Page 18 of Quinlan

Rome:Where are you, Damien?

Rome:You’re being a prick. Fucking answer.

Aww. His way of telling me he’s worried.

Liam:It’ll be too bad if you died. Twenty-three years of planning washed down the drain. Such a fucking shame.

I shake my head, moving through the streets. Through the night.

As much as I hated pulling away from Quinlan, I’m grateful for the distance.

She can’t have the upper hand.

Can’t find out she has my heart.

Not yet.

It’ll ruin the plan if she realizes how deep my obsession for her runs.

Down to my heart. To my soul. To my marrow.

Her birth meant Jagger, Laurel and I got to slip out of Rex’s claws. It ended up with us being taken by better families. Much.

She won’t make a good, reliable captive if she knows any of it. If she learns what she means to me.

I don’t answer my friends, slipping the phone into my pocket as I’m picking up the pace on my way to my car.

Resisting the urge to double back and be a miserable, vulnerable asshole around her is a hardship. I do it anyway. She’ll demand my name then, and I can’t give it to her. Rex can’t know I’m coming for him.

We’ve managed to live without having our names leaked to the press as the owners of BLF Capital for years. We’rejustthe VPs, high-ranking managers no one cares about. Only Tatum, our secretary, is in on our secret. She signed an NDA and is loyal to her core. It doesn’t hurt that we told her we’ll make her disappear in case she fails.

But if I told Quinlan my name, if Rex hears I sniff around his half-sister before I’ll have her as leverage, he’ll alert his cop buddies. The ones he met in the academy before they threw his ass out, years ago.

They’ll lock me up, and Rome and Liam won’t let me go down alone. They’ll say they planned on taking her too.

That’ll be it.

No avenging Rome by killing his parents. His dad who’s been starving him for years. His mom who hadn’t peeped a word to put a stop to this.

No killing Liam’s old monster of a babysitter.

Rex motherfucking Palmer will be a free man. I already lost his bitch ex-wife to a car accident.

A drunk driver robbed me of the pleasure of doing it by myself. I got my revenge on him, though. He accepted my offer to represent him pro bono. And I didn’t feel bad for failing at my job and throwing the case.

Didn’t feel anything when I visited Harlow Palmer’s grave the night of the funeral. When I spat on it. When Rome bashed the gravestone with a sledgehammer. When Liam burned the flowers her mother left her there.

Fun times.

But I digress.

Quinlan has to remain in the dark about my identity. Rome and Liam will visit her throughout the week. They’ll mess with her.

I should’ve told them I was going to her today. That I had to be first.

Except I couldn’t fight the impulse. I couldn’t think straight.

I unlock my black Mercedes SUV with one click on the fob. Climb inside. The moment the driver door closes and I’m alone in my car, I let out a laugh. A low, rugged one.

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