City of Mirth and Malice (Order and Chaos, #2)

by Alexis L. Menard

The wind inside the barrier was unlike the gentle breeze outside. This wind—this storm—didn’t come from the sea. It came from my wrath.

“All change starts with one person pissed off enough to get their hands dirty.”

My fingers skimmed over a hand clutched around a bar, trembling. I wrapped my own around them, savoring the first human connection in weeks, the comfort of skin to skin. A touch that didn’t burn or bruise.

No one was coming. So, I would have to save myself.

She sucked a shaky breath, but her voice was firm as she spoke. “Don’t be a good man. Come back to me, Nico.” “Don’t worry about that, princess.” I placed a gun over the hollow part of her stomach. Her fingers wrapped around it. “There is no line I wouldn’t cross to be with you. I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Luther tossed me my hunting rifle. Pistols shoved in a rush in my waistband, I propped the gun over my shoulder and held the side entrance door open for Milla to have a straight shot at the horses.

Dont ask me why this is so hot

“Stay close, Milla.” Nico positioned himself on my left side, opposite my shooting hand.

A gentleman

But I had no plans to separate from him when my power was fully available. Even now, I felt it buzz inside my bones, aching to be released. Like it was angry to have been silenced it for so long and was now waiting for the opportunity to snap its vengeful bite.

“Grief, fear, regret, those memories that resurface every day, they are not something you’ll ever be able to control. But that wall you keep putting up to protect yourself from experiencing them isn’t keeping anything out, Camilla. It’s just holding all those painful feelings inside.”

“To everyone, Chaos was a saint, a monster who tried to break the world. To me, she was my closest friend. Sometimes my only friend, and I loved her more than I loved anyone else in this life, save for my own miserable mother.” Sabina’s

They were probably wondering why I bothered letting her come along in the first place if she was so valuable. I’d wondered the same at least a hundred times since she expressed her adamancy in tagging along. “I can protect myself, Attano. You forget what I can do.” I nearly rolled my eyes. She’d choose to be confident in her gifts now in front of my men, but if the time came, I worried if she’d maintain that composure. Instead of questioning her, I stood at her side. Slipping my hands around her waist, my gloves grazed the soft leather of the fitted vest she wore over a long-sleeved black shirt. Those bewitching hands of hers were concealed beneath similarly made gloves that laced up her forearms. She was a gentle stunner in a silk dress and a lethal beauty in black leather, with all her curves on display as the material clung to her form. “I haven’t forgotten, Milla. Neither has Felix Firenze.”

Her chin lifted an inch. She pointed to the steaming locomotive. “My train.” She cocked her head toward my cousins. “My family.” Her hand drifted to my chest. “My husband.” She gripped my tie and yanked me closer. “And my choice. If I can protect the things I love most in this world, I will not hide just because I am afraid of what might take them away.” There was absolutely no arguing with that, and she smiled knowingly. That little smirk that made me foolish. Fuck. I was so in love with her—and I think she just confessed . . . she loved me, too.

I’d grown up here, knew most of the working men and women in the Wet District. They were friends and clients, people that were neither evil nor malicious despite the government representing their interest. The Order of Inner Courts spoke for this city, governed this Isle, but a river dividing our worlds didn’t make us enemies. And I hoped, when the time came—and it would come—they would have the courage to stand up for what was right. That what happened on the Continent would never happen here because they knew the truth and wouldn’t let manipulative men in high seats tell them what to believe and how to think.

He’d never believe in me. There was nothing I could do that would prove to him I was capable—nor was it my responsibility. I’d learned to have my mind long ago, and when it came to my remnant, I’d have to learn to have faith in myself again. Even if he didn’t.

I opened my mouth to tell them all to shut up and take a leap of faith, but something was approaching behind us. A small thing with a thin trail of steam pouring from its small engine. Esme’s bike. But it was not my cousin on the back, driving the damn thing. It was my wife.

He thought he had me cornered, that I wouldn’t go straight to the steam-powered bike he had parked on the platform. He assumed Esme hadn’t showed me how to work it, that I was useless just like all the other times he’d assumed my choice. Good thing he didn’t know me well enough.

But I smiled behind the metal pretense; they had no idea what they had just allowed into this room. In a house full of rats, I was the snake from the garden they should’ve killed when they had the chance.

“Leave no name forgotten,” I whispered to Nico, to the place in my heart he’d remain forever. “Give no easy death.”