Page 34 of North

She stirred, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks before her hazel eyes opened, blinking sleepily at me. Her confusion melted into realization, and a soft pink spread across her cheeks as she pulled the blanket up higher, trying to hide from me.

“You’re awake,” she said softly, her voice still heavy with sleep.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I murmured, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. The action was too tender, too revealing, and I hated myself for it. “You snore, by the way.”

Her eyes widened in horror, her lips parting as she sat up. “I do not!”

I laughed, the sound more genuine than I expected, and shrugged. “Relax, rabbit. I’m messing with you. Go back to sleep, I’m going to run down to the kitchen to make us something to eat.”

Her pout was adorable, and for a moment, I forgot about everything else. About the texts I’d sent to Connor and Vic while she was sleeping. About the plan. About the gnawing guilt that was settling in my gut like a weight.

I slipped out of bed before I could think too much, leaving her tangled in the sheets as I grabbed my phone.

***

North: Don’t bring Aiden into this. Not like that.

Victor: I’ll say what needs to be said.

Victor: Stop hesitating. Keep her close, make her talk, and finish the job. You already have her where you want her. Don’t let it go to waste. I’m sure she knows what happened.

Connor: He’s right about one thing—you’ve gone soft. That’s what happens when you let someone like her get under your skin. She’s playing you, North. Do you think she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing? She’s just like her parents. A liar. A fucking manipulator. You’ll see.

North: Shut the hell up, Connor.

Connor: No, you shut up and wake up. I trusted you to handle this, and now you’re fucking her? Jesus Christ, man. Do you think Aiden would be okay with this? Huh? Think about him before you start acting like she’s some victim in all of this.

North: This has nothing to do with Aiden. Or you.

Connor: It has everything to do with him. With all of us.

***

The texts blurred in front of me as I leaned against the counter, my hand tightening around the phone. Connor and Vic had no idea what they were talking about. Or maybe they did, and I just didn’t want to admit it.

I gripped the edge of the counter, staring at the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window. Connor was wrong. He had to be wrong. Quinn wasn’t like her father. She wasn’t some calculated monster, weaving lies and deceit. She didn’t even know the power she had, and that’s what made her dangerous—not to me, but to herself.

Whether she was like her mother, or not, was another thing entirely. Somehow, I didn’t see her breaking up a man’s marriage just to get the life of a spoiled wife but how the hell would I know?

But then Connor’s voice echoed in my head again: Think about Aiden.

Aiden, who’d been unstoppable. Aiden, who could’ve gone pro if Robert Harley hadn’t ended it all in a single reckless moment. The image of him limping with that cane, his dreams stolen from him, made my stomach churn with anger.

I straightened, exhaling slowly, but it didn’t help. There was no escaping the weight pressing on my chest, no way to reconcile the two warring parts of me—the part that hated her for who her parents were, and the part that wanted her anyway.

The phone buzzed again, but I didn’t look. I already knew what it would say.

Victor would tell me to stay the course, to use her until she had nothing left to give. Connor would tell me to cut her loose before she ruined everything. And both of them would be right in their own way.

Quinn wasn’t some game piece on a board, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise. She wasn’t her father. She wasn’t responsible for what he’d done to Aiden and Lila, and she wasn’t her mother. But none of that changed the fact that she was here, in my house, her trust handed to me on a silver fucking platter.

I had no choice but to use it.

The kitchen was quiet as I went through the motions of making breakfast—coffee, toast, jam. Something simple, something that wouldn’t betray how my hands were shaking as I spread the strawberry jam over the bread. I took a deep breath, steadying myself before heading back to my room.

Quinn was still sitting in bed, wrapped in the blanket, tangled waves of red hair falling around her face. She looked at me with a mixture of surprise and hesitation as I set the tray down beside her.

“Breakfast in bed?” she asked, her voice tinged with disbelief.

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