Irrefutable (The Apprehensive Duet Book 2)

by Bracco, Kimberly

  When Jordan called, he told me that his friend from the FBI was meeting him and Quinn at his office at seven thirty and he thought it would be a good idea for me to be here for the meeting. I have a feeling that means nothing good is going to come from it. If it was good news, he wouldn’t be asking me to be here, I’m guessing to be the shoulder for Quinn to lean on.

  I haven’t had the chance to speak to her today, so I don’t think she has any clue I’ll be here tonight. My suspicions are confirmed as I see her step out of a black town car at the curb. She’s a beautiful sight in her white pea coat, the red scarf around her neck matching the shade of lipstick on her lips. Her shiny blonde hair blows in the wind as if someone is holding a fan on her for a photo shoot. God, she’s gorgeous.

  “Hey, angel,” I call out, drawing her attention away from her phone.

  The corners of her lips curl up into a smile, “Hey.” The smile doesn’t last long though. “What are you doing here?”

  Closing the distance between us, I pull her into my arms and hug her tightly trying to shield her from the cold as we make our way into the large concrete building. “Jordan called me earlier and thought it would be a good idea for me to come.”

  “Guess I can rule out good news from his date last night,” she sighs, mirroring my thoughts from earlier.

  Pulling her tighter to me, I kiss the top of her head as we wait for the elevator to arrive. “Let’s just see what he has to say. Don’t start assuming anything yet.”

  Reassurance and support. That’s my job in this whole thing. The gravity of the situation Quinn has found herself in is taxing even for the strongest of people. She needs to know she has support in her corner no matter how bad this goes. If that’s all I can do for her, I’ll do it with a hundred and ten percent.

  As soon as the doors open on the floor we need, Quinn rushes out of the doors and heads to the right, leaving me lagging behind.

  “Hey, slow down,” I shout after her. “Where’s the fire?”

  Quinn slows her pace and waits for me to catch up, “Sorry, I’m just a little anxious. If Jordan doesn’t have good news, I don’t really know where we go from here.”

  “He didn’t say anything was wrong when he called me,” I note, trying to help her relax a little bit. “He just thought it was a good idea for me to be here.”

  Quinn doesn’t say anything else as we make our way through rows of empty cubicles. When we round the last corner, there’s a wall of frosted glass with an empty desk sitting just in front of the lone door.

  By the way Quinn heads straight for the door, I’m guessing this is Jordan’s office.

  “Hey,” Jordan greets us, from his seat on the couch against the wall, as we make our entrance.

  A petite, redhead is seated in the seat beside him. It’s hard to imagine this woman as a federal agent. My first thought is she looks like a basement paper pusher. My impression doesn’t change as she rises from her seat at the same time Jordan rises from his. She’s tiny, about five foot, and probably a hundred pounds with a bag of bricks in her hand. I can’t imagine she intimidates many people.

  “Quinn… Alex… This is Hailey Carter,” Jordan introduces us.

  Quinn acts first, thrusting her hand out and smiling, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I really appreciate you taking the time out to help me.”

  Hailey takes Quinn’s hand and smiles back. “No problem. You’re actually helping me as well.”

  “This is my boyfriend, Alex,” Quinn says turning her attention to me as she removes her coat and scarf.

  Even after all this time, hearing Quinn refer to me as something as significant as her boyfriend warms me to my core. Especially after saying she wasn’t rushing to put a label on us last night.

  “Hi, Alex. It’s nice to meet you,” Hailey says, extending her hand. “Wish we were all meeting under different circumstances.”

  “Can’t say I disagree with you there,” I smile and shake her hand

  “About that,” Quinn interrupts the pleasantries. “I’m not the most patient person in the world and I’m dying to know how bad this is.”

  I grab the coat from Quinn’s hand as she redirects her attention to Jordan and hooks a thumb at me. “You wouldn’t have called in backup if this was going to be good news.”

