Page 85 of Pretty Ruthless Monsters: Complete Series

NICO

They say nothing will bring you down faster than a woman with a vendetta.

And I think they, whoever the fuck they are, might be right.

I’m tallying the damages in the aftermath of losing the clubhouse, and monetarily, we’re pretty fucked but not unfixable. Move a decimal here, dip into funds there, and there’s enough of a margin that rebuilding is a possibility that exists on the horizon.

But in terms of morale? Security?

Money can’t fix that. It won’t.

I’ve gotten at least ten calls today, and it’s not even noon—all from people in various positions in the club, from newbies just asking how they’re supposed to replace shit they’ve lost, to old heads who are out for blood.

And oh, are they out for blood.

No one may have died in the fire, but it doesn’t stop our people from moving like someone did.

We’re going to war, right?

We’ve gotta take more blood.

Scorched earth, right, Nico?

It doesn’t matter that they believe Silas was responsible—and that he’s now conveniently too dead to refute that claim.

My people are too smart to think this was some kind of lone wolf situation, and while I’d usually be proud of my club members for being so savvy, right now it’s proving to be a headache that I don’t fucking need.

More lies. More manipulations. I don’t care much about lying one way or the other when it’s to other people, but when it’s to my own…

“Fuck!” I curse aloud, yanking my helmet off the seat of my bike where I left it.

As a flock of birds scatter from a tree beside me at my outburst, I immediately think of Quinn—because of course I do. That’s all I seem to think of these days. All of this bullshit, leading right back to her. To my own wife.

It’s been two days since we brought her back to her place and locked her in the basement, and she’s still refusing to talk. Chained in that basement in the dark, with a single meal a day and a few bathroom breaks at most, she’s holding out, not saying a damn thing.

She claims that she has no idea why The Saint wants her.

But I don’t believe that. I can’t .

Because I need fucking answers. I need there to have been a reason for all of this, a point to the utter chaos that I’ve unleashed on my people.

Atlas, Killian, and I have all been taking turns down there with her, doing our best to get her to talk.

But she’s remained stubbornly silent. Defiant .

Refusing to give us anything, not even the insistence that she has no more idea about why The Saint wants her than we do.

She doesn’t speak at all, despite everything we’ve done to try to break her.

I knew my wife was a fighter from the very beginning, but she’s proven herself to be even stronger than any of us expected.

My wife .

The words bounce around in my head, and I rub my chest absently as I settle onto my bike. Despite everything, despite how fucking furious I am at Quinn, I can’t seem to stop thinking of her that way. As my wife.

The vows we took weren’t supposed to mean anything. It was all just part of the plan, what I thought at the time would be an easy way to kill two birds with one stone—earn a hefty paycheck for Carnage while doing recon on one of our biggest rival gangs.

But more and more, I’m starting to realize that Atlas was right.

This plan was fucked from the beginning.

It went off the rails the moment Quinn snuck into my bedroom on our wedding night. The moment I touched her. The moment I kissed her. And although I kept telling myself it didn’t mean anything, that I could get shit back on track…

Well, I guess Quinn wasn’t the only one I was lying to.

Breathing through my nose, I peel away from one of several safehouses I’ve checked on today. Typically, the Carnage safehouses are quiet. They’re there for when real war breaks out, between skirmishes, or when someone falls on hard times.

And in the wake of the massive displacement of people from the clubhouse, they’re all busy and filled up.

Just another part of the mess my wife has made.

The roar of my bike is soothing, a familiar sound that’s almost hypnotic, and it helps clear my mind of the racing thoughts that have been cascading through it for days.

After about twenty minutes of riding, I get to the clubhouse—or rather, what remains of it.

Charred bones of what used to be our center of business.

Our home.

Atlas, Killian, and I basically built this shit from the ground up. And now what’s left of it?

Ashes. Crumbling support beams. A hell of a lot of regret.

I slip off my bike and yank off the helmet emblazoned with a skull on the side, the symbol of Carnage.

With my hands shoved into my pockets, I make my way toward the burned out building.

The police poked around for a bit after firefighters extinguished the blaze, but with Silas’s body gone and nothing left of the building but broken beams and ashes, there wasn’t much for them to find—the one upside to the fact that we lost everything, I guess.

