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Chapter33
Quinn
“You caused this shit show in the first place.” Val’s eyes blaze with anger. But conflict flares in her hard gaze. “You never should have come here tonight. I could have done this job on my own, without you fucking it all up with your stupid little whore.”
The vein in my throat throbs, rage humming through my insides. I want to grab her and shake her. “Do you realize that whether or not I showed up, they knew you were coming? Your pal Stepanov had you targeted from the second you shook your ass onto that stage. If you wanna blame tonight’s epic fucking failure on me, fine. But pull off those blinders, babe. Because you’re not fucking Teflon, that’s for shit sure.”
She recoils like I’ve just jabbed her with a hot fire poker.
“You hate hearing that, don’t you?” I grab the back of her hair and tug it hard. “That you couldn’t get the job done, that you couldn’t get the redemption you’re so desperate to find. That’s the life, sweetheart. You knew the terms when you signed on to be one of his fucking pawns.”
“Fuck you.” Her nostrils flare and she grabs hold of my shirt. “I killed Stepanov. He was a murderer, an evil bastard who steals lives. Tonight, I stole his. I got the fucking job done, asshole.”
“Keep telling yourself that. But deep down, you feel like Branko is still alive, still waiting to launch another attack because you couldn’t get to him. And now that you have a chance to get away and figure out what the hell to do next, you wanna risk death?”
“Everything I do, every move I make is a risk to my life.” Her eyes cloud over, glazed with disdain. “I accepted that a long time ago.”
“Sometimes, you lose. Acceptthat.” I release my grip on her hair.
She lets go of my shirt and shoves me away. “I always fucking lose. Always. For years, I’ve hunted this guy and… and…” Her shoulders shake, words caught in her throat. “Again, I… he…”
I wrap my fingers around her wrist and pull her close. She buries her head against my chest.
“It can’t end this way, Quinn. I can’t just walk away without doing what I came to do.”
“You took out the boss. The dead guy said it himself. What if Stepanov really is Branko? What if the chase is over? You ever think about that?”
“It would be too easy.” She shakes her head, her hair tickling the underside of my chin. “He was too stupid and sloppy to be Branko. Stepanov might be the face of the organization to people on the inside because he writes the checks, but I can’t believe he’d orchestrate all of this.”
Val seems convinced but I’m not so sure. I’ve seen plenty of powerful people creep out of their holes and expose themselves because they’re egotistical assholes. Maybe Stepanov was one of them. He obviously had no idea who or what Val had become since almost marrying his twat of a son.
A sharp whimper punctures the air.
Val twists around in the direction of another door on the far side of this torture chamber.
“Did you hear that?”
Dread knots my gut. “We should get out of here.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not leaving. Something is happening and I came here to stop it. Maybe it can lead me to Branko.”
“Or maybe it’ll lead to something worse.” An eerie sensation licks at the hairs on the back of my neck. I don’t like this. We found a big surprise behind door number one. I don’t want to stick around to see what’s hanging out, ready to lynch, behind door number two.
An annoying as fuck voice digs into my brain like tattoo needles.
Niall warned you against saving Val, but you did it anyway because you needed redemption, the same redemption she’s searching for.
Val bends down over the guy whose throat she just slit. She pulls apart his jacket, searching for another magazine for his now-empty gun. With a choked cry, she pulls back and sits on her heels. A stunned expression clouds her face, and she points to something on the side of his neck, something that wouldn’t have been visible unless she’d moved his shirt collar.
I furrow my brow at the ink. “An upside-down four-pronged pitchfork.”
“It’s the same tattoo I saw on the man who kidnapped me outside the arena. I’ll never forget it.” Her finger trembles as she traces the outline. “It’s the mark of Branko Ivanova and his terrorist ring. He is here. I’m certain of it.”
I close my hand around her wrist. “You don’t know that. That tattoo doesn’t mean he’s here. If he’s not actually Stepanov and he’s smart—which he obviously is because he keeps managing to get away from you and Alek and the rest of your killer crew—he would never be part of something like this. He’d always lay low because showing his face would jeopardize what he built.”
“Sounds like Mafia Boss 101.”
“Yeah, well, I failed that class the first couple of hundred times I took it, but this is common sense.”
