Lost the Handle (Nashville Assassins: Next Generation #8)

Chapter 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Emery

I realize that wherever there is a line, Quinn will have me plowing right through it.

I check my morals at the door, and I am on a mission. I chew on the inside of my cheek as I click through different screens. On one, I have Ava’s financials up, and then I have the Mettison family’s on another. The Mettisons are loaded, old money, and while I know it makes me a gloating dick, I have more money and I earned it all myself.

Ava: 0. Emery: 100.

Yes, I get all the wins. She gets none.

Well, she has Quinn.

For now.

I ignore that, gritting my teeth as I look back at the screen. I’m trying to get into their legal records, but they’re locked up tighter than a nun’s ass, so it’s taking more time than I expected. I hope they pay their lawyers good money because they have an intense firewall that would be highly impressive if I weren’t trying to get through it. I’ll be successful, but it’ll take a minute.

I am also digging into Yvette, which is a fucking shitshow when I don’t know her last name. I need into the Mettisons’ legal account so I can find the rental agreement that I’m hoping Yvette is on since she’s Ava’s roommate. Before I check on my progress, I realize I have Ava’s address from her work file. I can find the rental company and locate the rental agreement in that file.

I do just that, and then I find her last name. Yvette Rossi. Italian. Nice. I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that Yvette is somehow important in this mess that Quinn has found himself in. I can’t shake the notion that Ava is blackmailing him, and I don’t like it. But I’m sure that’s what is happening. It makes me want to be a star on my favorite true crime podcast, but I tuck in that crazy as all the information on Yvette Rossi appears on my screen.

She’s twenty-nine, an MIT graduate in art. She’s a glass blower? That’s kind of cool. Maybe if she weren’t involved in blackmailing the man of my dreams, I’d ask for a demonstration. I will refrain. She’s the daughter of divorced parents, who’ve both remarried. She has three older brothers and a cat that passed away two months ago, according to the vet records. I hate that for her, but if her friend doesn’t back down, she’ll be burying her beside her cat.

Wow. Off the deep end I go.

I sigh as I find her socials, which don’t contain much. Lots of pictures of said cat and of her. She’s very pretty, dresses a little like a guy, but who am I to judge? She has three older brothers; maybe girly girl isn’t her jam. I’m quickly scrolling through everything, but then I pause when I see a post of just a pair of hands.

Two female hands.

I know one is Yvette’s by the tattoo of a moon on her thumb, but the other has bright-pink nails and is clutching Yvette’s like she’s her lifeline.

Two hearts beating as one.

I raise a brow. Is Yvette a lesbian?

Wait.

I cock my brow as I go to my search window, which always reminds me of the screens in the Matrix . That makes me giddy, and then I think of Keanu Reeves. Yummo. Just as I type in: Instagram, Ava Mettison, pink nails, a key jiggles in the front door, and I quickly shut everything down.

I glance at the clock. It’s well after midnight. I was so caught up in everything, I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. I get up just as the door opens, but I don’t watch as Quinn comes through. Instead, I lean on the counter, taking a sip of the glass of wine I poured.

It doesn’t take but a second for me to feel his eyes moving over my body. I’m still in my dress from earlier, too caught up in my mission to change. I look over to see him standing there, looking so unsure and tired. God, he looks so tired. He has dark circles under his sad blue eyes. I swallow past the lump in my throat and pull my gaze from him. As much as I want to comfort him, I am so mad that he chose her over me. I bite my lip as I fight back the tears. I hate that I pushed him away so hard that he ran to her.

My biggest mistake will be my downfall.

“Why are you still up?” he asks, his voice gravelly. The tone sends jolts of need between my legs.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I answer, not looking at him. “Out late with your fiancée?”

“Please, not now, Em,” he pleads, and I swear his eyes are scalding every inch of my exposed skin. “I can’t fight with you anymore.”

I look up, and I hate how sad his eyes are. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Quinn, but this isn’t the guy I grew up with. You’re allowing her to change who you are, and I don’t like that.”

