The Quinn Retribution

Chapter 2

Today, for the first time in three years, Quinn Thorne felt something other than resignation. Anticipation coiled tight in his chest, a quiet electricity humming beneath his skin. The moment was close. He could feel it in his bones.

The car glided through the gated community and rolled to a stop in front of estate 3. Before the engine had fully died, Chloe Sterling threw open the passenger door and climbed out as if the vehicle itself were contaminated. She didn't spare him a glance, didn't offer so much as a nod. The idea of spending one more second beside her mute brother-in-law clearly revolted her.

It was eight in the evening. Quinn parked the car properly, entered the villa in silence, climbed the stairs to his bedroom, and shut the door behind him. This room was his refuge, the only square footage in the entire house that belonged to him in any meaningful sense. He and Olivia Sterling had been married for four years, yet theirs was a marriage in name alone. Separate bedrooms, separate lives. They had never so much as held hands.

A familiar prickling sensation crept along his skull, faint but unmistakable, and Quinn's pulse quickened as the premonition hit him stronger tonight than it had in any previous year. The pain was coming, and it would be worse than anything before.

He reached for the desk calendar on the nightstand and drew a firm line through the number thirty. One thousand and ninety-five days of humiliation, silence, and servitude, all compressed into those three long years. Tonight it would end. Even if that mysterious old man had lied to him, even if nothing happened at all, Quinn had already made his decision. He was leaving the Sterling family behind, one way or another.

A sharp stab lanced through his temples. He stripped off his shirt, climbed onto the bed, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes, forcing his breathing into a slow, measured rhythm. He stilled his mind and waited.

Downstairs in the grand sitting room, Eleanor Sterling swept through the front door with a young man at her side. They were laughing, her voice pitched high with delight, his smooth and practiced.

"Spencer, honestly, you should have told me you were coming back to Crestport sooner," Eleanor chided warmly, guiding him toward the leather sofa. "Sit, sit. Let me get you some tea."

The young man was Spencer Vance, the son of one of Eleanor's closest friends. He wore a tailored casual blazer that accentuated his long legs and athletic frame. His features were symmetrical and polished, the kind of face that belonged on a Netflix rom-com heartthrob. Every inch of him radiated confidence and breeding.

"Please don't trouble yourself," Spencer said, producing a small velvet box from his jacket pocket and offering it with both hands. "I just got back from finishing my degree abroad. Came straight here to see you and Olivia. I didn't have time to prepare much, but I hope you'll like this."

"Spencer, your mother and I are practically sisters. You don't need to bring me gifts." Eleanor feigned displeasure, though her eyes were already on the box.

"That's exactly why I bought one for my mother and one for you," Spencer said with a practiced smile that never quite reached his eyes.

"Oh, you." Eleanor laughed and accepted the box. Inside lay a jade bracelet, delicate and luminous, clearly worth a small fortune. She set it aside carefully and went to pour his tea, though inwardly she couldn't suppress a heavy sigh.

She had watched Spencer grow up. He had always been bright, well-mannered, and ambitious. Years ago, when both he and Olivia graduated from university, Eleanor had planned to bring them together. Then Spencer left the country for his postgraduate studies, and the timing fell apart.

Shortly after his departure, Olivia developed a rare and inexplicable illness. Every hospital, domestic and foreign, declared itself powerless. In desperation, Eleanor, who had always harbored a streak of superstition, consulted a clairvoyant. The man's prescription was bizarre: find a live-in husband for Olivia, arrange the superstitious marriage cure, and the sickness would pass.

And it did. The very day after the wedding, Olivia's symptoms vanished as if they had never existed.

But Eleanor never credited Quinn Thorne for her daughter's recovery. To her, that orphan was nothing more than a tool, a disposable instrument that had served its purpose. If divorce didn't involve the nightmare of asset division, she would have thrown him out on the street years ago.

