Page 91 of Quinlan

Until the end of time.

We don’t need more money. We want it. The power. The status. No one will ever have control over us ever again.

“I’m fine. Fucking perfect,” Liam insists, not as convincing as he would’ve liked. The way theperfectbreaks at the end is worrisome. “You want the why, Dame? This is why. Stalking another woman, unless it’s for business purposes, is wrong.”

My mouth opens. Closes. Opens. Snaps shut. Surprising me isn’t easy. It’s even harder when it comes from one of my two best friends.

“That’s why you instructed the investigators to forward her photos to us?” Rome asks.

“Yes. Stalking a person is intimate. It would’ve felt like cheating. Sitting out there, watching her, what, in her underwear? No.”

So we’re bringing it up again. Our obsession.

That’s all there is to it.

“Next thing you know”—my eyes are fixed on the door, on where Quinlan is—“you’ll be asking her for permission to stalk any woman, period. You want her to run BLF with us, L?”

“Hilarious.” Liam doesn’t laugh. “And no, I wouldn’t mind that. She’d be better than any one of us. Goodbye, Dame.”

“For crying out loud, get her to eat.” Rome’s demand isn’t as panicked as before.

Thank fuck for small miracles.

“Yes, Mother.”

By the evening, Quinlan will have eaten. She will.

It’s been hours.

Hours since Quinlan’s gotten into her room. Something crashed against the wall at one point, and I asked her if she was all right. All I got was a growl.

That actually made me laugh. For all of a second.

She still refused to eat.

I tried to distract myself. Showered. Changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Made myself a sandwich with the chicken salad Rome talked about and ate it with the sound of Quinlan’s footsteps as background noise.

It was delicious, by the way. The food and hearing her raging in her room.

She stopped fury-pacing about an hour ago. I didn’t stop going up there, doing everything to convince her to eat.

Nothing got her out of her room.

Not me threatening her. Not me tempting her with the hot food at her door. I ordered veggie sushi rolls from her favorite place, took a picture and uploaded it to the television we have in her room.

That landed me another growl and another something breaking. Glass. Had to be the television.

Fuck the television. We can get her a million more of those. I cared about Rome and her and how I was failing them.

The feeling hasn’t left. It’s very much there as I’m leaning against the wall in the hallway, watching the door to her bedroom.

Door number two is an option. I could slip into her bedroom through the secret bookshelf door. Hold Quinlan’s mouth open, force-feed her, then clamp her nose and mouth shut until she swallowed.

That’s hot. My cock strains in my jeans just thinking about it. The pleasure of the act would give me the power over her, her submission.

Violence pummels through me.

How I wish.

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