Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(78)

My first and only thought had been: I have to give this to Tess.

“What do you want me to do with it?” the doctor asked, clanking the tiny tracker into a surgical tray, shattering my daydream.

Shooting to my feet, I rushed toward him and grabbed the tray. Tipping it upside down, I let the life-ruining device land in my open palm. Streaks of warm blood stained my clean hands.

The doctor curled his lip in distaste, but didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t wait another moment. Striding to the door, I found Franco in the corridor. The poor man looked f*cking beat. Eyes hollow, face gaunt, and a wiry edge that would petrify anyone if they’d known what he’d done to the rapist last night.

I’d seen the remains. I’d stepped over dismembered fingers, toes, and cock while holding a bleeding heart in my hands. We were a nasty pair of work, but through killing together we’d been granted a kind of peace that we wouldn’t get if the pervert was sentenced to jail. We gave them fair justice. We ended it.

“Is she doing okay?” he asked, looking at my clenched hand.

“Yeah, the doctor is stitching her up now. I need you to stay with her till I get back. “Vous, ?a va?” You good? I couldn’t remember the last time any of us slept. It wouldn’t be much longer till we all crashed and burned.

“No. I got it.” He passed me, slapping my shoulder. “Pleasure working with you, Mercer.”

“Likewise.” I gave him a tight smile and headed down the stairs.

I managed to keep my calm all the way through the house. I managed to smile at a few of the girls we’d rescued from Rio as Suzette and Mrs. Sucre arranged temporary staff to make sure they all had rooms and whatever they needed.

I kept walking at a normal pace right out the front door and away from the house, but the moment I was away from view, I ran.

I f*cking bolted across the grounds, heading toward one of the many outbuildings at the back of the property. Birds flew, squawking in indignation, and the freshly mowed grass filled my nose with freshness.

Skidding to a stop outside one of the many converted barns where my father’s priceless cars rested, I punched in the pin on the keypad and entered the hushed world of mechanics.

I hated these cars and never used them. I didn’t want to sell them either, as in my mind locking them up in a garage was a way of sticking it to my father one more time. Plus when I got angry, I liked to take my rage out on the pristine panelling and immaculate upholstery.

I beelined for the back of the garage, toward the overstocked toolroom where any builder would’ve come in his pants with the top-of-the-line gadgets.

Bending, I placed the blood-smeared tracker on the concrete floor and paced toward the rack where all the hammers hung. I selected the baddest, heaviest sledge hammer from the rack and turned to face the electronic nightmare on the ground.

Howling, I swung with all the rage trapped inside and brought the wrath of the hammer on top of it.

It smashed into a billion teeny tiny fragments. It turned from small to microscopic dust, but I didn’t trust its evilness was truly dead.

I hit it again and again and again. I swung until my back ached and sweat poured under my shirt.

All I could see was Tess tied to the bed in Rio. Her sweaty, sickly skin. Her protruding bones and dilated pupils. Her agony was caused by this shitty piece of technology.

Vous avez tout pris de moi! You took everything from me!

I hit and hit. Growling, straining, cursing.

It wasn’t until I had a crater the size of a bowling ball in the concrete when I finally conceded it was no longer operational.

Breathing hard, I dropped the hammer and let it rest where it landed. The last two and a half weeks caught up with me in a rush and I stumbled against the wall. My head swam with tiredness; my bones screamed for a bed.

You can rest. Tess is safe.

I f*cking thought she was safe last time, and she wasn’t.

You’ve hit that wall. You have to rest.

I let my body crumple to the floor and bent over my folded knees.

For the first time in my life, I let weakness consume me and I grieved. Grieved for what I lost when Tess was taken. Grieved for myself for what was stolen.

Because one thing was for sure.

Tess had changed.

And I feared I’d never get her back.





Tied to a rack or down on my knees, it’s you my master I long to please. Own me, take me, you can never break me…



The first thing I did was scream.

Sleep left me, dumping me into a world of severe pain. My finger, my ribs, my…neck. It was too much. Too much!

Then the bugs scurried from their hiding place, taking refuge in my skin, chewing me from the inside out. Maggots wiggled in my hair, termites bored through my legs.

I screamed as if my soul wanted to escape. I screamed as every single hellish thing I’d lived through crushed me with the force of a logging truck.

Unsurvivable guilt suffocated me, latching around my brain and heart, squeezing me to hell. Those girls. What I did. I couldn’t live with myself.

“Shoot her, slut.”

“Beat her harder. Harder!”

“I’m gonna f*ck you next, cunt. Oh yeah, I’m gonna split you in half.”

“See, Tess. No one wants you anymore. Die already.”

“I’m always here for you, Tessie. Don’t give up.”