesn’t change the point of my mission.
Once I hit a bigger, less residential street, I manage to hail a cab, and the guy pulls up to a stop and eyes me warily.
I know I look like shit. My face is bloody and bruised, and my wrists and hands look like I got in a fight with something sharp and didn’t win.
He doesn’t try to kick me out, and I ignore his looks and just settle into the back seat after I give him my address. I don’t give a fuck about what he thinks of what I look like. His job is just to get me home.
I roll the window down and fish a cigarette out of the little bag I kept tucked in my cleavage since this dress doesn’t exactly have pockets. Perks of having big tits.
The cabbie doesn’t like the smoking either, and he gives me a look in the rearview mirror that makes him seem like a disapproving dad or something.
But he doesn’t say anything, so neither do I. I blow a cloud of smoke out the window, watching the trees and buildings whiz by as he drives.
Eventually, the unfamiliar territory changes to the stuff I recognize. The shitty package store on the corner. The group of guys who always stand at the bus stop, arguing in loud-ass voices about a poker game from the night before. The motel that definitely is a front for prostitution and who knows what else.
I lean back in the seat even more, tapping ash off the end of my cigarette out the window and letting more of that tension seep out of me. Being back on my own turf feels good. It feels like I have more control.
We pull up to my shitty apartment building, and I hand the guy enough for the ride and a little extra as a tip. He zooms the fuck out of the parking lot like he can’t wait to be away from me and this place, and I snort, not blaming him.
I drop the butt of my cigarette on the pavement and stomp it out before heading up to the building.
It really is a piece of shit. From the outside, it looks like some kind of rundown old factory or something, all cracked brick and stone. Maybe it used to be nice, but now it’s just another place for weirdos and crooks to hide out.
Before I hit the door, I hear a little whuff of a bark, and the stray dog I’ve been feeding comes wandering out of the alley at the side of the building.
He’s a scrawny thing, even with me giving him scraps all the time, and he probably hasn’t ever had a bath. He trots right up to me and wags his tail, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he stares up at my face.
“I don’t have shit for you,” I tell him, waving my hands to try to shoo him off. “If I’d died last night, your cushy life of scraps would’ve been over.” He doesn’t seem to care about any of that, just wagging his tail harder at the sound of my voice.
“Should’ve let you starve,” I scoff under my breath. “Now you’re getting soft.” He just whines low in his throat and nudges my leg. “Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. “Fuck off.”
I brush him off and go inside. At this hour, most of the people who live here are either too strung out from the night before to be up yet, or they’re all crashing hard after nights like mine, so the hall is quiet. There’s no one to see me take the stairs two at a time until I get to my apartment.
I let myself in and sigh with relief before crossing to the fridge and rummaging through it. There are some leftovers from a couple nights ago, and I toss it out the window to Dog, who waits below.
He yips with excitement and pounces on the food with joy, and I roll my eyes and slam the window closed.
Kicking my shoes off feels good, and I take a second to enjoy the cool feeling of the scuffed and pitted wood floor of my bedroom under my bare feet.
I want to shower the night off me and then maybe sleep for a week, so I head to the bathroom, flipping on the light and making a face at my reflection in the mirror.
It’s not a pretty sight.
My dress from the night is torn in more than one place, showing off a lot of tattooed skin. My face is bruised all to hell, and there are marks around my neck from where that asshole tried to choke me out.
I look like shit, and I smell like shit from being locked in a room that smelled like blood and fear all night.
But I made it out of there, and that’s all that matters. I’ve gone through worse before, and after a shower and some sleep, I can get this experience off me and move onto the next one. Because there’s always a next one.
I peel the dress off, letting it fall in a heap on the bathroom floor. I sit on the toilet with the lid closed and rummage in the cabinet under the sink for my box of nail polish.
The black polish I did the other day is chipped and ruined from last night’s mess, so I take it off, careful to get every smudge of black from around the cuticles.
There’s something relaxing about changing the color of my polish after a rough few nights. Like a reset, in a way. I choose a bright ass red this time, painting it over my nails like streaks of blood.
I fan my hands out while my nails dry, blowing on them until it’s good enough that I can shower without fucking them up.
The hot water burns as it hits the cuts and scrapes I’ve got from fighting with assholes all night. Bloody water runs over my body and swirls down the drain, and I roll my shoulders and let the heat wash away the last of the tension in my body.
I stand there until the water runs clean, streaming over my breasts and down my stomach to my legs. It runs down my tattooed thigh and makes the scars on my legs look rippled, instead of the neat lines they’re actually in.
I soak my hair and let it run down my back and then reach for the soap and the shampoo.
I don’t leave the shower until I’m clean and refreshed, and I take the time to dry myself off before walking naked into the main room of my shitty little studio.
It was definitely empty when I came home, but now Wild Eyes is standing in the middle of the room. Knox, I think they called him.
He grins when he sees me and doesn’t even hide the fact that he’s ogling me, letting his eyes drag over my body from head to toe and then back up again.
I freeze, caught in his gaze and the surprise of seeing someone standing in my fucking apartment.
“Well damn, River,” he says. “This is a hell of a welcome.”
How the fuck does he know my name? The only one I gave him and the other men was Ghost. Dammit. He probably went through my shit while I was showering, and the thought of him pawing through my things makes my blood boil. Should’ve known them letting me go was too good to be true.
The spell breaks when he says that, and I lunge for the side table where I keep my weapons. I just need to get my hands on a gun, a knife, anything I can use to defend myself and take this asshole out.
But he’s quick for someone so big, and he grabs me before I can reach anything, dragging me back to the center of the room.
For the third time in the last few hours, I’m being grappled by some dick, and I growl my frustration, trying to break his hold. Being naked puts me at a disadvantage, and even though I’m doing my level best to kick his fucking ass, I’m also way too aware of his body pressing against mine.
