26. Nico
26
NICO
Quinn looks up at me first, then at Atlas and Killian, her lips curving into that tired, fucked-out smile I’ve been dreaming about since that bastard took her away.
And then she starts to cry.
Not quiet tears. These are gut-wrenching sobs that wreck her entire body. They rip out of her like she’s been holding this shit in for fucking years.
My first thought is that we’ve taken things too far. That we’ve pushed her body past its breaking point and she was too far gone to tell us.
I ease myself down onto the bed next to her. I want more than anything to pull her into my arms, but I’m hesitant to move her too forcefully if she’s in pain. “Fuck, mia cara, what is it? Did we hurt you?”
Atlas and Killian crowd in immediately, looking as panicked as I feel. Killian grabs her hand while Atlas pushes her hair back, showing that softness he pretends he doesn’t have.
“No,” she chokes out between sobs, shaking her head. “It’s not you. You didn’t hurt me. Not more than I wanted. It’s…” Her voice breaks, and she can’t finish.
But she doesn’t fucking need to. I can see the problem now.
My jaw locks so hard I nearly crack a tooth. I run my fingers over the marks on her arm—the clear outline of some asshole’s grip pressed into her skin.
“Is it because of these?” I try to keep my voice low, but there’s no hiding the fact that I’m ready to fight whoever did this. Ready to kill.
Atlas and Killian go completely still beside me as they spot the bruises.
Quinn has stopped crying enough to manage a nod. There’s something in her eyes that ties my fucking gut into knots—a frightened look I’ve seen before.
It’s the same look she had when we pieced together what happened with the Bullets, those motherfuckers who dared to fuck with what was ours.
Their poor judgment cost them their lives. And their hands.
I still don’t know everything they did to her, but I understand enough. She’s got scars that go really fucking deep, and someone just ripped them wide open again.
“Who did this to you?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. “Was it Malcolm?”
Her bottom lip trembles as she nods again. “He… he cornered me in his office. He tried to…” She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t need to.
The rage that floods through me is so intense that for a second, everything goes red. My vision literally fucking blurs with it. I can feel my pulse pounding in my temples, and my hands curl into fists so tight my knuckles crack.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” I say. “I’ll rip his goddamn throat out with my teeth.”
Killian’s eyes have gone cold with an emptiness that means someone is about to stop breathing. Atlas looks like he’s barely containing himself from punching through the wall.
I force myself to take a breath, to focus on Quinn right now instead of the revenge fantasy playing out in my head. She needs us here, not off half-cocked on a suicide mission.
“Show us.” I swallow back as much of my rage as I can. “Show us everywhere that motherfucker touched you.”
She hesitates, then slowly sits up, wincing slightly. She points to her arms first, where the finger-shaped bruises are already darkening. Then she touches her jaw, where there’s a faint redness that’ll probably bruise by morning.
“He grabbed me here,” she says, her voice steadier now. “And he…” She touches her lips, and I see red again, but I channel it into something better as I lean down close to her face.
“He doesn’t get to claim any part of you,” I whisper to keep the raw emotions out of my voice. “Not a single fucking inch.”
I press my lips gently to the redness on her jaw in a deliberate, almost reverent touch. Then I move to the bruises on her arms, kissing each mark with a gentleness that is completely at odds with the burning hatred I still feel toward Malcolm inside me.
“These are ours,” I tell her, my breath hot against her skin. “You’re ours to protect. Ours to care for. Ours to love. No one else’s.”
“No one else’s,” she murmurs just before I finally kiss her lips.
These kisses aren’t just about love and desire. They’re about reclaiming what that bastard tried to take and erasing the memory of his touch with mine. I don’t want her to doubt for a single fucking second that she belongs with us, to us, even if she has to wear his ring for now.
Killian moves in next, taking her wrist and turning it carefully to expose the marks there before pressing his lips to each fingerprint bruise.
“I should cut his fucking hands off,” he rumbles against her skin, and I know from previous experience that he means every word.
Atlas follows suit, cradling her face with his large hands as he kisses the redness on her jaw.
“No one hurts what’s ours,” he says simply, echoing what we’re all thinking right now.
The three of us continue our trail of kisses, covering every spot Malcolm touched, replacing violation with devotion. I watch as Quinn’s eyes drift closed and the tension slowly drains from her face. Her tears have dried, leaving tracks on her cheeks that Atlas wipes away with his thumb.
