Three torturous hours of radio silence passed after Quinn told me that she had arrived in San Francisco. When my final call to her went unanswered, I hauled ass to the airport and booked the first red-eye out. As the wheels touch down on the SFO tarmac, I’m ready to pull my hair out by its goddamned roots. For a good hour I had considered reaching out to my brother. As ridiculous as it seemed, considering he’s the one who may have hurt her, I don’t know how else to check in to make sure she’s okay. I was nearly eight hours away by car, and I’ve lost all contact with anyone who still lives in the area with the exception of my parents.

I sure as fuck wasn’t going to ask for my father’s help.

I’m the first one off the plane. I secure a rental car from the first kiosk I come across before hitting the road in a shitty little foreign jobber, arriving at Quinn’s apartment in record time. It’s so damn early that the evening doorman I convinced to let me in the other night is still on duty. I’m guessing he remembers me the way he tenses up as I approach the building.

“I need to see her,” I say, once again passing him a hundred dollar bill. “She’s not answering her phone.”

Adjusting his red tie, he chuckles. “Probably because she’s sleeping.”

Not in the mood for his fucking sarcasm, I clench my teeth. “Is my brother home?”

“So you are Mr. Farrington’s brother.” His eyes flicker over my equally tense features. “Why bribe me to stay quiet about your visits if you’re family?”

“Don’t bust my balls, man! This is an emergency!” I dip into my wallet and hand him another fifty. “Is. He. Here.”

He plucks the bill from my hand, flashing a smart-assed smile. “No. He left early last night…seemed pretty shit-faced. Hasn’t been back since.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, hitting him with my shoulder as I pass.

In the event Quinn is perfectly fine and I’m just being paranoid—in which case I hope she has a good explanation for worrying me out of my fucking mind—I text her on the elevator ride up to let her know I’m here. As I’m stepping up to their apartment door, it swings open. I’m greeted with a delighted cry and a blur of blond curls as she jumps into my arms. She’s wearing the same pajamas as before, exposing a glorious amount of skin to my fingertips.

I squeeze her bare thighs tightly, burying my lips in her floral-scented hair. “Thank fuck you’re okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she cries, clenching her thin arms around me. “I should’ve messaged you back to let you know that I’m okay. It’s just…it was late, and…”

Hearing reluctance pinched in her throat, I set her feet back on the hallway floor and take her chin in my twitching fingers. The early signs of a nasty bruise cover a swollen cheek, and faint fingerprints pepper her neck. I should’ve known the coward would knock her around once he learned the truth about us.

Blood boiling, I suck in a sharp breath. “Did that fucker hit you?”

Her gaze darts away from mine as she takes my hand. “Let’s talk inside.”

I refuse to budge. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He took off after we had a fight. Probably spent the night with one of his many skanks.”

“Pack a bag,” I say with a growl. “You’re not staying here.”

“Linc, I can’t leave.” Giving me a pleading look, she again tugs on my hand. “Come inside. What I have to say is going to take a while. I’ll have to fill you in while getting ready for work.”

“I’ll come in, but only long enough for you to get dressed. You’re not staying here.”

Letting out a long huff, her shoulders drop. “Fine. I’ll let you take me out for breakfast. We can talk there. But I’m not packing a bag.”

A knot of unease twists inside my stomach as I follow her into the apartment. Is she changing her mind about us? Did my asshole of a brother threaten to hurt her even more if she leaves him?

“I’ll be right back,” she calls over her shoulder, heading back to their bedroom.

I do a visual sweep of the place, looking for signs of a struggle. But it’s as neat as the last time I was here, almost like one of those modules they keep just for showing potential renters. Freaks me out how well-kept the place is, which is saying a lot from someone who has been trained to expect perfection.

Though Quinn has agreed to take me back, being in the apartment she shares with my brother still makes me uneasy as fuck. Thankfully I’m not left with my thoughts for long before she returns in leggings and an oversized shirt, hair pulled back in a ponytail. The mark on her face seems ten times worse without the veil of her curls.

“If anyone sees you scowling at me like that, they’re going to think you’re the one who did this to my face.” With a dramatic roll of her eyes, she snags a small wallet off the countertop before taking my hand. “Come, on. I’m buying this time.”

“I’ll kill him,” I growl as I let her pull me along.

“I know.” Looking at me over her shoulder, she smiles. “But you might change your mind when you hear what I have to say.”

Seven years is a long time for anyone, especially when it’s the defining years of a person’s life as they leave home and find their way in the world as an adult. It seems like a lifetime when you’re brought through hell and back with grueling training to become one of the country’s most elite. But when I stare back at the woman I thought I wanted to spend the rest of eternity with, bottom lip held between her teeth as she waits for my reaction to how she tracked Kellen down and got him to agree to pay off her college debt and her mom’s rehab bills, I realize I may as well be staring at a complete stranger. Time has changed Quinn in more ways than I could’ve imagined.

