Chapter 20 Gray
She stared at me but said nothing. My brother went to speak, but I nudged him with my knee. He needed to be quiet; she needed to realize that this had to happen. This is what we needed. What she needed.
They needed to be exposed, brought down so they could never do this to someone else again.
In a way, it was a good thing I hadn’t had my suspicions confirmed earlier about whose baby she was carrying.
I would have destroyed something. I wasn’t such a dick that I wouldn’t admit it would most likely have been her.
I heard Ash move uncomfortably in his seat, but he didn’t speak, and I was grateful for it.
Quinn finally broke our stare and looked down at her lap. “What do you need?” was her quiet whisper.
“What I asked. Show us where you met with them, if it was different from the place you went to in Nashville, then take us to both. Names, all the names, descriptions, how many times you met, what they asked, what you signed?”
Her head rose sharply. “I signed nothing. I had my initial meeting, and I told them I would think about it.” She looked at all three of us.
“Did they know whose baby it was?” Ash asked quietly.
She hesitated. “No.”
Jett was watching her, and I felt him lean into my leg in warning. “You hesitated,” he spoke softly. “Did you tell them it was Gray’s?”
Quinn shook her head as she met my look. “No, I didn’t. But . . .”
“But?” I asked as I felt my brother tense beside me.
“My phone rang when I was with them. One of them recognized the caller.”
“Me?” Jett asked. He was the only one she had an actual picture of attached to his caller ID. Ash’s was a football helmet, and I had the angry dude from some animated film who went up in flames when it was angry, which she thought was funny.
“Yes,” Quinn answered as she held my stare. “Do you think that’s why they kept harassing me?”
“Because you had one of the state’s star footballers on your phone? Yeah, I’d say it was a good guess,” I bit out angrily.
“I didn’t do it intentionally!” Quinn yelled back at me.
“Did I say you did?” I snarked back, and my brother got to his feet.
“Okay, you both need to take a step back,” he said as he put the pizza box on the table. “Arguing won’t help anything.”
Ash grunted, and I turned to look at him. “What?” I asked.
“If they recognized Jett and thought they hit payday with the kid of a Santo, then we may have been reckless doing the houses,” he said carefully.
“You were reckless irrespective of who they saw on my phone,” Quinn bitched.
“And if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have known what we do now.” My teeth hurt from clenching my jaw too hard.
“I think I would be okay with that,” Quinn muttered as she straightened in her seat.
“What?” I looked at her in amazement. “You would be okay never knowing what they had intended to do had you gone through with it?”
“I mean I would be okay with you three not breaking the law and doing stupid reckless shit that may get you caught and put in jail.”
“Fuck jail,” I snarled as I stood. “And fuck you.”
“Gray . . .” Jett groaned.
“How can you say that?” Quinn snapped angrily at the same time. “After . . .” Her eyes flicked to Ash guiltily.
“What? After I fucked you all night, you mean?”
“Gray!” Quinn shouted in protest.
“What?” My temper was rising. “You think it would be easier if we didn’t know?
You think it would be easier if we knew you’d lost a baby and that you were scared, and we did nothing?
You think it would be better if we ignored that it happened, like you are?
You would prefer to keep us all in the dark and let this happen again and again to other girls who are as clueless as you?
” Leaning over her, I glared at her. “That what you mean?”
“No,” her quiet, furious whisper pissed me off even more.
“Well, it doesn’t fucking sound like it.” I scowled as I straightened. “Stop being a selfish coward, stop fucking hiding, and help us fix it.”
“You can’t fix this!” Quinn screamed in anger suddenly.
Soon she was on her feet, and the two of us were staring at each other, equally angry.
Jett and Ash may as well not have been in the room.
“You can’t make this better for me! Nothing you’re doing helps me, helps me get past it; all you’re doing is making me feel bad and cruel and like shit. ”
“Good.”
“Good?” She blinked at me in shock.
“Yes, good.” I folded my arms across my chest. “You fucked up, you know it and I know it. That’s okay.
In time, I’ll accept that you lied to me for eighteen months, I’ll get past the fact you looked me in the eye almost every day and didn’t tell me that you miscarried my baby or that you were going to give it to fucking strangers. ”
“Brother—” Jett began, but I wasn’t listening.
“I hope it keeps you awake at night, the lies you told me.” I looked her over, and I saw the rigid way she held herself.
