by Emilia Finn
“He can help us, Will!” I refuse to sit any longer, to be spoken down to like I’m a child. “Evan McGrady is a powerful man, he can help exonerate you.”
“Before or after he fucks you and leaves you to die?”
“Wha—He… no, Will. He’s going to help us.”
“He’s going to help himself to your body!” he spits out. “Then he’s going to have a new trophy to show around for a few weeks, a few months, until another comes along. A younger girl. A better dancer. Someone shiny and new. Your value, in his eyes, ends when another model comes along and catches his attention.”
“But I’ve already gotten information out of him, Will! He found Nate’s body. He had a medical dude examine the remains. I only found out last night, so I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I was gonna. I would have told you tonight after work.”
He barks out a loud, booming laugh that makes me jump. “Tonight, after dance class with Mrs. Presley?”
“Parnell,” I whisper past the emotion in my throat. “Mrs. Parnell.”
“You’ve been dancing at a titty club, Bubbles. You’ve been dating a known fucking psychopath, and not once did you stop to think he might be playing you?”
“No. He’s not… he’s not…” I stop and swallow down the tears that want to flow freely. “It’s my job to save you, Will. It’s my time to help you. So this is what I’m doing.”
“You’re fucking wrong,” he growls. “It is never your turn to put yourself in danger in a bullshit attempt to save me.”
“Will!”
“McGrady is a collector, Bubbles. He collects women, he collects dancers. His first wife? Dancer, dead. Hardy’s girl? Dancer, dead.”
“No—”
“Victoria fucking Quinnton? Dancer, gonna end up dead if this doesn’t end right here, right now.”
“Evan’s not—he’s not—”
But I don’t get a chance to argue my point, because Will reaches back, fast as a whip, and snatches a printed page from his pocket.
“I got information today too, Bubbles. So how about we share? One for one. You first.”
Tears dribble over my cheeks and onto my lips. “Will…”
“You first!” he roars.
“Evan said they found Nate’s body,” I cry. “He said he had people examine it, and they’ve determined the bones are Nate’s.”
“Awesome.” Will thrusts his paper at me with a horrible, mean scowl.
With shaking hands, I unfold it… and have to take Will’s hand when he offers that next. If I don’t, I’ll fall.
“Does she look familiar to you, Quinn?”
“Is that…?”
Bile rises in my throat. Fiery hot and horrible as I study the image.
It’s a couple in formal wear. The man is clearly Evan, and the woman… dark brown hair, soft, white skin, floor-length, purple gown, silver heels, and a beautiful diamond necklace resting on her collarbone.
“Oh my god,” I choke out. “Evan’s wife?”
“Ha!” Will reaches back into his pocket and snags another sheet of paper. “Nope. This is Evan’s wife.” He thrusts the second folded sheet into my hand, and breathes like a hog readying to charge as I shakily unfold it to study another couple.
Evan on the left. On the right, a woman not the same as the first, but at the same time… eerily similar. Dark brown hair, purple gown, diamond bangle and necklace.
“The woman in the first picture?” Will snaps. “That was Nate’s girl. The second, Evan’s wife. And the woman right in front of me? My sister. Mine to protect!”
“It was Evan?” I release Will’s hand and drop back onto the couch with the photos staring back at me.
These women are almost identical. They’re the same age; early twenties. They’re both fit, trim, young.
“They’re dancers, Bubbles. They were dancers. I think we can deduce that McGrady has a type.”
“Oh god.” I swallow. If I don’t, I might spew. “I didn’t…” I shake my head. “I didn’t know.”
“You were in that man’s home last night, Quinn. In his club. In his car. Today, he was in your studio. His lips were on yours!”
“How did you…” I narrow my brows, and try, try, try to think. To process. “How could you know this? How could you possibly know—”
A movement over my left shoulder draws me around, and I gasp when Jamie walks into my living room looking exactly how he looked when he walked out today. Handsome, enraged.
“Oh no,” I whimper.
