Page 254 of Quinlan

Fuck the Zippo. I swipe it off my desk. Bash the damn thing on the furthest wall. “Don’t care. Where. Is. She?”

“They reappeared. Outside our building.”

Mistake.Mistake.Mistake.

The word pushes itself over and over again against my ribs. Quinlan has no idea what Aria looks like.

Mistake.

When we took Quinlan to ourselves, I tore Aria’s photo out of our notebook. Quinlan didn’t need to see this shit if she ever got her hands on it.

A beautiful, pure thing like her shouldn’t be tainted by filth.

Our hands and teeth mark her flesh. Her cunt stretches for us. Her womb is soaked with our cum.

She bears our scars on her stomach. We have hers on our fingers.

She has the signs of our love all over her.

There was no way I’d have let her see Aria. Nothing should’ve stained Quinlan.

Somethingisdoing that.

Aria could be torturing her. Rex could.

And we’re useless fucks standinghere. Because of me. Because I’m paralyzed with terror and rage.

My thumb goes to the ring finger on my right hand.

We swore no one would hurt her, and I broke that vow as soon as the words left my mouth. Had she had seen Aria’s face, Damien and Rome wouldn’t have been standing here.

There wouldn’t be this suffocating, sheer terror.

Fuck. This.

“Out.” The damned word I’m too familiar with.

Let meout, Aria, this isn’t funny. It’s been hours. Let me go. Let me go. Please, let meout. Let meoutof here.

I won’t be begging her this time. I’ll fucking gut her. I’ll sink my hand into her stomach and pull out her organs one by one. Whatever she did to Quinlan, she’ll pay for it. Tenfold.

A millionfold.

Damien fills me in on the way to his SUV.

“We have people on them,” Damien summarizes when he tells me the whole story.

The investigators found Rex and Aria too late. Failed their job. They couldn’t even catch her when they ran over the fake taxi to stop Quinlan from getting in.

“She’ll be fine,” he grits as he’s driving as fast as he can, cutting off cars while tracking the signal from the investigator’s car.

Nothing slows him down. Not the light turning red. Not the people crossing the road. He blows the horn of his SUV, explaining in so many words that he’ll run over them if he must.

Rome and I don’t say a word. If other people must die so Quinlan can live, then so be it.

Our investigators, as trained in combat as they are, wouldn’t be able to save her. No one would. We’re the only ones who’d take a bullet, a knife for her, anything for her. A fire could consume me, and I’ll die wearing a smile on my face.

As long as she lives.

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