What They Never Said

by Avery, Quinn

  “Linc, I love you!” she cried, running to him. “Whatever I did to make you hate me, I’m sorry!”

  He refused to look up, or even acknowledge her. Even after the door was shut behind him and the other officer was dragging her away from the car, she kept trying to get his attention.

  “Linc, do you hear me? I love you!”

  “Miss, you need to calm down and back away from the car. Mr. Farrington may have cut you a break for trespassing, but I can still bring you in for disorderly conduct.”

  Defeated, she shuffled back, drowning in her tears. Lincoln slumped in the back of the squad car, eyes directed straight ahead. Panic rushed through her. What would happen to him? Was he doing this to help her, or to punish her for something she had done?

  The car rolled forward. She chased it down the driveway, ignoring the open stares from the Farringtons’ neighbors gawking from their pristine lawns.

  “Linc, I love you! Please don’t hate me!”

  She continued running after the car, even once it became a blur in the dark night.

  If she had known how long it would be before she saw him again, she would’ve collapsed to the ground.

  After wiping her wet face on her shoulder, she dropped another kiss against Lincoln’s arm. “If I hadn’t tried to steal that jersey—”

  “We’re done going over this, Quinn. If I hadn’t tracked you down, my brother wouldn’t have raped you, and you wouldn’t have chosen this deranged path in which you continue to be his victim. I don’t want your apologies. This is all on me.”

  Spinning in his arms, she threw him a frown. “Tracked me down?”

  A shaking hand ran over his short hair. “I mean…you know…sought you out…in school.”

  “Sought me out? What does that even mean? Why do I get the feeling you’re hiding something?” She backed away. “Is this the secret you worried would destroy us?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he confirmed. The strength in his voice faded.

  “You promised you’d tell me the reason you left once you knew I was fully invested in us. I’d say agreeing to be your wife is proof enough. Full disclosure, Linc. It’s the only way I can be with you. No more secrets.”

  “Everything I’ve done was meant to protect you.” Sucking in a sharp breath, he reached for her hand, linking their fingers together. His mouth turned downward. “Promise me that you’ll stay and hear me out until I’m finished explaining myself.”

  Her stomach folded over herself. Squeezing his hand, she nodded. She wasn’t ready to give up on him yet, regardless of his carefully guarded secret.

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut and he began to speak.

  15

  One night before the twin brothers turned fourteen, their father took them to their first Giants game. Lincoln was mindful their father wasn’t truly into the idea of bringing them along. The tickets had been a gift from the team owner, and their old man was concerned he’d offend him by letting them go unused. Lincoln was dubious to begin with since they never did anything with their father unless their mother came along. Their father must’ve decided it would boost his professional reputation to be seen in public with his sons.

  The game was uneventful and, for the most part, boring as hell. Afterwards, their father stopped by the office to “take care of some business.” It wasn’t unusual for him to work after dark, but Lincoln remembered thinking it was strange he wanted the twins to come inside too.

  Lincoln and Kellen stood behind the desk in his grand office, taking in the stars twinkling over the mountains stretched across the horizon behind downtown San Jose as their father engaged in a phone conversation. Valicorp was located in one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city. It was equipped with top-of-the-line electronics, marble floors, and dark mahogany wood. Lincoln didn’t know much about business at that age, and wasn’t sure what Valicorp did beyond creating firewalls for some of the biggest corporations in the world. But he knew their father was in charge, and brought home piles of money. Before that night, Lincoln had dreamed of being as successful.

  “One day this will be mine,” Kellen declared, puffing out his chest. From the gleam in his eye, Lincoln knew he wouldn’t stop until he got it. Sickened to hear his brother had the same goals, Lincoln vowed that his own would change. Genetics made them identical. Lincoln would do whatever it took to ensure he was nothing like Kellen in any other way.

  Someone charged into the office, slamming the door against the wall. “I won’t take the fall for this, Howard!”

