Quinn II (Undaunted Men #2) (21 page)

“You’re right, Preston,” Connor says in a sad voice, shaking his head. “She’s not ready.”

“I’m not ready for what?” I demand.

Preston walks over to me, and then cradles my cheeks in his hands, his brows turned down. He tilts my chin up so I can meet his six-foot-two gaze. “You’re going to need to find some forgiveness in your heart for Connor,” Preston softly requests, and before I can protest, he adds, “Yes, he’s done some pretty heinous things, but there was a reason for it. I firmly believe he’d die before he let anything bad happen to you again.” He shifts his eyes to Connor without moving his head, as do I. Connor nods his head, concurring with Preston.

“What’s going on here?” I ask nervously.

“Connor is your half-brother,” he confesses. My eyes roll back in my head, and I think I’m going to pass out. “Lex,” Preston barks as he prevents me from collapsing to the floor. “It’s not what you think. I can explain.”

Preston lays me down on my bed and softly strokes my hair, something he’s never done before. He explains how it came to be, regarding Connor being my half-brother as Connor sits on the other side of my bed.
 

It doesn’t seem so bad discovering this bit of news, the relief knowing my dad didn’t have an affair. That would've sent me overboard. “I think with Vince out of the picture, you’ll see a new Connor.” Preston leans in, kisses me on the forehead, and then adds, “At least give him a chance to explain the rest?”
The rest? There’s more?
I numbly nod my head, agreeing to his request because I trust Preston. I’ve always trusted his judgment when it comes to anything and everything. “What are you thinking about, Munchkin?”

“I'm thinking how sad all this is. How tragic the last few weeks have been.”
 

“Don't look back like that,” Preston says, trying to comfort me. “There were many reasons dad wanted to keep the news under wraps.”

I fall silent a moment digesting his words, and then I think of Quinn and the things Vince accused him of. I look into Preston's eyes, knowing he'd tell me the truth. “Did Quinn really kill Bennett?” I ask in a small voice.

Preston closes his eyes and briefly looks away. He looks as if he's fighting back emotions I don't understand. Preston looks up toward the ceiling, and runs his hand down over his face, acting as if he's plagued with torment. When his eyes meet mine, I hold my breath, because there is a look on his face that I've never really seen before. It kind of worries me.

“No,” Preston rasps, “no, he didn't kill Bennett. It's a very convoluted and tangled story, and I know your tired of receiving those types of answers, but I'm not ready to go there with you anytime soon.” I'm speechless. Preston is dead serious so I nod my head, agreeing with him. I respect Preston's obvious need for space and privacy. I know he will talk to me about it when he's good and ready. Preston's mood has shifted, turning gloomy and a tad despondent. I find his hand and give him a reassuring squeeze, letting him know I'm here for him. He glances at me, wearing a pained smile, and I think it's for my benefit because his facial expression looks forced.

“I’ll leave you two alone to talk,” he says in a solemn voice, giving me a lingering kiss on my forehead. He then gets up to leave. He walks away, not looking back, and then quietly shuts the door behind him. Instantly, I’m left in a thick silence as I stare at the closed door.

“Lexi,” Connor whispers. I roll my head to the side and look at my once best friend. “I know we may never be able to get back what we had, but I’d like to at least try,” he says softly, more with trepidation than anything.

“I don’t know. I truly don’t know what I’m feeling right now.” I'm kind of numb.

He fists his hands as if he were frustrated, and then nods his head in understanding. I silently watch him fidget until he speaks again. “I just want this to be behind me already. I want things back to the way they were before. I know that’s not possible, but I promise I will never betray your trust ever again.”
 

When I don't reply, he continues, “You're dad had me working undercover for him. My hands were tied on so many levels, Lex.”

His confession gets my undivided attention, I tilt my head to the side and study him, trying to see him in this new light. “It's true. You're dad told me about being my biological father when I approached him a couple years back, asking if I could date you.”

 
“Oh, my gosh.” I don't know what say.

“He told me to keep it under wraps, and of course, fearing your father, I did. It wasn't until just before Bennett had died that he came to me, wanting me to watch over you. He had suspected Vince was getting his own army together and he needed someone close to Vince, someone he could trust.” Connor shrugs his shoulders. “I knew more than I led everyone to believe, but isn't that what an undercover agent is supposed to do; play ignorant?”

I'm speechless as I sit here in silence for a few minutes, digesting his news. When I've been quiet for too long, he interrupts my thoughts, whispering through the stilled silence of the room, “You love him, don’t you?”
 

I frown and close my eyes, subtly nodding my head.
 

“I know you don’t want to know what happened in the warehouse, but you need to know he loves you. He loves you something fierce.” Connor's voice is full of conviction, my heart skipping a beat that Quinn might still love me.

“How do you know?” I whisper curiously.

“A man just knows these things.” I sink back into the mattress. That doesn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot. When Connor sees I don’t believe him, he reaches out tentatively to cradle my cheek. I watch as tears well in his eyes, and my heart kind of melts a little. “Trust me, I know what a man looks like when he’s in love, and I know what he looks like when his heart gets shattered.”

“How?”

“Because if Quinn is feeling at least half my pain, I know he’d move mountains for you. Half the time I didn’t know how things were going to unfold, what Vince was going to do, because he was a live wire. Because of my undercover situation, I had to keep rolling with it. I know it’s no excuse, and it’s going to gut me for years on end to know what he did to you.”
 

“Thank you,” I whisper. He nods his head, his expression desolate and downcast.
 

“Can you at least look back and see what I told you was true?”

“What?”

