CHAPTER 40
Luna
“I don’t understand,” I tell my damn dog. For once, I’m not talking about my relationship with my husband. I’m talking about this stupid fence. “Every time we come over here, Tink goes ballistic. It has to mean something, right? You sense anything?”
Marlon licks his wiener.
“Thanks for the help.”
I look around for the millionth time. It’s just a plain old fence.
It runs for a ways to the left before it joins the bigger brick fence.
On the right it goes down into a ditch then back up the other side, on and on until it joins the bigger fence that runs into the front wall of the property.
Eventually. There are a few trees but I’ve climbed them all.
No hidden cameras or tech. Not tall enough that I could get a bird's-eye view of anything.
“Oh well,” I say.
It’s dusk now, so I grab Marlon and start to head back.
I never find out anything new when I stay out in the dark and it’s creepy as hell.
Nature is just too…quiet. It’s unsettling.
If there’s one thing I know for sure after living here, it’s that I am indoorsy.
Give me a book, a snack, and a thermostat I can set and I’m golden.
Quinn doesn’t seem like a big outdoorsman. So why the six month man versus wild thing? I put floaters out with Collin and Finn about the wilderness training they’d had. Both of them are shit liars. Clearly, the men don’t do it. Only Quinn did. Why?
I’ll figure it out. Eventually.
Marlon whines to pee even though he was just in the grass. I pause.
“Slowing me down, man,” I say as I set him on the ground. Everything is. Slowing me down. I never thought I’d be here this long. I never thought I’d still be spying and searching, still be interested and invested so many months later.
I haven’t talked to Ellie in days. It feels weird because now I know my calls are monitored. Not that I have much to share. I’m not going to wax poetic about all the training, shooting, and orgasms.
It’s been another week of no kissing and no real sex but Quinn lets me touch him now. I never knew hand jobs could be so hot. He still won’t let me suck him off.
Another annoying mystery.
Or maybe it's his master plan to torture me. Now, every look is charged. Every touch during training. Even when I spy on him from afar—watching him train a rookie with patience I frankly do not understand, or do something annoyingly kind like tell Bard, one of the few old men here, to take the rest of the day off when he walked past and noticed his arthritis was flaring up. Quinn noticed the guy’s hand going stiff and remembered he suffered from arthritis!
—even then, he’s so damn hot. I feel like he can feel me watching and he moves slower.
He flexes more. He pulls his bottom lip through his bright white teeth.
And that mouth. Telling me how well I’m doing at the range. Telling me how sexy I am on the mat. To distract me, sure, but he means it. Calling me Mancini one minute and baby the next.
I cannot. Get. Enough.
Still, it doesn't change my plans. He spoke to Zeno in front of me this week. Apparently they had a sit-down with Volotov Junior and his best soldier. Two Irish, two Italian and two Russians, together. It appears they’re letting Quinn keep his warehouse.
In exchange for something, of course. I didn’t hear what.
But Zeno’s headed home and spirits are high.
And Quinn let me hear their conversation as they entered the house. He saw me standing there in the entry, listening. He just didn’t mind.
He’s letting me in.
My plan is working.
I just have to remember it’s a plan. He wants me. He’s falling for me. The end.
Marlon lets out a little bark in my arms when he spots the kennel. He doesn’t sleep there but he likes to go inside to say hello to Quinn’s pack of black giants. I set him down by the doggy door and turn to the house.
Damn, dinner smells amazing even from out—
BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
·····
What? Fuck!
I can’t see.
I can’t hear.
I taste metal. My ears are ringing. I’m on the ground.
I’m on the ground?
Explosion. There were explosions. Plural.
And gunshots. I can hear gunshots.
We’re under attack.
Quinn is under attack?
Quinn is under attack.
QUINN!
I force my eyes open.
I get up, pull my knives from my back and I run.
·····
I can’t see much in the smoke but I want to get to the back of the house.
Once I get to the side wall, I can slip around the corner and in the back door like I have hundreds of times.
But there’s no more shrubbery or tree cover between where I’m standing and that wall. And I keep startling at every gunshot.
Amateur Hour! Get it together! Go!
I run.
“Shit!”
Bullets fly past. I don’t make it to the wall, I run into something?
“Luna!”
Someone.
Quinn’s here. I’m safe. His arms lock around me and he lifts me, running back to the cover of the treeline with me held to him.
“Quinn?” I say, shaking. He’s bleeding from one ear and I can feel one whole side of him is wet with blood. He’s been hit somewhere. “Quinn, you’re bleeding.”