  The twins whirled around. A fit man younger than their parents with thick eyebrows and dense eyelashes gaped their way. He was dressed similar to their dad’s normal work attire, only his tie hung loose around his slender neck, and his dirty-blond hair was spiked in clumps. Lincoln remembered thinking he looked like a wild animal.

  Their father glared at the man with a hand held over the phone’s receiver. “Sit down!” he ordered. Their father was a relatively mild-mannered man, but the bite to his words that night struck white-hot terror inside Lincoln’s heart.

  Vito, their father’s always-present goon, slipped into the room behind the man. Lincoln didn’t know what exactly Vito did back in those days, but he was always a step away. Compared to the man who had just entered, Vito was gigantic. Lincoln noticed one of Vito’s hands was inside his suit coat like he was reaching for something, and he was struck with the sixth sense that something bad was about to happen.

  Howard jerked his head toward Vito. “Help Mr. Quinn take a seat while I finish with this call.”

  Vito shoved Mr. Quinn down into one of the two matching arm-chairs facing their father’s high-gloss desk. The way the blonde man fidgeted, gaze dancing between everyone in the room, face as ashen as his white dress shirt, Lincoln wondered if maybe the man was crazy. The nagging feeling that they shouldn’t witnesses what was about to happen creeped up Lincoln’s spine every time the man’s eyes landed on him.

  Howard mumbled something into the phone about the problem having stepped into his office. Then he stated that he understood, and would take care of “it” by any means necessary before hanging up. Arms crossed over his broad chest, he leaned back in his posh leather chair and looked down his nose at Mr. Quinn. “What’s so important that you felt it necessary to meet with me at this late hour?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Farrington, but…” He looked the boys’ way again, desperation seeping through every last one of his pores. It scared Lincoln’s thirteen-year-old self to death.“I’m sorry, this is an adult conversation.”

  Glancing back at his sons, Howard puffed his cheeks. “They are adults. They need to understand what it takes to run a well-oiled business.”

  For a fleeting moment Lincoln felt special, even though Howard was lumping him and his idiot brother together. It was the most praise Lincoln had ever received from his old man. The validation was better than the usual stiff pat on the back.

  Mr. Quinn’s gaze fell down to his feet. “I have a daughter around the same age,” he wheezed in a strained voice. “She’s the reason I’m here to tell you that I can’t go through with this any longer.” Boldly meeting Howard’s stare, he cleared his throat. “The IRS is going to conduct an audit on the company.”

  A heavy silence lingered. After what felt like an eternity, Howard adjusted his tie and sneered. “You’ve been this company’s head accountant for…what? Three years? I assume you have everything in order?”

  Mr. Quinn’s head bobbed like it was on a broken spring. “Yes, yes…of course!”

  Howard held the palms of his hands upward. “Then I don’t see the problem.”

  “Sir, there’s the matter of the…charities. I’ve done as I was instructed by you and Mr. Agron.” Again his eyes drifted between the three Farrington men, hesitant. “In the end they’ll discover what we’ve done, and I can’t go to prison for this company. I can’t leave my wife and daughter behind.”

  Howard’s face darkened to an
unnatural shade of red. “No one is asking you to leave your family behind, Scott. Do your goddamned job, and—”

  The man sprang to his feet. “You don’t seem to understand—I have done my job! That’s what got me into this situation! No amount of hush money is going to keep me from telling them the truth! Someone has to take responsibility! I won’t take the fall so you and Agron can continue to screw this company and the federal government!”

  With his accusation, Howard’s entire body stiffened. There was a brief moment in which he made eye contact with Vito. Lincoln saw the flash of metal in the bodyguard’s hand. Vito casually held a gun at his thigh behind Mr. Quinn, ready, but not threatening.

  Acid gurgled in Lincoln’s throat. It was the first time he’d seen a gun in real life. He couldn’t believe his father had given whatever signal for Vito to draw the weapon.

  “In that case, it appears we do have a problem,” Howard said in a cool, threatening tone. He glanced over his shoulder to where his sons stood. “Boys, what would you do in this situation?”