“I told you I would take care of you.” Jamie sits on the edge of Will’s recliner, opening his legs wide to get comfortable, and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “This is me taking care of you.”
“You snitched?” I spit. I surge to my feet and square up to this man who now has to look up to me. “You fucking snitched! You have no clue what you’ve done, Jamie!”
“He’s done exactly what he promised he would. He’s keeping you alive. He’s making sure you’re safe.” Will grabs my shoulder to spin me, his mind fogged beneath adrenaline, his strength unknown to him. But I know. My aching shoulder knows, and my breath comes out on a pained cry when he turns me. “You’re dancing on a wife-killer’s stage, Bubbles. And now you’re dating him! Where’s your brain?”
“My brain is busy trying to ensure your freedom! That’s the only thing I’ve focused on since I was fifteen years old, William. Where’s your brain? It’s like you don’t even care about finding Nate and proving your innocence.”
“I don’t care!” he shoots back. “I honestly don’t give a shit. I care about keeping you safe. I care about providing you with food, shelter, the ability to sleep at night without a fucking pocket knife in your hand. I didn’t kill Nate Hardy, Bubbles. But I don’t particularly care who did.”
“So you would spend the rest of your life running?” I surge forward and slam my hand to his chest. “You would go the rest of your life changing names, changing homes, changing jobs, never walking into a police station to get help for fear they’d arrest you? What kind of life is that, Will?” I smack him again, and ignore the traitorous tears that dribble along my cheek. “That’s not freedom. That’s just as restricting as if you’d handed yourself in back when the cops first questioned you. You probably could have gotten the murder charge down to it being an accident, served twenty-five years in jail – less, with parole. You’d be halfway through your sentence by now, and at the end, you’d walk out freer than you are now!”
“You know…” Will steps forward. Menacingly. Dangerously. And if he wasn’t my brother, my lifelong protector, I would almost be terrified. “You’re right, Bubbles. This isn’t freedom. This life we live, it’s irony. To avoid prison, we run, we hide, and we create a prison inside our own home. Hell!” he roars. “There are bars on our windows already.”
“So we work to prove your innocence. What the hell is going on in your head? Huh? It’s like you don’t even care anymore. It’s like you’re tired of giving a shit. So what are you gonna do? Walk into the town square, hang a sign around your neck, and tell the cops to come and get you?”
Will looks to Jamie for a minute. A long minute, when every single one of the sixty seconds feels like an eternity.
Then his eyes come back to me.
One single nod.
Pained eyes, defeated expression… and a nod.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” My voice cracks. From rage, to heartache. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’m going to show myself.”
“What?!”
“It’s time.” He opens his arms, pulls me into a hug, and I go, because that’s what I’ve been doing all of my life. My brother hugs, I hug back. It’s our love language, our touchstone when everything else seems too hard. “I love you, Quinn.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and brings me in until my cheek rests on his chest. “My whole life, I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.”
“Will?” My heart races like a hummin
gbird’s wings. “You’re scaring me.”
“Jamie’s on your side, okay?” Will folds himself lower, and presses a kiss to my cheek. “He will die to protect you, and that means I trust him. Maybe you don’t, and maybe you’re gonna be pissed at him a lot, but he has only one job now. That’s to make you safe.”
“Will, I—” My eyes flare wide when his hold grows tighter. Tighter. “Will?”
“I’m sorry, Bubbles.” He moves his arms from around my shoulders, to around my neck. “I’m so sorry.” And then he squeezes. “I’m sorry,” he rasps out. “I love you, Quinn. I love you so much.”
“Will!”
Panic and adrenaline zoom through my blood. Fight or flight mode, Survival Instincts 101. He’s my brother, my protector, so my brain can’t compute. But my body knows. My legs kick out, and my nails dig into his skin. I try to find freedom from his hold, and I draw blood in the process, but he’s stronger than me. Bigger.
My vision turns dark. Darker. Darker.
“Will…?”
“I’m so sorry,” he cries. My big brother cries in my ear, but his arms grow tighter until the blackness takes over. “I’m sorry, baby sister. I’m so sorry.”