  “It’s not bad news,” Jordan refutes as he sits back down on the couch and grabs one of the empty glasses off the table. Quinn and I take a seat in the chairs that sit opposite him as he pours Quinn a drink of whatever dark liquor he has in the decanter. “Things just aren’t going to be as simple as we’d like.”

  Reaching out, Quinn takes the glass from Jordan as he holds it out to her. “How so?” she asks before downing the contents of the glass as if it was a shot and not a half glass of hard liquor.

  “We can still get your father,” Hailey interjects. “We just have to go about it differently. Jordan told me what your attorneys said regarding the file you found, and they’re right. Based on the information, everything relates only to you. This isn’t some hack of a setup your father has constructed here.”

  Quinn’s face falls with every word Hailey says. The defeat is evident in her eyes, and I’m sure she’s not too convinced this’ll end well, so I ask the question that needs to be asked, “So if what the lawyers said is correct, what can we do?”

  Agent Carter slides to the edge of the couch and leans forward. “We need to get a confession.”

  “How the hell are we going to do that? We already got him to admit to it, there’s no way it won’t look like something is up if Jordan starts asking all the same questions again,” Quinn counters. She doesn’t like the idea. Her posture is rigid, poised to fight against sending Jordan back to her father.

  “Had I known about this sooner, we could’ve sent Jordan in with a wire when he went in originally,” Hailey argues. “But now we have to get creative, and quick. It’s going to take a little time to get a warrant together. I can’t start doing so until we have a solid plan in place, and with Christmas in a few days and New Year’s coming, I’d like to get the ball rolling.”

  The wheels in Quinn’s mind are spinning toward something. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes stay pinned to the glass statue in the center of the table. After a few moments, Quinn’s voice breaks the silence. “Would my father be arrested on the spot if he was recorded admitting to it?”

  Hailey nods her head. “I can have that arranged, but I have to be sure we’ll get what we need. Asking for an arrest warrant without the necessary evidence is a big favor. I won’t ask for it unless you’re absolutely positive it will happen.”

  “It’ll happen,” she says firmly and resolute. She’s made her mind up about whatever she has planned in her head.

  Standing from the couch, Jordan protests. “You can’t guarantee that.”

  Quinn shakes her head in disagreement. “Yes, I can. My father is easy to manipulate when you know how to appeal to him the right way. We already got it to work. I can do it again.”

  “How?” Jordan demands, walking up and stopping right in front of Quinn’s chair.

  Looking up, she meets his gaze. “The files are foolproof. We know it. He knows it. He made sure to have the perfect plan. I’m going to confront him about it.”

  Now, it’s my turn to protest. This is the worst idea I’ve heard yet. “No way, Quinn. That motherfucker is way too erratic. He’s insane and you want to tell him that you found the evidence he’s faked about you?”

  “If he thinks he’s won, he’ll get all cocky. He’ll talk, vomiting words all over me to hurt and show me that he has me right where he wants me. If he thinks our lawyers said everything checks out and looks like I’ve embezzled funds, he knows that they’d be forced to investigate. By trying to fuck him, I’ve fucked myself, and he wins. He’d never think Jordan had a friend high up who could help us. Trust me.”

  Looking at her, I can see she believes in this plan. I see the genius in it, but there are still so many th
ings that could backfire.

  “What happens after he knows you tried to screw him over? You don’t know how he’s going to react,” I point out. There’s always some kind of curve ball when it comes to her father.

  “That’s why she just asked about his arrest,” Hailey answers. She obviously already sees how Quinn thinks this’ll play out. She’s a federal agent after all. They deal with this shit on a regular basis. “As soon as Mr. Taylor incriminates himself, my team will move in and he’ll be taken into custody. There’s nothing he’ll be able to do to her from inside a cell.”

  “But he won’t be in there forever,” Jordan adds in. “What happens when he makes bail? I’m not an expert here, but this isn’t enough to keep him locked up until trial, right?”

