Chapter 32 Quinn
Quinn
Jewel’s office smells like gunpowder and death.
Her body is twisted on the floor behind the desk, limbs bent wrong in ways Quinn can’t think about for more than a second at a time. The air feels thick with tension, like they’re standing on the edge of something big.
Quinn barely notices any of it. There’s a gun pressed to his head hard enough to bruise, and there’s an arm hooked around his neck, locking him against Gun-Guy’s chest, but the only thing in the room that matters is Kaian.
Rage pounds through him. Hot. Useless. The kind that makes his wolf claw at his insides and his teeth ache with the need to bite and tear.
If he could move, he’d rip Gun-Guy’s throat out with his bare hands and go for the others next.
Instead, he’s trapped here, forced to watch, every muscle in his body strung so tight it hurts.
Across the room, Kaian is very still.
The big man’s attention is already back on Kaian, with a light in his eyes that sends a frisson of fear down Quinn’s spine.
“Let’s finish this. Time to go.”
Kaian just smiles at Quinn like this is a private moment between them instead of a room full of danger and magical monsters. For one fractured second, Quinn wants him to say the words shining so plainly in his eyes.
I’m sorry. I love you. Don’t do anything stupid.
And he thinks Kaian might let the words spill out between them. Then the light goes out of his face. One second, Kaian is looking at him with that terrible, tender affection, and the next, his gaze goes flat, like he’s turned off whatever was lighting him up.
The big man’s hand closes around Kaian’s upper arm, and Kaian doesn’t even fight.
That’s what hurts Quinn more than anything else.
Not the gun at his head. Not Jewel’s body twisted on the floor.
Not the sick memory that they could have been safe in the nest at the house, laughing at Isaac’s antics while they ate pancakes and maple syrup that he’d been looking forward to since Elias had offered.
It’s that Kaian has given up.
Quinn can only watch as his body goes unnaturally still. His pupils blow wide, swallowing the warm hazel Quinn has memorized in every light they’ve shared until they’re nothing but black, bottomless, and as empty as an open well.
The scent of patchouli fills the room, and the hair stands straight up on Quinn’s arms. Kaian’s eyes roll back, and he slips bonelessly from the man’s grip to the floor with a hard, ugly thud that Quinn feels all the way in his soul.
“Kai!”
He lunges on instinct, wrenching against the arm hooked around him.
For one glorious, violent instant, he almost breaks free, and hope flares hot and stupid in his chest. Then the gun jams harder into his temple, and pain bursts white behind his eyes.
“Quit that, Lomax, or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off. ”
He goes still because he has to, because one wrong move will get him killed before he can get to Kaian, before he can do a goddamn thing, and the helplessness of it is so blinding he could scream.
Jimmy stares down at Kaian’s body and lets out a nervous bark of laughter. “That was creepy.”
The big guy stares for a moment before nodding to the male mage. “Gregor, we have a few loose ends to take care of, and then we’re out of here before anyone else shows up.”
The smaller magic user’s crocodilian smile is bone-chilling. “Sure thing, boss.”
“We’ll get out of your hair, then,” Gun-Guy says to the room, and he moves to the door with his arm still around Quinn’s chest like a living shield. The bigger man is breathing heavily, and there’s a fine tremor in his chin visible out of the corner of Quinn’s eye.
The big goon has an eerily pleasant smile on his face as if he’s shaking hands at church or at a political rally—dead-eyed and pleasant at the same time.
“That won’t be necessary…Alfonso—is it?” Niall smooths the front of his suit. “No matter. Denise?”
The woman had climbed to her feet and perched on the edge of the desk, flicking Jewel’s gold lighter on and off, her eyes fixed on Kaian, still crumpled on the floor. “Fuck yes! Can I do it?”
“No. Take charge of Mr. Lomax, please.”
No sooner does he finish than Quinn feels iron bands of air wrap around his limbs and a pressure at the base of his skull.
His wolf howls at the audacity, trying to push her out, but the harder he tries, the harder she digs in.
It’s made worse because she seems to enjoy his struggle, eyes alight and narrow lips spread wide in a grin over yellowing teeth.
“Oooh, he’s a fun one. Come,” she says, and without meaning to, his feet move him in her direction. “He’s a dancer, right? Bet I could make him—”
“Denise,” the big goon says. “We don’t have time. He’ll serve his purpose.”
“Oh, come on, Niall. He’s pretty.” She waggles her eyebrows and licks her lips. “Can’t we keep him?” She moves her fingers in a come-hither fashion, but Alfonso is still hanging on so tight that it’s resulting in a perverse tug of war.
