Chapter 12 Quinn
His lips never lifted from my skin. I didn’t care that it was uncomfortable, and after I had managed to stem the bleeding a little from his hand, we drove in silence.
My heart was still racing, and the drive wasn’t calming me down.
When Jett told me he needed me, I didn’t hesitate.
Very few people could calm Gray down when he lost it, and for Jett to say he was in trouble . . . I knew it was bad.
I didn’t ask where Jett was taking me; I didn’t question why he circled a row of houses before he spotted Gray’s car and then made sure he parked nowhere near it.
I didn’t question when he told me to go wait by Gray’s car and be ready. Ready for what, he never told me. He pulled his bandana over his face, his hood low, and he was gone.
I didn’t have a bandana, but I had the sense to grab a hoodie on the way out with Jett, and I pulled my hood low, covering my hair completely as I walked in the opposite direction of the car in case anyone was watching.
They taught me a long time ago to blend into my surroundings, never hurry, always walk with purpose, and never under any circumstances look like you were lost or checking out your surroundings.
When I approached Gray’s car, I passed it and kept on walking.
I saw the smoke from the house and the low flames.
He set a house on fire?
No. He wouldn’t. Gray was reckless sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid.
He had never been stupid or careless. He took great efforts to make sure everything he did was thought out and planned.
He was meticulous to the point of being unreasonable sometimes.
When I saw him approach the car, I felt relief, but I had hung back to make sure there was no one else coming or following, and when I knew it was safe, I let him see me.
I had so many questions, but I knew, when he was like this, not to ask.
He would tell me when he was ready. As we drove, I realized how very similar we were.
Slowly, we approached Onyx’s building. Not just the building he worked in, but the building he owned.
It was sometimes easy to forget they were so wealthy that they didn’t need to work hard at school or train hard; they could be privileged trust fund kids and do nothing.
But they were too clever, too ambitious, and they had been raised to be exceptional.
Kerr, their father, had been successful in the draft but had never played pro.
Kage did until his knee had one too many operations, and they told him he couldn’t play anymore.
Kage was often a “celebrity” commentator, but it wasn’t his main income.
When he was playing and earning good money, he and Kerr had invested it, and then they were advising Kage’s teammates on investments.
Until they had their own agency of financial advisors.
Onyx had taken it a step further, and now he represented some of the biggest names in sports.
His fee percentage was steep, but if asked, he would tell you that to be the best, you paid for the best. Gray was very close to his older brother, and I was not in the least bit surprised that it was Onyx who knew Gray had been reckless tonight.
As we parked in the underground parking reserved for the Santos, Gray let go of my hand and turned to look at me. His face was unreadable, but when he reached out to stroke my cheek with his hand, his touch was gentle.
“You okay?” he asked me in the quiet of the car.
“Yes.” I nodded to confirm as he watched me. “What did you do?”
“You need to stay outside,” he said instead of answering me. His finger on my lips cut off my protest. “You don’t need to hear it, not tonight.”
Swallowing my complaint, I nodded again.
Smoothly, he exited the car, and I followed nervously.
Making our way to the elevator, the doors opened automatically, and I said nothing when he pressed the lower-level button.
Glancing at him with concern, I saw he was watching me.
With a quick movement, he hit the stop button, and then his mouth was on mine, as demanding as it was dominating.
I opened my mouth when he licked the seam of my lips, and then he was really kissing me.
His hands tangled in my hair, and somewhere my brain registered he had blood on his hands, but I didn’t stop him.
He tasted of smoke from the fire, heightening the fact that he tasted of danger and ruthlessness.
Wild and raw.
I was helpless in his arms, and when he drew back, with only a breath between us, his lips were gentle when he kissed me again.
Lazily, he reached out and hit the button, and we finished the descent into the basement in silence. I followed him to a far room where he opened the door, pointed at the coffee machine in the corner, and, with a hooded look, he closed the door behind him.
Resigned to the fact that I was to wait, I made my way around the large table, guessing this was a conference room or maybe a training room.
I didn’t really care; my focus was on the coffee machine.
I had no idea what time it was, but coffee was never a bad choice.