  “I’m sure he’ll make bail, but with a taped confession I doubt there’ll be a trial. I have a feeling that Mr. Taylor will cop a deal,” Hailey answers. “But while out on bail, he won’t have access to personal funds or company funds. He’ll probably have a monitor. His crimes aren’t large in comparison to some fraud cases, but with the means to flee and access to large amounts of money, he’ll be closely monitored.”

  I’m still not on board with this plan at all. Him being monitored doesn’t assail my fears about what he’s capable of. “There has to be a better option.”

  “No,” Quinn speaks up. “I want this to be done and over with. This is the easiest way. I’m ready to move the hell on and stop letting this man rule my life.”

  “How do you want to do this?” Hailey asks Quinn. But shouldn’t Quinn be the one asking the law how to do things? I’m not sure Quinn is in the best frame of mind to be making important decisions like this. But I also don’t want to push her away at the moment either. Quinn wants to close the door on this thing and move on. If she thinks I don’t support her she may pull away and think she’s strong enough on her own.

  “Christmas is in four days. Does that give you enough time if we do it the day after Christmas?” Quinn asks.

  “I think I can get everything together for then,” Hailey answers nodding her head. “Taking down someone as large as your father will make the whole agency look good. The dirty criminal hidden in plain sight. The dirtbag who frames his own family. I have no doubt that people will be happy to move this along. I also happen to have a friend at SEC who would be happy to lend a hand but I’m not calling in favors if you can’t pull this off. You realize this is kind of a one shot deal, or we’ll have to dig further and see if we can find the people he used to falsify the documents. That could take months, though.”

  Fuck, talk about pressure.

  Concern and sadness for Quinn fill my mind. She’s planning to confront her father about the horrible things he’s done to her and then listen to just how depraved he is when he admits it. No one should ever have to deal with that. No one should ever have to hear the way one of the people who’s supposed to protect them in life planned to destroy them.

  Quinn’s always had this deep-seated desire to make her father proud, and I’m worried about how this is going to affect her.

  Jordan clears his throat and interjects a great point. “But what about Quinn? There’s a file with her name and signatures all over it that’s fake. Money in Bahamian bank accounts under her name that’s been stolen from somewhere. People aren’t going to ignore that.”

  Christ, I didn’t even consider that there may be legal issues for Quinn in this as well.

  “Quinn’s help and the fact she didn’t actually steal the money will work in her favor. When all is said and done, she’ll have to sign the money back over to the accounts it came from. But I don’t see any charges being brought against her.”

  “So the day after Christmas it is,” Quinn says, standing from her chair. “You’ll let Jordan know if anything changes?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Hailey agrees as she stand with Quinn. “I just need to know if you plan to do this at the office or elsewhere?”

  Quinn is quiet for a moment, so I take the opportunity to stand and wrap her hand in mine giving her some silent support. “I’ll arrange to do it at my parents’ home. It will be easy to get him to talk more freely there, and I’ll tell him that we have to meet to discuss things regarding the merger and it’s best to be done in private.”

  Hailey follows us to the door of the office where we grab our coats. “Okay. I’ll set it all up.”

  Quinn shoots Jordan a thankful look before smiling at Hailey. “Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Just before we’re out the door, Quinn turns and throws a smirk over her shoulder. “Judging by the way he couldn’t take his eyes off of you when we got here, you’ve got him right where you want him. Make him work for it.”

  Hailey’s laugh fills the room as we exit and Jordan’s groan isn’t exactly quiet. I guess I wasn’t the only one who noticed Jordan looked pretty cozy with Agent Carter. But only Quinn would make a joke about it at a time like this. One of the many things I love about her.

  WITH EVERYTHING GOING on, I never expected to be smiling on Christmas Eve. But looking around the room and seeing all the people who mean the most to me together and happy on Christmas makes me forget all my troubles, even if only for a brief moment.