  Lincoln only blinked, struggling against the lump lodged in his throat.

  Kellen’s eyes narrowed on the man in a way that gave Lincoln the chills. It wasn’t the first time he realized there was something seriously off about his twin. He was a certified sociopath.“If you want to be successful, you have to be ruthless,” he answered.

  With a deep chuckle, Howard slowly rose to his feet, sprawling his fingers over his desk and leaning in to meet Mr. Quinn’s gaze. “I think you’re right, son. It seems my accountant has been embezzling the company’s money, and can’t live with himself any longer.”

  What happened next would forever haunt Lincoln. Mr. Quinn’s jaw parted with silent protest as his blue eyes widened, flickering over to Lincoln as if silently pleading for his mercy. Lincoln absorbed every last ounce of the man’s fear and squeezed his legs together, fearing he’d wet himself. He was too afraid to speak or move. In that same moment, Vito reached around to put the gun in Mr. Quinn’s mouth.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The shot that followed was deafening. Lincoln’s ears started ringing. His eyes never strayed from Mr. Quinn. The man’s body jerked before his head slumped forward.

  Blood splattered onto my father’s marble floor. Mr. Quinn was dead.

  A scream stuck in Lincoln’s throat. He trembled, but his feet wouldn’t carry him out of there the way he wanted.

  The words their father spoke next sounded far away and muffled, like Lincoln was underwater. “You were right, Kellen. The only way you can succeed is by showing no mercy.”

  Tears flowed from Cameron’s beautiful eyes. She stared at Lincoln, mouth lagged, face pale, unmoving except for the hitch in her chest. It reminded him of the way he felt when he witnessed her dad’s murder. She even possessed an eerie similarity to her dad in his final moment of life, the way her eyes, the same shade of blue, filled with horror.

  He despised himself for causing her that kind of pain. “Now I wish I would’ve called the police. But he was my father, and I was just a kid. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  Eyes closing for a heartbeat, she shook her head slowly. “All this time…I thought he was killed in a mugging…but you knew he was murdered. By your father.”

  “I decided your mom wanted you to believe he was mugged because she couldn’t stand to tell you that he’d killed himself like it said in the police report.” He turned away, unable to watch as he continued to obliterate her world. “That day…in my father’s office at Valicorp…the rest of what happened after Vito killed him was a blur. Kellen was actively involved in the conversation of what to do with the body. I remember thinking to myself ‘it’s a man, not a body’ as my father talked to some man named Agron on the phone to fill him in on what had happened.”

  “What do you know about Agron?” she demanded, remembering that name from her conversation with Bexley.

  “I looked into his story a few years later. From what I understand, he was Valicorp’s biggest investor. Vito was there to protect everything Agron did through Valicorp.”

  Cameron swiped at the tears slipping into her mouth. “Your brother’s hiding the money with someone by that same name. He might be involved with the Russian mafia. You’re saying this same man was somehow involved in my dad’s murder?”

  A boulder sunk in his gut. “How did you know about the mafia?”

  “Does it matter?”

  If Agron was truly working with Kellen, there was no way in hell he’d let her touch the account in the Caymans. “All I know is my father was taking orders from someone on the phone. It’s safe to assume that person was Agron.”

  Her lip trembled. “When exactly did you decide to come looking for me?”

  “Something fell from your dad’s pocket when they carried him out. I waited until they were gone before I picked it up. I don’t know why I wanted whatever it was to myself, but I felt a connection with your dad in his final moments, and I was overcome with guilt for not trying to help him.” He turned back to her, dropping his chin. “It was a picture of you.”

  “You knew who I was before you talked to me at Crestridge?”

  “Yeah, I did. I’m the reason you were there in the first place.”

  Head tilted, she wiped at more tears. “I don’t understand.”