I was trying to figure out how to work the machine when I realized that out of all of them, I was the one who should be in the room while they discussed me.
No matter how bad it was or what they thought I needed to hear, it was my choice.
With grim determination, I opened the door and went to find them.
I didn’t expect to find Onyx with his black shirt sleeves rolled up as he struck a guy in a chair. I didn’t expect to find Jett holding Gray back from attacking the guy, and it seemed from the look on his face that he wanted to kill him.
I didn’t expect to recognize the guy in the chair, especially as he seemed to have already been beaten, or to register that each of them still had their faces half covered.
Even Onyx had a bandana around his face.
All I could do was stare at the man who had tried to convince me that adoption was the best thing for me and my baby.
“Dr. Newton?”
Onyx whirled around as Jett’s and Gray’s heads snapped to look at me.
“Get her out of here,” Onyx growled as he looked at me with his usual loathing.
Gray was in front of me, and he half-carried me out of the room and back to where I had been.
We stood several feet apart, but I felt that there was a gulf between us as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. He pulled his bandana down as he pushed his hood back. He always looked softer than Jett, but right now, his face was all hard lines and tight with anger.
Anger at me? I wasn’t sure, nor did I care. “You need to explain.”
“Do I?” He walked over to the machine and started to make himself a coffee.
Cold. Detached. Despite my earlier observation in the car, sometimes he was like a stranger to me. Even after he’d just kissed me like I was the only thing that mattered, he could turn it all off and just be . . . nothing.
Unemotional. Callous. Bordering on cruel.
“Why is he here? Who did that to him?” My voice was steady, low, and I was proud of myself for keeping it together. “Did you set fire to his house?”
Cold blue eyes watched me as he added creamer to the coffee that he effortlessly made from a machine that had given me nothing. “No.”
“No? What are you answering no to? No, you didn’t set fire to it?”
“Why would I set fire to it?”
If I had asked him what time it was, he would have answered with the same casualness. “He’s in a chair, half beaten, in a basement, where your crazy brother is torturing him!”
“He deserves it.” Gray took a drink of his coffee as he watched me, grimaced, and placed the cup down. “He deserves to swing from a fucking rope.”
“Gray . . .”
“You don’t know,” he suddenly shouted at me as his hands hit the table in fury. “You haven’t seen what they do, what he lets happen!”
“And you do?” I asked in confusion. “How?”
“Because the sick fucker in that room records it.”
I saw his fury as he looked at me. I saw it as clearly as if he had spoken the words to me, accusing me that I was going to be the same as the girls on the film. Was his anger at me or Dr. Newton?
“Tell me.” I moved closer to him, and the pain that rushed through me as he stepped out of my reach was sharp.
“How do you know him?” Gray asked me.
“He was the doctor who talked me through the adoption process.” We stood apart, and I wanted to close the distance almost as much as he wanted to widen it.
“How did you find them?” His voice was low, toneless, and I watched him reach for the cup and drink his coffee. I noticed the shake in his hand, and I knew it was adrenaline.
Shit, his hand.
“Gray, let me fix your hand.” I walked toward him, my hands raised as if he were a wounded animal. “I’ll answer all your questions. Just like I did with Jett earlier.”
I flinched when he threw the coffee cup across the room, realizing my mistake as soon as the words had left my mouth.
“Of course you told him everything,” Gray sneered at me as he walked past me, his shoulder knocking me out of the way. “I can look after my own hand.”
Wildly, I grabbed for him, my arms hooking around his forearm as I pulled him back. “No! Stop walking away from me,” I growled as I physically tried to restrain him. “Gray, talk to me.”
He whirled on me, but I stood firm as he glared down at me, the heat of his rage radiating from his body. “Like you talk to me? Okay, Queeny.” He grabbed a seat and pulled it back from the table, waiting for me to take it. “Sit. Let’s talk.”
I hesitated. I knew him. I knew that with him this heated, things would go badly. Still, I sat. I had kept the truth from him for a year, and whatever they had found had made him reckless, and because I was part of this, whether I accepted it or not, I could sit and I could talk.