Several of my people are gathered in front of what was once the entrance, and as I approach, my presence is immediately noticed. Several Carnage enforcers and some of our drug runners are speaking in low voices, and when they see me, they break up their conversation and walk over.

“Any news?” one of them asks—Kendrick, a big, burly guy who’s always down for a fight and is known to knock in heads.

“No. Just what we already know. That Silas fucker had beef with Carnage, and he decided to make a move.”

“Do we know why though?” This time it’s a younger member, Micah, who asks. He hasn’t seen much action yet, so all of this is probably shocking. “I mean, burning a clubhouse is an act of war. He had to know that, right?”

I clench my jaw. I have no idea whether Silas knew that, but Quinn definitely did.

And she did it anyway.

“We’re not sure exactly what his motives were,” I say, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck. “I’m working on figuring that out.”

It’s not a satisfactory answer, I know that. But it’s all I have for now.

My men all look frustrated and angry, agitation clear in their stances. Micah seems a bit dejected, and Kendrick folds his arms over his barrel chest.

“He wasn’t working alone,” he insists. “I’d bet my last fucking dollar on it. Which means there’s still someone out there who needs to pay for what they did to us. And it would be my fucking honor to give them the justice they deserve.”

He cracks his neck as he speaks, a bloodthirsty glint in his eyes. I nod, clapping my hand on his shoulder as I force down the guilt that sits like a rock in my stomach.

“You’ll have your vengeance,” I promise. “Just give me some time.”

I spend a while longer at the clubhouse, taking stock of the final inventory of what was lost and what little was actually salvageable. A final head count done by a few of my men confirms beyond a doubt that no one is missing and therefore not killed in the fire.

Even after I’ve done all I can do at the site of our ruined clubhouse, I linger for a while longer, speaking to my people and trying to give them some small boost in morale. But finally, there’s nothing more to be done, and it’s time to head home.

If I can really call it that at this point.

Half an hour later, I pull up outside Quinn’s house. As I’m parking my bike in the driveway, movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention. I yank off my helmet as a scowl tugs at my lips.

Could this day get any fucking worse?

Emmett is here.

He must have arrived just a second after I did, and he practically leaps out of his car after pulling up to the curb, his attention zeroed in on me. I get off my bike, gripping my helmet in one hand as I stride forward to meet him halfway up the walk.

There’s no fucking way I’m letting him get anywhere near the house.

“Emmett,” I say, lifting my chin coolly in greeting.

“Nico.”

The way he says my name tells me he’s none too happy to see me—not that I’m surprised by that. I’ve always gotten the vibe that he doesn’t like me or my two seconds, above and beyond the usual animosity between Enigma and Carnage.

Keeping my feet planted on the walkway and my body blocking his path toward the house, I cock a brow at him. “What’s up?”

He frowns, running a hand through his dark blond hair. I’ve always thought his pretty boy good looks didn’t quite fit with someone who’s pretty high up in a gang, but I suppose he’s got to have some kind of spine under that all-American looking exterior for Quinn to trust him as much as she does.

Although I no longer trust her , so I guess it’s a moot fucking point.

“I’m here to see Quinn,” Emmett tells me, glancing behind me toward the house.

“Sorry. You can’t.”

His attention snaps back to me, a frown curving his lips. “What? Why not?”

Because she’s currently chained up in the basement .

“Silas attacked Carnage’s clubhouse,” I answer, the lie falling smoothly from my lips. “Quinn got hurt in the crossfire. Nothing major,” I add quickly, seeing his eyes widen. “But she took a bullet in the arm, and she’s recovering from that right now.”

“What the fuck?” Concern twists Emmett’s features “Jesus. And I’m just hearing about this now? Is she?—”

“She’s fine,” I repeat, my voice a little harder. “She’s resting up. I’m sure she’ll be back at Blood and Ink in a day or two, so whatever you need to talk to her about can wait until then.”

He shakes his head, making a move to step around me. “I want to see her now.”

My hand darts out as I sidestep to meet him, my palm meeting his chest. “And I’m telling you, you can’t.”

Anger flashes in his eyes. I’m fairly certain that if Enigma and Carnage weren’t still supposedly allies, he’d take a swing at me—or maybe the reason he doesn’t do it is because he knows he’d lose that fight.

I’ve got my gun tucked into the waistband of my pants like I often do, but I wouldn’t even need it.

I think I’d enjoy taking him down with my bare hands, actually.