CHAPTER 14
Quinn
“What if, crazy idea but go with me here, what if you didn’t make everyone, everywhere think you’re a creepy sadistic asshole all the time?” Mac says as we spill out of the front doors of the hotel. I feign innocence and he goes on. “Couldn’t spare one dance for the poor girl?”
“Luna Mancini is no poor girl.”
“You know what I mean, did you even talk to her?”
I roll my eyes, “I didn’t need to talk to her. Why would I? I showed up, I ate. I let her take her photos.”
“You’re going to make a shit husband,” he laughs as we round the car Mancini loaned for us and get in.
“And she’s going to be an…interesting wife.” I say before starting the car.
“That’s for sure. A damn dog in a purse? Tink might eat that little thing if he’s not careful,” he looks out the window and starts to laugh. “I cannot wait to see the first time that little rat goes out in the yard to take a piss with the other dogs.”
I almost smile, imagining it.
“Fuck me, what even was that tropicana bullshit back there? She had flowers in her hair, boss. This is going to be fun watching that woman move into the house. Talk about a fish out of water.” He laughs some more.
“More like a flamingo,” I mutter thinking of her lithe body and long graceful neck. Not that I really noticed.
“Yes! A flamingo among wolves,” he wipes a tear from one eye. “She’s a pretty bird though, no denying that.”
“Hm,” I grunt. He eyes me but he doesn’t rib further, instead calling our pilot to tell him we’re incoming. He’s probably picking up on my unease.
She is pretty.
No.
Pretty is an understatement, just like everyone says. Even under the ridiculous clothes and make up and whatever weird shit was in her hair, she’s…otherworldly.
And Mac isn’t wrong about the house. Our compound works for us because we’re a family.
An unhinged, rowdy pack of wolves, as he said, but a solid unit, all the same.
Flamingo is fitting for her. Lanky, unique, bright…
and extremely fragile. She put her tiny, cold hand on my forearm and I had to fight not to flinch at the contact.
The softness of it…I don’t do well with warm, soft, or gentle.
Tough, abrasive, unforgiving. That’s our world. It’s what I know, what I do best.
My cousin is right about the damn dog too. He’s too small, too skittish.
Luna though, she’s small but not skittish. Not even a little.
I’m used to being feared. For many women I’m too big, too scary. But there’s another type. The ones that find me at the club or whisper my name around the compound. They get off on the terror, the adrenaline. Works for me if it works for them.
There’s disgust sometimes, sweet women who have heard the rumors. They look at me and can only see the dark beast of Boston’s underbelly. They’re correct, and their hatred and judgement don’t bother me.
The Mancini woman though, she wasn’t afraid or disgusted.
She was unaffected altogether. Which made me twitchy.
Because now I’m driving back to the small airport wondering what exactly would affect my future wife, if not me?
I know she’s heard the stories. I know she had files drawn up on me, just as I did on her. So what would scare her? Thrill her?
And most of all, why the hell am I even interested at all?