Since I’d been going to Trinity, I’d been playing the role of a demure, normal woman because I'd thought it was what I wanted. Not anymore. Pandora’s box had been opened. I could no longer suppress my darkness. Even now, I could feel it bubbling inside me, ready to surface when I needed it.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath, Jamie. If I’ve gone off the deep end… well, I guess only time will tell, but I certainly won’t.” In other words, I didn’t answer to him. Even though he towered above me in what would be an intimidating stance to anyone else, I just cocked a challenging eyebrow. My father was Stefan Quinn. He'd taught me that you could be just as intimidating on your knees. As long as you had the confidence of a king, oozed the essence and mystery of a killer, people would think twice before fucking with you.
Jamie didn’t say a word as we had our stare-off. I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he seemed to be searching mine. He’d always been intuitive, perceptive, and calculating. He’d been like that since we were kids, thanks to Stefan’s tutelage. I didn’t feel a flicker of intimidation inside me as I stared back at him despite knowing who he was and what he did for my father.
He was a killer.
Stefan had made Jamie kill for the first time when he was sixteen. I remembered watching as Stefan had led him into the basement of our home. A place I'd never been allowed to go. Stefan had sometimes taken people down there—people who’d wronged the family. I'd sat outside that basement for what had felt like forever with a twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then a shot had rung out from behind the door. In that moment, I'd been convinced I’d never see Jamie again because every time Stefan had taken someone down there, they'd never come back out.
My heartbreak over losing my best friend had been short lived. Jamie had eventually walked out of that basement with Stefan not far behind. Both had noticed me sitting there. Stefan hadn't looked happy, but Jamie hadn't given him any time to chastise me. He'd pulled me to my feet and taken me outside. We'd walked along the stone walls that surrounded the five acres of our property in silence. I'd known not to push. Even at twelve years old, I'd known how hard Stefan’s lessons were, and even if I hadn’t, I was able to see how hard that one had been in Jamie’s eyes. They'd been vacant, like the last piece of his soul had been chipped away. Now that I was older, I’d say it had been the last of his innocence that had been taken.
As he'd gotten older, even I'd known that killing had become as easy as breathing for him. I'd thought he'd even enjoyed it, turning it into a craft he'd worked hard to perfect. Some would have said he was the best. His death count in the crime world was the proof of that. His ability to make someone disappear was infamous. To some, he was the embodiment of the grim reaper, and that should have had me shaking with fear, but I wasn’t. I didn’t fear death anymore. My father was to be thanked for that.
While Jamie had been off killing people in the basement, I'd been going through a mental bootcamp of my own that involved mind games and desensitizing. When I'd been thirteen, Stefan had made me believe I was going to die for a whole summer. He'd been so convincing with the anger he'd exuded and his emotional detachment. For three torturous months, I'd thought I'd betrayed the family by spilling family secrets to a friend at school. Which had been impossible because I hadn't had any friends other than Jamie, but he'd broken me down, stripped away all that made sense until I'd believed what he'd been saying was true. Each day, I’d woken up wondering if today was the day he’d kill me.
His attempts had started off small. One time he'd ripped me out of bed in the middle of the night, sat me down at the dining room table, and placed a plate of food in front of me. He'd implied it was poisoned, then told me to eat up. I'd fought. Like anyone would die willingly. He, of course, had been stronger and ended up force feeding me. I'd trembled with fear as he'd shoved each bite into my mouth, but I hadn't begged, and I most certainly hadn't cried. In Stefan’s eyes, crying was for the weak. After I'd swallowed the last bite, he'd stuck his finger down my throat and made me throw it all up, then told me poison wasn’t the death I deserved.
It had only gotten worse after that, slowly progressing with each passing week. I think the time he'd finally broken me of my fear of death was when he'd had one of his men try to drown me in our pool. I remembered strong arms holding me under the cool water while Stefan had stood next to the pool watching, looking bored with his hands stuffed into his pockets. I remembered the very moment I'd stopped fighting. I'd stared up at my father through the rippling water, thinking, Who the fuck cares anymore? It hadn't been that I'd wanted to die, I'd just accepted that death was something I couldn’t fight. The fear of it had no longer existed in me or weighed me down. It had been quite freeing, actually. Then I'd inhaled. My whole body had jerked as if trying to reject the water filling my lungs. The man holding me under must have noticed because he'd yanked me out of the water and tossed me out of the pool at Stefan’s feet. I'd gotten a little bit of satisfaction from coughing up all the water I'd inhaled all over his expensive leather Oxfords.
The final time Stefan had attempted to kill me, he'd held a gun to my head. He'd asked if I had any last words. I'd told him to stop wasting my time and just pull the trigger. It must have been the look in my eyes or the boredom in my voice that had convinced him this lesson was over. He'd holstered his gun, given me a proud smile, warmth returning to his eyes. “Very good, Maura,” he'd praised, like I'd aced a school spelling test, before he'd pulled me into his arms for a hug.
I was surprised Jamie and I hadn't ended up in a mental hospital with half of the fucked-up shit Stefan had put us through. Our childhood would have traumatized most and his excuse had been that we were stronger because of it.
When it looked like Jamie found what he was looking for in my eyes, his whole body relaxed. “There she is. I was wondering when the Banphrionsa would surface.”
I suppressed an eye roll. “I’m not a princess.” Banphrionsa was Gaelic and a nickname the family had given me. “But I’m still a Quinn.”
“I don’t know. You’ve been out of the life for a long time. I haven’t seen you in, what… six years? The first time I hear from you and see you, you acted like a regular female. I had you read in less than two seconds with how much emotion you were showing. You never used to be this easy to read.”
He was right. You couldn't survive in our world by showing vulnerability. No one could be trusted. However, I’d never had to worry about trusting Jamie and my gut had told me I could trust Louie as well. That was why they'd been my friends. Had been.
“Regular people show emotions, Jamie. It’s how they interact. Believe me, it was a culture shock in the beginning, but I assimilated. I can adjust to my surroundings if needed. I just figured, since it was you at my door and not one of Stefan’s goons, I didn’t have to turn off years of conditioning like a flip of a switch. I’ve never had to hide anything from you before. When I needed you, you were always there, and in the back of my mind I figured that’d always be the case. It was wrong to assume that. I left everyone without looking back. Six years is a long time and people change.” I failed to hide the disappointment in my voice. Maybe it was a little harder than flipping a switch.