I can feel the hardness of his muscles and the heat of him through his clothes. He yanks me back against his chest, and my ass is right at his crotch. I don’t linger long enough to see if he’s hard from this or not, instead elbowing him in the side so he has to let me go.
“You’re slippery,” he grunts. I whirl on him, ready to punch him in the face, but he catches my hand easily, twisting my arm back down. I narrow my eyes and lash out with the other hand, managing to slap him across the face.
It doesn’t even seem to faze him very much, and he goes to grab for me again, but this time I’m too quick.
I dart out of the tattooed man’s path and use my leg to sweep his own legs out from under him, sending him toppling to the floor. The people who live under me aren’t going to be impressed with that, but fuck them.
Unfortunately, even though he’s built like a fucking truck, he’s fast enough to grab out for me as he falls, sending me crashing down on top of him.
He grins, clearly enjoying himself, and I glare back, putting a hand on his face and using it for leverage to try to pick myself back up.
Knox doesn’t let me get far. He keeps his hold on me and flips us with ease, pinning me to the hardwood floor.
My chest heaves from the fight, and he stares down at me, heat from the physical exertion—and from me being naked, probably—burning in his eyes. His body is hard and solid against mine, and my legs are splayed open wide, giving him room to settle between them.
“Goddammit,” I spit, fighting to get away, but he’s too heavy to move. When I buck my hips up, it rubs me right against him, and I have to suppress a shudder at how not bad that feels.
Knox dips his head and trails his nose from just under my ear to my shoulder, inhaling deeply. At least I don’t smell like blood and death anymore, but it’s still weird. Even weirder when he follows it up with his tongue, tracing the same path as before.
“What the fuck?” I snarl, giving in to the anger instead of the shivery feeling that makes my nipples pucker. “You assholes just let me go. Is this some kind of sick hunt for you now? You come to where I live and fuck me up here instead of doing it at your place?”
He just laughs, and the sound is low and husky. He’s pressed tight enough to me that I can feel it reverberate through his body and into mine.
“We agreed to let you go after Ivan, but we’re not letting you do it without supervision,” he says. “We’ve got more sense than that. We let you go home to get your shit and clean up, but now you’re coming back to our place. We’re gonna keep a fucking eye on you until we know you weren’t lying—until you do what you said you’re planning to do.”
Right. Should’ve known there’d be a damn catch.
Guys like these four don’t fuck around with trust, especially with someone they don’t know. They’re more interested in protecting their interests than anything else, and as much as it pisses me off to admit it, I can sort of understand that.
Fighting it is pointless, because they’ll probably just kill me if I try. At least if I agree to this shit, they’ll let me keep going after Ivan. I need to take the last name on my list down, and I don’t have time for people standing in my way. Easiest thing to do here is agree to their terms, and then once it’s done, I can go on my way.
“Fine,” I tell him, sounding as irritated as I feel. “Now get the fuck off me.”
He just flashes me another grin, and it makes him look even more unhinged. But he gets up, offering me a hand that I ignore. I can feel his gaze on me as I heave myself to my feet and cross over to the corner where my bed is hidden behind a curtain—an attempt to make the little studio apartment feel like it’s got more than one room.
My clothes and shit are stuffed into an old dresser, and I start yanking drawers open, finding something to wear first.
Knox makes a disappointed noise when I pull a shirt over my head, and I flip him off over my shoulder, not even bothering to turn around.
I pack a bag quickly, throwing anything and everything I think I’ll need into it. It’s hard to know how long I’ll be gone for. I’m starting at square one with the Ivan shit, considering my lead went dead, so I’ll have to dig up another one from somewhere before I can even make any progress at all.
“You ready to go yet?”
I look up to see Knox leaning against a wall, looking like he owns the damn place. He doesn’t seem bothered that we were just fighting on the floor, and his eyes wander over my bed and my body in a way that makes me have to wrench my thoughts back to getting everything I need in the bag.
“Yeah,” I tell him, shouldering the duffel and stepping away from the bed. “Let’s go if we’re going.”
He leads the way out of the apartment and into the hall, and I lock the door, even though that’s mostly symbolic. If someone wanted to break in, they could. Not that I have anything worth stealing.
He stomps down the stairs toward the front door, and I follow behind him, trying to shake off the irritating feeling that I didn’t even notice him following me home. Fucking asshole.
There’s a sleek, black car outside, and he leads me to it, opening the door to the passenger side for me.
“Dog!” I call, before getting in.
The mutt perks up and comes trotting over immediately, looking like he’s going to piss himself with excitement to have some attention. Usually I just toss him scraps and go on with my life, so the attention and affection seem to really have him going.
“Come on, boy,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Knox lifts an eyebrow. He’s wearing a dark t-shirt that stretches almost obscenely over his thickly muscled biceps and chest, and there’s barely an inch of his arms that isn’t covered in ink. With his dark brow still raised, he looks from the dog to me
“He’s mine, and he’s coming with me,” I tell him, putting one hand on my hip. “No one else is gonna feed him while I’m off fucking around with you idiots.”
The brawny man just laughs and shakes his head. “I bet you really love him, with a name like Dog,” he says. “I can tell you’d be so lonely without him.”
He probably knows the damn thing is just a stray, but he clearly doesn’t give a shit, seeming more amused than anything. That works well enough for me.
I slam the front passenger door closed and open the back seat door instead, whistling to Dog and gesturing to the car. He hops in, and I climb in after him. I slam that door too, just for good measure.
Knox doesn’t seem to give a shit about that either. Running a hand through his shaggy dark hair, he chuckles and gets in the driver’s seat. He cranks the key to start the car up, and we peel out.