49. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Damien

Acrid stench of scorched flesh.

Blistering skin turning black under bright orange flames.

Screams so loud they pierce my ears.

For long minutes, I stare at Aria as she’s burning on the chair.

Was that what Liam saw when the flames ate at his skin in that closet? Was this what he smelled? While he was there, burning alive? All by himself?

With that cunt ignoring his screams.

With no one to save him.

A smirk curved my lips when we put the Zippos to Aria’s face. It’s gone now.

The more I watch her face incinerate, the less I feel anything remotely close to satisfaction. To amusement.

Hearing Liam’s story and actually experiencing it are two different things.

Aria’s screams are silenced, eventually. She dies, the motherfucking cunt.

If she were still alive, this would be the moment I killed her. Personally. I’d lock my hands around her burning throat and choke the life out of her.

Identical homicidal energies vibrate from Rome at my side. From Quinlan in front of me. Anger is a living thing between us.

“I would’ve spit on her repulsive face.” Rome grunts his agreement, answering my unspoken hatred. “Except it would put some of the fire out. And fuck that.”

We keep watching.

Her hair and face are black and garbled and deformed. Nothing, really.

“She doesn’t deserve your spit.” Liam isn’t finished with her.

Even when the psycho bitch is clearly dead, he picks up another gasoline tank. Raises it. Tips the heavy container over Aria’s chest.

His eyes are unfocused. His jaw tics.

“L.” Quinlan. Sweet, murderous, and beautiful Quinlan. She sees him. Truly sees him.

This isn’t surface-level bullshit. She can tell, much like I do—and I bet Rome as well—that he’s struggling. Floating somewhere, same as Quinlan does after we’re rough on her.

Liam’s up there, high on revenge. On justice.

I wouldn’t have the first clue on how to help him down. I mean, sure, I’d let him empty the gasoline tank on Aria. Let him set fire to every inch of her body. It’s his revenge. I’d never take it from him.

Advice, warmth, a show of compassion, though? I don’t have it in me. Rome doesn’t either. Not now with thoughts of Liam burning in that damned closet.

Quinlan does. No matter what her current state is, she has it in her to find him. Bring him home.

Her fingers are delicate around his forearm. Her gaze soft.

His eyes come to focus the longer he looks at Quinlan.

With this simple touch and few words, Quinlan helps him navigate through the bad stuff. She reaches inside him and hugs the terrified boy he was. She pulls out the man he’s become and shows him that he’s made it. He’s slayed the wicked witch. He can burn her all he wants, and after that, he can rest.

When Quinlan was born, I thought she was brought to this earth to save me. Me and Jagger and Laurel.

A foolish notion, really.

I’ve always been bound to my two best friends. It only makes sense that she’d be their savior too.

“Liam.” Her full lips move to the shape of his name.

“Little flame.” He gulps, his shoulders relaxing.

“You did it.”

I’m anything but jealous as her fingers roam over his arm. I feel it as though they’re on me.

Rex groans and rocks on the chair we nailed to the floor behind us.

Finally, the smile is back on my face, my eyes locked on my friends. This moment is ours.

One deep inhale, and Liam’s smiling too. “Yes. We did it. Together.”

Rome places his hand on my shoulder, both of us silent spectators as Liam leans in to Quinlan. The tank remains in his grip.

He’ll go through with it. Will spill that gasoline on Aria. Though it won’t be the same. It won’t come from a place of despair. She won’t have the upper hand.

Before he destroys what’s left of Aria, he kisses Quinlan. He groans at the touch of her hand on the side of his neck.

When he pulls back, he’s back to being himself.

There’s not a drop left in the second tank by the time he’s done dousing the rest of Aria’s body.

“Together.” He covers Quinlan’s palm with his. They share a smile I could never forget. A smile I’ve been dying to see on Liam’s face.

They turn to us, and Rome and I know what to do.

More flames curl across Aria’s shoulders, arms, and her clothes and flesh. The ropes burn. The chair burns.

All of it will be gone soon.

Our job is done.

“Dame,” Liam says.