A small smile begins to form on her lips—not her usual confident grin, but something softer and more vulnerable. Not only is she letting us see her broken pieces, she’s trusting us to help put them back together.
When we’ve finished, she drags in a deep, shuddering breath. Her eyes open, and they’re clearer now but there’s still a troubled look on her face that I’d do anything to get rid of.
“Better?” Atlas asks, still cradling her cheek with one hand.
“I just…” She pauses, then frowns. “I fucking hate this. Being like this.”
“Like what?” I ask, already gearing up to fight, to kill—to do whatever it takes to make her happy again.
“Weak.” It’s a word I’d never, ever use to describe her, and it honestly surprises me when I hear it come out of her mouth. “I’m supposed to be strong. I used to lead a fucking gang. I’ve spent my whole damn life staring down people who want me dead, and I’ve done it without blinking.” Her voice catches. “But one asshole grabs me the wrong way, and I’m reduced to this… this curled-up, sobbing mess.”
She gestures at herself with disgust. “It’s pathetic. It’s?—”
“Bullshit,” Killian cuts her off. “That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it.”
“You think this makes you weak?” I ask her, taking her hand in mine. “Surviving what you’ve survived? Continuing to fight every fucking day?”
“Most people would’ve broken completely after what you went through,” Atlas says, and I can tell from the far-away look in his eyes that he’s thinking about the torture he’s endured and how fucking hard it was. “But here you are, still standing and still fucking fighting.”
“Pushing through all that trauma and all that terrible shit from your past isn’t weakness, mia cara,” I tell her, squeezing her hand. “It’s the definition of fucking strength.”
Killian nods. “You made a deal with the devil to save us. You married him to keep us alive. Even now, you’re risking everything to meet us here.” He shakes his head. “If that’s weakness, then that fucking word doesn’t mean what it used to.”
She looks up at me like she’s finally starting to believe us, then I see another thought cloud her pretty face.
“I don’t want to go back to him.” The pain and honesty in her voice tears at my fucking heart. “I hate sleeping under the same roof, knowing he’s just down the hallway waiting for a chance to… to do whatever he fucking wants.”
“Then don’t go back.” I shake my head, trying and failing to keep some of the anger from my voice. “We’ll find another fucking way. We can disappear tonight and leave this shit-hole city behind. We’ll start over somewhere new.”
I know we’ve tossed that out there as a possibility more than a few times already, but I fucking mean it this time. We’ll make contacts in other cities and find places we can hide until we’re ready to build something new. I’ll take this woman to the ends of the earth and guard her with everything I have if it means she doesn’t have to spend another night away from us.
“We can protect you,” Atlas adds, because of course my brothers are on the same page. “Even if we have to cut through an army to do it.”
Killian nods. “I’d enjoy that, to be perfectly fucking honest.”
Quinn shakes her head, and I can see the determination returning. The breakdown we all witnessed earlier is passing. Mia cara—our vicious, our siren—is coming back to herself.
“I can’t run,” she says. “I won’t. My plan is starting to work, and I need to see it through.”
She sits up straighter and brushes her hair back from her face. She really is getting back to her old self now. Thank fucking god. She’s going to need every ounce of intelligence and defiance and street smarts to survive the hell she has to go back to.
“I’ve been talking to Imogen,” she continues. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re friends, but she’s softening toward me. And she told me something interesting.” She quickly looks around to each of us before continuing—as if we’d be focused on anything or anyone else right now. “Every single member of the Dark Lotus Syndicate got their membership the same way—as blood money for someone Malcolm had killed.”
“What the fuck?” The question slips out even though I understood perfectly well what she just said.
“That was pretty much my same reaction,” she nods. “But yeah, Malcolm eliminates someone close to a person he wants to recruit, then offers them power as compensation. It ends up being a twisted fucking blood debt that keeps them all chained directly to him.”
Atlas frowns. “So it’s not an equal partnership like Ambrose thought. Like you were made to believe.”
“Nope. It’s a fucking prison sentence, and they all know it.”
As the pieces of information fall into place, an unavoidable question pops into my head. “So wait… if everyone has to lose someone close to become a member, who did your dad lose? How did he get the marker that he passed down to you?”