  Puffing out a long breath, he glanced at the window behind her. “After I found your picture, I had to know more about Scott Quinn’s daughter. I don’t know if it was because I felt sorry for you, because you were so damn beautiful, or if it was just out of some morbid curiosity, but I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let you go. I figured out where you lived. It wasn’t hard—to get your address I just waited until my father wasn’t at his desk, and found it in the employee database. They had just started investigating the claims that your dad was stealing from Valicorp. You were still living in your house on the edge of Willow Glen, a few miles down the road from where we lived. I rode my bike there every day after school to check in on you. I knew right away that your mom wasn’t strong enough to get through your dad’s death. I never saw her leave the house after the funeral. You always looked so sad, but you kept going. I hated that you were grieving alone. I was there the day they took your parents’ cars. I watched from a distance the day they foreclosed on your house.

  “I wanted to kill my old man for letting your dad take the fall once I saw the apartment you and your mom were forced to move into. Then I went by the school in your new neighborhood, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something. By then my father had started up Luxco, and was making even more than he did with Valicorp. After he sold his shares of the new company, my parents bought a vacation home in Maui. I was appalled that he’d become filthy rich while you and your mom had everything taken away. So one day I threatened to turn him into the cops if he didn’t pay for your tuition to Crestridge. He didn’t understand why I cared, but I wasn’t about to tell him it was because I wanted to see with my own eyes that you were okay. After awhile he decided to go along with my threat, said he was proud to see me play hardball.”

  “There wasn't a scholarship,” she whispered, sliding back on the mattress. She was visibly shaking, and it freaked him the hell out. “So that’s why you became my friend? To keep an eye on me? Because you felt sorry for me?”

  “It wasn’t like that. I mean at first, yeah. Then we started hanging out, and I fell hard for you. You made the nightmares disappear that I’d been having since the night of your dad’s murder. Everything was different once I realized that I loved you. I wanted my father to do more than simply send you to a good school. I went to him and demanded that he pay back every cent they took away from your family. I told him that he devastated your mom, and she needed to be sent to rehab. He just laughed in my face, said he had already paid his debt by paying your tuition. He told me that if I didn’t leave it alone, he’d pull the funding for your education and let the sheriff know your mom was buying illegal drugs. Th
at’s when I realized I couldn’t have you in my life the way I wanted. He’d always have the power to hurt you in order to control me. That’s why when your mom’s dealer threatened you, I was desperate to help. I’d rather die than see you hurt even more.”

  “That’s the reason you broke up with me? Out of guilt?”

  “Not exactly. You were right about my old man being behind it. He was paranoid that I’d eventually tell you the truth if we stayed together any longer. I sense Agron would’ve killed him if he’d been linked to the murder. So he started threatening me, saying he’d hurt you if we went to college together. At that point any kind of future we had together would’ve been unfair to you anyway. If we got married like we talked about, your dad's killer would become your father-in-law.” He stopped to choke down the lump in his throat. “I didn’t think I could do that to you. You deserve better.”

  “But it’s okay now?” She dropped her face into her hands. “This can’t be happening.” Fingers slipping through her yellow curls, she snarled at him. “Any more secrets you’re keeping from me?”

  “No…I swear to God that’s all. Quinn, I’m so damn sorry. I wish I had handled everything another way. I—”

  When he tried reaching out for her, she sprang from the bed.

  “Stay away from me!” she yelled with a hiccuping cry. “I don’t know you!”

  “I’m still the same person you fell in love with.”

  “I fell in love with a goddamn liar!” She swiped her clothes off the floor and threw them on before starting for the living room.

  “Quinn, wait!” He jogged after her. By the time he caught up, she was at the door with her phone and car keys in hand. “Don’t leave when you’re this upset. I’ll let you have this suite to yourself if you want, just don’t take off. I can’t let you wander around the city when you’re this upset.”

  Her eyes became wild with rage. “Stop calling me Quinn! As far as I’m concerned, everything that’s come out of your mouth since we met is a goddamned lie! Don’t follow me and don’t call me, because I don’t want anything more to do with you!”