Page 35 of Princess of Vengeance

But I can’t. Someone has to stay in control. Someone has to think clearly enough to figure out what the fuck just happened. Why the fuck would she choose that snake Malcolm over us and everything we’ve built together?

“She had a reason,” Atlas says, as if he’s answering my thoughts. But of course he’s thinking the same thing. We all are. And just like me and Nico, he’s trying to convince himself that somehow our eyes and ears tricked us into seeing and hearing something we never could have imagined. “Quinn wouldn’t just…”

“She wouldn’t just what?” Nico turns on him like he actually might throw a punch. “Wouldn’t just cut us out? Wouldn’t just walk away? Because that’s exactly what she fucking did. She carved through our bonds like they didn’t mean a fucking thing. Like they were just some random ink.”

I remember the blood trickling down her chest. The steady way her hand moved as she destroyed each circle. The cold look in her eyes when she turned away from us for the last time.

My siren. My Quinn. Now she’ll be Malcolm’s wife.

The thought brings up a whole tidal wave of emotions, but I push them right back down and lock them away with all the other dark thoughts that are threatening to tear me apart. Rage won’t help us now. Neither will grief or betrayal or this heavy, oppressive feeling of loss that I can’t seem to shake.

“She made her choice,” I say. Both of them turn to look at me, probably surprised to hear me speak at all. “She chose power over loyalty. She chose Malcolm over us. There’s nothing left to do but accept it and move the fuck on.”

The words sting, but they need to be said. And these guys need to hear them, even if I don’t fully believe them myself.

Nico looks at me like I just stabbed him, and maybe I did. But better this sharp, clean pain than the endless cycle of denial he’s trapped in. Better to face the truth now than torture ourselves wondering why we weren’t enough to make her stay.

My fingers drift to the mark on my chest before I even realize I’m doing it. The circle she inked into my skin, claiming me as hers. Unlike the marks she just destroyed, this one is still whole and still binding.

The thought steadies something inside me, even as my jaw clenches hard enough to crack my damn teeth. She might have broken her bonds to us and carved through the proof of our claims on her, but her claim on me?

It’s fucking permanent. This ink isn’t just etched into my flesh. It goes all the way through to my goddamn soul.

And I don’t care what choice she thinks she made tonight. I’ll go to my grave belonging to her. She’s mine, and I’m hers, and not even Malcolm’s ring on her finger will change that.

Nico finally drops onto what’s left of the couch, his chest heaving. The rage seems to have burned itself out, leaving him mostly exhausted. Blood is steadily dripping from his busted knuckles, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“What the fuck do we do now?” Atlas asks, breaking the heavy silence. He looks lost, which isn’t an expression I’m used to seeing on his face. The enforcer, the protector, suddenly without anyone to protect.

“We need to figure out how Malcolm found us.” Nico absently wipes blood from his knuckles onto his jeans. “Kendrick could’ve tipped him off. Or maybe one of the other old Carnage guys we’ve let back in.”

“Nah.” Atlas shakes his head. “They’re the ones who warned us the Syndicate was closing in. If they were working with Malcolm, why tip us off? They’d have to figure we’d be dead either way.”

I grunt in agreement. Kendrick might be a lot of things, but he’s not stupid enough to play both sides. Not after the effort he’s put into making things right. Even if he was that fucking stupid, what would be the point? What would he gain? Like Atlas said, the odds were stacked in favor of us dying tonight.

“Then how?” Nico looks from Atlas to me, then back again. “How the fuck did that snake find us?”

“Does it matter?” Atlas asks. “We were planning to leave Detroit anyway. Maybe we should stick to that plan and get the fuck out of here while we still can.”

“No.” Nico’s response is immediate and visceral. “I’m not fucking leaving.”

He doesn’t say the rest, but I know we’re all thinking it. None of us want to leave Detroit. Not now. Not while she…

I grind my teeth, forcing the thought away. “We stay,” I say. “That’s my vote. Stay and rebuild what we can.”

Atlas nods, and after a moment, Nico does too, even though one look at both of their faces tells me they think it’s probably suicide. Malcolm might not give a shit about us anymore, but there are plenty of other threats in this city. He said the remaining Dark Lotus members wouldn’t be interested in us, but what if he was wrong? What if they decide we’re loose ends that need tying up. I doubt Malcolm would go out of his way to stop them. Then there’s Zoey and her Tyrants. I personally think the odds stack up a little better for us in that fight, but who the fuck knows for sure anymore?

It’s impossible to know whether someone already betrayed us, or just how compromised we might be. But we’re staying anyway. None of us says why. None of us has to.

Nico starts pacing again, but the violent energy from before is gone. Now he just looks tired and distracted.

Atlas sinks into one of the chairs that survived the rampage. He has a distant expression too, but more lost than distracted.Every few seconds, his hand drifts to the side of his head where Malcolm’s men hit him, like he’s checking to make sure the wound is still there and still bleeding.

Like any of this is fucking real.

The weight in my chest gets heavier with each passing second. The realistic part of my brain knows I’ve skipped ahead a few steps, past denial and anger, all the way to grief.

Fuck grief.

---