Page 60 of Pretty Ruthless Monsters: Complete Series

QUINN

Rather than taking the bikes over for our meeting with Harlan, the four of us drove my car, and we pile into it after leaving the laundromat.

As soon as we’re out of Young Killer territory, I let out a breath, feeling all the adrenaline drain out of me in a rush.

My chest hurts and my shoulder muscles ache from being tense for so long, ready to fight our way out if we had to.

Now that it’s over, it strikes me how very close we all came to dying today, and I round on Nico with a frown, my hands tight on the wheel.

“You didn’t have to do that!” I hiss.

He just shrugs, looking unbothered. “I protect what’s mine, and he sealed his own death when he touched you.”

I stare at him for a long moment before putting my gaze back on the road, trying to process that. If my dad had found out that one of the Young Killers had touched me like that, he would have wanted him dead too, just like he would’ve wanted the Bullets dead for what they did to me.

But I’m still not used to anyone else acting that way for me.

Atlas catches my eye in the rearview mirror and grins. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looks impressed.

“That was some quick thinking to get us out of that shit,” he says. “How did you know that guy was double-crossing Harlan?”

“I didn’t,” I admit. “After I unlocked his phone, I just did a little sleight of hand and renamed a contact in his phone to make it look like he was calling Pietro a lot.”

Atlas’s eyebrows shoot up. He stares at me for a second, then barks out a laugh. “Damn, vicious. That’s fucking incredible.”

I grin, unable to suppress it, and shrug. “It was a risk to take the time to do that, but I’ve found that no matter what, even though I’m the leader of a whole ass gang of my own, men underestimate me. That made me pretty sure I could get away with it.”

“And it worked,” Nico says. He smirks, shaking his head. “But you don’t have to worry about any of us ever underestimating you, mia cara. We know what you’re capable of.”

All three of them—even Killian—are giving me looks of respect, and I’m surprised to find that it makes a warm feeling expand inside my chest.

They don’t see me as a lost little girl, playing at being a leader because her father died. They see me as capable in my own right, and that means something to me.

The Princes and I arrive back home a short while later, and as we step inside and the three of them move through the space, I glance around, seeing it all in a new light.

The house feels different from how it was when it was just me.

There are more shoes by the door, books and motorcycle helmets and other little personal things scattered around the living room.

Just a couple of weeks ago, that would have bothered me immensely, to see them settling into a place that was once just mine, making themselves at home.

But now… now it doesn’t feel as weird to have them in my space as it did at first. It’s starting to feel almost normal, in a way.

With them here, cooking in the kitchen, watching TV and talking on the phone in the living room, walking up and down the stairs—just generally taking up space—the house doesn’t have that too quiet feeling anymore.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I head into the office. I haven’t had a chance to follow up on the main piece of info we picked up at the club yet, and there has to be some information out there about this Silas guy.

I sit down in the office chair, spinning idly from side to side while I wait for my dad’s old computer to boot up.

Nico wanders into the room a few minutes later, his arms folded as he leans against the wall.

“I have a question,” he announces.

“Oh boy,” I mutter under my breath, although the irritation I might have felt just a couple weeks ago isn’t there now. “What is it?”

“What happened between you and the fucker I killed today? Why did he grab you?”

I let out a breath and drum my fingers on the desk. “It was stupid, honestly. And I kind of said part of it when we were talking to Harlan. It wasn’t all a lie. He had a grudge against my family. He went on and on about how he thought my dad was power hungry.”

Nico raises an eyebrow, looking intrigued. “Do you think that’s true? Did your dad have bigger ambitions than just his small section of Detroit?”

My brow furrows as I think about it. My dad wasn’t greedy by any means, but he did want to expand. He did want to do better for his gang, to give us more and better than what we had.

I share a look with Nico, knowing he’ll probably understand. “Don’t we all want more?”

His full lips twist as he considers that, rubbing his fingers over a small scar on his chin. Then he nods. “You have a point. Even if it’s your intention to be satisfied with what you have, that’s not how the game works, is it?”

