Page 45 of Wicked S.O.B.

“Oh God!” I lay my head on his shoulder, and his arms tighten almost painfully around me.

“Fionnella, you do not fucking eat or blink or sleep until you find this asshole. I don’t care what you do—”

“I’m already on it, son.”

A look passes between them. Then he nods grimly.

“If anyone’s interested, I have a theory,” Ellen Schultz says.

“Not interested,” Quinn snaps.

“Christ, Quinn, just hear the woman out,” Fionnella grumbles.

“There might be a way to bring all of this to an end quickly.”

She outlines her plans.

*

Quinn

I listen in disbelief at Schultz’s sheer audacity. Did she really just say what I think she fucking said? While the reason for my existence is shaking uncontrollably in my arms?

“Let me get this straight. You want to use Elyse asbait?” I hear the echoes of carnage in my voice. I hope to hell she hears it too.

A look in her eyes tells me she sees exactly what I’m capable of. She paces a few steps away before she dares to speak. But even then, I know I won’t like what she has to say. Hell, has anything revealed to me in the last hour been comprehensible?

Elyse is being stalked. Right under my fucking nose. And she chose to keep it from me. I don’t have the capacity to think beyond the tormenting fact that I’ve failed her once again. That she chose to confide in a near-stranger rather than come to me.

All I can do now is deal with what’s in front of me. After that…God. My mind turns to ash, and I force myself back to the present.

“We need to bring this thing to an end quickly,” Ellen presses on. “He’s made contact twice in a matter of days. He’ll want to follow through—”

“In case I wasn’t clear before, the answer ishell no.”

Elyse stirs in my arms. She looks at me for a moment before she turns to the detective. “Wait. I want to do it.”

I feel like my insides are being ripped out and stomped on. “Fuck no. Are you out of your mind?” I snarl. “You’re going to stay right here until the bastard is caught.”

“Quinn, if I go into hiding, he’s just going to wait me out. I don’t want this to drag on indefinitely.”

“Jesus, did I fucking stutter? You. Are. Not. Going. To. Use. Yourself. As. Bait. End of story.”

Her lips compress for a second. “It’s not really up to you, Quinn.”

Her words flay me. Terror like I’ve never known claws through me. “No. Elyse—”

Hazel eyes snap with green fire. “It’s either this or I move to Nowhere, Alaska, find an axe-wielding lumberjack who will chop down anyone who so much as breathes my way? Is that how you want this to play out?”

Every word feels like bullets shot into me. “Be very careful, Elyse.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then? Or tell me that’s what you want and I’ll go pack my bags right now.”

I cup her face and bring it close to mine. I need her to see what she’s doing. “You want to push me over the edge, Elyse? Because you’re fucking succeeding.”

Her small hand grips my wrist hard. “I want you to accept that we can’t control everything. I want you to forgive me for fucking up. And I want us to be able to move on from it, stronger. But for now, I want you to accept that I’m doing this.”

I shake my head, wondering if I’ve fallen into a time warp where my fucked-up life is set to detonate over and over.

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