And then the darkness wins.
Jamie
I’m A Criminal Now
“You choked her out!” The second Quinn turns limp in Will’s arms, I race forward and help lower her unconscious body to the couch. “You fucking choked her?”
Will turns away from me to hide the tears in his eyes. “She will never willingly leave me. There’s no reasoning with her. So we make the choice for her.”
He rushes into the hallway while I kneel down beside Quinn. It’s just sleep, just for a few minutes, but I remain on guard, and stroke the hair off her face.
Coming back a moment later with a bag, Will darts around the room and collects things. A sweater, shoes, jeans. “I need her out of here,” he continues. “She needs to be away from whatever is happening here, and the best place for that is back home with you. Not in Evan McGrady’s fucking club. If she’s with you, I can work without worrying about him grabbing her.”
“Who the fuck is Evan McGrady to you?” My eyes remain on Quinn. On her twitching lips. Her eyes moving beneath her eyelids. “Why does he wanna pin a murder on you?”
“I don’t know, Sherlock.” Will stops in the middle of the room and points at Quinn. “But I feel like maybe he wanted something I have.”
“She was a teen when Nate was taken out!”
“Yeah, well…” He shrugs and turns away to keep packing. “That might be young for those of us who aren’t fucked in the head, but it can look grown enough for a sick motherfucker. He saw what I had, he wanted it. I had no clue McGrady was involved, but now that you lay the pieces out in front of me like this…”
He shakes his head. “It all makes sense. He had himself a beautiful dancer. She’s dead. Nate had himself a beautiful dancer. They’re both dead, but not before McGrady took her out to dinner, romanced her, fucked her. He saw my sister, and got a twofer. He wanted her, and he needed a scapegoat for Nate’s disappearance. According to you, he took Quinn out last night, and she was wearing that same fucking dress that the others wore.”
He rushes into the hall, slams things around for a moment, then comes back with the purple fabric fisted in his hand. “Why the fuck would you let her go out with him, Kincaid? Why would you watch her walk out the front fucking door and slide into McGrady’s car?”
“I didn’t know where she was going until she was already sliding in! I fixed it, okay? I made it so she got out alive, and I did it without her even knowing I was in town. Today, I turn up at her studio, get to watch with my own fucking eyes as that asshole put his hands on her, he kissed her, he basically announced they were to marry, and now I’m here talking to you. Tell me where the fuck I had room to change things?”
“She shouldn’t have ever stepped inside that club.”
“That was on your watch! I was across the fucking country with no clue where you guys were. So her going into that club is on you.”
“How’d you find us?” He goes back to packing, moves into the kitchen, and starts tossing food into the bag like he thinks they’re children again, broke and hungry. “I saw your shoutout on the news, but then you called it off like twenty minutes later.” He stops at the doorway and turns back, “Did you pay someone half a million to snitch her out?”
I scoff. “She snitched herself out. She called me, just like I knew she would. She called and demanded I cancel the whole thing, because if I got you caught and killed, she would skin me.”
When he only watches me in confusion, I add, “Sophia. I needed just a couple minutes with Quinn on the phone, Sophia was tracking the call. By the time Quinn was done chewing me out for putting you in danger, Soph had a location. Now I’m here.”
“Soph.” Will lets his hands drop while his sluggish brain works through the details. “The dancer?”
“She’s not just a dancer. She’s a fucking genius, a criminal mastermind, and she wants Quinn on her payroll.”
“Dancing payroll?” Will growls. “Or the mastermind thing?”
I chuckle. “I suspect there will always be a little overlap. Soph wants a dancer, she knows I want Quinn, and she knows you guys need help. Put it all together, and Soph is in heaven while she’s tracking folks and hacking shit she shouldn’t be hacking. She’s the one who knew that the car Quinn was sliding into last night was McGrady’s, and she knew after hacking some shit for twenty seconds. She’s the one who searched the internet for that dress. She’s the one who tracked Quinn’s call and brought me right to your door. And she’ll be the one who buries McGrady, so long as you play ball and allow her to help you.”