“That’s the worst part.” Her voice falters slightly before she clears her throat and forces herself to continue. “The reason my dad got his marker was because of my mom.”
“What?” Atlas frowns and shifts closer as she explains.
“My father did a job for Malcolm years ago. The targets retaliated by killing my mother. It was Malcolm’s fucking fault, and then he had the balls to offer my father membership as compensation.”
“Jesus Christ.” I shove a hand through my hair, my stomach turning.
“That motherfucking piece of shit,” Killian snarls like he’s ready to hunt Malcolm down right this second.
“All these years, I never knew the truth,” Quinn says. “But it was him. It’s always been him.”
I pull her against my chest, feeling the rage and grief radiating from her body. “I’m so fucking sorry. We’ll make him pay.”
“That’s right.” She nods and pulls back to look at each of us in turn. “I have ammunition now. The others hate him too—they’re just afraid to show it. If I can get some time with each of them, I think I can convince them to stand together with me.”
“You think you can turn the Syndicate against him?” Atlas asks.
“I think I fucking can.”
I look into those smart-as-fuck gray eyes and I know she’s carrying the weight of the world—not just her own past and future but her old Enigma members and us too—on her shoulders. I’d give fucking anything to take some of the burden away, but for now it has to be enough for her to know that we’ve got her back.
Today. Tomorrow. Always.
“When that day comes and you turn the tables on him,” I say, “Just know that we’ll be right there with you, and we’ll bathe in his fucking blood.”
“You’re not just our princess of carnage,” I tell her, because I fucking love the sound of that. “You’re our princess of vengeance. And we’ll be right beside you, watching that bastard bleed out for every mark he’s ever put on you.”
She smiles—a vicious, beautiful thing that I’d gladly spend hours memorizing if we had the time. “I’ll hold you to that promise.”
We all sit for a while and let the comfortable silence stretch out between us. Her breathing syncs with mine, then with all of ours, until it feels like we’re connected in more than just a physical way. These are the moments I live for now—just the four of us, safe for at least a few fucking minutes.
She sighs, and the moment passes. “I should go. I’ve already risked too much by coming here.”
“We’d know if someone had followed you,” Killian says immediately.
I nod in agreement. “We’ve got this place locked down tight. Malcolm’s guys wouldn’t get within a block without us knowing this time.”
She looks skeptical, but she’s probably worried about our safety more than her own right now. “Still, I can’t be gone too long. He’ll get suspicious.”
She showers before she leaves, washing away the evidence of what we did together. I hate watching her scrub our scent and our cum off her skin. It feels wrong, like vandalizing a fucking masterpiece. But I know it’s necessary. Malcolm can’t know she’s been with us.
The three of us stay in the room while she dresses. I don’t know what’s going through their minds right now, but I’m memorizing every curve and line of her body like it might be the last time I see her even though the thought makes my chest ache.
When she’s ready, she comes to each of us for a moment alone.
She goes to Atlas first, and he pulls her into a crushing hug. He buries his face in her hair and whispers something I can’t hear that makes her eyes go bright with emotion.
With Killian, it’s different. He drops to his knees before her like a fucking knight or something, and presses his forehead against her stomach. She runs her fingers through his hair so tenderly it feels almost too intimate to watch.
Then she comes to me. “I love you,” she whispers. “With everything I am.”
“Ti amo, mia cara,” I reply, kissing her one last time. “Until the end of time.”
We all walk to the door with her, since none of us are willing to let her go until the last possible second. When she finally steps outside, my chest feels hollow, like she’s taking part of me with her.
We watch from the window as she walks away with her shoulders squared and her head held high. Even from behind, I can see how fucking strong she is—the woman who faced down her demons tonight and came out swinging.
Beside me, I can feel the same heartbreak and need radiating from Killian and Atlas that’s burning in my own chest. The physical ache of watching her leave is as painful and raw as any fucking withdrawal I’ve been through.
There’s not really a word for what the three of us have become. Not that I know of, anyway. Brothers seems too simple and clean for this tangled, bloody bond we’ve forged. We’re brothers and more—three parts of a whole that only makes sense when Quinn is at the center.
Because we share a heart, the three of us. And it’s walking away down that street, wrapped in teal hair and tattooed skin, carrying the weight of a revenge that’s been too fucking long in the making.
Our princess of carnage. Our princess of vengeance.
Our everything.