“Luna, listen to me,” he begs as he sets me down and holds my head in his hands. “You have to run, Luna. Go to the back fence. Get out of here, now. Tink will take you.” He moves one hand to put his fingers in his mouth and whistles for his dog.
“What? No. I’m not leaving you.”
He looks back at me and holds me tighter, huge hands spread under my ears and down my neck. His eyes search mine, pleading. “For once in your life, for the love of God, listen to me. We’re holding them at the gate but—”
“Holding who?”
“I don’t know but there’s more coming and—”
“I’m not leaving you, give me a gun! Seriously let me fight, Quinn come on I,—”
“They can’t find you, Luna! They can’t take you. They can’t.”
His voice breaks and he pulls my face to his and kisses me, hard.
He groans and I open my lips. He takes over all my senses and invades me with his tongue.
Finally. The kiss is brutal and sad and desperate.
He wrecks my mouth with long passionate strokes I’ll feel in my soul until the day that I die.
He breaks off as a new volley of gunshots fire behind him. He puts his forehead on mine and, eyes closed, he pleads, “They can’t find you, baby. Please, please run for me.”
“O-okay,” I say and it’s my voice that breaks this time. “To the back fence?”
“Trust me. Tink will take you.” He barks an order to his dog in Irish and then pulls two guns from his back. “Now, Luna. Tink, rith go tapa!” His eyes lock with mine and he screams, “Run!”
For maybe the first time, I obey him.
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“Damn it, you’re fast.” I say to the dog as we reach the fence. I’ve kept up using adrenaline and shock but I feel the burn in my legs. “Now what? We’ve come here a million times, there’s—”
But…the dog is still moving. Tink goes down into the ditch and barks back at me.
I follow, taking careful steps so I don’t fall in the mud.
I’m already wet from sweat and I’m getting cold since it’s almost totally dark now.
Tink looks like nothing but huge, sharp white teeth.
Terrifying. But I can see her, at least.
I get down almost fully into the trench and then I see what she’s barking at. A little tunnel tucked into the side of the ditch. Like a circular drain pipe but not as perfect. Crude, smaller and under my feet this whole damn time.
“You sneaky bitch,” I say to the dog. I follow in total darkness, feeling my way and listening for Tink ahead.
I’m grateful the tunnel is mostly smooth and relatively short.
After five minutes of crawling that felt like five hours, we arrive through an opening that looks much more like a natural cave.
The woods look exactly like the woods we just left on the edge of Quinn’s land.
Or not the edge. The false edge. Damn. Smart.
Tink’s still going so I stand and run after her. In just a few seconds, I see it. A building. Well, shack. Old rickety cabin. No fortress. No wires or lights.
I sigh.
“I bet there’s no heat on in there,” I say to Tink as I go up the steps. The door is unlocked, making this place look less and less like the keeper of all Quinn’s secrets that I was hoping it would be.
Quinn!
I keep moving. If I think about it, I start to tremble. He’s back there, bleeding. He’s under attack. And Marlon. I fucking left my little buddy behind!
I fight a wave of nausea and take in the cabin around me.
It looks like every abandoned shack in every chainsaw killer movie ever made. A few cabinets and a basin, though no running water, a work table, some random rusted tools.
“Nothing. Nothing! I thought he told you to take me somewhere,” I look at Tink. She’s laid out on the floor panting. It’s clear she’s been here before the way she’s at ease on a spot by the wall.
Now what? No stove, no fireplace. Not even a blanket.
I start to pace.
Why the hell would Quinn send me here?
They can’t take you. They can’t.
The way his voice broke. That kiss. He can’t die back there. He won’t. He’s fucking Skulls Quinn. He’ll probably kill all of them before sunrise. But he said more were coming.
“Damn it!” I say out loud. Tink stirs, then flops back down.
If he dies…
No. I’m not going to think about that.
He’ll be fine.
He sent me here to keep me from being captured, tortured, ransomed.
But why is this place a secret? It’s a trash heap.
There’s got to be more out here. But I can’t explore it in the dark. It’s clear Tink thinks she’s reached her destination.
I pace and pace until my legs ache.
Finally, I collapse against the wall next to Tink. I curl up with her, needing some warmth. If it were the dead of winter I’d die out here, but overnight in the fall won’t kill me. I don’t think. Dehydration might. First thing in the morning I’ll go look for a stream or something.
Right now I need to sleep so I can face whatever fresh horrors tomorrow brings.