Ruthless Desire (Ruthless Devils #2)

Prologue Quinn

Quinn, age ten

“We can’t move her again; it’s the middle of the school year.”

Mommy was arguing with Daddy again, and I closed my eyes tiredly as I listened to their raised voices.

They always seemed to be angry these days.

Sitting on my bed, I looked at my shoes, black patent Mary Janes, and white socks with a frilled edge.

I glared at them. I hated socks, and these shiny black shoes were for another girl.

I liked my feet bare. My feet needed to breathe. Like the rest of me.

I flinched when I heard the door bang, and a few minutes later, the sound of the car engine and then silence. Daddy was gone, no doubt returning to the Navy base, where he got to yell at people all day long and order them around.

I waited patiently, and then there was a soft knock on the door.

“Hey, little girl, want to go for ice cream?”

Looking up at my mommy, I nodded once. Her face looked tired, the dark circles under her eyes were getting blacker, and the sparkle in her warm, chocolate brown eyes was gone. Something was wrong with my mommy. Daddy didn’t see it, or if he did, he wasn’t talking about it.

“Is Daddy coming?” I asked as I stood and straightened my white dress.

“No, baby, he’s got to work.”

The two of us headed to the front door, and I reached for Mommy’s hand. “Are we moving again?”

I felt the soft squeeze of her hand as Mommy opened the front door, letting me through it before she turned to lock it. “Yeah, baby, I think so.”

“I don’t like it here anyway,” I said to her as I skipped to Mommy’s car. It was true, I didn’t like this base. There were hardly any girls to play with, only boys. Boys were dirty.

Mom waited until my seat belt was on before she pressed a quick kiss to my head. As she started the car, she looked at me over her shoulder. “You sure you don’t mind moving, Quinn?”

“No, Mommy, if we have to move, we have to move. Daddy’s work’s important.” I grinned at her as I pulled my pigtails. “He protects us all.”

My mom turned to face forward, but I saw her sad smile as we drove away from the house. “He does, my sweet girl, he does.”

* * *

Quinn, age eleven

“You’re a girl?”

I looked at the dark-haired boy staring at me with confusion.

His hair was long — hippie long, as Daddy called it.

His blue eyes stood out against his tanned, golden skin.

He had skinny shoulders, but his hands were large.

Glancing at his feet, I saw he had big feet too.

When I was five or six, we had a dog called Buster.

When he was a puppy, he had huge paws, and Daddy said he would grow into them.

That’s what this boy reminded me of, Buster. Waiting to grow into his paws.

“You’re a boy,” I sassed back at him.

“Where’s your brother?” he asked me as he walked toward me, looking over my shoulder as if expecting someone else.

“It’s just me.”

His face scrunched up, and he looked back toward the big house that sat beside ours. “But they said there was a boy . . . a new student.”

“What’s his name?” I asked as I stepped toward him. Maybe he was lost; he looked lost.

“Quinn.”

“That’s me,” I told him with a happy smile. He wasn’t lost; he was confused. People always thought my name meant I was a boy.

“But you’re a girl.”

Maybe he was dumb? “Well, what’s your name?” I asked him impatiently.

“Jett.”

I laughed. “Like the plane?”

“No. Like the color.”

“What color?”

“Black.”

“You’re named after the color black?” That was even worse than my name. He nodded. “Oh. Well, it could be worse, you could be called purple.”

“Or puce.”

“What’s puce?” I asked him curiously.

“Pink . . . I think.” He grinned at me, and I started to giggle.

“I think Jett suits you.”

He scratched his head and looked back toward his house. “We’re playing in the pool. Do you want to come?”

“I can’t swim.”

His eyes rounded in shock. “My brother and cousin are there; we will help keep you up.” A large hand extended toward me. “Come on, I won’t let them drown you.”

“Are there girls?” I asked cautiously as I stepped closer to him.

“No!” Jett looked horrified. “Girls suck.”

“But I’m a girl.”

Jett looked me over before he grinned again. “Nah, you have a boy’s name,” he said as he grabbed my arm. “Come on, Quinn, let’s teach you how to swim.”

“I need a bathing suit!” I protested as he pulled me along behind him, looking down at my shorts and T-shirt.

“You’re fine.”

When we got to the big house that sat back from ours, half-surrounded by trees, I stared up at it as he pulled me along the fence until we were in a back courtyard with decking, chairs, and a large pool.

Tearing my attention from the grand house, I saw two boys playing in the water.

One looked so much like Jett he had to be his brother, and the other one was bigger but looked like them, too. Both stopped playing and stared at me.

“Where’s her brother?” the one who looked like Jett asked.

