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DECLAN

C arefully laying her on her side, I turn on the lights. And then I see her there, her breathing shallow, her eyes closed.

Peaceful.

Beautiful.

Mine.

I instinctively clutch at my chest, a searing, familiar pain lancing through me. The same agonizing stab that always accompanies the memory of her.

The way she screamed for me.

The way she betrayed me.

I tap on the headset, and Finn’s voice comes through.

“Office,” I say.

Folding my arms over my chest, I get down on one knee, brushing her hair from her pretty face. She still has the deep purple running through the ends of her hair, throwing my mind straight back to Italy.

“It didn’t have to go this way,” I tell her.

The door opens behind me, and I back away from her.

“Tell me she ain’t dead?” Finn asks as I turn to face him.

“No, just knocked out for a bit. You should know, you’re a doctor.”

I point at her chest, clearly moving.

“What’s your plan?” he asks.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

“To use her weakness against her to get her to speak.” I tap my nose and grin.

Her weakness is me.

As she is mine.

“Take her to the final room.”

I watch the color drain from his face, and he slowly shakes his head.

“So that’s it? She wins?”

I step in front of him and look down.

“I’m The Master of the Inferno, correct? I am positioned to maintain power. You—” I jab him in the chest. “—your role is to execute. Maintain the order behind the scenes.”

He swallows and looks down at my finger pressing against his ribs.

“Yea, boss.” The sarcasm rolls off his tongue as he bats away my hand.

“You want whoever the hell entered her into the games to be welcomed into Inferno?” he asks.

My jaw ticks.

Something isn’t adding up.

I shake my head.

“We make no announcements to the families of the contestants’ results until I get the answers from her.” I look down at my heartbreaker, and my anger sizzles.

“Right. We can hold off a few days. I guess.”

“Have the remaining girls held in the cabin until it’s resolved. Let’s see if she makes it out of the next room alive first.”

I swallow the lump in my throat.

Could I?

I grit my teeth. She’s made me into this man. She betrayed me, and in that very moment, I swore never to trust anyone outside my small circle.

“I don’t like this, Dec. Something’s up, and I bet Enzo knows all about it.”

“Perhaps. But we’re the Quinn brothers.”

I clasp his shoulder firmly.

“And no one fucks us over and gets away with it. Not her. Her family. Nor Enzo. He relies on us now. Our games, our order. Our kills.”

A faint cough leaves her lips and we both look at her.

“Let’s get her set up before she can kill us both.”

Finn laughs, but I don’t join him.

I’m not even sure our first encounter was fate now. But twice.

This is fate in a twisted kind of way.

She was sent here to me.

But the shock she was in when she realized it was me, that wasn’t fake.

Whether she knew it or not, she was after me.

And I intend to do whatever it takes to get the truth.

As Conan steps through the door, I step out of the way.

“Take her to room five.”

My cock twitches. Fuck.

“You got it. Enzo is on his way, Dec. He just called me.” I look up at the blinking monitor in the right corner of the room.

He’s known as the best hacker in the country for a reason.

I wave at him through the camera and smile.

He knows something, or he wants to know something.

She has his attention as much as she has mine.

Finn looks at me warily as Conan lifts her into his arms.

“Careful,” I grit out, and Finn shakes his head.

“I don’t know what spell her pussy put you under for five years, but keep your fucking head. No cunt is worth our empire, brother,” Finn tells me, and I clench my fists.

We lost our father for this.

We lost ourselves along the road.

Selling our souls to the devil gave us a one-way ticket to hell.