“Yeah?” I tilt my head, hands and Zippo in my pockets.

“You had a plan.” He jerks his chin at the man behind me. Quinlan’s quiet, studying my expression. Seeing through me. “For him.”

I did have a plan.

I planned to hurt him by kidnapping his little half-sister. Torturing his soul before I put my hands to his flesh. Carving his skin. Sinking a knife to his flesh. Pulling his heart out like he tore out mine when he tortured Jagger and Laurel and made me watch. All the days I wasn’t home to save them. All the times he cut me.

That was the plan.

My blood still sings at the prospect of cutting him until he dies. My fingers still itch to grip the handle of the knife.

I’m the same bloodthirsty motherfucker I’ve been for over twenty-three years.

Unless Quinlan has other things in mind.

She could ask me to call everything off. Or worse. Tell me she wants to leave so she wouldn’t have to witness me killing him.

That wouldn’t make me change my plans. No, I refuse to believe it would. Rex is dying tonight.

For what he did to Jagger. To Laurel.

To me.

Most of all, to Quinlan.

Rome’s hand isn’t on my shoulder anymore. The smoke from Aria’s body isn’t as suffocating. Liam’s heavy attention is light. Barely there.

My mind is clearer, yes. I can think.

Quinlan has been begging—no, demanding —that I let her out. That we kill Rex together. Hell, she broke out of our apartment to get the job done herself. Except this isn’t a hypothetical situation anymore.

This is her half-brother, after all.

She could be repulsed by what I’ll do to him.

Will you?

Quinlan’s gray eyes stare at me, emotion flashing through them.

This is the moment I open my fucking mouth. Ask her to join me.

The moment I pick the sharp knife off the table, order Quinlan to grab hers.

Fuck, I’m a prick for wishing she’d stand at my side. I’m a bastard for wanting her to tell me together before we kill him.

Quinlan said that to Rome, then Liam.

I crave that for myself so badly that my chest caves in on itself.

And just in case the unimaginable happens, that she tells me she can’t stand here and allow for this to happen, I would—

“Damien.”

Would I really ignore her, or would I drop it? Leave the job to the professionals so Quinlan could still be mine after tonight?

Nothing could be more wrong than walking away from this.

Nothing could be worse than losing her.

Quinlan doesn’t call my name again. What would I fucking tell her, anyway?

Please be okay with what I’m about to do? Please do it with me?

You can’t force that on a person.

My feet carry me a step back. My gaze is locked on hers. The same magnetic pull I’ve had toward her for years is still there. Twenty-three of them, to be exact. She saved me.

She’s been my everything.

I have to kill Rex. Have to slaughter him. Use my bare goddamn hands.

I need to do it.

Neither Rome nor Liam say anything either. They’re statues, only their gazes following Quinlan. Mine do the same.

She’s walking, and I watch her.

I’m bloodthirsty. Straining to finish this story once and for all.

And I. Watch. Her.

I’m curious. Damaged. Hopeful. So goddamn hopeful.

Quietly, she heads to the table and stops there. Her tattoo shines in the fluorescent light, the skin beneath it swollen and purple.

Her chest heaves with each breath. Her arm moves. Hand covering the handle of the knife I put there for her.

There are four knives in the warehouse, just like there are numerous gas containers.

Quinlan doesn’t grab one knife, though. She takes two of them, walking over to me. Her face gives me nothing.

Rome steps aside when she’s close. She slams the knife to my chest. Scowls at me. Lets me watch the anger bleeding from her pores.

Christ, I love her.

No matter what she says next, I love that flare of rage. Her scrunching nose. Those swollen, pressed lips.

This is the answer I’ve been too nervous to ask.

I clasp my hand on top of hers, pin hers closer to my chest. Give her a taste of what she does to me. How alive I am because of her.

“The bitch was already dead.” Aria, she means. “Liam needed to let it go. That’s why I stopped him from pouring gas before I saw he was okay. She didn’t deserve it, fucking with his head.”

“She’s right.” Liam’s solemn. Concise. Relieved.

