Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Jesus. All that for what? Why? “Tell me more.”
“I didn’t get to her in time. They were starting to brainwash her. They were going to use her to do something for them, and I know it’s altered her. She’ll never be the same woman, but she’s fierce. She’s strong.” Pride and respect rang from him. “I’d be damned proud to have her on my side, and she knows what side I’m on.”
I stilled at that.
Chrissy never said a word …
As if reading my mind, he kept going. “We had to keep it quiet. When the feds took us in, I knew they’d release her back to the Chesapeake. And I knew they’d keep me. I tried to prolong it, give her as much time as possible.”
“Time?” I was standing, slowly, every nerve in me stretched thin. What had Chrissy done? What was really going on? “For what?”
“Time to turn.”
“Turn who?”
Chase didn’t answer right away. He waited a beat, then said the last piece, the part that I knew I’d been blind to. “The new asset.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer that, but still continued. “Calhoun messed up, easing from Quinn. She started to actually love Peter, got obsessed with him. Got obsessed with never losing him. When she sent Arcane in after Bailey, she did that on her own accord, but she never got Calhoun’s permission. She was supposed to get permission to do anything. That’s how he thinks. She’s only been given the go-ahead to fuck her man and be a mom to the kids. Our grandfather got wind something was going down, ordered by Quinn, and that’s why he sent me in.”
I was reeling.
He was sent in?
“Where?”
“With Arcane, the first time they tried to take your girl. That was me. That’s why they thought Calhoun was really behind the job, why they let me in on their team. I was sent to see what they were doing. I was supposed to report back to him what Quinn was doing, but I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I’m the one who told Bailey that men were coming in to kidnap her. I was trying to help.”
Bailey had reported all this to Bright and Wilson.
“Keep going,” I grunted.
His head dipped once. “Have you been keeping up to date with Quinn’s trial?”
That was from left field.
“No.” I scowled. “Why?”
“Because Quinn made amends with Calhoun when she was arrested. They’re going to help get her acquitted. After, she’s supposed to set up a meet with you. She’s supposed to kill you, and I’m supposed to transition into your life. You asked if I was supposed to have plastic surgery to make us completely identical? I was. The surgery was supposed to happen last week.”
“How were they going to get Quinn acquitted?”
“They’d need to blame someone else.”
Someone else.
I had a feeling who that was, and I wasn’t liking it.
“They killed the Arcane team. Every last one of them. Drew Bonham was killed a month ago. That guard, also dead. Only two people remain alive that were at Bailey’s kidnapping: Quinn and”—another beat of hesitation—“Bailey.”
I sucked in some air because fuck him.
Fuuuck him.
I was getting what he was saying. I was seeing it all now.
“They took Chrissy to set Bailey up. It was always planned for Chrissy to come back and reunite with her family, but she was supposed to be brainwashed. I got her out, but I’ll be honest, I don’t know if it was in time. She started saying to me the shit they wanted her to recite to the public, and that was that her daughter had made it all up. Everything. She was never kidnapped by Quinn. She never saw her mother get murdered. Chrissy Hayes is alive, and she was supposed to say instead that the two kidnapping attempts took a toll on her daughter. Bailey was mentally unstable, had hallucinated the whole thing.”
The facts were all swimming in my head, getting muddied around. “But there were too many other factors that still would’ve helped Bailey’s statement.”
“Court of law, it wouldn’t have mattered. If they had a mom who said, instead, that her daughter attacked her, stuffed her in a car, and had her taken away by strangers, and she waltzed into a court to testify to that, that’s all they would’ve needed. Quinn would get off. Her charges would be dropped and there’d be no hold for why she couldn’t still see her kids, and that means, she’d still have an opening to get back in with Peter.”
“But why?”
I was ignoring the bullshit about setting Bailey up and focusing on the endgame.
Chase shook his head. “It’s simple. Money.”
Jesus.
All the pieces. My grandfather had thought of it all.
But there was one more piece missing.
“Who’s the other inside person?” I asked.
Chase gave me a hard look. “The next person who I’m fairly certain is about to be called as a character witness for Quinn, who’s supposed to also collaborate against Bailey’s case, saying she saw Peter’s estranged daughter doing weird shit, maybe even attacking her personally.”