Page 221 of Quinlan

They wanted me to have my cellphone on.

When I didn’t go back to my room to answer their texts—in my defense, I was sure they were email notifications—the phone started ringing.

And it wouldn’t stop.

“Picking the lock on the door won’t work, darling.” Damien sounded pissed, relieved, and maybe amused at my breathlesshello. “You’ll never be able to run from us.”

“Paranoid much?” Fucking with any of them was unavoidable.

Not because I hated his possessiveness. I didn’t hate anything about him at all.

It was just that fucking with them was too much fun.

“You’re testing our patience,” Rome thundered, though he hadn’t actually thundered at all. I could hear the smile in his voice. The lightness in his mood hadn’t been there before this week.

“Have been for the past ten minutes.” Liam’s heated tone meant I’d get wax on my breasts as a punishment. “We’re installing cameras in the apartment tomorrow.”

“Sheesh, can’t a girl stalk you in peace?”

Silence. A loud one. They had to have been exchanging looks. Searching for the bugs I hadn’t planted at their office.

I continued explaining what I meant by stalking. My ass was spanked raw when they got home anyway.

Two days later, my ass is just as sore. And no cameras have been installed around the house—yet. Those things haven’t changed.

What’s changed is my mood.

“I’m going to the living room,” I repeat, then slam the laptop shut.

The fake smile on my lips dies the second I do. They won’t have to witness my lips pressed into a tight line. How the joy from helping Rome and Anne had dissipated into nothing.

Anger pushes at my ribs and scalds my chest. It’s a constant battle to hide the emotion from them. I promised I wouldn’t do that, and yet I do. Bathing in misery. In hate. By myself.

They have a plan and I can’t rush them.

But damn it all to hell, I’m impatient. Volatile. I need to avenge them and yesterday.

Liam’s monster ex-babysitter is still alive.

Other than the minor inconvenience of looking after my parents, Rex hasn’t paid for his crimes, either. Business as fucking usual. Has been for years.

As if he isn’t guilty of anything. As if he hadn’t hurt Damien and his foster siblings. Children.

“Ugh. I can’t take it.” I tug on a loose strand of my hair. Pull harder until it hurts. I try, my God, do I try not to lose it until both of them get their revenge.

Impossible.

My childhood hadn’t been the worst, despite everything that happened to us. I had parents who loved me in their own way. An older half-brother there to sort of take care of us.

Damien didn’t have that. During the time he lived under Rex’s roof, he’d suffered. The gory details don’t matter. I believe him. He wouldn’t have kidnapped me—well, maybe that—butmurder. He wouldn’t have planned that for something dumb like Rex not letting him watch his favorite TV show.

There’s a reason why he never lets me see his chest and abdomen. He always makes sure I have my back to him in the shower, and I respect him. I never turn around to demand information he’s struggling to give to me.

I will never forgive Rex for this. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen, whateveritis.

And it’s eating me from the inside. That I’d loved my half-brother. That I’d enabled his happiness.

My phone vibrates next to me, ripping me from my suffocating thoughts. I snatch it and read through the messages in our group chat.

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