“And in payment?” Will moves across the living room and snatches up the Ellie Solomon dance bag. “What does Sophia want in payment when this is all done?”
“It’s not like that.”
I reach forward and scoop my hands under Quinn’s weight when Will makes his way to the front door. We’ve already discussed this. We’ve already made plans.
My shoulder burns, and Quinn whimpers in her unconscious state, but I follow him to the door and meet his eyes. “Soph is all about family. She’s about fairness, and she loathes men like Evan McGrady. Having Soph do you a favor isn’t like having McGrady do you a favor. He’ll want blood. She just wants to be able to say she’s smarter than you. Plus, she wants her dancer. She’ll get her own twofer out of this, but her twofer means Quinn will be safe, and soon, you’ll be free. There are no strings.” I meet his gaze and nod. “You have my word.”
“And in the meantime?” He looks down at Quinn.
He genuinely looks like he’s in mourning. He’s saying goodbye to family, and he’s not sure when he’ll ever see her again.
If ever.
“In the meantime,” I sigh, “you talk to Soph. She has your number, she has your location. She’s gonna help you deal with McGrady, and when it’s done, you can come home and get your sister.”
“And you’re gonna keep her safe, right? I know I was the one who… I know I said…” He draws a shuddering breath. “Fuck, Kincaid. You have no clue how hard this is for me.”
His eyes leave his sister and come to mine. “My entire life has been about protecting her. Every moment from the second I realized my mom was pregnant, every moment from the time I found her laying in her own vomit on the bathroom floor, overdosed, but with that baby in her belly…” He shakes his head. “Every single moment of my life has been about making my sister safe. But now I’m handing her over, and I just…” His voice breaks, and we both look away when he reaches up to swipe a hand under his eye. “It’s like tearing a limb off.”
“I’ll keep her safe. I swear I will. I’m taking her home, locking her up in my house, and then we’re gonna wait it out. Soph will help you with McGrady and Nate. She’ll prove your innocence, and when it’s all done and you come to us, I have a spare room in my h
ome for you. For as long as you need, for as long as it takes for you and Quinn to decide your next move, you have a home and safety. No strings attached.”
“None?” He lifts a questioning brow. “So, you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart, and not because you want my sister to choose you?”
“They’re separate things. And if she doesn’t choose me, well…” I shrug and ignore the twinge of pain that nicks my heart. “Then I’ll ask her to reconsider. But if she doesn’t, I’m not gonna murder her and dispose of her body.”
“Unlike McGrady.”
Our gazes meet for a moment. A mutual understanding.
Will is being forced to choose which man he sends his baby with. Which one to trust. When, for twenty-three years, he’s never shared her before.
“I’ll do right by her. I swear.”
“You’re probably gonna want to stop by a sporting goods store and buy a tranquilizer gun. Because when she wakes…”
I bark out a loud laugh. “Yeah. She’s gonna tear the skin from my bones. I know.”
“She’s going to throw the motherlode of all tantrums. And if you close your eyes for even a moment, she’s gonna run.”
“She’s a street kid who’s been on the run her whole life.” I nod. “I know.”
“Her loyalty for me is strong. It’s like a Stockholm thing. She says I’m her savior and protector. But in the most basic sense, I’m actually her prison guard. Her captor. When she wakes, you won’t be dealing with a regular tantrum. It’s gonna be massive.”
“So guard my loins?”
He scoffs. “If you survive it, call and let me know. Otherwise, I guess she’ll be back here by dinnertime. She’ll do away with you and any evidence, she’ll mail a lock of your hair to your mother, and then she’ll come back here and cook dinner for me.”
“And at seven,” I grit out, “she’ll sneak out for her shift at Zeus’.” I shake my head. “She’s not allowed to make it to that shift, Will. If she does, he’ll know she knows who he is. And at the first hint of suspicion, he’ll dispose of her.”
He swallows and turns away from me. “Yeah. So guard your loins. You don’t have the luxury of letting her get away from you.”