There had been many times in Quinn’s life when his body hadn’t really felt like his own, but they had always been his choice. This? This was not.
Step after step, Denise pulls on Quinn until eventually Alfonso is forced to let go or end up nearer Denise than he’d like. “Hey! Lomax is ours. Mr. V said we were to return with the stripper or else.”
Niall isn’t listening and begins humming something that sounds like a lullaby under his breath.
From his place near the door, Jimmy says, “Mr. V don’t like it if we ignore orders.”
Niall reaches into his vest and pulls out a set of blue vinyl gloves. He snaps them into place. Next comes a plastic Ziploc bag with a handgun inside.
Vincenzo’s goons watch, fascinated, as Niall pulls the gun out of the bag, pops the magazine, and checks the ammunition with practiced ease.
The little metallic sounds are almost delicate in Jewel’s cramped office, obscene against the bodily fluids on the carpet and the body twisted behind the desk.
“Mr. Vincenzo will no doubt be very upset.”
Quinn knows this is the moment everything goes to shit.
Alfonso should know it, too. He should be shooting his way out of the room or dragging Jimmy by the collar and making a run for the front door, because nothing about the way Niall moves says negotiation.
It says cleanup. But the low, soothing song under Niall’s breath and the awful quiet in the room have both men standing there like idiots at the edge of their own graves, too fascinated or too frightened to do the smart thing.
Quinn tries to push against the steady pressure in his skull. He’s no fighter; he knows that, but he can’t stop trying to get himself and Kaian out of here.
Denise just chuckles, and the pressure tightens, grinding deeper, until his thoughts feel wrapped in wire. His wolf throws itself against the cage, snarling and frantic. Before he can stop it, his own arm is lifting, his own hand extending toward her like he’s some obedient thing waiting to be led.
“What do you mean by that?” Jimmy asks.
Alfonso finally pulls his head out of his ass and, in a single fluid motion, like the thought and action are one, he fires at Niall. The noise of the two guns firing in Jewel’s small office is so loud that Quinn would flinch if he had control of his body.
Alfonso’s bullet goes wide because there is a golf-ball-sized hole in the center of his forehead, and most of his brain is splattered on Jewel’s wall and the back of Quinn’s neck.
Jimmy takes off out the door, running for the front of the club. Gregor just huffs a laugh and gets out of Niall’s way. The next bullet takes Jimmy out just as he’s about to make it to freedom, the cruel smirk on Niall’s face implying he’d enjoyed letting the man think he might make it.
Jimmy falls into the locked front door, most of his face splattered like red paint on the once-clean glass.
“Wrap them up. Put this and the bodies in the dumpster out back.” He tucks the gun back inside the bag, but doesn’t zip it shut.
“Yessir.” Gregor salutes and heads off toward the staff entrance at a jog. Over Denise’s shoulder, Quinn watches the security monitor as Gregor pulls a roll of plastic out of the SUV, then enters through the side employee entrance.
“Denise, let’s clear that security feed just in case. Then we can get our prize back to base.”
Denise drifts behind Jewel’s desk, lifting a hundred-dollar bill from the loose stack and tucking it into her pocket before flipping open the laptop. Her fingers settle on the keyboard. “Your daddy is going to be happy with you.”
Niall moves quickly, backhanding her so hard that she stumbles hard into Jewel’s chair. The squeak of faux leather turns Quinn’s stomach, and for the first time, her hold on his mind slips.
“You will speak about Father with respect.”
For one wild second, Quinn thinks about running, but Kaian is still crumpled on the floor, and the thought dies as fast as it came. He is not leaving his mate here, not for these fucking monsters to drag off while he saves his own skin.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Niall says in a sing-song voice.
Quinn can’t speak as Denise’s magical hold has reset, and he’s forced into silence around his impotent rage.
Niall sits on the edge of the desk, pulls his blue vinyl gloves off, and drops them into Jewel’s wastebasket.
The security feed behind the desk fuzzes out, and she yanks the disc out of the ancient drive before pulverizing it in front of Quinn’s eyes. She throws it into the air like confetti, adding a childlike “Weeeeee!”
“Big guy next, boss.” Gregor hauls the brainless Alfonso out the door and into the main area beyond the bar, a trail of blood and brain matter marring Jewel’s dirty carpet.
The scent of bodily fluids makes Quinn gag, and he thinks he might add puke to the crime scene.
Shit. The cops are going to have a heyday.