  The love in this room is overwhelming. Each person here has been through their own personal hell and yet everyone is at a point where they can feel joy. It gives me hope that I can overcome everything I’ve been dealt and still come out on top.

  I watch as Ashley and Tanner laugh at Michaela and the fact that at five months old, she’s more interested in the wrapping paper than the present under it. They’re blissfully happy. After all the tragedy and grief they’ve been through, those two are two of the happiest people I’ve ever seen.

  Tiffany and Candace, her new girlfriend, sit across from Ash and Tanner on the floor, laughing as they try to show Michaela the buttons on the toy they’ve brought her. Tiff’s pulled out of her own dark patch, in a new city with a new love and new outlook on life.

  Jordan and Diana are astoundingly cheerful for this being their first Christmas without Martin. They’ve endure so much loss, and thanks to my father, unnecessary pain. Diana just lost her soul mate and can still find a reason to smile. Jordan has been thrown into a whole new world taking over the company and has taken on a huge task in helping me. And yet, they’re both very content.

  When Ashley decided to have this dinner party, she made sure to invite them, and they were more than happy to come. Jordan has grown on Ashley since she learned that we wouldn’t be getting married. When I made a comment about it earlier tonight she simply said, “You were right. He’s great and I do like him, but he wasn’t the guy for you.”

  I glance around the family room looking for the man that I hope is the one for me. I find him standing at the counter in the kitchen observing the festivities.

  Standing from the couch, I make my way across the room dodging empty boxes and crumpled wrapping paper, then up the three stairs into the eat-in part of the kitchen and stand on the other side of the counter.

  A smile forms on Alex’s lips and the sound of his voice warms me. “Having a good time, angel?”

  After we left Jordan’s office the other night Alex put a gag order on talking about everything going on with my father and the Feds.

  “It’s Christmas and we’re not going to spend it worrying over your asshole father,” he said when we got back into the town car that was waiting to take me home for the evening. “No talking about him or everything that’s going on. We’re going to celebrate our first official holiday as a couple again and not even think about him.”

  Alex has done a pretty good job keeping my mind occupied outside of work. Despite his own taxing job and everything that comes with it, he’s been at my side whenever possible.

  Yesterday he demanded we go and get a Christmas tree to put up in my condo and decorate. I was in no mood to go stand outside in the freezing cold in an empty parking lot to pick
out a tree, but I did it anyway. I was caught off guard by how easy it was to lose myself in something happy.

  We spent the night decorating the tree, drinking, listening to Christmas music, and ended the night watching The Polar Express. Regardless of the fact it’s a movie for children, it’s my favorite of all Christmas movies. I think it has something to do with the fact it teaches you all you have to do is believe and magic can happen. I didn’t think about my father or the mess he’s put me in at all.

  “I am happy,” I tell Alex, giving him a smile of my own.

  “Quinn, dear,” Diana says as she stops next to me. “May I borrow you for a moment?”

  “Sure,” I smile at her then glance at Alex who gives me a nod as he exits the kitchen.

  Diana links her arm through mine and guides me around the counter where we were standing further in the kitchen stopping at the main island in the center.

  “We haven’t had the chance to speak since all this mayhem started,” she begins. There’s no anger in her voice. No resentment for lying to her or her son. I’ve been dreading this talk. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt the McCallahan family. “I’m happy that you finally told Jordan the truth.”

  Even though she says the words without malice, they still cut me deep. Thinking about how angry and hurt Jordan was the night I came clean isn’t a fond memory. “I know I should’ve…”

  “Please,” she interrupts, placing her hand on my forearm, “I’m not mad anymore. I’m just glad that everything was finally out in the open before the two of you made a mistake. I never knew how pressured Jordan felt to find a wife and settle down. I would’ve been thrilled to have you forever a part of our family, but that was no life for either one of you. I see the way that Alex looks at you and you at him. Reminds me of the way my Martin used to look at me. You’ve got something special there and you deserve it.”