“When I vowed to keep you from going to jail. Between me and your dad, we were able to make Vince think he had all the evidence, when in reality, he had none.” Connor lets out a heartfelt sigh and shakes his head. “I should’ve told Tony about our little sidetracked adventure, but I didn’t. I didn’t want him to be able to stop me from getting vengeance for Bennett. I can see why he kept certain things from me now, but at the time I wasn’t thinking. He held some intel back for my own safety, and I didn't even know it. I guess he thought either I'd slip, or if Vince caught wind I was undercover, he'd torture me.” He’s wearing his heart out on his sleeve, that much is obvious. He takes my hands in his, and I let him. “I love you so damn much. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

“But why, Connor? Why did you do the things you did, because you did hurt me.”

“Oh, Lexi,” he softly murmurs. He's anguished, and I watch him as he wipes away a tear. “I let Vince run over me for so long it just became second nature for me to follow, but there’s really no excuse. Vince has been my best friend since childhood. He was more than a brother to me. He was so overly charismatic and convincing about everything, and I couldn’t see past my own blind rage over Bennett’s death. I guess a large part of me wanted to believe he would never cross certain lines.”

“To the point of letting him drug and take me the way he did? Not to mention, him murdering an innocent woman?!” I snap. “I mean…that makes you an accessory to murder. You know that, right?”

He hangs his head, clearly upset. “I suppose it does.”

“So how is it you’re walking away free?” I ask, but I already know the answer. He gives me a look that tells me he can’t go there. “Of course,” I mumble sarcastically.
 

“I helped set things up, but I swear I didn’t know he was actually taking it that far. Working undercover the way I was I had to lay low. You’ve got to understand that, right? I was under orders, Tony’s orders. Trust me, I was just as sick about it, if not more so, especially knowing I played a part in it. I’m not making excuses for my actions. I’m just telling you. Had I known his overall plans, I would’ve tried in some way to stop him, and maybe that’s why Vince stayed elusive, he didn't want to be stopped. It was hard to keep up with him without giving myself away.”

“What were his overall plans?” I ask curiously, my forehead wrinkling in thought. “I thought he just wanted to marry me for the power and connections?”

Connor looks up toward the ceiling and shakes his head, and when he drops his gaze to mine, his eyes are glistening. “I can't really talk about it, but Vince had bigger plans. A very dangerous agenda, and he was convincing enough to sway Bennett to go in with him.”

“Did Vince ever try to sway you?”

Connor swallows hard and shakes his head, and then gives me his signature sad grin. “I guess I had too much of a conscience to jump in with both feet and blindly follow Vince, and he knew it. He alluded to some opportunities every now and then, suggesting that I join him on certain ventures, but he kept his affairs so vague he made it difficult for me to uncover his plans.” Connor always did have a soft heart. He's a lot like me in that he's not really cut out for the ruthless lifestyle Vince wanted to live.

“The thing was, before Bennett died, they both had every opportunity to come back from heading down the wrong path and start over fresh, but neither one wanted that. They got greedy, and saw an opportunity.”

“And Vince's opportunity was to marry me,” I add.

“There’s that, too.” Connor’s eyes dip down and he leans in close, whispering, “What I’m about to say is just between you and me, okay? You’re very smart, and I’m sure you can surmise what he was up to, but marrying you was only part of his plan. He was wanting to play both sides of the fence, and then he’d join all his forces together. He wanted to bring absolutely anything and everything under his domain which included overthrowing your father.”

“What?” I gasp. I knew Vince was bad, but hearing the faint glimpse of what Connor is telling me confirms all my suspicions.

“Those things I told you in the barn about him being off his rocker were true, but I never knew what he was up to until things came to a head. I was never kept in the loop. Every time I broached a subject with him, he shut me down, said I wasn't ready to hear the truth, but sadly I knew what that meant.”

“I'm sorry, Connor. The both of us have lost so much, haven't we?”

“Sadly, yes, and I don't want to lose you too. I can't lose you, Lexi.”

I let out a huff of air and shake my head at the improbability. “You allowed Vince to hurt me, and not only that, you allowed yourself to be a puppet for Vince to control.”

“Please just try and understand the bigger picture,” Connor petitions. “Many times, I ran interference on your behalf, talking Vince down from doing some pretty crazy things.” My eyes open wide, taken aback, offended.

“Crazy, like drugging me?”

“Alexis…” he starts off.
 

“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” I cover my face with my hands and take a deep breath. “It’s going to take me some time to get over this, okay?” I know I'm now taking my anger out on Connor, and that's not fair. He's trying to come clean with me.

“That’s all I ask for, Lexi. It’s all over now, and all I want to do is pick up the pieces and help us both heal.” He peels my fingers away from my face to cup my cheeks in his hands, and then his voice cracks. “Please don't push me out of your life. We have so much history together, and honestly, both of us are going to need to lean on each other over the next few months to get through this.”

“What do you mean by that? The next few months?” I get a sinking feeling in my gut that he knows something I don’t.

“Death affects people in so many different ways, and when Bennett died, I had this huge hole in my heart. Then my emotions morphed into anger, and it stayed there and spun in an endless cycle.”

“What are you talking about?” He's confusing me.
 

“Because I know what went down in that warehouse with Vince and Quinn. Vince was in a jealous rage, and it was ugly, very ugly.”

I take a deep, shaky breath and feel a tingly sensation that spreads from the base of my skull to the top of my head. This doesn't sound good, not good at all.

“Just be sure when you go through the stages of grief you make yourself aware of it, and don’t stay in it too long. Grab onto something good, wholesome, and pure, and don’t let it go.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about Quinn?” I don’t realize I’m shedding tears until Connor wipes underneath my eye with his thumb. His face is sad, so very sad.
 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and he's shedding his own set of tears. “I’m so sorry.” Those three simple words, repeated in such anguish, tell me right away, it's over between me and Quinn.