30. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Quinlan

When Damien gagged me until my body gave up on me, I was furious.

How dare he. I was on his side. I made it clear that I believed him. I love my family, but I won’t condone abuse. Won’t stand for violence. Against children, no less.

I wouldn’t take Rex’s side. Damien saw I wouldn’t.

He gagged me anyway.

And I cared for him anyway. For the man I met on the street. For my psychotic kidnapper. For the wounded kid he was.

But anger wasn’t all I felt. I was turned on. Hot everywhere. It was so demeaning, to be bound. To be silenced. The covers were stuffed in my mouth and I wanted him.

Now Liam is here. His panic bleeds all over the room. I see his pain. I imagine what Damien must’ve looked like at its worst, and that does it. I don’t have it in me to be mad at them. At all.

These men pull me in every direction. Manipulate me. Treat me like I’m their sex doll.

That doesn’t mean they’re bad people. They’re good. As insane as they are, they’re good people.

Liam’s skin is warm to the touch. In the dark of night, he’s made of shadows and a pair of stunning amber eyes.

It shouldn’t be that difficult, to get them to trust me.

First, because they should. They’ve bulldozed their way into my heart, and if someone touches them, if someone hurts them, I’ll ruin them.

Second, because they need me. They’re not just obsessed. Damien mentioned the word love. They want me here as much as they want their revenge.

“I’m an only child.” Liam’s fingertips trace the skin where I know my tattoo is. Mine are on his scar. Reverent. “My parents love me. They always have, with everything they had in them. They loved their job as well. Both are nursing assistants. That’s how they met, at work.”

He’s not used to this. Talking. Opening up.

He wasn’t planning on telling me any of it, not right away. I caught him off guard.

I’ve been caught off guard, too. I’m naked and vulnerable. The nightmare hasn’t released its grip on me yet. They never go away quickly.

We’re here, regardless. Liam, my captor, brushing his thumb over the heart I have there to honor my brother. He’s so close, the pad of his finger seems to be memorizing my skin. It’s not a random touch, I realize. He has to know.

“My mom—”

“What’s her name?” The question is out of my mouth before I have a chance to do anything about it. I’m being rude, interrupting him, but I care. Their names are as important as the story itself. “And your dad? What’s his name?”

Liam’s quiet. He’s skeptical, considering if this is too fast to let me in. I did curse him, Rome and Damien. I did fight them. I have to explain myself.

“Rex hurt Damien. He said very little, and the rest… I’m assuming the worst. I won’t be surprised if I’m right.” My hold on Liam’s cheek tightens. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t waver. “I’m sickened by it. I believe Damien. He won’t answer my questions and I. Believe. Him. Just like I believe you were hurt. I won’t use it against you. I should. It would be the smart thing to do, to think of ways to fuck with you, to want to have the upper hand. I promise you I won’t. Because I believe you. Because you stole my virginity—”

“Took.” Liam’s thumb on my skin burns. Punishes.

“Technically, you kidnapped me, so…”

The darkness does a lousy job at hiding Liam’s blazing eyes.

“What I’m trying to say is, only half of me hates you. The three of you. The other doesn’t. Don’t shut me out. Help me understand why I’m here.”

Liam’s eyebrow raises, and I swear I hear a noise. I lift my head to look behind him and he pushes me back down. My head collides with the soft pillow.

Nothing about Liam is soft. “Eyes on me, little flame.”

“Okay.”

“Nancy and Gerald. Jerry, really.” His parents. Liam picks up where he left off. “My mom was torn between staying at home with me and keeping her job. It was a calling for her, helping people. Until this day, that’s what she does. Both of them.”

Liam’s lips curl up. Cautiously, as if the movement is strange to him. He can’t help it, though. He’s proud of her.

“Judith was my babysitter for years. Made me lunch and dinner. Sometimes breakfast, depending on my parents’ shifts. We’d watch her shows after I was done with my homework, or we read together in the living room. She had the kindest green eyes.” The faraway look in his gaze disappears. Liam’s features harden. “The year I turned eight, Judith passed away. Pneumonia.” The memory hurts him, and he hides it so well. Almost too well. “Aria, our neighbor’s teenage kid, offered to take her place. She was sweet on the outside. My parents and I had no idea what she was like. A monster.”

My nightmare. Our histories. Our pain.

It’s all out in the open. All blending together in my head, in my heart.

I’m raw and sensitive, listening to Liam’s story. I want to inject myself into his past, pull him out of there. Save him from what’s already happened. Make it stop.

Catch Blake before he drowns.

I can’t. I can’t, and God, it hurts.

“What’s this?” I didn’t think it was possible, for his fingers to dig deeper into my skin. They do.

The anger in his voice is audible, reminding me of Damien.

Something about my reaction sets them off. But I’m not doing anything.

“I’m listening.” I stare him dead in the eye. “Or am I supposed to ignore you?”

