Corrupted Chaos

by Shain Rose

The fact that her boyfriend told her to drop weight was a firm reminder that I’d be ruining something in his life soon enough.

So you’ll be staying with me.”

I put Dollface above her head. She woke on the last letter and squinted up at me, leaning on her side to do it. Then she smiled like I’d made her whole life, like this was normal behavior.

“You’re a menace to our sanity, and I can’t fucking deny you. I’m obsessed with how you resist me and then square up to me. We have to know when to stop.”

Cade, though, he’d corrupted the butterflies, scared them away, and brought lightning in as a replacement.

“I’m not into sharing her. Ever,” Cade growled.

“Thank you for the services tonight,” Cade called out over his shoulder to them. “You’re dismissed. Leave. Now.”

“I’m not going to stare at a woman I fuck on another man’s lap.”

“I’m an absolute mess.” “And that’s exactly how I want you,”

“Next time another man tries to put their clothing on you, consider that I’m going to cut it off and burn it. Got it, dollface?”

“Already added the sugar, Izzy. I bet it’ll taste as good as Rodney’s.”

I’d tasked Heather with buying another bracelet, this one worth millions, with diamonds lining the inside of the wrist because I knew Izzy wasn’t flashy. There

“A gift for the woman who’s proven herself to me always.”

I watered the fifth bouquet of roses that’d been brought in the days since Cade had hacked my phone. He’d murmured they were sent to match my red spray paint.

Not more than an hour later, though, I heard a voice I wasn’t expecting. “Here,” Cade grumbled as he shoved a box of candy canes in my face.

Family doesn’t shrink from your mistakes and disappear; they just sink their roots in deeper to get you out.”

I made it a priority to feed you on that retreat. You’ll have to do it on your own now while you make me wait to be a part of your life for God only knows what reason that is today.”

“We can’t give Gerald the satisfaction of you losing your ass, now, can we?”

“I know I fucked up, okay? I’m going to get your mom back.”

“Figure out how you want to cover up the chaos, brother. Because I’m about to unleash it.”

Yet, Cade was the one who held all my attention, his knife at Aleks’s throat.

“Don’t women rule us? She owns my soul. I can control every computer you log into, the technology that protects your country, and I can control if you live or die. But she controls me. She says kill you, and I ask how she’d like it done. Do you understand? Take a look around you.”

He didn’t blink or break eye contact, his eyes dark and haunted, as he slit the man’s throat.

“I’d corrupt the whole world for you. Have them bleed out and suffer for attempting to hurt you,”

“This is never going to happen again, Izzy. You’re my Untouchable, and I’ll destroy the world before they come near you again.”

Then she saw the roses on it. “Someone get those for you?” “I’ve had them delivered daily since the cabin. I needed a reminder of you.”

You get roses for the rest of your life, dollface. You deserve them for what I put you through.

and a walk-in closet that held a whole wardrobe of pencil skirts and freaking nineties T-shirts. My heart hurt when I saw a folded pile of Edward Scissorhands, Men in Black, and Pulp Fiction graphics. Another pile though had Harley Quinn on each shirt. He was making additions to my freaking life, like he wanted to be in it, like he still knew me and wanted me.

He took his time dipping my ring finger in his mouth and swirled his tongue over every part of my skin before his teeth clenched around the engagement ring. Dragging it centimeter by centimeter off my finger, he held my gaze. I

Cade grabbed Gerald’s neck so quickly, I didn’t have time to stop it. “Should I kill you fast now, or slowly later?”

“Your name is this close to being on a hit list, Gerald. And my family doesn’t miss. Keep in mind, your company is about to go bankrupt. It will be by the end of the day. Go worry about that and forget my future wife exists. Forever.”

“He cheated on you. He hurt you. Do you not understand the consequences of when someone does that? No one is allowed to fuck with you but me, don’t you understand? You cried, Izzy. I had to see tears streaming down your face. For that, he’s lost his company, his savings, his whole career. And if he dares go near you again, he will lose his life.”

“I had to live through it without the person I love in my life. The person who makes my heart beat.”

“I still counted the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds without you.”

He dragged a finger over the bracelet and I looked down to see UNTOUCHABLE etched on the gold now. “You’re safe, that you’re an Untouchable, and that you’re getting the best life you can.”

“You’re mine. And if they even breathe an ounce of foul air in your direction, I will burn their country to the ground.”

“Is it fun that you have half my savings in your bank account?”

“Sure, baby. I’ll make more if you want, though.”

“Well, you have half my savings, a new penthouse, roses every day that you throw away, and the title of an Untouchable. I didn’t stop caring for you even if I was gone, dollface. Even if I let you go, I was still going to feed you every day—”

“Enjoy married life. Going at the world alone is too damn lonely anyway.”

“I saw them in the toilet right before I flushed them.”

“What’s wrong is you made me want to have a baby at your family’s. So we’re having one.”

“I’m not insane, dollface. I’m in love. So fucking in love with you that I want to make copies of you mixed with me and see if we can duplicate our coding in a way that doesn’t have as many problems as we do.”