Page 18 of Dirty Quinn
It shouldn’t surprise me he knows this, but it does anyway. But, if he knows who Daria is, and he must know her from Russia based on his accent, then he knows how dangerous she can be. It would do him well to be scared. So, I tell him as much.
“How rude of me to not introduce myself properly.” He walks toward me, and I push myself up from the bed to standing, he towers over me by at least a foot. He holds out his hand as though to shake mine. I grasp his with my pee hand and try to will all of my pee germs from me to him as he says, “Ronan Sinclair, at your service.”
8
Ronan
The girl, Quinn, looks scared. But she still stands and shakes my hand when I introduce myself. I have to give her credit for that. I know I’m an imposing figure and it takes guts to not cower in a corner when someone like me has a small woman like her locked away in a concrete room with no possibility of escape.
Her dress is badly wrinkled and stained in spots, her hair in disarray, and her makeup smudged and streaked. But, to be honest, she looks better than I thought she might for someone who’s spent the last forty-two hours in a filthy, dank hovel.
“Have you heard of me?” I ask her.
She shakes her head.
“No?” I’m surprised, but I also think she might be lying to try toget my goat, as the Americans say. “I find it hard to believe Daria hasn’t mentioned me.”
“Maybe you aren’t important to her.” She shrugs, acting indifferent.
Her tough facade endears me to her. Perhaps under different circumstances I might be attracted to her. “Shame.” I circle the room slowly, taking care not to touch anything in it. I’d asked Andrei to put her in one of the basement rooms, but I didn’t expect he would put her in the worst one. “Daria has something I need. When she gives it to me, I’ll give you back to her. Until then, I’m afraid you must stay here.”
“You could just let me go, and I’ll get it from her and bring it back to you.” Her face is filled with hope as she says this. She reminds me of a small, grubby street urchin begging for coins.
“If only it were that easy,” I tell her. “Now, I do need a picture of you for proof of life.”
She moves into a pose before stopping herself. “I can’t believe I was about to pose,” she mutters, shaking her head.
I raise my phone and snap a picture of her dirty, yet still beautiful face. I plan to use it to get Daria on my side. What I told Quinn was correct, I do need something from Daria, and my plan is to use Quinn as my bargaining chip. If I know Daria like I think I do, she’ll do anything to save her friend. Daria has gone soft since coming to the United States. There used to be a time where she would not bargain at all, regardless of the consequences. But since they killed Katya, she’s become more possessive of those important to her. And her quest to find Katya’s killer has become an obsession.
What Daria doesn’t realize? I know who killed Katya.
I’ll share that knowledge with Daria only after she does my bidding. I’ve got a rat in my organization, and I need him taken out. A traitor with plans to try to overthrow me, who’s also been conducting auctions selling kidnapped women using my name for leverage. I get that my kidnapping Quinn, or having Andrei capture her for me, makes me a bit of a hypocrite. But, unlike Andrei, I have no plans of raping the woman or selling her into sexual slavery.
“Is there anything you need, aside from being released?” I ask Quinn.
“Like for real? Or are you just asking to be polite and you won’t really do anything?”
“It depends on what you ask me for.”
“A blanket, more toilet paper, antibacterial wipes, a gallon of water, and a real meal. Maybe a book or magazine to help pass the time?”
Her requests perplex me. They are all things that will make her stay here moderately more comfortable, but nothing that would help her escape or be rescued. And not even things that would make her stay infinitely more comfortable. Still, I don’t need her thinking she can just ask for something and she gets it. It will do me no good to return her to Daria only to have her say I treated her well.
While I don’t believe in unnecessary violence against women, I do have a reputation to protect. And I need my threats to be taken seriously. Hence the deplorable living conditions we’ve placed Quinn in. I’m a bad man who does bad things, no question about it. But women are to be loved and revered. Not raped and sold.
“I will see what I can do,” I tell Quinn.
“Thank you.” She smiles softly. “Oh, and maybe a toothbrush?”
I have to stop myself from laughing. Because antibacterial wipes and a toothbrush? This girl almost makes me want to spend time with her after this.
Almost.
While she’s physically my type, I prefer my women to be a bit more rebellious by nature. Fighters are more my speed. My mother was a fighter, verbally, and when it counted physically. My therapist once said I had “Mommy Issues.”
I had him killed shortly after that.
Granted, my mother was raped and murdered during a home invasion when I was a child. They forced my father and me to watch at knifepoint; he did nothing to stop it; I assume for fear of being hurt himself. I launched myself at her attacker the first chance I got. My forty pound, eight-year-old body doing nothing to deter him, and I received a seven-inch scar across my chest as a result. The blade had penetrated enough to bleed a lot, but not enough to kill me.