“Pity me, little flame, and I’m binding you again. Gagging you with my belt.” His eyes burn hotter than the largest wildfire. “I’ll leave you here for days. Damien won’t fight me on it. Rome won’t either, as long as I feed you.”

This isn’t an idle threat. He means it.

Except he’s got it all wrong. This isn’t pity I’m feeling. It’s regret. It’s anger that I’m helpless against changing the past. That I can’t turn back time and slay his monster for him.

Then again, Liam doesn’t need me to fight his wars for him. He’s powerful and cold and wonderful.

He needs me to listen.

That I can do.

I slam my eyes shut. Consider his words. Remember the man who held me up straight while he fucked me on the floor. Who had no remorse. Who took me as his captive.

He hasn’t been that abused kid for a while. And I don’t pity him. I admire him.

“Good girl, Quinlan.” He lessens the pressure on my cheek. He likes what he sees when I open my eyes. He’s breathing me in.

“Tell me.” Trust me .

The decision has already been made when he picks up where he left off. “She’d scream at me to finish my homework faster on school days, sometimes over the weekends if my parents had overlapping shifts. Then she’d lock me in the closet for hours.”

His breath slows. His scar gets hotter beneath my fingers. I don’t dare move.

“She’d bring her boyfriend or friends over. I was a little shit that got in the way.” I think it’s him growling. No, it’s me. Liam is the one who continues, his voice flat. “She said I can’t tell my parents about any of that. No one would babysit a snitch. It’ll be your fault that your parents would have to quit their job and be with your whiny ass .”

“That bitch. That fucking bitch.” I’m supposed to shut up. To listen. Impossible. “You were a kid.”

“I was.” Liam slides his hand down my neck, my shoulder. Stopping at my waist, he pulls me to him. “I believed her. I couldn’t do that to my parents. Couldn’t fail them. I was resilient. Went through almost a year of being miserable. Of being locked up in the closet for hours with a chair leaned up against the knob to keep me inside. I couldn’t tell Rome or Damien. They would’ve fought for me. And it wasn’t like that every day. My parents tried to be there, at least one of them, when their schedule allowed it. So I sucked it up. I hid a book in the back of the closet, had snacks in my pockets without anyone knowing. Aria would’ve taken it away, and I couldn’t ask my parents for a flashlight. They would’ve figured it out.”

He was so smart. Had done everything he could to survive this.

“But the days turned into evenings and sometimes nights. It was impossible to read without the light filtering through the slits of the closet doors.” Every part of me touches every part of him. His body. His soul. I’m listening. I understand . “The darkness is a beautiful thing, little flame. Truly beautiful, until it’s forced on you. Until it's the only thing that’s left. Stealing my dad’s gold Zippo was my last resort after months of this.”

Dread and rage of what’s coming crawl up my spine. My teeth slam together in an attempt to abate the shivers. I make it. For him. For my captor. For that boy. For Liam.

“His father passed it on to him, and he planned on passing it on to me when I turned eighteen. Technically, it was mine. That was what I told myself when I took it. I couldn’t stand another evening of being locked up. Of not seeing anything even for a couple of hours.” Liam’s body tenses. My lungs shut down. “Of all this fucking nothing .”

Eyes. There are eyes on us. Liam pretends we’re alone. We aren’t.

I have to play along. The others’ presence doesn’t stop him, and he needs this. I need this.

“I stole the Zippo while my parents were sleeping.” Liam’s amber eyes go somewhere far away. “Carried it in my pocket at school. Curled my fingers around that lifeline.”

Those fierce embers are back on me, and I face him head-on. No pity. No tears.

He strokes my arm. Jesus. The fucking irony. Liam’s relaying the story of his abuse and he’s the one comforting me.

“That day, she brought her boyfriend. Daylight faded, like it always had, and I flicked the Zippo open.” His eyes swallow me whole. “I stood there, in a tight space, surrounded by my parents’ clothes. I wasn’t paying attention to the flame in my hand. Too busy looking out through the slits, making sure Aria didn’t see the light. She would’ve beaten me up if she caught me with this small comfort. She wanted me to be miserable.”

Liam’s voice doesn’t break. He’s okay.

I’m the one who loses it. It’s my throat that’s locking up. My eyes that have tears leaking from them.

“I’m not pitying you,” I growl. “I just hate it. I hate it so much, Liam.”

“I know.”

I should hate him for kidnapping me. For telling his friends it was okay to leave me bound here.

I should, but my heart refuses.

I should, but I wasn’t lying to him earlier.

I care. I want to be here.

“She went into my parents’ bedroom. Sprayed my mom’s perfume on her. She didn’t see the flame through the slits.” Liam’s mouth presses to my cheek. His tongue swipes at my stupid tears, licking them off me. Then his lips are in my ear, and my fingers dig into his scar. Binding him to me. “Mom’s dresses caught fire. By the time I stopped focusing on what Aria was doing, by the time she left the room, the smoke was everywhere. The flames found me.”

Liam pulls back, and the fire from that day is there. In his eyes. On his features. Flickering. Destroying everything.