Now, looking at Spencer Vance, so polished and promising, and thinking of the mute freeloading loser locked in his room upstairs, Eleanor felt her irritation curdle into outright bitterness.

"By the way," Spencer said, glancing around the sitting room with studied casualness, "is Olivia not home yet?"

Eleanor placed a cup of tea before him. "The company keeps her busy. She probably won't be back until ten."

"I see." Spencer paused, letting a beat of silence pass. "I heard she got married while I was away. Is her husband around?"

Eleanor's expression soured instantly, and she jerked her chin toward the second floor. "That lazy good-for-nothing is upstairs somewhere. God knows what he's doing."

A cold smile flickered across Spencer's lips, too brief for Eleanor to catch. "What does Olivia's husband do for a living?"

The question hit Eleanor like a match to dry kindling. Already irritable from the comparison, already running hot from middle-age hormones, she tilted her head back and bellowed toward the upper floor, "Quinn! We have a guest! Get down here this instant, unless you're too ashamed to show your face!"

So the rumors were true. Spencer filed the confirmation away neatly. He had done his homework before coming tonight. Olivia Sterling had married a freeloading loser, a grown man who hid in the house all day, never worked, and lived entirely off his wife's money, and the man was mute on top of it all. What company would hire someone who couldn't even speak? The man lived a life worse than a dog's.

Upstairs, the clock was ticking toward nine. The sensations in Quinn's body were intensifying rapidly, heat and pressure building behind his eyes and crawling down his spine. Even if he had heard Eleanor's shout, there was no possibility of going downstairs now.

When no answer came, Eleanor called out again, "Chloe! Spencer is here! Come down and say hello!"

Chloe's bedroom door opened. She leaned over the railing, glanced down at the sitting room, and frowned. "Mom, why are you yelling? Spencer's here, fine. It's not exactly a national event."

Chloe didn't like Quinn, but she liked Spencer Vance even less. A woman's intuition told her that behind those charming smiles lay a depth of calculation she wanted no part of.

"Watch your tone, young lady!" Eleanor snapped, her voice sharp enough to c***k glass.

"Please, don't be upset on my account," Spencer intervened smoothly, his tone all practiced concern. "It's not worth ruining your health over. I suppose Olivia's husband isn't home?"

It was a subtle provocation, and it worked perfectly. Eleanor's temper flared even higher. "Chloe! Is Quinn back?"

"Yes, he came home with me!"

"Then go tell him to get down here. Now."

"Fine." Chloe huffed and turned toward Quinn's bedroom, annoyance etched across her face. Her useless brother-in-law was getting more insufferable by the day. He came home and immediately locked himself away like he was some kind of lord. Who did he think he was?

She raised her hand to knock, but before her knuckles touched the wood, a scream tore through the door from inside, raw and ragged, ripped from the deepest pit of agony a human throat could produce. It was not a shout but a scream that seemed to claw its way out of him against his will.

It didn't frighten Chloe. She simply sighed and shook her head. "Great. He's having another episode."

The Sterling family had seen this before. It happened last year, and the year before that. Not once had any of them suggested taking Quinn to a hospital or having him examined, because as far as the Sterlings were concerned, if Quinn died, it would solve everyone's problems.

Chloe turned the handle and pushed the door open. What she saw on the other side burned itself into her memory forever.

"Ahhh!" A brief, frozen instant of shock gave way to a scream of pure horror that ripped from her lungs, and she stumbled backward and fled down the hallway.

"Chloe? What happened?" Eleanor heard the scream and assumed the worst, that Quinn had done something to her daughter. She charged up the stairs two at a time.

On the bed, Quinn lay twisted and contorted, his body arched at an unnatural angle. Every inch of his exposed skin was coated in a thick, tar-like substance, black and glistening, as if he had been dragged from a vat of molten pitch. Only his eyes remained visible beneath the filth, two bright points of living darkness that proved he was still alive.

It was no wonder Chloe had been terrified.