I’m suddenly not so sure I really know her at all.

“I don’t know what to say,” I confess, spreading my hands over the table between us. “If you’re worried about breaking up with him because you think he’ll freak over the money he gave you, I’ll pay him back—every last cent.”

She reaches out to wrap her fingers around one of my hands. “It’s not that money I’m worried about.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been hacking into his computer for months.” It seems she’s holding back a smile the way her eyes dance when she bends in to whisper, “He’s been stealing from Luxco, Linc. He started out withdrawing small amounts to bogus customers, but it increased slowly over time. He has a sizable account in the Caymans…nearly five hundred thousand dollars.”

I grunt in response. Although not surprising, it’s ironic that my brother’s stealing from our old man. The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree—at least in Kellen’s case. I’m thankful as shit I got out when I did so I didn't end up like them.

“So this whole game of marrying him is just so you can claim half when you leave?”

With a shake of her head, the smile she’s been fighting finally spreads over her lips. “The account wouldn’t be traceable in a divorce. It isn’t in his name. It’s registered to a Trevor Benkin. The only man with that name I could find in social security’s records died five years ago.”

“And you’re happy about this because…”

She reaches into her wallet and slips a passport book across the table. “I found this buried in the back of Kellen’s closet. You could be Trevor, Linc.”

Dumbfounded, I instinctively flip the book open to find my brother’s picture beside the name TREVOR BENKIN. What the actual fuck?

Stomach dropping, I drop the book like a hot potato and push my hands under my armpits as I study Quinn’s excited expression. Who the hell is this woman, and what has she done with my girl? What she’s insinuating is highly illegal and dangerous. “You want me to help you steal the money from my brother.”

“Would you keep your voice down?” she pleads, throwing a paranoid look at the couple seated across from us. A shy smile passes over her lips when she leans back over the table. “You have to admit, it would be fairly easy to walk in there and pretend you’re him.”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” I spit out, ready to shake some sense into her. “Baby, I have enough money for us to live very comfortably.” She looks irritated that I want to make her a kept woman, so I take a calming breath and run a hand over my shortly shaved hair. “He’s a loose cannon, Quinn. He tried drowning me because he was jealous over the attention I got. Imagine what he would do if he discovered we stole that kind of money from under his nose.”

She lifts one shoulder as she retrieves the bogus passport. “He doesn’t know I have access to his accounts, so I already have an advantage. As long as I can convince him that I’m still planning to go along with our agreement, he won’t suspect anything out of the ordinary. When we’re ready to empty the account, I’ll tell him I have to be out of town a few days for work. It wouldn’t be the first trip my supervisor has sent me on.”

The waitress appears with our plates in hand. Irritation pricking at my skin, I lean back in the booth. Why is she ready to put our future on hold when we don’t need Kellen’s money? I still have a sizable chunk of my inheritance set aside. And if I live to be retirement age, I’ll be able to provide us with whatever we may need.

Then again, half a million is game-changing. And it’s Kellen’s.

“Anything else I can get you?” the waitress asks, glancing at each of our plates.

“We’re good,” I answer in a clipped tone. She’s barely left the table when I meet Quinn’s gaze and say, “This is about revenge. You want him to pay for everything he’s ever done to you.”

Her mouth draws into a straight line. “Don’t you?”

Grabbing a fork to push the scrambled eggs around on my plate, I shrug. “Well yeah, but—”

“He raped me.”

My heart stutters to a painful halt.

What the fuck did she say?

Dropping the fork, my eyes snap onto hers. “What?”

“During senior prom…the night you broke his nose.” Her expression remains dull as she continues, like she’s numb to the memory. “He grabbed me by the girls’ bathroom and dragged me around the corner. Cal and Alan kept watch. He told me I’d be reunited with my dad if I screamed, or told anyone what happened.”

Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt electrifies my body as bile gurgles in my gut.

My brother assaulted my girl on what was supposed to be one of the best nights of our lives.

When I remember how Quinn looked when she came back to me that night, hair and makeup a mess, agony solidifies in my gut like a ball of cement.

He hurt my girl.

My Quinn.

He’s a dead motherfucker.

Suddenly the diner’s too loud and too bright, filled with too much movement. I bolt from the bench with my twitching fingers clenched into fists and march toward the entrance with Quinn pleading my name behind me. Our waitress stops her before she can get to me, allowing me to exit the diner in peace.

Thoughts too fucked up and too loud to be heard over one another ripple through my head. I should’ve kept a better eye on her that night. I should’ve gone looking for her after a few minutes had passed.

But after what that bastard did to her, I broke up with her.

