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Chapter 18
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I was beginning to realize that no matter how tolerable Gunnar could be, no matter how nice he seemed, deep down he would always look at me as a way to get back at my family. After sharing the little information he did this morning, he had me come into work with him and still pretend to be his loyal assistant. I thought of spiking his coffee with laxatives more than once today. That would have taught him a good lesson and maybe I'd take away all the toilet paper so he would suffer even further.
My diabolical plan was sounding more and more appealing in my head.
I forced myself to refocus. Gunnar had dragged me to yet another meeting for the day and I was mentally exhausted. For some strange reason, the board members wanted the company to go public, allowing anyone who wanted to buy shares in the business to buy. That didn't sit well with Gunnar. To him, he worked too hard to allow strangers to rea
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GUNNAR"She's a fucking Harper and you're protecting her?" Ace's voice bellowed. Luckily, Quinn's bedroom was at the other end of the house. I hoped she wouldn't hear him."We're protecting her," I corrected, meeting Jericho's eyes before settling on Ace, "All three of us because it's in our best interest," I stressed the word our so they knew how important this was, "Mickey wants her and we want Mickey.""So you want to use her as bait?" The corner of my brother's lips quirked into a coy smirk. He wasn't always this morbid but he apparently embraced the darkness wholeheartedly. Ace still wasn't one for torture. It allowed his guilt to creep in on him so he chose to kill without a thought because, with the job already done, there was no way to convince himself to back out."No," I growled out the word, grip tightening around the crystal glass holding my whiskey, "I've done that to her already.
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QUINN It was like something feral snapped in Gunnar. He no longer saw Ace as his brother when he pushed off the marble island, he saw Ace as someone trying to disobey his direct orders. Instead of protecting me as Gunnar wanted, he planned to put my life in danger. It wasn't about me. It was about the blatant disrespect Ace was beginning to display. At least, that was my deduction from Gunnar's reaction. His steps held purpose as he strode out of the kitchen. I slid off the island and practically ran to meet his stride. My organs were begging me to slow down just to breathe for a second but I pushed through the burn. Again, I wouldn't forgive myself if I caused a rift between these three brothers. Right now, I was a major stumbling block between Ace and Gunnar. I followed Gunnar to the opposite end of where our rooms were situated. There wasn't a difference between this half of the house and that half —
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