Page 168 of Savage Suit

“Never mind.” She sighed. “There are so many outfits I’ve loved. Most of them,” she admitted. “But have you seen the fucking prices? If you were my man, I’d select a few things. My pussy is worth its weight in gold. Under the circumstances, spending your money feels gross. Fuck, this is the worst fucking time for an existential crisis.”

“You’re having one?” I asked, unsure if she was serious.

“Definitely. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have such a disturbed sense of integrity. Pangs of conscience isn’t my thing. Ryan’s the pro.”

“You love her but resent her, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you appreciate,” she snapped. “One, it isn’t your fucking business. Two, fuck off. Three, shut the fuck up and don’t come at me over something you have no fucking clue about.”

Annoyed at how long she’d kept me in the shop, I stiffened. “If it involves Ryan, it is my business. You’d do well to remember that.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed.

“The only one of you appreciative of Ryan is Logan. The rest of you—”

“Don’t you fucking dare put me in the same category as that pussy and that bitch.”

Was the pussy Dakota and the bitch Armani? Bemused, I frowned at her.

“And I wish that dickhead falls off the face of the fucking Earth,” she continued. “Preferably with Dakota and Armani.”

“Dickhead’s Timothe,” I guessed, then asked about the other two.

“It doesn’t matter.” She scowled. “Fuck, yes, it does. Armani’s the fucking traitor, an asshole, a bitch, a dickhead. You name it, she’s it.”

Heat crept up my neck because I’d acted in a similar way to Alessia, who, as it turned it, was telling the truth. DNA results proved she carried a Keegan. However,myfamily wasn’t the issue right now. I looked at Quinn. “Why come so hard down on Armani?”

Quinn glared at me, blew out a breath and relayed the story of Armani snitching about Ryan’s birth control and first sexual experience. Listening to Quinn as she fought back tears on Ryan’s behalf turned my fucking stomach. It was hard to think about the shame Ryan had endured. No wonder she’d been so mortified at the thought of sleeping with a stranger.

“Fuck all of them,” Quinn finished. “Ryan insists I think of those people with respect, but they’re the ones who fucked us up, especially my sister, with their bullshit. Then those motherfuckers had the fucking gall to fuck themselves up and abandon us.”

“Excuse me?” I said, on the verge of laughter at her statement, even though it was so heartbreaking. Quinn’s grief had turned to anger.

“You heard me. Armani is judgmental about how I live. Ryan isn’t. Her attitude is a product of her own shame perpetuated by our parents making her feel lower than dirt simply because she acted on physical desire. They valued her fucking virtue over her. They berated her, the killer humiliated her, and left Ryan with those fucking words on the day he stole Mama from us. He couldn’t handle living? Bye, fuckhead. He had no right to take himself and her. Fuck, the traitor is a product of their bullshit, too. She married the first motherfucker she fucked, and you see how that turned out.”

The shop owner, Laura, cleared her throat. “I’ve found several more outfits for Ms. Hagen, Mr. Keegan.”

Quinn glanced away and sighed. I understood she wasn’t interested in clothes now.

“She’ll look at them in a moment.”

“Of course,” Laura responded, taking the hint, and leaving us alone after carefully hanging up the clothes on one of the dressing room door hangers.

While she was present, I texted Reid, ordering him to the fucking boutique. I needed to get to the office to meet with Ryan and fuck her.

The moment we were alone, Quinn got to her feet and went to where the clothes hung. She glided her fingers over a cashmere sweater. For the first time, I saw the longing on her face as she took in each piece.

“I’m so fucking angry with my parents.” Her attention returned to the sweater. “Ryan keeps offering excuses for what they did.”

“You don’t do what your father did if you’re not deeply troubled.”

“Fuck, who isn’t deeply troubled by one thing or another at some point in their lives?”

She still refused to look at me, so I merely said, “True.”

“Deep down, I knew the truth, even after Armani denied it. But when Timothe told me Saturday evening, I was so fucking livid. I didn’t think how he would tell my sister. I would’ve told her myself when she arrived. I was just so fucking happy that she got there.” She backed away from the clothes. “Life’s so fucking funny.”

“How?”