I don’t know whether to roar, or run, or storm into the first gun shop I can find, but I have to do something before the raging inferno in my chest explodes.

“You all right, mister?”

I turn to find a busboy leaning against the building, smoking a cigarette. From the way he regards me, I’m pretty sure he’s afraid that I’m going to bomb the place. Isn’t the first time I’ve scared someone with my rage.

“Can I bum one?” I ask, starting for him.

With a shaky nod he grabs one from his shirt pocket, hurriedly handing me a menthol. I pop it into my mouth and he lights it for me. Sucking in the poison I haven’t put in my lungs for years, I tilt my head back against the brick wall and close my eyes.

An image of Kellen smirking at me on prom night appears behind my eyelids.

“Linc!”

I open my eyes to find Quinn running toward me. “Oh thank god. I was scared you’d run off.”

Lowering the cigarette to my side, my fingers twitch uncontrollably, almost dropping the damn thing. I attempt to look back at her without losing my shit, but I’m drowning in anger too intense to contain. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

The busboy flicks his cigarette into a garbage bin and disappears through the diner’s back door. Quinn lets out a loud sigh and plucks the cigarette from my hands. She backs into the wall at my side while taking a long drag.

“Because I knew you would’ve tried to kill him.”

“Damn right I would’ve!” My face twitches with a scowl when I square up to her. “Still can’t promise that I won’t! That son-of-a-bitch doesn’t deserve to be breathing!”

“That’d be too easy. And I couldn’t stand the thought of you spending the rest of your life in prison.” Blowing the smoke out between her lips, she hands the cigarette back to me, locking her gaze with mine. “I want him to feel real pain—the kind you can’t recover from. I want him to suffer.”

“How can you be with him after what he did? Do you let him touch you?”

“I did at first, but only when I was drunk.” She ducks her chin as a dark blush fills her cheeks. “Even then I only got through it by pretending he was you.”

Fucking A.

Sticking the cigarette back between my lips, I inhale and stretch my neck, dropping the back of my head against the brick wall. Memories of the events that followed after we left prom creep into my conscience, so vivid it’s like I’m there.

---

“You shouldn’t have hit him,” Quinn said to me from the passenger’s seat. “You could be expelled for fighting on school property.”

“What happened between you and my brother?” I demanded, glancing between her and the road. It was dark and rainy, so it was hard to say if she was crying or if it was just a reflection from the wet windshield. But her expression was stiff, making it obvious she was upset. She had been through a lot since her father died and her mom became an addict, making her exceptionally tough. Sometimes it made her thoughts impossible to read. “I need to know what happened, Quinn.”

She turned to look out the side window. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Everyone has their limits, and I knew Quinn well enough to recognize when she had reached hers. So I didn’t push the subject. Instead I pulled into the convenience store parking lot down the road.

“What are we doing here?” she asked, sitting taller.

“We’re getting your favorite ice cream. Then we’re going to the hotel to watch movies or do whatever you want.”

Her expression filled with light. “What about the party?”

“Fuck ‘em. I just wanna spend the night hanging with my girl.”

After letting out an excited little squeal, she leaned over to brush her lips over mine. It was a soft, gentle kiss with just enough reluctance that I should’ve known something was off. But at the time I was more worried how I was going to let her go.

“You’re the best boyfriend ever,” she told me, beaming.

---

“Fuckin’ A,” I growl to myself, flipping my eyes open. I push away from the wall and take another drag from the cancer stick. It hurts too damn much to look at her now that I know the truth, so I stare at my shoes. “My brother assaulted you, and an hour later you told me that I was a great boyfriend. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?”

She touches my shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“The hell there wasn’t!” Flicking the cigarette to the curb, I pull away from her to pace the sidewalk. If I hold her the way I’d like to right now, I’m certain I’d never be able to let go. “You have to turn him in. You have to press charges.”

“No. We both know he can afford to hire attorneys that would get him off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. I’d rather get him where it hurts. He’s a prideful asshole, Linc. If I back out of my agreement to marry him before I’ve had a chance to steal the money, he’ll completely lose his shit.”

I stop pacing and stare at her, hands crossed over my chest. “Hold on. You’re saying he’s the one who wants to get married?”

What the hell is that about? Control? A stroke to his ego to make someone his wife that he once raped? The fucker’s every bit as psychotic as I’ve always thought.

Quinn nods while rolling her eyes. “It’s his way of getting your dad’s attention. We all know how much your old man always hated me. I guess he thinks it’ll piss him off enough that he’ll make Kellen CEO of Luxco if he breaks the engagement off.”

The final piece of the puzzle falls into place with a deafening click.

Quinn’s wrong. Kellen didn’t ask her to marry him merely as a way to upset our father.

He’s blackmailing the old son-of-a-bitch.