chapter 20
“What the f*ck is he talking about? And this time I want the truth!”
Quinn glared at her and pointed to the door, which he’d slammed shut only a second earlier.
Instinctively, Rose took a step back, however, there was no escaping him or his anger. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Keegan knew where she was, where Blake was. Had she led him here despite the precautions she’d taken?
“Oh, God, he’s found us.”
“He was bound to sooner or later. Unfortunately it was a little sooner than I anticipated. But that’s beside the point. What did you steal from him, Rose? What is it? Money?”
She shook her head. “I have plenty of money.”
Nervously, she shifted from one foot to the other. What would she tell him? Could she trust him with the truth? Or would he too want the power that came with the item she’d taken from Keegan?
When he gripped her shoulders with both hands and pressed her against the wall, the little wheels in her head started spinning out of control.
“Now, Rose! Before I toss you and Blake out on your ass to let you fend for yourselves. I don’t need this shit! You waltz back into my life after two hundred years and think you can play me for a fool. I’m not a fool, Rose.” His lips peeled back from his teeth, exposing his extended fangs. “I’m dangerous.”
Her breath hitched, her heartbeat escalating at the same time. She sensed the vein at her neck pulsating violently, noticed how his look slid there for a second before drawing back to glare at her eyes. She had no choice, she knew that now. Only the truth would pacify him.
“Keegan killed another vampire and took a flash drive from him. I stole it from Keegan.” The words tumbled from her lips like marbles from a turned over jar.
“What’s on the flash drive?”
For an instant, she squeezed her eyes shut, praying that Quinn was still the same honorable man he’d been when human.
“It contains a list of names and addresses . . .” She swallowed hard then looked straight at him. “ . . . of all vampires in North America and a large number of those abroad.”
With a surprised gasp, Quinn released her, stepping back as if he’d touched silver and felt the stinging burn of it.
“Rose . . . that’s madness. That can’t be true.”
That was what she’d thought too when she’d found out about the list.
“That’s why I had to steal it. It can’t be allowed in Keegan’s hands. He’ll use it to gain control. He’ll be able to eliminate those who oppose him. He’ll be too powerful.”
“What do you think he intends to do with it?”
“He’ll turn vampires to his side, create an army.”
Quinn clicked his tongue. “That’s not that as easy as you might think. Nobody is that convincing!”
“Keegan is.” A cold shiver ran down her spine as she remembered an incident while with Keegan. “I saw him use mind control on a vampire once.”
Quinn stared at her. “No vampire is foolish enough to employ mind control on another of his species. Whoever is attacked with mind control will instinctively defend himself. It’s inborn; there’s no way to fight that instinct. And it’s always a fight to the death. Nobody’s ever been known to break it off before its inevitable conclusion. There’s no way Keegan can use it to impose his will on another vampire. The other one would fight him, and if Keegan is stronger, he’ll kill his opponent rather than control him.”
“Keegan was able to control him without killing him. He was drained after it, almost had a breakdown, but he can do it. If he has managed since to perfect what he was capable of with difficulty then, he will be able to control vampires and have them do his bidding.”
“Shit!” Quinn cursed and ran a hand through his hair. “What makes you think this is the only copy of it? If he had it in his possession for any length of time, he’s probably already made a backup copy.”
“Impossible. The drive is encrypted. You can’t copy it; you can’t even print it. Somebody wanted to make sure this remained the only copy.”
“Where is it now?” The urgency in Quinn’s voice was undeniable.
“It’s safe.”
“Where?”
She shook her head. “Quinn, please don’t ask. It’s better for you not to know.”
It was safer if he didn’t know, safer for him. At least Keegan couldn’t torture it out of him.
“Better? You still don’t trust me!”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“It’s exactly what this is about. You didn’t trust me back then to keep you safe, and you don’t trust me now. Isn’t that the truth, Rose?” He shook his head as if trying to shake off a bad memory.
Then he stared back at her. “You have to destroy it. Nobody can ever be allowed to have this kind of information at their fingertips.”
At his words, she felt relief flood her. He didn’t want the flash drive for himself. He didn’t want the power that came with it. The Quinn she knew was still in there somewhere. Honor still drove him as it had back when he was human.
Without realizing it, she reached out her hand to stroke his cheek. “My—”
He recoiled from her touch.
My love, she’d wanted to say, but the words got stuck in her throat. His eyes looked at her, hurt sitting deep within them. There was so much she had to repair, so much she had to do penance for. She didn’t want to hurt him any longer. And she didn’t want to lie any longer.
