CHAPTER 42
Quinn
“Van?” she says back, her brows scrunched.
Fuck, it sounds good to hear her finally say it.
It’ll sound less great when she’s stabbing a knife in my heart, but, oh well.
Comms are probably exploding. Command is probably doing everything possible to stop this.
Since they stood by and watched my home get destroyed hours ago, I don’t really give a damn.
We have a few minutes, hours. Then I’m probably dead.
At least I get to spend them with her. What a fucking sap.
“You’re a fed?” She asks, her whole body shaking.
“No.”
Her forehead scrunches even more. It’s painfully adorable.
“No? Fucking no?” she starts to screech but schools her features. Panic is setting in now. Took a little longer than I expected. She’ll mask it as anger and believably so.
She’s such a badass.
I grab two water bottles from a shelf under the desk. I hand her one and we both chug for a second before she wipes her mouth and demands, “Quinn, tell me what the hell is going on or I will take one of the…holy shit one of the thirty-three guns you have mounted over there and shoot you right now!”
I smirk.
This makes her angrier. Her cheeks flush.
Yup, worth it.
“First, you should probably stitch me up.”
“Stitch you up? How about I just let you bleed out? Who are you! What are you!”
“You won’t let me bleed out.”
She makes a show of sitting in my desk chair and crossing her arms. Her tits are pushed up. They’re also cold.
Focus, man.
I turn, knowing that giving her my back will send her over the edge. I move across the cavernous space that’s a makeshift gym. That’s where the bathroom is and it holds almost every medical supply we could need.
“Bold of you to walk away from me right now! Hope you don’t pass out and bust your head open on this cement floor and die!” She calls.
“You’re in love with me,” is all I say back.
I hear her growl, leap up from the seat, I think, based on how it rolls and crashes, and stomp up behind me.
“No, I’m not!”
“Now you’re lying.”
She scoffs, “Like you would know.”
I stop in the bathroom doorway and say, “Takes one to know one, and…” I grab the doorjamb because I’m starting to sway.
I guess I lost a lot of blood. My adrenaline is waning.
And I probably reopened the wound while taking my wife’s virginity up against a damn wooden door.
I wince at…all of it. “I’m telling you. It’s going to be a lot harder for you to do this if I pass out. ”
Her nostrils flare as she watches me. Finally she concedes.
She stomps past me into the bathroom. I fight a smile when I hear her ranting in Italian.
She goes on and on under her breath as she takes in the massive tiled room that is half medicine bay, half spa-style-bathroom.
She’s looking around with lots of what the hells and giant assholes.
She spits them all again when she spots the bedroom through the adjoining door.
It’s got a luxury hotel vibe to it, even though you can still sense it’s in a bunker.
“Ugh!” She cries, flinging open the medicine cabinet. “I’m not a nurse, do you know what to do?”
“Aye,” I say, making my way over.
“Of course you do. You probably did medical training before your six months living off the land.”
I don’t comment because she’s not far off. I grab the supplies and then hobble over to the rolling chair. It would be easier for her if I got up onto the table but I truly think I’ll pass out if I try. Should not have had sex after that much blood loss.
Worth it. So so fucking worth it.
I lay out everything on the counter and pull off my shirt. I wince. She watches.
Eventually, panting and sweating like a weak little bitch, I’m ready. I lift my arm so she can see the bullet wound.
“Went straight through. Saline rinse, both sides,” I tell her. She picks it up and, because she’s my wife, she crosses her arms and levels me with a glare.
“You talk, and maybe I’ll keep you alive.”
“You need me alive, Lasa.”
She laughs, “You think I can’t figure out how to get a message to Vix over there at that spaceship desk?”
“Vix just blew up my house,” I try.
“Liar,” she replies, unfazed.
I sigh. We both know she’ll stitch me up but I’d rather stay conscious for it.
“I did kill my twin brother. Quinn senior, my biological father, forced us to fight it out. Brian was bleeding and in pain and our father just kept pushing us, shouting, guns to our heads to keep fighting. We just had small knives. He wanted it to be slow and as brutal and painful as possible.” Luna’s breaths turn rapid.
“Spray the saline, Luna.” She blinks hard and nods.
She starts cleaning so I go on, “I couldn’t do it to him.
He was hurting badly. I disarmed Quinn senior, that’s how I scarred my face, scuffling to get his gun.
But I won and I shot my brother in the head so it would be over. I was thirteen.”
“Quinn, that’s…”
“One of a million fucked up stories just like it in the mafia. Dons go insane with power and then they get obsessed with their heir. Get more and more paranoid. They’re all sadistic assholes, every one.”
“Your father? But every night, Sheila said you hand feed him—”
“Poison. I have been poisoning him little by little, day by day.” Her mouth falls open again, then she shuts it.
She stares at the supplies. “Antibiotic injection dart, now. Outer thigh, midway up.” I smirk.
“Hey, you finally get to stab me.” She does, swiftly jabbing the needle into my leg. I chuckle, “Feel better?”
“Marginally. Keep talking.”
“Spray that now, but don’t let me pass out.” She holds up the bottle and studies it. I explain, “It's a top-secret military-grade spray bandage solution. It’s going to sting like a motherfucker so keep me upright.”
“Right. Okay. Talk through it.”
“K. So, after he died…Brian died, I was a mess.”
“You were a child.” She says, passionate, defensive. For me. Because she loves me.
Maybe she won’t use this against me.
Maybe she won’t immediately find a way to get this information to her father or Volotov or the highest bidder.
Maybe pigs are flying around outside, you moron.
