11. Cairo
ELEVEN
cairo
“You feelin’ good, brother?” It’s the morning, and I’m a little surprised to see Ozzy here, sitting at the dining room table with his phone in his hands.
Watching something.
Ozzy glances over his screen at me, giving me a curt nod as I start my espresso machine. Then he promptly continues what he was doing as though my existence is nothing.
It’s not personal. It’s just how he is.
However, we need to talk about Bay. We need to speak about how he went solo without so much as a word to imply what he was about to do.
Bay Astor is no fucking joke.
“You gonna stay here for a while?” I pull out the chair across from him and take a seat. “I could use some sanity around here.” Ozzy grunts, but a ghost of a smile appears on his face before it’s quick to fade. “You see Torin today?”
He shakes his head and doesn’t move his gaze from his screen.
“You gonna talk to him?”
“About what?”
Words, there we go.
“Bay.” Ozzy makes no more signs of how we’re going to fix this. Torin is so fucking pissed, I’m not sure where we go from here. What happened with Judah and the guilt running through Torin’s veins are bigger than any problem I’ve had before. He’s in revenge mode.
Killer mode.
A mode I haven’t seen him in since we were eighteen and some asshole plowed into the side of his Audi and kept doing it to show him he wasn’t scared of Torin’s placement in this world.
It’s also not the best time to tell Reeve and Torin that I told them so.
That Bay Astor was going to be a problem. That it wasn’t going to end in rainbows, sex, and a happily ever after.
“He already knows.”
Great.
“I need to know your play, brother.” I rub my index finger and thumb together, acting as if this is no big thing. “She’s…”
Addicting.
Trouble.
A wedge.
I may have had my taste, felt my body melt into hers, and imagined having her, but it ended there.
It had to.
However, Ozzy yanked her further into our circle, and I don’t understand why. This isn’t his thing. He never ever does shit without thinking about it first.
“I need you to be careful.”
“I will.”
“Oz.” He relinquishes staring at his phone and blinks up at me, patiently waiting for me to carry on. “What are you doing?”
“Saving her.”
Why?
Everything going on with Ozzy right now is out of character. Something happened. I’m not sure if a lightbulb went off at the wrong time, or he was forced to do this, but it’s just another thing I have to worry about.
“How?” I press, folding my arms across my chest.
“How, what?”
“How are you saving her, Oz? What made you come out of the shadows? Did Emilio say something? Did she force you?—”
“Ramsey needs to stay away. She can’t be with him.”
“Back up,” I order, raising my palm. “What does that have to do with you ?”
“She agreed to marry Ramsey. To get her sisters back and Wallace out of jail.”
Another reckless decision brought to you by Bay Astor.
I swear to Christ, I don’t know how she’s still alive sometimes. The sheer stupidity of the things she does would have any normal human being six feet under.
“Still don’t understand how you got involved.”
Ozzy pushes his lips out. “Easy. He needs her to stay. With Ramsey, she won’t.”
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
Leaning forward, I rest my elbows along the table and fix him with a serious expression. “Even after you know what she did to Torin and Reeve? You still?—”
“Yes. She needs to stay.”
She doesn’t.
I know that Ozzy doesn’t form a lot of emotional attachment, but he loves us in his own weird-ass way, but I’m still confused.
“What’s the end game here, Oz? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s not going to end well—again. Torin is torn up about Judah. He loves Bay…and she took the only person he had and allegedly murdered him. You know he’s never been close to Ramsey and Emilio, and with his mom on pills, Judah…he was supposed to come back for him.”
“Safe. She remains safe.”
And the way he says it, it’s naive. Which is unsettling because Ozzy thinks before he acts. He’s like me in that regard. However, I fear he’s watched her for too long and feels responsible in some way.
I feel responsible.
I didn’t see the video. However, I’m not fully sold on the idea of a teenaged Bay stabbing a dude repeatedly and then putting a bullet in him for the fun of it.
“We need that video,” I pledge. “We need to know for sure.” A detached expression illuminates his features as if he hadn’t thought of that or doesn’t want to face it. “Do you understand why?”
He gives me a curt nod but doesn’t look happy about it.
“I haven’t heard from Reeve in a few days. I’m going to go look for him.”
“He’s at Sunset Strip Gentlemen’s Club.”
Of course, he is.
I run my palm down the length of my face. I’d love to pretend I don’t know what I’d find walking in there, but it’s known for handing cocaine out like it’s sugar candy.
“Cairo, baby, I’m here!”
Ozzy’s head violently snaps up in the direction of the feminine voice, and everything in me demands to protect my brother as quickly as possible.
“ Out ,” I demand, jerking my head to Ozzy to leave. “Sliding door.”
I don’t have to ask him twice as he slips from his spot and begins to stride for the sliding door toward the backyard, but it could never be that easy, could it?
