Page 12 of Pretty Ruthless Monsters: Complete Series

QUINN

I walk back to the group, and a few seconds later, Nico comes up behind me, joining us too. I can feel my men staring at me hard, probably wondering what we were talking about and if everything’s alright.

It’s hard to reassure them with my body language. I know I’m tense, the lines of my muscles bunched tight from everything that went down in that ally.

Why the hell did he have to kiss me?

And why the actual fuck did I kiss him back?

I wasn’t expecting the flash of heat between us, or the way my body responded to the hungry pressure of his lips.

I wasn’t expecting to feel anything at all, and the fact that I felt so much has me reeling a little.

At least I left him with a reminder of who he’s dealing with.

Since the bruise I gave him is already healing, I take some satisfaction in the knowledge that I drew blood this time.

Nico strides back to stand with his people, nodding coolly to Killian and Atlas as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. His relaxed demeanor makes my jaw tighten even more, and I force myself to drag in a breath and let it out slowly.

We’re supposed to be presenting a united front, after all. That’s the whole fucking point of this.

“It’s decided,” I say, speaking up before Nico can.

I don’t like this arrangement one fucking bit, but I’d rather be the one to say it.

It gives me the upper hand in a small way, allowing me to announce the alliance on my terms. “We’ve come to an agreement that will benefit both of our organizations.

Carnage and Enigma will be joining forces as a means of protection against outside threats, putting the past behind us and allying together.

From this moment on, that means no Enigma member will attack a Carnage member, and vice versa.

As long as we all uphold the terms of this arrangement, we’ll all emerge stronger. ”

I can feel the silent reactions from my men as they process the news—particularly Emmett, who’s standing right behind me.

But it’s a testament to their faith in me as their leader that none of them voice any opposition to this plan, despite the fact that I’m sure most of them hate it as much as I do.

They must recognize just like I did that sometimes unpleasant decisions have to be made for the greater good of the gang.

“Agreed,” Nico says calmly. “I’ll be in touch to make the final arrangements. We’ll need to hash a few things out before we make it official.”

I nod, then take a step closer to him, dropping my voice as I add, “You’d better make this alliance worth my while.”

Something flares in Nico’s startling blue and green eyes, and he gives me a look that makes the lingering heat from our kiss pulse through me all over again.

“Oh,” he promises, his voice low. “It will be.”

His tongue darts out to lick his bottom lip, tracing the exact spot where I bit him, and I curl my hands into fists at my sides, keeping my face impassive.

“Round up,” I say, raising my voice and jerking my head at my men. “Let’s go.”

None of Nico’s people stop us, although I can feel Atlas and Killian watching intently as my crew and I walk away toward the cars we arrived in.

Part of me wonders if Nico discussed his little plan with them before he decided to spring it on all of us, or if his two best friends were just as blindsided by it as I was.

Then I think about what he said the last time we ran into each other, about how they have his back.

I’m sure they fucking knew .

That thought irritates me for some reason, so I push all that out of my head, getting into the first car and letting the door slam hard.

Emmett is riding with me, and he’s quiet in the passenger seat for a few minutes as we start to drive back toward Blood and Ink. The silence has an expectant weight to it, like he’s waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, he looks over at me.

“So… what happened?” he asks. “You and Nico were gone for a while. Were you telling him off for the marriage comment?”

I swallow hard. “I told him off, yeah. For all the good it did.”

“For all the…” Emmett trails off. “Wait. Jesus Christ, you didn’t… agree to it? Did you?”

“Yes, Emmett,” I tell him, already tired of this line of questioning. “I agreed to it.”

“Quinn! You can’t be serious.”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I be serious?” I shoot back.

“Because it’s insane. He can’t just walk in and demand that you marry him to seal this alliance—an alliance that works in his favor as well. What the hell is he giving you to make this worth it?”

I grip the wheel harder, keeping my gaze on the road.

“Marriage goes both ways. That’s why he proposed it.

It’s the only way to make this airtight.

No one can question us, and with our interests truly aligned and bound by marriage, it will be harder for either of us to fuck the other over.

