Chapter 9 Reed
Reed
The plane stumbles onto the air strip, a single tarmac surrounded by thousands of pine trees. A heavy fog persists in the dawn air as the sun rises in the east.
Dear home.
Wolfston.
The word tastes bittersweet on my tongue—like wild blueberries tainted by gunpowder. It’s been in the family for centuries. Our family emigrated from England shortly before the American Revolution. Slaughtered a few Redcoats for Mr. Washington. The rest is history.
I glance to my right.
My little mouse has folded himself into the leather seat, asleep at last. His head is tilted toward me, lashes trembling against his cheek. Blonde hair is ruffled, soft strands lying against his forehead. His pink lips quiver from each gentle exhale.
He looks painfully delicate in a way that makes my chest tight. Fragile like the petals of a sunflower. My very own sunflower. I could trace the pulse beneath his throat with one finger. I could crush it with two.
My stomach knots at the thought. Revulsion, fascination, the sort of hunger that never ends well.
Quinns don’t get soft. We aren’t supposed to feel.
But there’s something disarming about him—how he makes my blood boil with lust. I should be thinking about strategy, about the Baptistes, about the blood debt that needs to be settled between our families. Instead my brain is intent on memorizing his number of respirations per minute.
It’s pathetic. Laughable.
But I can’t help it for some reason.
I drag my eyes away to look out the window toward the tree line. The forest is overgrown, pristine old growth that has never seen an axe. Only screams and blood.
And now I’m bringing this foolish boy into it—who runs toward danger like it’s his addiction. Like he’s never been properly broken or subdued. There’s a part of me that respects that stupidity. Mostly there’s a part of me that wants to throttle it out of him.
To hear him scream into the forest until he’s mine.
If anyone so much as lays a hand on him, I will skin their scalp and hang it where the evergreens can drink in the lesson.
I’ll feed their blood to the virgin roots, let the crows pick out their eyes, and leave the rest of their flesh for the maggots to feast on.
Show them what happens when a Quinn gets a touch of the feels.
I nudge him from his slumber. “Wake up.”
He blinks his eyes slowly as he returns to reality, arms stretching softly like a kitten before they bite your finger. “What time is it?”
“Eight o'clock Eastern.”
“Feels earlier,” he murmurs.
“Yeah, a little bit of a time difference.”
He rubs his eyes, then looks at me with a tragically cute grin. “Do we have to do the whole… meet-the-family thing now? Could we maybe do brunch and a massacre later?”
I should have expected a joke from his smart lips. “No brunch. No mimosas. Candace is waiting for us on the runway.”
Bucks opens the door and the brisk wet air moves in. The forest air smells of aspen and fresh blood. “Morning, Mr. Reed. Your sister looks eager to greet you.”
Candace is anything but eager to greet me. Probably more eager to cut my tongue.
I glance at her for the first time in years, her black hair is pulled back in a braid. She’s wearing leather boots that have stomped out at least three men’s brains, and a wicked smile that would make the devil chuckle.
Cooper and I make our way down the steps, stepping on the runway. I see the pink bloom in his cheeks as Candace tears him apart with her gaze.
“Reed,” she says, her voice as sharp as Damascus steel. “Tardy as ever. And who’s this fluff?” Her gaze flicks to Cooper like she’s deciding whether to bring him to the pound or to string him from the branches.
“Cooper,” he offers, extending his hand. “Hi. I’m the fluff. Pleased to be serial killer adjacent.”
Candace’s brows furrow with fury. “Stay close and stay out of the way. Don’t wander off. Don’t flirt with my brother. Don’t die.”
“I’ll try,” he chirps as light as a feather.
“Reed in the front seat with me,” Candace says as we trot towards the jeep.
Cooper lofts himself in the backseat, while I settle in the passenger side. The aged black jeep smells of dirt and dried hemoglobin.
“So you weren’t going to tell me or any of the family about this little ray of sunshine?” she whispers, her tone like a hissing cat.
I watch her study Cooper through the rearview mirror: the innocent grin, the way his shoulders try to pretend like his heart isn’t racing.
She’s analyzing him—her eyes shifting back and forth as if she can’t decide if he’s prey or has some potential.
“I figured I could bend the rules a little bit since you were pleading for me to come back.”
“Rules are rules,” she spits. “Only family is allowed on the estate except for vetted visitors. You know that.”
“I know. But as the heir apparent, I made a judgement call. There’s no telling if they were going to send another killer after him. He would have been a liability if I left him.”
Her jaw tightens, eyes seething. “So, you drag him home and assume that we haven’t been fending off Baptiste excursions.”
“I see something in him. He might be worthy,” I say as he twiddles with his thumbs, not exactly instilling the meaning of my words.
The jeep shakes over a rut as we turn onto the gravel road, suspension groaning, while the canopy of branches surrounds us.