“Ozzy?”
My brother freezes as if her voice causes him to forget how to walk.
And out of complete distress and aggravation, I move behind him and pivot to block Vivian from seeing him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I leer, pinning a murderous glower on my ex.
And why the fuck did my men allow her inside my home?
“I came over to have you take me shopping,” Vivian coos, her golden locks bouncing along with each step she takes. “If you thought I was going to knock, you’ve got me mixed up with your other little whore.”
She tries to nonchalantly look around me, but I counter to keep Ozzy out of her sight.
If he knows I’m here, if she can’t see him, he might not freak the fuck out.
Vivian points at me. “Is that?—”
“I will gladly throw you out on your ass, Viv. Get the fuck out of my house. And if you come here unannounced again, I’ll kill you.”
She perks a disbelieving eyebrow at me, propping a small palm on her slim hip covered in a tight baby blue dress.
Once upon a time, I believed she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Once upon a time, I was in love with her. I allowed my brother to have a mini crush on her because he was never going to betray me in that way.
Ozzy would never fuck my girl behind my back.
He just adored the attention of a woman who seemed like she wanted to show him love. Who brought him a sandwich when she’d get lunch and sat with him at school because everyone else thought he was weird.
She was my other half, why wouldn’t she want to be around my family? Why wouldn’t she want to love him as much as I did? I grew up with Ozzy. I helped him through his mental bullshit. The strain of how it was hard for him to express himself—which was only in blood—made him soak in wanting to be praised.
Ozzy is not like other men. He’s not built like them either.
Mind you, he wasn’t killing dogs and shit like Ramsey, but he was another level of fucked up. The kind that needed to be provoked before he’d start something. Ramsey was another story. He elicited and wanted the shit.
Ozzy just wanted a family he could call his own.
So, when Vivian betrayed us all, she caused movements that I couldn’t stop. She wrecked his life and I’ve never forgiven the bitch. The fantasies of wanting her screaming and writhing in pain because of what she’s done is the only thing that has kept me going.
But they’re just that.
Creative parts of my imagination that I can’t act upon yet. Not until the right moment strikes. Keeping her around was to prevent Muncy from getting petty as fuck and cracking down on us over bullshit. Enduring her presence from time to time was and is something I can handle.
But not with Ozzy around.
Marrying her was taken off the table a long-ass time ago.
Now, Ozzy’s married.
Never thought I’d ever fucking see that day. And with it, I need to watch him closer than ever now because Bay has the power to demolish him to pieces if she discovers anything about him. His weakness or if she can get under his skin.
“Cairo,” Vivian begins, as if I’m going to sit here and let her speak to me when she knows what she did. How she used him. How she fucked his entire life up. “I haven’t seen him in six years. I just want to?—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you want,” I seethe, my temper rearing its ugly head to the surface. “Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Him. Now .”
Vivian’s bottom lip gets pushed out with her tongue, contemplating what she should do. It’s not until I suddenly jerk in her direction that she gasps in surprise and stumbles back a few steps.
“ Out !” I point toward the direction of where she just came from. She’s been here long enough. Long enough for him to hear her voice. The way she sounds like she genuinely wants to see him, but she doesn’t.
She fucked up.
She wants me so she can wear a crown and say she’s married to someone in the Forsaken Crew. She dreams of the life I can provide, but she’d never have my heart. She’ll never wear my name.
She’ll never live within a year of a bullshit marriage.
When I hear the door slam behind her, the tension in the room is still thick. I slowly turn around to get to my brother, who hasn’t moved an inch, face tucked into his chest.
She knows he’s back.
And that’s a problem.
“I should’ve married her,” I mutter, standing in front of him and staring off into the direction she left. “Then I could’ve pulled a Game of Thrones red wedding scene.”
“No,” he mumbles because, for some reason, I don’t see Oz pulling the trigger on that woman.
Ever .
No matter what she did or how she used him, he will always keep her alive.
“We can’t keep living like this,” I reply evenly. “Especially you. How do you think Bay is going to feel when Vivian keeps trying to get to you?”
Ozzy’s dark blues flick up to me but, honestly, I have no clue how Bay would react or what their dynamic is. I haven’t seen it yet.
“It looks like it’s just me and you right now.” Ozzy gives me a curt nod. “Scale from one to ten…how likely is it that Torin is going to kill her?”
“Zero,” Ozzy prompts confidently.
“Alright then.” I lightly slap his shoulder. “Which one do you want?”
Ozzy blows out a silent exhale. What I mean is who is going to babysit who? “Reeve.”
“Son of a bitch,” I grumble because, of course, I’m left with the most pain in the ass on this side of the earth. “You’re a dick.”
Ozzy chuckles faintly at that and begins for his room.
I’m worried, I’m not going to lie.
Because who’s going to babysit him?