I huff a laugh. “Not by a long shot. It’s just…

a never ending climb, in a way. First, you just want your own little territory, but you have to secure it.

Even if you don’t want too much more, you can’t be sure the people around you will feel the same.

Maybe they want what you have, or maybe they don’t think you deserve it. So you have to fight to keep it.”

Nico nods again, tilting his head to one side. “Exactly. And as you grow, the threats grow too. Sometimes it seems like the only way to keep the threats at bay is to keep growing. To become more and more powerful until no one can touch you.”

That makes me chuckle, although there’s not much humor in it.

“Yeah, I know that feeling well. Even though it feels like an impossible task. Because there’s always someone who’s going to want a piece.

Even if they’re not on your level, they’ll try.

It’s not like you can ever sit back and relax. You can never fucking rest.”

A bit of exhaustion creeps into my voice as I say that last part, and something like empathy gleams in Nico’s blue and green eyes.

“Whoever said there’s no rest for the wicked probably wasn’t talking about us, but they might as well have been.

” He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, looking thoughtful.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the never-ending drive to expand with no real way out of it. Once you start, you can’t stop.”

All over again, it strikes me how nice it is to have someone to talk to about all of this shit. Someone who gets it. Nico is living the life of a leader the same as I am, and although we might have some different struggles, a lot of it is the same. A lot of it just comes with the territory.

I look back to the computer monitor for a while, running my fingers along the keyboard. There are always moments when my husband and I start talking like this where I want to know more. Want to understand more about him and his friends.

They know things about me, and even though I probably shouldn’t, I have the same curiosity about them.

Unable to help myself, I let the question come out.

“How did you get into this, anyway?” I ask.

When I glance over at him, he’s looking at me with a wry expression. “‘This’ being?”

“You know what I mean. Being the leader of a biker gang. You know how I fell into leading Enigma, but what put you in charge?”

Nico lets out a sigh and shrugs, running his fingers through his dark hair.

“It sort of just happened for me too. I wasn’t looking for it, but Killian, Atlas, and I have been tight since we were teenagers.

We have a sort of… unbreakable core. People gathered around that. There’s a certain security in it.”

“And that’s how Carnage got started?”

“Pretty much. None of us have family.” He grimaces, glancing down at the desk as his lips twist. “Or at least, no family that counts. We were just trying to have each other’s backs, to make sure no one was going to fuck with us, and before we knew it, it had turned into something bigger.”

“There’s something to be said for that,” I tell him. “Having people’s loyalty. Knowing you have their backs and they have yours.”

“I know,” he agrees. “The two of them are like my brothers. That bond between us really is the core of everything, but the rest of our gang is solid too. It’s why I take this shit so seriously.”

We’re both quiet for a moment after that, and then I ask something else that’s been on my mind.

“Were you always a biker? Is that what brought the three of you together, or…?”

“No.” He pushes away from the wall, stepping a little closer to the desk. “Atlas used to be in a different motorcycle gang with his dad, and he’s the one who got us all into bikes.”

I blink, surprised. I assumed the three of them had been in the same gang the whole time, as joined at the hip as they are. “His dad? Which gang was he in?”

Nico’s lips twist in a little smile, and he shakes his head. “Sorry, mia cara. If you want to hear all about Atlas’s past, you’ll have to ask him.”

I let out a breath, grimacing. “That’s fair, I guess.”

The annoying part is that I do want to ask him. I want to know the story and what came before it.

I want to ask Nico a lot of other things too. The most burning question is why he shared me with Atlas last night. He killed a man today for putting his hands on me, but was so eager to watch Atlas fuck me over the couch last night.

And I know there’s a difference between Atlas and a random member of the Young Killers, but I didn’t think Nico was the type to want to share with anyone. And Atlas had been holding himself back too, because I’m married to Nico.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to just come out with it, but I swallow it back and don’t ask. I’m supposed to be doing research in here, working to get to the bottom of things with our mystery attacker so that I can keep my gang safe.

So that this little alliance can finally come to its end.

Sharing stories with my onetime enemy isn’t going to help that happen any faster.