Chapter 26 #2
“I’ll find you, Quinn. No matter how far you stray.”
“Then I promise to leave breadcrumbs for you to follow.”
I snatch up the trail of clues she’s left, and storm towards the sound of raised voices coming from the study.
Although our offices are all designed to be shared spaces where no brother dominates, this is the one room that reflects the true hierarchy.
The oak panels and chesterfield armchairs are a stark contrast to the sleek modernity of the rest of the house.
There’s a large meeting table where we often gather, but there’s just one desk, and Ash sits behind it.
He’s the only one who notices my arrival. He doesn’t react. He watches silently as I turn my attention to the others. Hunter, Mace and their wives are standing around the oak table, chairs askew where they’d been seated at some point.
“You don’t need to check the CCTV!” Lily is telling Mace. “You could just take my word for it, asshole!”
“You’re right, I don’t need to check,” Mace says, lifting his arm over his head so Lily can’t snatch his phone.
“There’s not a damn thing it could show to justify why that bitch drugged you!
Do you have any idea what those fucking monsters would have done to you if her plan had worked?
Or what I’d be doing right now?” His voice cracks.
“I’d be burning half of Chicago to the ground if they’d taken you. ”
“Then you know how I feel.”
As all eyes swivel towards me, I take a deep breath.
It catches at the back of my throat. There’s a storm raging in my head and the roar of pain I’m holding back has me in a chokehold.
But my anguish is secondary. I need to be rational, not emotional if I’m going to win this argument.
I turn to the one brother who made stoicism his trademark.
I dump the phones and notes on the desk in front of Ash. “Quinn left her purse in the car on purpose.”
“Why?” Hunter asks, the first to join me. I know he’s as angry as Mace, but unlike Mace, he can keep his emotions in check.
“She had two burner phones she wanted us to find. The one we know about, and another that Ilya contacted her on. She didn’t have it when we left the cabins, so he must have slipped it to her yesterday.”
“There you go then. They were working together,” Mace says with a note of exasperation. From the direction of his voice, he’s the only one who’s stayed where he is.
Maddie takes up a position next to Hunter, and Lily appears on my other side.
Ash picks up each note in turn, but he doesn’t speak. I know I’m supposed to stay calm, but with each passing second, Quinn is slipping further from my reach.
“You can choose to help me or not, Ash, but I’m going to hunt Ilya down. And when I kill the bastard, I’m bringing Quinn home.”
“Not to this house!” Mace roars, his anger rising to unrestrained fury. “How you can still care about her is beyond belief! Christ Reid, it would have been nice if you’d asked Lily and Maddie how they were doing after your girlfriend damn well, fucking poisoned them!”
Oh, fuck this.
I spin on my heels, and I don’t wither from my brother’s glare. “I don’t need to ask them because Quinn didn’t spike their drinks!” I don’t need Simon’s extra testing to know that.
“I knew she hadn’t,” Maddie says. “I just knew it. You all heard what she said in the office. She didn’t want to put anyone else at risk.”
“Oh, please!” Mace says. “She was caught in the act.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” says Simon from the doorway. “But Reid’s right. The drinks weren’t tampered with.” He looks to me. “We don’t need to wait for labs. I’ve just tested the liquid in the vial. It was GHB, so the girls’ drinks should have tested positive too. They didn’t.”
“It could be that you interrupted her before she could do anything,” Hunter says.
Maddie glares at her husband. “Have you been standing there with your fingers in your ears? Quinn told us to leave before Simon had a chance to react.”
“She warned you?” I ask, welcoming the brief rush of relief. Not only is this the final piece of confirmation I need, but Maddie and Lily are on Quinn’s side too. That’s what they’d been arguing about.
Lily presses a hand to my back. “She made sure we were out before the Russians arrived,” she says. “And if Mace stopped being an ass for one minute and hacked into Ruby’s CCTV footage, he’d see that.”
“Anyway,” Simon says, ready to make his retreat. “The doc’s here if you need him to check on anyone.”
“You’re the one who needs checking out,” Hunter says. “Go and get your bullet wound seen to.”
“Wound?” gasps Lily. “You were shot? Why did no one tell us?”
“I’m fine. And you have better things to worry about,” Simon says.
“Not now I don’t,” Lily says, going to him.
She ushers Simon out, but pauses at the door long enough to glare back at her husband.
“Whatever Quinn did, she protected us when it counted. You have to find her. You don’t have to do it for her sake, but you do have to do it for Reid’s.
You came very close today to being in his shoes. ”
“Same goes for you,” Maddie says, prodding Hunter in the chest before following Lily. She stops to plant a gentle kiss on my cheek before she leaves. “You’ll find her.”
I wish I had Maddie’s confidence. Damn, I wish I had Quinn’s confidence. She’s relying on me. What she wasn’t counting on was me having my brothers’ full support, which is why she’s given me Strider’s number. It was a good move given how Mace is keeping his distance.
It’s Ash I can’t read. The roar stuck in my throat is getting too loud to hold back. “I can’t–”
Ash picks up Quinn’s burner phone, and holds my gaze as he hands it to me. “Let’s find out what Quinn expects from us,” he says. “Call Strider.”
It’s not an outright promise of support, but it isn’t a refusal either. I dial the only number in the phone’s memory and someone picks up immediately. No one speaks on the other end.
“Hello?” I ask.
“Who is this?” The man’s voice is electronically distorted, which feels consistent with the little I know about Strider.
“Someone who cares for Quinn,” I answer.
“And exactly how much do you care for her?”
“I’m ready to die for her,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Gladly.”
There’s a pause. “Shit. They’ve taken her?”
“About an hour ago. We–”
“Wait!” Strider barks down the phone.
I can hear him tapping furiously on his keyboard. He must be holding his jaw tense because his exhale comes out as a sharp hiss between clenched teeth.
“Fuck. Nothing’s showing.”
“What do you mean nothing’s showing?” I ask. “She has a tracker on her?” It’s not really a question.
“She needs to activate it first,” he says.
The hope that was sparking, gutters out. “Strider, we need to know her plan.”
“We? Are your brothers with you?” Strider asks, making it clear that he knew exactly who I was without the formal introduction.
I stare at the phone rather than the three sets of eyes on me. “That’s debatable.”
A shadow falls in the empty space by my side. “We’re with him,” Mace says.