45. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Quinlan

Liam’s barely pulled out of me before a warm throw blanket covers my shivering body. Hands and arms and lips are everywhere, as comforting and as swathing as the blanket itself.

“We have something to show you.” I don’t know how I ended up here, in Damien’s lap on the sofa. My arms go around his neck. His voice is warm in my ear. “We didn’t want to let you see Rex unraveling, but I don’t think I’m doing you any favors by hiding it. He suffers. I need him to suffer. I owe it to Jagger and Laurel. Except…”

“Show me.”

“I don’t want you to.” A few strands of hair have stuck to my cheeks, and Rome, who sits at our side, brushes it behind my back. “I promised I’ll never let anything hurt you again, and fuck, watching it hurts me watching the videos from our investigators.”

Liam, who apparently left, returns to the living room, his cellphone in hand, a wet cloth in the other.

I frown at the three of them.

“There’re videos of him.” Liam sits on my other side, lifting the blanket to clean me up.

He’s so caring, so methodical. My head would fall on Damien’s shoulder, that’s how good it feels. On any other day. Today I’m on high alert. This information is too important for me to doze off.

“He shows his true face. Doesn’t hold back, the motherfucker. He talks about you…” The three of them growl, three beasts eager to murder him, right here, right now. “He mentions you there, being the bastard he is.”

“I should’ve enjoyed those.” Damien’s lips and teeth graze my neck and I shiver, pressing myself deeper into his embrace. “I did enjoy the parts where he curses life in general, when he’s being a miserable fuck. It doesn’t end there, though. I fucking hate that. I’m letting this shit go on because this revenge isn’t just for me. Otherwise…”

“You’d have killed him, yes. I’m glad you haven’t.” I am. They deserve Rex to suffer. Damien deserves it. “That’s why you’ve been keeping me here.”

“He’d hurt you the first shot he has.” Rome leans over Damien and me, taking the phone from Liam. “You know what? Fuck that. No. This was a mistake. Let’s settle this by agreeing that you’re never leaving home without us ever again. That you won’t lose it because we’re sticking to the plan.”

“Show. Me.” I’m staring into Rome’s eyes, reaching from beneath the blanket for the phone. “If watching him suffer is a part of your revenge plot, then it’s a part of mine just the same. We’re together in this.”

“She does have a point.” Damien doesn’t sound happy about it. At all. He kisses the crook of my neck softly. “His misery is a win for her too. We’re done hiding things from each other.”

“One video,” Liam offers a compromise, sliding closer to us, lending me his warmth. “That’s it.”

“You can always hit the stop button.” Damien tightens his grip, his arms a vise around my stomach. “There’s no shame in that. He’s a motherfucking bastard. No one should hear the shit coming out of his mouth. Especially you.”

Witnessing this monster doesn’t scare me. My heart needs to catch up with my head, and I know this will help. Has to.

Maybe I’ll be okay with it. So much so that I’ll fix us some popcorn and have a screening of these videos together. We could ask Jagger and Laurel to watch it with us on a video call once everything is behind us.

A smile teases my lips. How wholesome would that be?

Very.

My finger hovers over the play button, then I remember. “Do you have videos of Aria? I’d really like to watch those. Did she find another job?”

Liam’s head shakes, his eyes clouding.

“She didn’t find a new job?”

Another shake. Why is he being like this?

“You just don’t want to watch her suffer?”

“I don’t want to watch her, period.”

“Why?” I stroke the unruly curl on his forehead.

“You’re going to like this one, darling.” Damien smiles against my shoulder.

“There’s only one woman in my life, little flame.” He pulls my hand to his mouth, his lips pressing to my knuckles. Subtle tremors wrack through me. They feel a lot like love. They are love. “One woman who takes up all the free space in my heart. That’s you.”

“Our investigators follow her and Rex from morning to nighttime,” Rome elaborates, and while I look at him, my soul is being spread between the three of them equally. “When they go to bed, so do our men. We get a daily status report on Aria begging the bank to extend her loan and the like, but that’s that.”

I turn to Liam. Something stronger than love swells in my heart. The wax on my body. His eyes, the fidelity brimming in them.

“It won’t count as cheating, watching her suffer.” My commitment to him is stronger than my jealousy. Stronger than anything. He’s owed this. “It won’t. In fact, I insist—”

“No.” His hand on my mouth silences my objection. “She’s fucked. I’m aware. A few more days of that, and I’ll kill her. I don’t need to see her until then. I don’t want to see her until then. To know she suffers is enough.”