“This isn’t the case with us, Damien.” The last of her restraint starts to snap. She growls, pressing her chest to mine, the knives mashed between us. “You owe me to kill him. You fucking promised.”

Behind us, Rex’s muffled screams and groans are a background noise. The last of the flames are taking care of Aria’s remains. My friends are breathing.

Fuck, I’m breathing. I’m smiling.

I let the knife stay pressed between us and touch her. Quinlan’s chin feels right in my grasp, her hair soft in my fist.

“You have no idea what you do to me.” My teeth bite into her bottom lip so hard I taste blood. I taste war. Survival. Revenge. I lick it off her. Suck it into my mouth, taking it for myself. “No goddamn idea, darling.”

“Let’s do it.” Her eyes sparkle. Alive. So alive. Even—fuck, no, especially —when I yank harder on her hair. “He has to pay for what he’s done. To you, to your friends.”

“This is for you, more than anyone else.” Kissing her is as inevitable as breathing. “He won’t apologize. Won’t mean it, that’s for sure. You’re owed this.”

“ We do,” she insists.

“Okay. Okay. We do.”

Her teeth are white and perfect as her face splits into a wide smile. A deviant one. She knows what I’m waiting for.

That damn word.

She makes me wait.

Her hand on my chest flips carefully, brings the knife up between us. Asking me to take it from her. I remove my fingers from her chin, and she shoves the knife into my hand.

Still, nothing. Even when I tug on her hair.

I. Need. To. Hear. It.

“Quinlan,” I warn. I’m back to being this beast. The man behind the suit smirks.

Hell-bent on revenge. Hard on torturing her. The man who’s finally got the girl.

Her free hand hikes her shirt up, revealing her marked belly. Her scars are gorgeous. Three stripes for the three men who’ll love her to their dying breath.

“Put your hands on me.” Quinlan completely ignores her half-brother’s muted protests.

My two best friends gather around us. Their support is as strong as it’s ever been.

All the things we wrote in our notebook. All the plans we’ve made. The support we’ve given each other through the years.

This isn’t ideal, our situation. We’ll never have a fairytale ending. Our starting point was rotten to the core. Our souls will forever be dark and twisted.

There’s no changing that.

I’m not sure either of us wants that.

Quinlan included. Her depraved sense of justice is as violent and unapologetic as ours.

With three right hands flattened on her toned stomach, we’re on the path to closure. The scars on our fingers cover the ones on her skin.

Yeah. Full motherfucking circle.

“Quinlan.” I need the word from her. Need the approval.

She’ll give it to me. Or she’ll be punished until she does.

Either works for me.

Quinlan’s head twists slowly so the three of us can see the sincerity in her eyes. The madness. What a beautiful fucking mess she’s turned into.

“Together.”

Christ, finally.

“Darling.” I drop the knife to the floor.

I’ll pick it up after I kiss her.

Rex wouldn’t have to worry about an infection. Ha-ha. Very funny.

I’ll have time to joke about it later.

The knife clatters on the floor, the sound dulled by my growl into Quinlan’s mouth. By her moan. I’m a slave to her mouth. The master of her tongue. I’m owned, and I own her and, fuck , her skin beneath my fingers is like a hit of goddamn crack. That’s how addictive it is, touching her. Burying my fingers in her soft hair.

Fuck.

“Go. I’ll be right there, brother,” she says a second before Rome steals her, right before his lips devour hers.

Her voice is innocent. Adorable.

Totally inappropriate. She shouldn’t have smiled like that, with the stench of Aria’s rotting corpse and Rex’s sounds of protest. She does anyway.

While Rome kisses her as violently as only he knows, I pick up the knife off the floor. A dark laugh escapes me as I slowly turn to face my nemesis.

I won’t be alone. Not for long.

Together.

“Rex, buddy.” I’m not gentle as I tear the duct tape off his mouth. “Missed me?”

He groans. Curses. His brown eyes are wide. Mad. “You have no right to kill me.”

“You’re really going for Aria’s line of defense?” I bark a laugh, swirling the knife in my hand. “Didn’t work out so well for her.”