“You changed your mind, and I thank fuck that you did because, Quinn, if you had carried my baby to term and handed it over to those bastards, I would be in jail because I would have killed you.”
“Easy, Gray,” Ash warned me.
“And all that means nothing,” I continued, ignoring them all.
“It means fuck all because what happened, happened. You weren’t the only person who lost something, Quinn.
And we’re telling you, begging you, to help us so these fuckers never do this to anyone else.
That they don’t prey on confused, helpless girls and take advantage of them.
Do you know none of us sleep at night, seeing those films?
Thinking that could have been you? Do you know that it consumes us, that the very thought of you being on that table makes all of us sick?
” I ignored the tears that were streaming down her face.
“And we’re asking for your help. We’re asking you to help those who may have just been as uncertain and scared as you, and you tell us what?
We’re preventing you from moving on? Are you fucking kidding me right now? ”
“Get out.”
I stared at her as she met my fierce glare and raised her chin in defiance. “No.”
“Get the fuck out of my apartment. I don’t want to look at you.” Angrily, she wiped her eyes and pointed to the door. “I said leave.”
“C’mon.” Ash nudged me with his shoulder as he passed. “You need your hand looked at.”
The randomness of his statement made me look at my hand, and I saw it was swelling again, the cuts from the basement angry and red.
“Jett gets to stay?” I asked her quietly as I tried to flex my hand before I looked up at her. She nodded once, and I barked out a laugh. “Maybe you’ll have better luck this time and finally fuck the Santo you want to.”
“Gray—” Jett protested, but I walked past them both to meet Ash at the door.
Quickly, we both left and headed outside. We walked in silence as my demons raced through my head, and my temper rose higher and higher. “I need to fuck shit up,” I declared suddenly as I came to an abrupt stop.
Ash turned to look at me, and I was aware I had a lot to answer to my cousin, but right now, I needed to pummel something.
“Think you fucked that up back there spectacularly,” Ash said dryly.
I snorted as I looked at my hand again. “She pisses me off,” I muttered.
“Really?” His sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed. “Your hand’s fucked. You know that, don’t you?” Ash reached out and looked at it. “You’re not gonna get to play.”
I winced at the truth of it and looked at my cousin. “What the hell do I do now?”
Ash stood a few feet away from me. “Was it always like this? Between you two? The . . . desire?”
“You mean the rage?” I asked, and he gave a small snort at my terminology as he half shrugged. “Yeah, I think it was.”
“I must have been so blind.” He ran a hand over his jaw as he assessed me. “Why did you never say anything?”
“Because I was fifteen and stupid,” I snapped. “I never even considered she would go out with you,” I admitted, and then saw his affronted glare. “No offense. I thought she knew she was mine,” I added as I looked over my shoulder at her apartment.
“‘She was mine?’” Ash asked me with a raised eyebrow. “You sound like a possessive dick,” he told me.
“I am.” I resumed walking, and I heard him follow.
“Look, I don’t need to tell you that I’m not Jett.
We’re all family, you know me. I’m not going to fall over myself for forgiveness, I’m not that guy, and you would hate me if I was.
You’ve seen me at my worst, and you’ve seen me at my best. I’m not going to sugarcoat shit: I fucked up.
She’s mine, I should have told you to back off, and I didn’t.
That’s on me. Everything that happened before and after is for me and her to fix.
” I groaned. “If it can ever be fixed, but when she was with you, she was with you. She didn’t cheat,” I added.
“I know. She told me.”
“Okay, good. I’m a bastard, I get it. But I’m not a fucking bastard,” I muttered as we walked.
“You’re a shit cousin,” Ash said as we passed the rows of the dorms, and I grinned. “Worse friend.”
“I probably am.”
“Not the best brother either,” he added as he scuffed his foot off the sidewalk. “You know it’s never been like that between them.”
“I know.” Rubbing the back of my neck, I did regret saying that to her. “She knows what I’m like when I’m pissed. Maybe even more than Jett.”
“You think you two will work?”
“Fuck knows,” I told him honestly.
“I don’t think I can take it,” he admitted, “seeing you two together.”
I cast a quick glance at him and ran my tongue over my teeth. “If you make me choose,” I started.
“You choose her, I get it,” he cut me off.
Stopping, I stared up at the sky and the cloud cover. “I’m sorry.” I turned to look at him. “This is a shit way to find out, it’s a shit situation, and I know a thousand times I made the wrong choices, but the choices I made were for her. She’s mine, she was always mine.”