“Liam…” I try to reach out to him with this one word. Desperate to put it out. To stop hurting him.

“I shouted. Begged for her to let me out.” His glare is deadly. “I never beg. And I did, that day. It hurt almost as bad as the smoke in my lungs. As the flames on my cheek, in my hair. Having to beg her to help me was the worst of it all. Then she…”

I wish he wouldn’t continue. I wish I wouldn’t hear how cruel and inhumane people can be. But that’s not how caring for someone works.

There’s no running from it. No hiding.

“She what?”

“She laughed. Mimicked my voice. Told her boyfriend I was such a fucking baby and that he should ignore me.” Despite the clean air of the room, Liam coughs, clearing his throat. “I pushed the door with my shoulder. I wasn’t as big as I am today. I had just turned nine. It took forever until I broke through the wood shutters. Pushed the chair and got out.” Liam covers my hand that’s on his scar with his much larger one. “Aria didn’t let my parents know I was hurt, only an ambulance and the fire department. My parents were called by their coworkers in the hospital. How fucking hilarious is that?”

There’s nothing funny about that. Not a goddamn thing. “She’s in prison, right?”

“No. Her reason for locking me in there in the first place was that I was violent with her. Threatened to gut her with a knife for fun.” Liam’s voice is cold. His gaze, however, is a wildfire. “My parents believed me. They cried, shouted at the police officers who came to the hospital. They told my parents I was lucky Aria decided not to press charges. She did have a witness. Her boyfriend.”

“Where is she now?” My question is part curiosity, part needing to get to her myself and throttle the bitch. “Address. Give me an address.”

“At home. We got her fired.”

So many other questions follow up his statement. It’s clear, though, from how tightly his lips are pressed together that Liam won’t answer all of them.

“How?”

“We own the company she worked for.”

That’s it?

They’re planning something far more elaborate than hurting my half-brother. This can’t be it.

“What else is there?”

“That’s all you’re getting tonight.” Liam’s hand is around my neck. His lips crash against mine.

His mouth shuts me up.

I want to slap him across his beautiful face. Accuse him of doing the same thing Damien did to me earlier. Tell him it’s getting old.

No one’s letting me in too deep.

My body has other plans. It responds to Liam. My fingers dive into his unruly hair, demanding he come closer. Kiss me harder. His tongue wars with mine, and when I moan, Liam groans for me.

The heat between my legs becomes unbearable with every passing second. With every bite and lick and nip. Every time Liam squeezes his fingers on my neck, he’s driving me to the edge of insanity. He’s pushing me past it.

He’s pushing me away from him. “Enough.”

I’m breathless. Desperate. Wet and annoyed. “Enough?”

“Show me yours, I’ll show you mine, remember?” Liam raises his eyebrows, giving me a meaningful look. “Start talking, little flame.”

My attempt to bring Liam’s mouth to mine again fails.

“It feels wrong.” It actually feels worse than wrong.

It feels awful to tell my story now. His deserves room. Space. Not to be crowded by mine.

“What does?”

“We’re not comparing sizes.”

When I tug on Liam’s hair this time, he grabs my wrist. Flips me on my back. In less than a second, he has both my wrists in his grip, up and over my head.

I’m locked.

“What the actual fuck, Liam?”

“You’re going back on your word. I can’t have that. Can’t let you be a brat. Talk.”

“You people,” I groan, my breaths heaving. Dammit, why do I want him so much when he’s being so stubborn? “You stalked me. You, Rome, and Damien have dug into my life. You know damn well what happened. And even if you don’t, do you really expect me to just nod after what you shared? To be like, oh, okay, cool story. Here’s mine since obviously I only pretended to care until it was my turn to talk.”

He glowers.

So do I. “No. I won’t do it. Give it a day, Liam. Give yourself a day.”

“I expected you to be good, little flame.” His cock is hard against my pussy. Throbbing. I feel him through his pants. “Apparently, we have a problem on our hands.”

A whooshing sound interrupts my attempts to fight Liam off me. My head whips in the direction of the sound and—

“You can’t be serious.”

Damien, still in the clothes from earlier this evening, pushes past the bookshelf—correction—past the secret bookshelf door.

“Oh, but we are, darling.”

“Very fucking serious.” Rome follows, his gaze menacing.

“Time to talk.” Liam squeezes my chin, turning my face to him. “You’re going to start getting real comfortable around us, real fast. You’re going to trust us. We aren’t asking anymore. Our investigators can’t tell us what’s inside your heart. This is us, little flame. You should know by now how obsessed we are. How relentless we are when it comes to you. And you’re not getting out of this. Not fucking ever. You have exactly one second to talk.”

“Or else?” I dare him. I beg him not to do it.

“We could take turns fucking the pity out of you.” His head tilts. “However, I prefer to… How’d you call it? Yes, give your story the respect it deserves.”

He’s soft for all of a second before his glare catches fire. “Speak, Quinlan. Stop testing me and fucking speak already.”