“Fuck her.” He wets his lips, and I swallow back the need to gag. His tongue is repulsive. He’s repulsive. “I don’t deserve this. Me.”

A pause is followed by more growling sounds. Liam’s kissing her.

“Okay, whatever. Say I’m in a playful mood. Say I care for your opinion.” I run the tip of the knife along his bare collarbone. When he flinches, I tsk at him. Mocking him. “Let’s hear it. What makes you think I should spare you?”

“Well…”

The footsteps behind me indicate my short time alone with Rex is done.

He doesn’t answer, and, oh no, my patience has run out.

The knife dives into his left leg, right over his knee.

“Jesus fuck,” Rex screams.

I pretend not to hear him, sliding it up his thigh. The sharp knife and my resolve make it so I slice through flesh. Through muscle. I go deeper, down to his femur.

Quinlan giggles when she reaches me. Her hand rests possessively on my arm. She bends next to me, her hair tickling my cheek.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she growls at Rex, sounding a lot like someone I know. Like me.

Good girl.

“Whore.”

“I’d warn you not to call her a whore again.”

The knife out of his thigh doesn’t mean relief. It’s more painful. He screams and blood spurts out, dripping out of the gash and onto the floor.

I don’t stick around to find out if I hit an artery or not.

I fling the knife in the air. The blade slashes a fine strip across Rex’s cheek. Blood trickles from the cut.

Would you look at that? I was an inch from taking his eye out. I hope Quinlan doesn’t think I’m a failure.

“Try me.” I wipe the bloodied blade on Rex’s other cheek. On his eye.

Liam takes a swipe at his forearm, slicing through his flesh. Rome slashes a line across his stomach.

“No? No more whore?”

He shakes his head, his eyes furious.

“That’s better. Still…” Despite the humor in my voice, I’m furious. No one disrespects our woman. “You’re dying tonight.”

“I told you,” the fucker grits out, his body arching forward, muscles strained. His face grows paler by the second. “You have no right to kill me. I’m the reason you met this whore—”

“No, you aren’t.” This time, I do go for his eye. I grab Rex by his short hair, and before he says another filthy word, I cut through his eyeball. Corner to corner.

Red pushes out the white. This isn’t a trickle. Oh, no. Blood gushes out, some gray matter too.

“I would’ve met her with or without you, fuckface.”

Quinlan’s aww behind me draws out more truths out of me.

“I would’ve found her in any other lifetime. Any other universe. Any fucking time and space. Nothing would’ve kept me from getting to Quinlan.” I’m staring down at him, but I’m talking to her. Even when she’s gone from my side. She’s close by. She’ll never leave, I know that now. “This has nothing to do with you, you piece of shit. Quinlan, I, Rome, and Damien, we’re fated. Meant to be. You just happened to be there.”

“You won’t anymore.” Quinlan materializes on the other side of Rex.

Her eyes glisten, unshed tears brimming in them. Emotion threatens to pour from her, and it’s so sweet.

I damn near stab Rex in the heart, haul her over my shoulder and—No, I’ll just fuck her right here on the floor. That’s what I’ll do. Liam and Rome will join us.

I do no such thing.

She’s owed this.

She’s owed the feeling of jabbing her knife into Rex’s unharmed cheek. To sink it up to the handle.

“Why did you lie?” Quinlan removes the knife from Rex’s flesh.

Blood covers every inch of the metal. She shoves it through Rex’s nose horizontally, the tip of the blade coming out on the other end.

He’s screaming. Fucking earned it.

“Why? Answer me?”

She pulls the knife out of his nose and down his shoulder it goes. She’s gorgeous, growling and psychotic. Screaming is beneath her. She’s just mad and vengeful. Her actions do the screaming for her.

“What are you talking, you bi—”

“I wouldn’t say that if I were you.” Rome shakes his head once. The threatening gesture shuts Rex up.

“My brother.” She’s in his face, her hand gripping his bleeding chin.

The look of confusion on his bleeding, disgraceful face lasts for one second.

“Blake?”

“Shut up. Don’t you dare say his name.” Quinlan’s knife goes into the open wound in Rex’s arm, into the one Liam gave him. “Tell me why.”

