The Damaged (The Insiders Trilogy 2)

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I mean…” No. But … “Yeah. You know about everything?”

“Erik was relaying it.” Kash’s tone got super scary cold. “I need you to hear me. I will handle this. Quinn’s trial is being moved up. I’m told that her lawyers are scrambling to bring it forward instead of stalling, which means she’s got something planned. Knowing that, knowing these new developments, I need you to keep Matt contained. He can’t go on a bender and he really can’t go anywhere near Quinn. She’ll use it against the family for her case. I don’t think we can send him away alone.”

“I know.”

“He asked to use the jet earlier to go to Aspen. Go with him. And,” he hesitated, “I need you to take all of his friends, too.”

“What?”

“Matt needs to be distracted. If he goes only with you, he’ll obsess about Quinn. He won’t be able to help himself. He’ll see you and he’ll remember what Quinn did to you, and that’s not good for him. If you take your friends with, he’ll do the same thing. Your friends don’t distract him enough. So I need you to take his friends. And you need to go now.”

Was I hearing him right? “You want my friends to go?”

“Take everyone. I don’t give a fuck. I just need Matt distracted and unable to get to Quinn. I don’t want him to strangle her.”

Right. Distract. No strangulation.

I could do that.

“Okay.” I turned around. Everyone was watching me, and it was my turn to gulp. “We’re going to need a second plane.”

Kash didn’t laugh. “Give the phone back to Erik. I’ll get it all taken care of. And Bailey?”

I paused. “Yes?”

“I’m coming back to you, but it’ll be a day or two.”

A day or two. “We have school on Monday.”

“You guys can skip, or I’ll make some calls. See if you can work remotely from Aspen.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing I should be fine. Right? All would be fine. Kash would take care of it all. I just needed to distract my brother. A bad idea came to me on how I could make sure he was distracted. A really bad idea.

Matt looked like he was on another level of wanting to rip heads off people, so maybe the bad idea wasn’t such a bad idea.

I swallowed.

Kash prompted in my ear, “You good? Just have everyone go to their places, pack a bag, and head to the airport.”

I swallowed again, feeling a knot in my throat. “Yep. Totally good. On it.”

“I love you.”

“I love you back.”

We hung up, and knowing this was such a stupid, stupid idea, I handed Erik his phone back. I asked Matt for his, saying I needed a number for Kash. He gave it to me, and I texted Fleur and Cedar.

Want to go to Aspen?

Such a bad idea.

THIRTY-SEVEN

The airport didn’t know what hit them.

We were all standing on the sidewalk outside O’Hare, waiting, as group after group showed up.

Matt. Tony. Chester. Guy. All of whom had been quiet at Matt’s party. I kept forgetting they were there, but they were. Then my group: Torie, Tamara, Melissa, Liam, Carl, Dax, Shyam, and three more of the guys. Hoda. She was in the classmate crew.

When everyone arrived, three vans pulled up. We were all loaded inside.

We were driven to a private section of the airport, and everyone piled out. We were led into a private sitting area, and that’s when my bad-idea-surprise was waiting inside. Cedar and Fleur were all smiles to the guys, all chilly attitudes to the girls—except to me. With me, they were just wary.

Matt pulled me aside, wanting to know what the hell I’d been thinking.

I told him the truth. “You need distracting. I don’t know who’s more distracting than those two girls.”

He scowled. “They’re bitches.”

“Exactly.”

The idea, though horrible for me, did have merit, and Matt was seeing that now.

He still scowled at me. “You know they’re going to torture you.”

I nodded. I was already tired and it hadn’t even started. “I know.”

Then he softened, drew me in for a hug. “What’d I do to deserve such a good sister?”

I grinned. “Our father likes to have unprotected sex.”

He barked out a laugh, letting me go. “No doubt. I didn’t inherit the unprotected sex part, but I think I got my weakness for women from him.”

“Matt.” I hit him in the chest.

He shrugged just as an airport staff member approached the group, saying our plane was ready to board.

Matt sighed behind me. “I asked to use the jet, but we got too many people.”

“Poor Matthew Francis, having to fly on a commercial flight.” We were led onto the plane first, taken in to cut in front of the entire line of passengers waiting at the desk. They’d put us on a big-ass plane. Most of us were in first class. The rest of the group was put in the Economy Plus section.