Her jaw ticks, eyes focused on the winding road. “Worthy of what, exactly?”
The question hangs in my mind for a second. “Of being trained. I know the Baptistes have grown their numbers. They outnumber us three to one. They can spare bodies. They want to wipe us out.”
Cooper is still distracting himself in the back, trying to act like he isn’t listening to every word.
Her knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “And you think your little toy back there is the answer?”
I stare out at my window at the darkness created from the dense forest. “I think he could be helpful. He’s reckless, but he’s fast. His instincts are there. And he doesn’t scare easily.”
Candace exhales an exasperated sigh. “You better be right about him, Reed. Because if he cracks—if he can’t do what you brought him here to do—you’ll have to be the one to end it.”
I glance back at Cooper, soaking in his crystal blue eyes, offering him a smile. His eyes light up, as if he’s prepared for the challenge. “I think he’ll do whatever it takes.”
God help me, my gut better be right. Otherwise, I will have to be the one to kiss him goodbye.
***
The family den is centered around a massive brick fireplace, smelling of oak and ashes, the blaze is burning almost as hot as the temperature inside my father’s noggin.
“You didn’t think to ask before breaking the biggest rule that our family lives by?” He seethes, the skin wrinkling on his balding head, eyes bulging from their sockets.
“No, I did not. I assumed a larger crisis was facing our family rather than to abide by some ancient rules.”
He slams a fist onto the mantel. “These rules have kept Wolfston a secret from the outside. They have protected our family from scrutiny for generations.”
“I’d call it hiding,” I mutter.
His head snaps toward me, the old assassin’s precision still intact even after the onset of arthritis. “I’d call it survival.”
I shake my head. My father is as stubborn as ever, but it seems even worse with his old age. Cooper is sunk into the couch beside me, trying to shrivel his body, like a kid trying to hide from roaring lions. My father’s eyes keep cutting toward him, each glance sharp enough to graze his throat.
“Who is he?” my father demands. “What is he?”
“Alive,” I say. “Which is more than I can say for the Baptiste that tried to kill him.”
My old man’s mouth tightens. “This isn’t a stray cat that you can feed, Reed,” he growls. “You bring an outside here, you endanger all of us. Your brothers, your sisters, the council, the extended family. Every Quinn that still breathes.”
“Or I brought in the one person who might save us,” I counter. “You always told me to recognize potential before it kills you. I’m just following that advice.”
He leans forward, the fire snapping between us. “If you’re wrong,” he says quietly, “you’ll kill him yourself.”
I hold my breath, carefully treading the boundary of respectful disagreement and passion, but before I can respond, my father stomps out of the room with his whiskey glass, mumbling incoherent nonsense to himself.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Cooper.
“Don’t be, this is exactly where I want to be.”
“I told ya, Reed,” Candace says.
My younger twin sisters step forward from the edges of the room: Alice and Mary. Identical twins with short black hair. They do everything together. Their nails. Their sewing. Their killing.
They saunter toward the couch like sharks tasting fresh blood in the water.
Their hands concealed in their jackets. Mary watches Cooper with detached curiosity, while Alice opens her lips first. “Dad is a bit out of touch with the present. But why put us at risk, Reed? You know the rules better than any of us.”
“Answer her, Reed. Don’t make us guess at your logic.”
I look at Cooper, his stature returning in confidence from the confines of the couch.
“I brought him, because he’s fast and agile. He’s a runner, quicker than any of us. If we do have an ambush, he could be our secret weapon. A distraction that the Baptistes don’t see coming.”
“Speed isn’t loyalty,” Mary says. “You sure he isn’t a Baptiste disguised as a lamb?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because one of them almost choked him out.”
Alice chirps in. “Fair enough. But what if that was a ploy. A sacrifice for a Trojan horse?”
“Well, then you have to trust me,” I quip. “Nobody wants to see our family succeed more than I do. That’s why I left. To strengthen our family. But I’m back now. If he’s a liability I’ll handle him.”
My sisters' eyes meet in a triad of subtle acceptance, their arms folded.
“Where is Zacariah?” I ask.
“Zac’s knee-deep in Tehran. Taking down an Iranian pedo ring. He has one more target. Should be back in a day or two,” Candace says casually, as if international assassinations are like taking out the trash.
“Isn’t Iran a bit far? Don’t we have some bastards we can kill more locally?”
“Local work is boring,” Alice says, folding her arms. “But there is a target in Vermont that we’ve been tracking for a few months.”
“Oh really?” I ask, nudging Cooper, to make sure that he’s paying attention.
“Yeah, the mayor has been siphoning off funds that were meant for the women’s clinic. He also has a history of targeting them for victims. Our research points to Lake Champlain as his preferred dumping ground.”
“The mayor of Blue Cove?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess we have our first training tomorrow, Cooper. We’ll leave at dawn.”