I move around him, coming to stand next to her. Liam and Rome are around us, the three of us touching her. Grabbing her. Protecting her.

Rex wouldn’t get up to hurt her, no. Whatever she hears, though, might hurt her. He’ll do his best to break her.

I’d kill him before he manages to do that.

Rex’s blood is only the appetizer. I’m hungry for more.

I’d have killed him by now. Put an end to his filthy mouth and the pain he’s about to unleash on Quinlan.

But I won’t take this from her. The closure.

“Why should I tell you anything?” With each word, blood splutters down his chin. His bare chest. She releases her grip on him, wiping her hand on his chest where blood hasn’t reached yet. “I’m going to die tonight. You’ve made my life a living hell over this last month. Might as well go out while I make your life a nightmare. Your parents will never tell you anything; we both know that. So no. I’m not talking.”

Oh, boy. His taunting is like a meal to a starved man.

“You got that right.” I shove two fingers into the gaping wound in his cheek.

The one our brave Quinlan is responsible for. I sink the knife into his shoulder, then add two fingers to the party, pulling on the flesh of his cheek. Tearing it wider. Huffing a derisive laugh at his agonized howl.

“You will die here.” The corners of the gash on Rex’s cheek rip wider. The sound is obnoxious, and he wails at the pain. I regret nothing. “Sure, you can be the monster you’ve always been. You can keep being an asshole to Quinlan. Go right the fuck ahead.”

Quinlan wraps an arm around my waist. Squeezes me.

How did I ever think she’d be against this?

I’m not a believer. Lost my faith over the nights and days of pain and guilt I spent in Rex’s home. But fuck, God, thank you for this. Thank you for her.

Or maybe thank you, universe?

Whatever.

When she holds me like that and I have my two best friends at my side, I don’t care about any-fucking-thing.

His skin falls like red curtains when I release him. I wipe my hands on my pants, looking at him.

Technically, I’m done. I got what I came here for.

Unfortunately for him, he messed up.

He had to fuck with Quinlan.

No. one. Fucks. With. What’s. Ours.

“I’ll be here. The four of us will.” I stick my thumb up, motioning to the people behind me. “We’ll stop the bleeding in your thigh. Wait it out, you know? We can stay here for months. Remove patches of skin one by one. Take our sweet time with you. We’ll tend to your wounds. Keep them from festering.”

I lean forward until I’m everything he sees. Until I stare into the eyes that used to scare the ever-loving fuck out of me.

Now, they’re nothing. Now, one of them bleeds out. The other has fear written all over it.

“Yes, Rex,” Quinlan spits out his name. Her cheek is warm next to mine. “Because who’ll come looking for you? Mom and Dad sure won’t. Their doctors won’t, either. I’ll contact them myself. Say you’re on a vacation . Maeve will be happy to get rid of you. You’re a liability, remember?”

His eyebrows shoot up on his pale, sweaty forehead. He fights the pain. His surprise, that shit he can’t hide.

He could tell we were following him. The fact that we heard just about everything is news. Everything other than his plotting with Aria.

Goddamn it.

“You’re going to play doctor, dummy?” The derogatory nickname he’d given me. It doesn’t hurt me. His confidence is fake. He knows we have him by the balls. “I looked you up. Neither of you are doctors. Your little foster siblings wouldn’t have the first idea, either.”

“Aww.” The knife I had in him slips out like butter, the handle warm and slippery in my palm. I gather some gore from his cheek on the blade—the shit that used to be in his eye. And he opens up his mouth for me to feed him with it. “Swallow, motherfucker. That’s it. I hope you enjoy your last meal.”

“Bon appétit,” Quinlan says with a sweet, all wrong French accent.

Then she gives me the filthiest French kiss. Tongue and all.

“And for your question. The Internet is filled with answers to everything these days,” Rome booms behind me, ignoring my depravity. “We’re fast learners.”

“Or we’ll hire a doctor, then kill them when we’re done with you,” Liam adds.

Quinlan doesn’t protest. She knows we won’t kill an innocent.

