I hold his gaze. "This is between Quinn and me."
"It stopped being only between you and Quinn the moment you let my sister spend your wedding night believing the worst." He gets closer. “She has spent the entirety of your engagement thinking she’s second best and last night, you letting Daire get that close only solidified that thought.”
Fuck, she said that, said that Daire was the choice and Quinn was the replacement.
"Quinn feels as though she has no value beyond being a pawn. She learned it in our house and I let her learn it and I will not watch her take it into her marriage." His voice drops to a vicious whisper. "If you hurt her, Lorenzo, I swear to God I'll kill you. Not a threat, but a motherfucking promise, I will end you."
"I know," I say, gritting my teeth.
"Do you?"
"Yes, I know you mean it, and I know she doesn't deserve what happened last night."
"Daire lied to you," he tells me as he straightens to his full height. "About Orla, probably about everything she's ever said to you." He looks at me steadily. "Quinn came to our mother when she was sixteen, she saw what Daire was doing to that girl and she tried to stop it and our mother slapped her across the face and called her a liar." His voice is barely contained with rage. "Think about that. Think about what it means that the only person who tried to help Orla was Quinn, and the person who punished Quinn for trying was our mother."
I go very still. What the actual fuck?
"That's not the version Daire gave you," he says. "Is it?"
"No," I say. "It isn't."
He looks at me for a long moment. "Ask yourself what Daire gains from you believing the worst about Quinn." He steps back further. "And ask yourself why our mother buried this the way she did, and whose version got buried with it."
He walks back down the corridor and into the elevator. I watch him leave and think about what I’ve been told versus what I know about Quinn. Daire has definitely lied to me. Hell, Daithi was probably right. I doubt Daire’s said an honest word at all to me.
But the question is, what does she gain from doing so?
I reach for my cell and call the only one that can help me work this shit out. Ciro.
"Tell me about the Orla timeline," I demand. “We all know that something isn’t sitting right about it. But what?”
“Well good news on that front, both Marco and I have been digging and Marco’s found something. The friends who said they didn't remember Quinn and Orla being close," Ciro begins. "All three of them remembered Daire and Orla being close. And one of them said something that Marco flagged." He pauses as though he’s flipping through pages to find the exact wording. "She said Orla started pulling away from everyone around the same time she pulled away from Daire. Not Quinn. Daire."
Fucking hell. More lies from the viper.
"That's not what Daire told me."
"No," Ciro says. "It isn't and there's something else. The timeline of when Orla deteriorated doesn't line up with what Daire described. Daire said Quinn isolated her over months. But from what this friend remembers, the deterioration happened fast. Over a few weeks, after something specific happened."
"What happened?"
"She doesn't know, or she won't say." He sighs. "But Marco thinks she knows more than she's giving up, something scared or hurt Orla badly. Something happened that wasn't a slow campaign of isolation."
The version Daire gave me is coming apart at the edges and I can finally see why Quinn has pulled away and become closed off from me, she believes that I chose her sister, when the truth of the matter is, I didn’t give a fuck who I was marrying. It was for duty, that is all. It’s why when Daire was up close with Bruno, I didn’t give a shit. Because that night, I was fucking Sabrina. It didn’t bother me who or what Daire was fucking as long as she was discreet about it. Whereas the same can’t be said for Quinn. If I find out she’s been anywhere near another man, I’ll kill them without a second thought.
"Keep pulling," I say to Ciro. "I want everything." I end the call and stare at the closed door to the bridal suite where Quinn is.
I fucked up with her, I know I have. The question is, where do we go from here?
Chapter 16
Quinn
I sit at the table and watch the city below me. It’s early, but the sun is starting to rise, and there’s people milling about. I couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard I tried. My mind has been replaying everything that happened yesterday.
God, I can’t believe that it’s not even been twenty-four hours since I married Lorenzo. So much has happened, and it’s hard to wrap my head around. There’s a pounding in my head, and I know it’s from where I banged it against the mirror yesterday when Da pushed me onto it. I slide my hand into my hair and my fingers brush against a lump. I bite back a whimper as pain radiates from my head.
God, my da is such a dick. I’m surprised Mam didn’t do anything yesterday. I was on edge waiting for her to appear and try to ruin the day, but she was too busy lapping up the attention of being the mother of the bride.