“This is Quinn,” Jett said before he jumped into the water. When he surfaced, he shook his wet hair out of his face. “She can’t swim.”

“Then why is she here?” the other boy asked.

“So we can teach her how to swim.” Jett swam over to the end of the pool and got out. His shorts and T-shirt stuck to him, and as he looked down at his clothes, he looked back up at me and smiled. “See, you don’t need a swimsuit,” he told me confidently.

“I don’t want to teach her to swim,” the boy who looked like Jett said.

“Okay. Ash and I can do it,” he told him as he walked toward me before adding, “you can sit and sulk like a girl.”

I watched the boy glare at his brother as the other boy, Ash, laughed.

“You’re called Ash?” I asked him. He nodded. “What’s your name?” I asked the other boy.

“That’s my twin, Gray,” Jett told me. “I’m older.”

“You all have strange names.”

“They all mean dark or black,” Jett said as he reached me. “Our older brother is Onyx.”

“Oh, my name doesn’t mean anything like that.”

“How old are you?” Ash asked curiously.

“I’m eleven,” I told them. I saw Ash and Gray exchange looks. “What is it?”

“Are you stupid?” Gray asked. “That why you’re older but in our class?”

“No! My dad’s in the Navy. We move around a lot.” The boys exchanged looks again, and I knew they didn’t believe me. “I’m not stupid!” I almost stamped my foot in temper.

“Want to come into the water?” Jett asked me as he waited patiently.

Shaking my head, I took a step backward. “No.”

“She’s stupid and chicken.”

I glared at Gray as he bobbed in the water, smirking at me. “Am not.”

“Then get in,” he said as he nodded at the pool edge.

“I can’t swim,” I repeated his brother’s earlier words.

“Not going to learn standing on the deck though, are you?”

“I don’t want to learn.”

“See? Stupid.” He laughed as he looked over at his cousin. “She’s nothing but a chicken.”

Ash started to laugh, and Gray made clucking sounds like a chicken. Jett tried to hide his smile, but his brother was now flapping his hands about like wings. His challenging glare was making me angry, and to show him I wasn’t a chicken, I jumped into the water.

And I sank like a stone.

My arms scrambled frantically, and I took a huge breath as the water rushed into my mouth, and I screamed, which only caused me to swallow more.

Hands grabbed my arms, and then my head was out of the water. Clumsily and painfully, the boys dragged me to the end of the pool, where I coughed and choked out the water that I’d swallowed. I was crying, but I didn’t care that they were going to make fun of me.

A big white towel was wrapped around me as a hand rubbed my back, and I looked up at Gray as he watched me with concern.

“Didn’t say drink the pool,” he said softly. “Thought you said you weren’t stupid?”

“You okay?” Ash asked me as he watched me with wide eyes.

“I think so.” Scrubbing my nose, I looked at all three of them. “That was a bit stu . . . silly,” I admitted.

“I think you were brave.”

Looking at Gray, I felt a flutter in my tummy. He thought that I was brave? “Really?”

“You can’t swim, and you jumped into the water anyway,” he said as he nodded. “You’re a daredevil. Like us.”

“Reckless,” Jett murmured in agreement as he sat beside me. “You want to try again?”

No, but as I looked at the three of them, I found myself nodding. “Maybe in the shallow end?”

The three boys laughed and were soon hauling me up to my feet and throwing the towel onto the lounge chair.

“C’mon, we’re going to teach you how to be a real Devil.”

* * *

Quinn, age twelve

“Hi,” I greeted as I walked around the side of the pool toward the three of them.

Jett stood and came over to me, grabbing my hand. “We thought you would want to be alone.”

“Why? You never let me be alone any other time.”

“Mom said you’d want to sleep,” Gray told me as he watched me.

“I close my eyes, and all I see is her in the coffin.”

“Want to play Call of Duty?” Ash asked as he came to stand beside Jett and me.

“Okay,” I agreed and followed the three Santo boys into the house, away from my home, where the people were crowding our front room and eating small plates of finger food as they watched me with sad faces.

“Quinn, sweetheart, why are you here?” Sable Santo rushed over to me and wrapped her arms around me.

“Dad’s got people to look after. No one will be looking for me,” I assured her. I met Gray’s eyes, and he nodded once in understanding as he walked over to his mom and took my arm.

“She’s with us, Mom, she’s fine,” he told his mom as he pulled me away.

“But . . .” Sable looked at all of us as she watched the boys form a semi-circle around me. “Okay, I’ll tell your dad. I was going back over anyway.”

We went to the den, and we played video games, and we never spoke about the fact that I buried my mom today.

They were my best friends.

* * *

Quinn, age fifteen