Rex, in his pathetic state, believes we’d do just about anything.

“Fine. Fuck.” Dampness hits my chin. I look to the right and there’s blood on Quinlan’s chin too. Rex’s. I wipe it from her pretty face. “I did it for Dad.”

My arm wraps around Quinlan’s waist all on its own. I straighten the both of us, and two other hands come to rest on her back. To comfort her.

“The three of you were fucked up.” Rex blinks, grunting against the pain.

The eyelashes where I sliced his eye are coated in blood and gore. He’s a mean one, always has been. Doesn’t cry. Doesn’t beg for mercy even as his skin turns ashen gray.

“Dad told me about how he and your mom lied to the police. Said he’d regret it as soon as they were by themselves.” The words are slurred. He’s losing consciousness. I tug at the skin of his cheek, and he groans, the pain waking him up. “When it was you and them. I was already there. You were crying for Blake. Kept saying you were sorry. You could’ve taken it. I loved you, but I couldn’t afford them going to prison. Couldn’t take care of a kid on my own. Being a foster dad was the worst year of my life.”

“Yours?” I hear the incredulous question coming out of me. Echoed from around me. Times three.

“You were such a goddamn hassle. I told her. The three of you.”

Nothing and no one gets in my way. We pulled the truth out of him, and I can’t hold back. Blinded by rage, I carve into his stomach.

I’m not being loving or gentle like I was the day I marked Quinlan. I’m vicious and cruel. I bark a harsh, inhuman laugh as Rex’s skin breaks.

His guts appear when I open his stomach up, and I laugh at that too.

“I couldn’t take you on, Quinlan,” he whispers, fighting to say the words that’ll set him free.

“So you let me think Blake’s death was all my fault?”

While I slash into Rex, while I pay him back for every crime he’s ever committed, Quinlan moves closer, lands a punch to his jaw. I don’t care that more blood lands on my shirt. I’m so goddamn proud of her.

He’s breathing hard. She continues anyway. “You let me think I could save him and I didn’t?”

“A-An investment.”

At that, I stop. My head snaps up. There it is. The truth. The horrible, gut-wrenching truth that I wish with all my heart was a lie.

“A what?” Her voice falters.

“Investment. I made sure you felt guilty so I could have a chance at a better future,” Rex huffs. “I helped them out with food and small things. They weren’t getting better. I couldn’t be there every day to take care of them. Fuck, I hate taking care of people. That’s where your guilt came in handy. Kept you in line, didn’t it? It did. There. You got what your explanation. Can you just end this and kill me?”

White-hot fury takes over. I’m reduced to this primitive creature, not even a beast. Not a monster. I don’t know what the fuck I am. All I know is that I have to put Rex down.

Every other second that he’s breathing the same air as Quinlan is a goddamn crime.

My friends share my rage. Our sweet Quinlan shares it.

Blades slice through the air. Every unharmed piece of Rex’s skin gets cut, sliced, torn open. I do what I’ve dreamed of for too long, delve my hand into his chest. Wrap my hand around his heart.

The organ that somehow keeps Rex alive beats slowly. Weak, like the motherfucker who ruined so many lives. Useless piece of shit.

I squeeze it tighter. “This is for you, darling.”

No one’s moving a muscle as they stare at me. As they watch me bend my elbow and tug at his heart.

“Jagger.” Another squeeze. Another harsh glare at the man who’s been reduced to a human colander. “Laurel.”

Quinlan pushes her hand through Rex’s body, cupping my hand. Destroying his heart with me.

Her gray eyes have never been more beautiful than they are at this very moment. Her intensity steals my breath away. Gives me back a piece of my humanity back.

“For you,” she growls.

Liam’s palm comes on top of hers. Rome places his on top of Liam’s.

“For you,” they repeat.

Air surges into my lungs. A sense of reckoning. Of closure.

I milk the life out of what remains of Rex’s heart. My fist closes in, and I smile.

I smile because I killed him.

I smile because I got my revenge.

I smile because my life can finally start.

The worst is behind us.

I’m home.