“I could tell,” she said.
“He has other properties,” I informed her.
“Okay.”She got closer.“Rosalie, why are you freaked?”
“Because he keeps getting better and better and I can’t havehim.”
She got even closer and coaxed gently, “Explain again whyyou can’t have him.”
“Chaos is in a mess right now.”
“Messes get cleaned up.”
“This one is messier than most.”
“Rosalie—”
She stopped talking when we both heard the front door open.
I got tense.
Mom got tense along with me.
That could be anyone.Snapper.A random Bounty who’dmiraculously made bail and followed us there.A serial killer who happened ontoa perfect opportunity.
“Yo!”a man’s voice yelled.
I didn’t think a serial killer or a random Bounty withrevenge on his mind would shout “Yo.”
Though I didn’t know who that “Yo”belonged to, except it didn’t belong to Snapper.
I relaxed.
Mom grabbed my hand, led me out to the bedroom, and precededme down the winding stairs.
As we went around the curves, standing inside the front doorwe saw a pretty woman with a mass of goldish-brown curly hair holding a hugevase arranged with roses and berries and branches with leaves on them drippingwith some kind of small citrus fruit.
With her was a Chaos man in his cut with a toddler attachedto his hip, and dangling from his free hand were about five plastic grocerybags.
“Hi!”the woman cried.“You must be Rosalie and Renae.”
“Gah, goo, gee!”the toddler shrieked right before hepunched his biker in his bearded jaw and carried on, “Joe-joe-kah!”
With obvious practicewithstanding the blows, the Chaos brother didn’t even flinch after he gotstruck by the baby.He just watched us alight from the foot of the stairs.
“Yes, this is Rosalie and I’m her mom, Renae,” Momintroduced, moving toward them.
“I’m Carissa, and this is Joker and Travis, Joker being thebig boy, Travis the little one,” the woman replied.
Joe-joe-kah.
Adorable.
My heart hurt.
“Hi, Carissa,” Mom said.
“Yes, hi, Carissa,” I chimed in.I looked to the brother.“Joker.”
