Page 21

Quinn

The air in the living room was suffocating, thick with tension, grief, and something else—something raw and unresolved. Aiden’s confession echoed in my mind, a relentless loop of words I couldn’t escape.

I stared at the floor, my body numb, my heart too exhausted to keep breaking.

It wasn’t just my father.

The weight of it didn’t rest solely on my shoulders anymore.

For years, I had carried that guilt, let it seep into my bones, let it define me. I let the world judge me for sins I never committed, let them strip me of my dignity, let them mold me into something smaller, something weaker.

The kids at school had bullied me, and my father’s work colleagues would whisper whenever we walked past. Things got so bad that we ended up moving to another town. But now—now I knew the truth, and it didn’t make things better. It just made me angry. Bitter.

Aiden exhaled sharply and turned to Connor and Victor. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice like gravel. “You’ve done enough damage here.”

Connor hesitated. He looked at me then, like he wanted to say something, like he wanted to fix this. But what could he say? There was nothing.

His face was different now—not smug, not cruel. Just… hollow.

I didn’t care.

I couldn’t care.

I looked away first.

Victor placed a hand on Connor’s shoulder, nodding grimly. Neither of them said a word as they followed Aiden out the door, leaving behind the wreckage they had created.

The silence that followed was unbearable.

North didn’t move.

Neither did I.

Evie’s breathing was sharp and uneven, and when she turned to me, her eyes were glassy with rage. “Are you okay?”

No.

Not even close.

But I couldn’t say that.

I turned my gaze to North instead, and when I finally spoke, my voice was barely a whisper.

“Was it worth it?”

His head snapped up, his throat bobbing as he swallowed.

I forced myself to hold his gaze, to make him feel the weight of what he had done. “Was breaking my heart worth it?”

He flinched like I had struck him. His hands clenched at his sides, his expression unraveling.

Good.

I hoped it tore him apart.

Evie turned her fury on him then, her voice like a blade. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” she seethed, her hands shaking. “But first, I need to speak to Dad.”

She grabbed her phone off the coffee table and started pacing, her breath ragged as she scrolled through her contacts.

She pressed the call button.

It rang once. Twice.

Mark answered on the third ring, his voice calm, and composed. Too composed.

“Evie, sweetheart, what’s wrong? This isn’t a good time—”

Her breath hitched, and then she exploded.

“Not a good time?” she spat. “Lila was my best friend, Dad. My fucking best friend. And you let me believe it was all Robert Harley’s fault. You let me feel guilty for years over something you covered up!”

I watched her, watched the way her hands shook, the way her face twisted with something that looked an awful lot like heartbreak.

Mark’s voice on the other end was low, placating. “Evie, it was complicated—”

“Complicated?” she laughed bitterly, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “Complicated? You let me grieve for years thinking she died because of some reckless drunk driver, and all this time, you knew the truth? You fucking knew it wasn’t as simple as that, but you lied to me!”

Mark’s voice was nothing but static on the other end, murmured excuses, empty words.

“I did what I had to do.”

Evie’s face crumpled. “Does Liam know that? How could you? How could you lie to us? To me?” Her voice cracked, raw and broken. “No, I don’t want to hear it. I hate you.”

And then she hung up.

The sound of the call ending was deafening.

She stood there, shaking, her breaths sharp and unsteady, before she threw her phone onto the couch like it burned her. Fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks, but she wiped them away quickly like she didn’t want me to see.

She turned without another word, walking down the hallway to her bedroom.

The door slammed shut behind her.

And then it was just me and North.

Alone.

I didn’t want to be.

I needed to get out of here, needed to be anywhere but standing in the same room as him, breathing the same air as him, hurting because of him.

He took a step forward.

I took a step back.

“Quinn,” he started, his voice rough, desperate. “I—”

“No.”

I shook my head, my chest tightening, my throat closing up. “No, I can’t do this right now. I can’t—” I sucked in a sharp breath, my vision blurring. “I can’t even fucking look at you right now.”

His face twisted, pain flashing across his features, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about how he kept staring at me, or why he stood there, stiff and silent, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how.

I didn’t care.

Or at least, I wanted to believe I didn’t.

But it wasn’t that simple, was it?

Because no matter how much I wanted to hate him, no matter how much I wanted to feel nothing—there was still something inside me that ached when I looked at him. Something inside me that wanted to scream, that wanted to demand answers. I should have felt satisfied seeing him flinch, seeing him look like he wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

I should have left the room when Evie did.

I should have followed her into the safety of her room and shut North out, shut all of this out. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe past the weight pressing against my ribs.

North shifted, the sound of his footsteps against the wooden floor making my stomach twist.

"Quinn." His voice was low, broken, hesitant.

I shook my head. "Don’t."

He took another step closer.

I took a step back.

"I—I didn’t—" He trailed off like he didn’t know what to say. Like he didn’t know where to start.

I laughed, but it was sharp and humorless, filled with nothing but disbelief and exhaustion. "You didn’t what, North? You didn’t mean to humiliate me? You didn’t mean to make a joke out of me? Didn’t mean to hurt me?"

His jaw clenched, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "I didn’t know—"

"You didn’t know what?" I snapped. "That I would actually feel it? That I would actually care? That maybe—just maybe—I thought you were different, that I was stupid enough to believe you were someone I could trust?"

His eyes were filled with something I couldn't name, something dark and desperate, but I wasn’t going to let myself be pulled into it.

I wasn’t going to let myself believe that he was the one hurting.

Because he wasn’t.

He didn’t get to be.

I let out a sharp breath, forcing myself to look away, to look anywhere but at him.

"You got what you wanted, didn’t you?" My voice was quiet now, tired. "You wanted to see me break. You wanted to hurt me. You did. Congratulations."

North exhaled, his breath uneven. "That’s not—"

"Not what you wanted?" I cut him off, finally looking up at him, my heart pounding. "Then what the hell was it, North? Because I need to know. I need to understand what was so fucking satisfying about tearing me down. What was so goddamn rewarding about making sure I felt like nothing?"

He didn’t have an answer.

I could see it in the way his mouth parted slightly, the way his shoulders sagged like he wanted to say something, anything, but there were no words that could make any of this right.

And the worst part?

I didn’t think he even knew why he had done it.

Not really.

I swallowed hard, my throat burning.

"I was never your enemy," I whispered. "But you made sure I became one anyway."

North took another step toward me, his voice shaking. "Quinn, please."

I recoiled like he had physically struck me.

Because no. He didn’t get to say my name like that. Like he hadn’t been the one to shatter me. Like he hadn’t been the one to take every piece of trust I had left and crush it under his boot.

I turned on my heel before I could break any further before I could let him see how deep the damage really went.

I didn’t run, didn’t slam the door, didn’t let him see the way my hands trembled at my sides. I just walked away. Walked away from him. Walked away from whatever twisted thing had existed between us. Because there was nothing left now. And for the first time, I finally understood—It was never real. It was never going to be.