Page 122 of Princes of Carnage

My heart pounds hard enough that I can feel it shaking my ribs, and it takes several seconds for me to catch my breath enough that I’m not heaving and gasping for air.

It’s still dark in my room, and the silence and emptiness of the space feels oppressive all of a sudden.

I’m by myself in my bed, but although I used to find some comfort in waking up and realizing there was no one around, right now, it doesn’t feel good. It feels achingly lonely, and more than anything, I want to not be alone.

Without stopping to think about it or question it too much, I slip out of bed and open the door, tiptoeing down the hall. I hesitate for only a second outside of Killian’s room, then turn the nob, testing it. It’s unlocked, unlike Nico’s was that first night, and I wonder fleetingly is Killian has ever locked his door in this house. Then I push it open and step inside.

If he was asleep before, he definitely isn’t now. Although the door hinges don’t make a sound, Killian lifts his head to look at me standing in the doorway, his eyes glittering in the darkness.

I have no idea what to say to him, but luckily, he doesn’t make me say anything. He takes one look at me and then lifts the blankets in a silent invitation for me to crawl in with him.

I don’t need to be invited twice. I climb onto his bed and settle under the blankets, facing away from him. One of his strong arms wraps around me, and he pulls me tight against his chest, my back to his front.

It’s not surprising that he’s warm and solid like this, considering his size, but I never thought that I would be taking comfort in it. That having him holding me this way would release some of the tension that’s been riding me all night.

“Nightmare?” he murmurs, his voice a deep rumble in the darkness.

“Yeah,” I whisper back. “How did you know?”

“I have them too.”

I bite my lip, surprised. Killian is the sort of man who gives other people nightmares. I never stopped to consider if he had them himself.

“It was… I was back in that alley,” I tell him quietly, not going into detail. I don’t have it in me to be more specific right now, and I know he’ll understand. “It’s not a new nightmare, but I thought that maybe I’d stop dreaming about it now that those men are dead.”

I feel Killian take a deep breath behind me, his muscled chest pressing tighter to my back as it expands. When he speaks again, his voice is low and solemn.

“Our demons take longer to die than the people who wronged us.”

There’s weight in those words, born from what I have no doubt was some painful experience. Despite the fact that I know Killian in deeper and more intimate ways than I was aware of for a long time, he’s still a mystery in so many ways, and I have to wonder what demons are still alive in him.

With his strong arm around me, I feel oddly safer all the same. This is the man who hunted down the men who hurt me, who brought me back a trophy just so I would know that they suffered for what they did.

He’s dangerous… but maybe not to me.

Maybe he’s just the kind of nightmare I need.

That thought is enough to help me fall back to sleep.

38

QUINN

I’m at the tattoo parlor a few days later, handling business in the evening with several Enigma members. Emmett is there too, sitting at my side while we go over reports.

One of the downsides to having to be so fucking cautious due to the Silas threat is that our business has slowed down a lot. There haven’t been any other attacks on the gang, but at the same time, we’re slowly starting to wither on the vine. Being stagnant is basically a death sentence for a small gang, and we’re treading water in a way that I don’t like.

If we can’t start operating as normal soon, we’ll really feel it.

I knew that, logically. I know enough about how gangs run in general and how Enigma works specifically to know that we can’t afford to pull back completely or stop trying to expand in little ways. But seeing it laid out in front of me in the accounts and the looks on my people’s faces just really drives the point home.

And it’s frustrating as fuck, because there’s not really anything else I can do. I have to keep my people safe, which means sending them out in bigger teams and avoiding certain areas. That means we have less manpower and a smaller radius we can work in. Which means less money coming in.

Getting the name Silas Duran and finding out that he’s probably the person we’re looking for was such a good break. It finally felt like we were making some kind of progress with this hunt. But things have seemed to stall since then.

We’re not having any luck connecting that name to the actual flesh-and-blood man we can go after. And without a lead on where to find him or how to stop him, we’re basically right back at square one.

“So… what’s the plan?”

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