My fingers curl around his, prying his hand off. “You’re sure?”

“I am.”

“Okay.”

He raises an eyebrow, searching my face. “Okay.”

Damien presses a gentle hand to my cheek, returning my attention to the phone. And I hit play.

“You’re not firing me, Maeve.” Rex’s face is beet red.

The bright hue is visible, thanks to the camera the private investigator used. He recorded him through a window looking over into Rex’s apartment.

He’s standing there, looking over the street. His white shirt is wrinkled, his hair greasy.

His small apartment is a mess. A few containers layer his old rug. Envelopes are scattered on his tiny eating table. I assume it’s bills and my parents’ files. The doctors must have given them to him to study while I was gone.

That’s partially my fault. The moment I moved in with Liam, Damien and Rome—the moment I was kidnapped —I changed the recipient’s name on my parents’ bills. I pay them online, but they had to go somewhere. I wasn’t having them pile up at my door or on Mom and Dad’s. My parents don’t need the extra stress.

Despite everything I’ve learned about myself here, I don’t hate them. My parents never intended for Blake to die. They were negligent and that cost him his life. Then they’ve pretty much left me to fend for myself after my brother is gone.

I’m done sacrificing my life for them, but I’m not abandoning them. I don’t have it in me to add to their pain.

“I said I was sorry for throwing the coffee at the client. Ice coffee. She didn’t get a burn or something. Fucking cry-baby is what she is.” Maeve talks and Rex paces. Tugs at his hair. “A lawsuit? I gave her a refund. She can’t sue us.”

My laugh is a sad one. A tear slips out of the corner of my eye.

Rome hits the pause button, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Our investigators never got that close to the both of you when you were together. Was that how he’d talk to you?”

“Some days,” I whisper. “I thought it was grief.”

Damien’s arms aren’t a vise around me anymore. He’s suffocating me. I let him, stroking his forearms. Trailing my nails over his veins. Along his smooth, taut skin.

“I thought it was because I was responsible for Blake’s death. And that he didn’t want me to die because… Because he loved me for me.” When I suck in a shuddering breath, Liam’s there to rub his knuckles over my cheek. I twist my head to kiss them, and it’s so nice. Feeling him beneath my lips. “He doesn’t miss Blake. Not anymore, at least. He stopped loving me years ago. He fooled me.”

“He fooled everyone.” Damien grabs my hand.

I can only imagine.

“I’m fine.” I am. Fuck him.

I press Play.

“Me? A liability?” Rex grabs the plant I bought him for his last birthday, bashing it against the wall. The ceramic pot shatters into a million pieces. The Peace Lily and the soil scatter on the floor. “I’ve worked for you for years. Years. Yes, I’m aware a lawsuit is messy business. It’ll ruin your reputation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’ll blow over. No? Of course it will.”

“Go, Maeve,” I cheer on the woman on the other line, my tears drying.

“This is all…” he growls, slamming his fist on the wall next to his window. He stares blankly at the investigator without ever seeing him. “Listen to me, Maeve. This is all my sister’s fault.”

“What? Me?” My hands ball into fists. Damien runs his thumb over them. The two other men touch and caress and kiss me. “My fucking fault?”

“No, she didn’t throw the coffee at the client. You saw the video.” A groan comes while he listens to Maeve. “She’s supposed to take care of my dad and her mom. That’s her job, see, and she’s off somewhere. Doing… Well, I hate saying that about my own flesh and blood, but this has to be said.”

“This is the part where it stopped being funny.” Damien angles my face to his, offering me an out.

Unnecessary. I look back on the phone.

“She’s a slut, okay? I—yes, a slut. She’s not selling herself, no. That I could understand. The bitch spreads her legs for free.”

Rex is honest. His version of it, anyway. The edge to his voice. The disgust in his eyes. My suspicions were spot on. He put two and two together from my emails to my parents.

I was taken against my own free will, but I’m fine now. I’m where I should be.

“She ran off with this man. Maybe more than one, who the fuck knows. Left me to handle our parents by myself. To have orgies.” He pauses. “What does this have to do with you? Maybe show some leniency until I figure this out? I will. Just let me keep my job, since her whore money is going directly to help her parents. I’ll be out on the street, Maeve, if you fire me. I don’t have any savings. Give me another chance. I’ll prove it to you.”

I’ve had enough of this. My head pounds and I’m sick to my stomach.

This has been a long evening. The last eighteen years have been long and tiring, and I only want to curl into a ball in Damien’s arms and for the video to stop rolling.

I get both.

.