His eyes narrowed, and he began to ease toward the door. “I’m not alone, you know.”
“You got some chick in there?” Logan craned his neck to see. “Because our intel says you’re here all alone.”
Nate added, “You’re hiding.”
“Yeah.” Adam growled at me. “Thanks for that press conference, by the way. It really helped my dad’s case.”
“You’re the fuckhead who broke into our house.”
I was seconds from grabbing him. I tried to remember why I shouldn’t. There was a voice in my head—was it Sam’s? She wouldn’t want me to hurt him, but he wouldn’t go away. We did the right thing at our house. We let him off. We didn’t hurt him, nothing. There might’ve been some humiliation, but he walked away from the house on two legs. And he would keep coming back.
“What am I going to do with you, Quinn?” I gave him a hard look as I stepped up on the patio.
“What are you doing?” He jumped in front of the door, still holding his cigar. He looked down at the cigar, then back to me, and put it down, laying it on the bench he’d been sitting on.
“Get out of my way.”
“Mas—”
Nate and Logan jerked into action. They grabbed him, but instead of pushing him behind us, Nate opened the door, and Logan pushed him inside. I stepped through last, circling the living room. Rap music played throughout the house, but it was low, and the smell of bourbon mixed with the cigar.
“Well, looky here.” Logan shoved Adam back one more time before going over to the liquor cabinet and reaching for the glass. An ugly smirk showed on his face as he picked up Adam’s glass. “You celebrating something, Quinn?” He lifted the glass to his nose, took a whiff, and tossed the liquid to the floor.
“Hey!” Adam started forward, but Nate moved in front of him now, shoving him back. Adam took a breath, staring at Nate for a second before looking past him to Logan. He turned to me. “What are you going to do?”
“I made you a promise a long time ago.”
Did he remember?
“I promised that if you fucked with me, Sam, or anyone I loved, I’d end you. I’d take away everything you hold close.” I gestured around the room. “I’d take your home. I’d take your girl. I’d take your money. And I’d take your reputation. Then I’d leave you alone, but not before I ruined you. We’ve decided it’s time to follow through.”
Adam started to laugh. “What? What can you do to me now?”
“You’re going to watch.” I nodded to Logan. He knew what to do, and he took off.
“Wha—” Adam pressed against Nate. “Is he looking for something?”
“What do you think? I just told you what we’re going to do. Think, Adam! Guess what we’re doing.” And as he frowned and pulled back from Nate, I looked to my best friend. “Mind taking one for the team? For a while anyway?”
Nate cocked his head to the side, then groaned. “Are you serious?”
He knew.
I nodded. “Sam said you liked Becky.”
He groaned again, letting his head fall back. “Seriously, Mason? I don’t want to date Becky Sallaway.”
“What?” Adam’s eyes locked on us. “What did you say?!”
He surged toward us, but Nate and I both lifted a lazy hand. We pushed him back, and he fell to a couch behind him.
I dropped my voice. “Just for a little bit. You want to date that other chick right now, anyway? This could get messy.”
“Sam’s going to know.”
“Sam doesn’t have to find out right away. And yes, Becky will know, but she’s not going to care.”
We turned as one toward Adam, who was shaking his head, his hands in his hair.
“I have a feeling she’ll take you up on a date,” I told Nate. “Maybe more than a couple times even.”
“Okay.” Nate pulled out his phone and dialed. “It’s late, but maybe she’s awake. I think Sam called her from my phone once. Let’s see if she still wants to talk to us.”
“Be—” Adam surged to his feet, yelling for Becky.
I rounded on him, my hand cocked, and hit him in the face. He fell back to the couch almost in the same motion as standing, like he was jerked back by the couch itself. I knocked him out.
Nate turned and grinned at me, his eyes on Adam. He ended the call. “What he doesn’t know, right?”
I grunted, heading into the bedroom Adam used. Logan found me a few minutes later. I was sitting on the edge of Adam’s bed.
“All the security footage is destroyed. We’re covered.” He nodded to the camera I had in my hand. “What’s that?”
I handed it over to him. “Push Play.”
He did, and a girl’s moans came from the machine.
Logan’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. Is this . . . ?” He pressed Pause. I stood as he zoomed in on the naked girl on Adam’s bed. She was spread-eagle, her tits and everything showing as he bent over, kissing between her legs. She had a blindfold on, and her arms were handcuffed to the bedposts. “Yeah, that’s Sullivan.”
He didn’t mean Adam’s ex-girlfriend either.
“I know,” I told him.
“Fuck.” He went to the next video. It was Tate again, and another. He kept going. There was a new girl in the tenth video. “Isn’t that—is that Miranda? No wait, it’s the other chick that was in the Fallen Crest Elite group. Amelia or something?”
I took the camera back from him. “Sam told me Becky was worried about some other girls, but she couldn’t find anything that showed Quinn was cheating on her.”
“But her gut said otherwise?”
Always trust your gut.
“Shit.” Logan shook his head. “House, rep, money, and girl. That’s what you take from someone if you want to cripple him.”
I scowled. I didn’t want to cripple Quinn. I wanted to destroy him. “You think I’m going too far?”
He laughed. “When you say you, you mean us, right? You’re not doing this alone.”
“I’ll take the blame.”
“For what? We’re not going to get blamed for this.”
“Sam’s going to be furious with me.” Sam wanted me to stop making decisions for her. She wanted to be included on these things.
He grew somber. “We’re not excluding her. We’re shielding her from the bad shit we do sometimes.”
He was right, but she’d still be mad. I rose, heading back into the living room after grabbing Adam’s laptop. I hadn’t found anything else in his room, just the camera, his computer, and some dirty magazines. I’d show Sam the camera. She could decide then.
Nate looked up from his phone. “It’s been fun, but . . .” He let his sentence hang in the air, and I got his drift.
We’d come in half-drunk, but we were real sober now. Seeing Adam on his porch, stepping inside and finding the camera in his bedroom, I knew I was changing.
“You know, there was a time when I would’ve burned this place down,” I murmured.
“We still can,” Logan said.
I shook my head. “No.” We were better than that. I gestured to the camera. “We have enough to destroy him. If he does anything, we release those videos. It’ll destroy anything Quinn tries to build over the years.”
Fallen Crest Forever (Fallen Crest High #7)
Tijan's books
- Dark Lycan (Carpathian)
- A Whole New Crowd
- BROKEN AND SCREWED(Broken_Part One)
- Fallen Crest High
- Fallen Crest Public
- Davy Harwood (The Immortal Prophecy #1)
- Sustain
- Fallen Fourth Down (Fallen Crest #4)
- Mason (Fallen Crest High 0.5)
- Fallen Crest Family (Fallen Crest High #2)
- Fallen Crest Alternative Version (Fallen Crest High #2.1)
- Fallen Crest University (Fallen Crest High #5)