No going back now. I keep talking, scared shitless and hoping she doesn’t notice. “My father, the man I consider my father, found me soon after. I was weeping in a damn ditch. Hiding. Couldn’t stop crying. He knew exactly what I wanted.”
“Revenge,” she says. Of course she understands. My wife. My perfect match if ever there was one. Sorry luck for both of us.
“Shit!” I hiss, because the spray is like fire.
“Don’t be a crybaby. Go on.”
I would laugh if I wasn’t burning alive on my left side right now.
“Yes. Revenge. He’s taken in many of us with that promise. A small few as adopted sons and daughters. Who knows how many as operatives.”
“Operatives?”
“Bandages now,” I instruct. She’s frozen, her mid reeling, I’m sure. I keep my mouth closed until she gets the gauze on. “We’re a shadow organization. Soldiers and spies everywhere. Feds, cops, governments…”
“And the mafia,” she finishes for me again, softer now.
“Yes.”
“So, when you say revenge, what does that mean?”
I inhale and exhale. “Oxy now. Just one unless you want to knock me out.” She pours three pills out, of course, stares at them, then extends me one. I start to take the pill from her hand but she pulls back.
“What does that mean?” She repeats.
“Mutually assured destruction. All the syndicates will go down.” I watch the color drain from her face again. Watch the light burn in her eyes. “All the dirty cops and corrupt officials, too. Everyone.”
“But…that’s your family. Your men you’re talking about!” She’s so gorgeous when she’s angry. Or scheming. Or sleeping or coming. So, all the time.
I stand, “I have a few more minutes before that pill wipes me out for a couple hours.”
“Then start talking! You’re going to kill all your own men?”
I wince. I lift my left arm, wordlessly asking for her help. Clenching her jaw, she obliges and tucks herself under me for support. We head to the bedroom.
“Killing is not really our style.”
She stops moving, “Not killing? The fuck? Quit talking in riddles!”
“We try not to out-right murder anyone. We’ve seen enough death. We plan and plot and everyone kills each other or rots in prison for life, ideally.”
She stops again, “Quinn. Van. Whatever the fuck. You’re a known murderer! Your nickname is Skulls, what are you even talking about.”
“Baby, please stop yelling.”
“NO!”
I chuckle, despite the pain, “I have had to kill people, yes. Especially when I was young and proving myself. That’s when I got most of my tattoos. And many of them were merciful. It makes a great story that I chopped heads off but think about it, a bullet to the head—”
“Is a gift,” she says my words back to me.
“Exactly. As far as mafia kills go, a sword through the brain or a smash to the skull is the best of them.”
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this!” She sounds angrier than ever. “You don’t murder?” Leave it to Luna Mancini to be disappointed about showing mercy.
“You’d’ve rather I tortured them all?”
“I’d rather you make some fucking sense! You’re planning to kill your whole clan?”
“No. My loyalty is not to the Irish,” I say, knowing it might disgust her. It’s the truth. “But I do care about them. I’ve worked hard to weed out the trash. To change the culture, to teach honor and dignity. Patience, self control, mercy. It took years.
“The men on the compound, almost everyone you’ve seen, they’re young and know almost nothing vital.
They’ll be spared. The old guard, Quinn senior and all his lieutenants, the ones who trafficked slaves and raped and pillaged their way through Boston, innocent bystanders be damned,” I swallow, thinking of my father and his men. “They’ll wish for death.”
I settle onto a recliner that’s in the corner of the room for this purpose. I need to keep my head elevated but I need to sleep.
She stares at the floor, face contorting more and more, as she puts the pieces together. “So, you married me to get access to my father.”
“Yes, but—”
“So you can eventually kill my whole family. Some spy I am. You were going to kill me all along!”
“No,” I try.
“And then my whole family too! Asshole!”
“Not whole. It’ll be the same in every clan, Luna. The low-level men, the young boys, the women. They’ll have options. Short prison terms. WitSec. Or they can join us. Get recruited or marry in.”
“I am not low-level!”
“You married in.”
“The fuck I did! I hate you!”
“You don’t. And Zeno, the people you love, we’ll turn them.
Many people join us when they learn exactly what they’re involved in.
Men take orders but they don’t realize what products they’re moving, who they’re really hurting.
People become spies in the clans. Work their way up in the government for us. ”
I watch as her face lights up.
“Government. Mark fucking White! I knew it. I knew it!” I nod. “Wait, Ellie…”
“She knows.”
For a flash, anger turns to sadness, so quick anyone else would have missed it. For a few seconds, my wife is a war of emotions. She stops and starts sentences. She switches from Italian to English and back again. Finally she locks eyes with me. Her voice shakes, “But he’ll never turn. My Papa.”
“Luna,” I say slowly and clearly, “Your Papa will not have any options.” She inhales, eyes burning, but I go on, “On my computer, you can open the file. Mancini. See for yourself.”
“No,” she starts shaking her head violently.
I force myself to push on, “Look at it, Luna. See the truth. Slavery. Minors. Killing innocent witnesses. The list is long. Women and children.”
“No! Fuck you! You’re lying!” She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a couple steps back from me.
“Luna,” I say, putting all the strength I have left into the command, “Look at me.” She does, all fire and pain and unbearable beauty. “Look…look at what really happened to your mother.”
At that, she turns her head, curses, and vomits. Though I’m fighting it, trying to stay awake, I can feel myself slipping. I pray with every cell in my being that she’s still here when I wake up.
Then, with a known spy in the middle of my secret safe space—with almost every weapon in my arsenal and piece of my intel at her disposal—I pass out.