It’s insurance, and as much as I hate it, he was right. ”

The words are bitter as fuck in my mouth. It’s hard to believe that I’m defending the asshole who I considered an enemy up until… well, until just a few minutes ago, technically.

Honestly, I may never stop seeing him as an enemy to some degree, and I sure as fuck don’t plan to let my guard down around him.

But he can at least be a useful enemy, and my mind is already buzzing with the possibilities of what this could mean for Enigma, beyond just protecting us against the current threat.

This may give me an opportunity to truly expand and solidify my gang’s power in Detroit—something that seemed almost impossible in the days after my father’s death, when all I was doing was hanging on and trying desperately not to let the organization he built fracture and fall apart.

I could build his legacy into something bigger. Something even better.

I could make him proud.

Emmett folds his arms, shaking his head. “This is insane,” he says again. “You don’t even know him. You don’t even like him. How do we know that this is going to help?”

Underneath the irritation in his voice, there’s a hint of something that sounds almost like jealousy. The fact that Nico just proposed to me as part of a business arrangement and I accepted the offer is clearly bothering Emmett.

But this isn’t about him, or the ill-advised and aborted kiss between us the other night, or any of that.

Emmett and I were never going to become anything, so he has no reason to be jealous. And even more to the point, Nico and I will never become anything. This marriage will be in name only, and I’m not looking for true love or romance.

“I’m doing this for Enigma,” I say firmly. “I don’t want to marry anyone, but binding our gangs together will make us stronger. And we need the help right now.”

“We’ve been doing fine,” Emmett argues.

“Have we? We haven’t been able to expand our territory as much as I wanted, and now we’re getting kneecapped by someone who’s targeting us from the shadows.

If we don’t do anything, if we just sit back and let this happen, we’ll be fucked.

This alliance gets us more than just extra resources for trying to protect ourselves and defend our territory.

It gives us a leg up. We’ll be a bigger organization, and that’ll make the bigger players in Detroit take us more seriously.

We need that boost right now. That’s just how it is. ”

Emmett is still shaking his head after I say my piece. “I still say the marriage is going too fucking far.”

I don’t ask him why it’s the marriage he’s so damn opposed to and not my order that all Enigma members will have to cease any hostilities against Carnage members.

I already know this is about more than just the gang to him, but I’m hoping that if I don’t call it out, if I just let it lie, then whatever feelings he has for me will fade before too long.

“It’s fine,” I say, glancing sideways at him. “It’s just business. And it’s not like I was ever planning on marrying for love anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

He looks like he wants to say something else, but we pull up outside Blood and Ink before he can. I park the car and get out, and he keeps pace with me as I stride inside.

“Boss, there you are.” Fallon lifts his chin as he sees us enter, shoving his long hair back with a tattooed hand. He strides over to meet us, and I nod at him.

“Fallon. You’ve got news for me?”

“Yeah, about the money drop that went down last night. We did the new route like we talked about, hitting up the new location.”

I rest a palm against the front counter. “Good. Any issues?”

He purses his lips, tipping his head from side to side. “It went okay. Almost went off without a hitch, but it got a little… hairy at the end.”

“Hairy how? Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. We just almost got picked up by the cops because we didn’t know the area so well. Ended up in a zone where there was heavier than normal police presence. They almost got us for loitering of all fucking things, and we had to book it.”

I sigh, rubbing my free hand over my temple. All things considered, that’s not as bad as it could’ve been. At least no one got hurt and no one got arrested. It’s just another thing that I have to deal with. Another reality of leading a gang, trying to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Sometimes I wonder how the fuck my dad did it all. How he managed to keep everything in his head that he had to be on top of. How he managed to keep everybody safe.

“Okay, thanks for the update,” I say. “Tell everyone to be more careful about that shit. And have some people get on double checking the boundaries. We need these new routes, but we don’t want to risk fucking with the cops.

Have a couple guys go scout the area, but tell them to keep it casual.

Don’t linger anywhere too long, don’t draw attention to themselves. ”

Fallon nods. “You want me to go with them?”