“Samson needs to know about this,” Quinn suddenly said and turned away, pulling out his cell phone. When the call connected he only said a few words. “We need you at the house, now. It’s important.”
Then he turned back to her. “If we’d known what this was all about, we could have gone in full force from the beginning and smoked him out before he had a chance to find us. Now he’s got the upper hand.”
***
Quinn waited in the office for Samson. It took his boss only ten minutes to arrive. Quinn heard Amaury greet him at the door, then the two of them entered the office. Amaury gave him a grave look. It appeared he had overheard the heated conversation he’d had with Rose. Just as well.
Quinn summarized the situation in two sentences, bringing Samson up to speed within seconds.
“That changes everything,” Samson announced. “Where is it now?”
“She won’t tell me.”
“We’ll have to find it and destroy it.”
“I told her that.” But she had simply looked at him as if he didn’t understand. Her touch had confused him even more.
“She’s not going to do it, is she?” Samson asked.
Amaury moved closer. “You can’t blame her. It’s her insurance policy. As long as Keegan believes Rose is the only one who knows where the flash drive is, he won’t kill her. If he assumes that she told one of us, what’s stopping him from getting rid of her and getting the information out of us?”
Reluctantly, Quinn had to admit to himself that his friend had a point, even if it didn’t make the fact that Rose didn’t trust him any more palatable.
“Still, we’re ultimately more equipped to safeguard this information rather than having a civilian do it. We have to know where she keeps it hidden.” Samson paced. “I wish we would have never been dragged into this mess, but there’s no way we can back out now. Besides, she’s family.”
Quinn shot a look at his boss, whose last word had jolted him. How had they accepted Rose so easily?
Samson shrugged. “She’s your wife. That makes her family, no matter what the situation between the two of you might be.” Then he motioned to the door. “And Blake is your flesh and blood. We can’t turn away from that.”
“You have no obligation toward her or Blake. Only I do,” Quinn protested. “I can’t put all of you in danger, because my wife has made a bad call.”
It felt odd to call her that again, but at the same time, he knew he couldn’t back down from acknowledging what she was to him, what she would always be: his wife.
Amaury rolled his eyes. “Oh, put a sock in it, Quinn. You would do the same for any of us. So, let’s cut to the chase. There’s only one way to get Keegan off Rose’s back.”
“Remove what he’s after and you remove the threat,” Samson said.
“No, destroying the flash drive alone won’t be sufficient,” Quinn interrupted. “The only way to eliminate the threat for good, is to eliminate Keegan. Even if we destroy the data he wants, he’ll seek revenge. Rose and Blake will never be safe as long as he’s alive.”
Amaury nodded. “Exactly.”
“I want to know more about this Keegan before we come to a decision,” Samson cautioned.
“But we can’t wait!” Quinn protested.
“There’s no need to wait. You do what you need to do to protect Rose and Blake, and the rest of us target Keegan. Thomas is already working on finding everything he can about him. It shouldn’t take long.”
Quinn knew his boss’s high ethics and realized that he wouldn’t give permission to kill him unless it was the only possibility. There was no use in trying to convince him otherwise. But he hoped that whatever Thomas dug up would justify taking Keegan out for good. Any man who posed a threat to Rose had to be eliminated. Particularly one who’d laid his dirty paws on her.
Samson turned to the door, then changed his mind and turned back to Quinn. “And another thing: you and Rose . . .”
The hairs on Quinn’s nape rose, instantly alert.
“Maybe if the two of you resolved whatever issues you have, she might tell you where to find the flash drive. It would help us out a great deal.”
“Easier said than done,” he murmured under his breath.
But his boss had heard him nevertheless. “Maybe you should try harder. I didn’t win Delilah over by twiddling my thumbs. Neither will your anger get you any further with Rose. I thought you were a master in seduction, or am I mistaken?”
With a smirk, Samson left the room.
Amaury grinned. “If you want to, I can give you a few pointers.”
“Get out of my sight!”
He needed no advice on how to seduce his wife. Seducing Rose had never been the problem. Her body still responded to him, he knew that for certain. But would her heart answer to his again? Would she open it once more and let him in? Would she trust him once more?
Despite the misgivings he had about her lying to him, to a certain extend he could understand her caution. After all, they hadn’t seen each other in two hundred years, and he was practically a stranger to her. But that was something he wanted to change.