“It’s fine?—”

“It’s not fucking fine!” I yell, pushing off the counter. “She put her hands on you!”

He looks away, his throat working as he tucks his hand in his pocket. “Em.”

“You are better than this. You don’t deserve it. And if I made you feel like you do, fuck, Quinn, please hear me when I say I’m so sorry.” He shifts his gaze to me, wonder in his expression as I start to close the distance between us. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I can’t be this far away from him. Not when he reminded me how good it feels to have his hips against mine. How it is like flying when our eyes meet. No. I need to be near him.

As I take uncertain steps toward him, my voice sounds almost broken. “I know I hurt you. I know I pushed you away and ran like a scared little bitch, but I was petrified,” I somehow get out. A sob is lodged in my throat, and I feel like I might explode. “You know what it’s like to watch your parents love each other. We have the perfect examples of true fucking love. But Quinn, I’m not our moms.” I can’t believe I’m saying what I am saying, but Dad told me to be vulnerable. It’s the only thing I haven’t tried, so here we go.

“My mom is a boss-ass chick and can do anything she puts her mind to. She raised a kid while being totally brokenhearted by my dad, but she did what she had to do. She is the perfect wife, his other half, and it’s sickening how I’m nothing like her. While, yes, I am strong and I’m successful, I’m not perfect.”

His eyes narrow, his chest rising and falling in quick succession. I don’t know if he feels the tether between us, but I do as I take another step to him.

“Then there is Elli, the epitome of perfection. Anyone who comes into contact with her smiles because she loves so damn hard. She raised all of you while running a hockey team, and she still has the power to make anyone smile. She cooks, she cleans, and she probably did it all with babies on her hips.” My breath is shaking as I hold his gaze, my eyes leaking tears I have no control over. “Both our moms are the epitome of wife material. Hell, even Shelli, Posey, Stella…all of them wife material. And then there is me.”

I look down, wiping my face quickly, unable to make eye contact with him. His eyes are always too knowing, but I have to be honest. I have to tell him my truth. “I’m too much. I feel too big. And I’m not wife material. I can’t cook, I’m a fucking mess, and most of the time, I don’t even know what I did an hour ago.”

I look up, his eyes intent on me as he lets me speak. He always knows when I just need to talk, to get it all out or I’ll keep it bottled up. Damn it, I love this man. “I kept you at arm’s length so you wouldn’t get tired of me. So you’d still want me in a more-than-friends way. I know we’ve always gotten along, but it was different when we became intimate. It meant having to share things with you that I sometimes don’t even like knowing about myself. It meant showing you how fucking obsessed with you I am.”

His eyes widen, a smirk pulling at his lips. “Obsessed?”

I swallow. “I know. Totally on-brand for the crazy Emery.” I look away, shaking my head, beyond overwhelmed. “I remember thinking how stupidly in love Shelli was with Aiden, and she wasn’t shy about it. But I couldn’t let anyone know I felt the same way about you. Not only would I get made fun of by our jerk-ass older siblings, but with you being so smart, your future at the tips of your fingers, I didn’t want to distract you with my childish ways. But still, when I looked at you, I wanted what our parents had. Only, I thought you deserved someone who could be to you what our moms are to our dads.”

“Shouldn’t that have been my choice?”

I look up at hearing his husky tone, his loaded question. His jaw is tight, his lips pressed together, and his pupils are blown out. His eyes are trained on me, and what a feeling it is to be under his heated gaze. “I wanted it to be,” I admit, my heart ramming into my ribs. “When you gave me your virginity, everything just happened so quickly. I fell so hard. I knew I had to be careful, because if you got too close to me and saw how obsessed I was with you, you’d be overwhelmed by me. You’d leave me.”

Something dark moves through his gaze. “But then you left me.”

It’s not a question; it’s a reminder of the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I nod slowly, my eyes clouding with tears. “I shouldn’t have, Quinn,” I tell him, my chest aching. “I went through the motions. I threw myself into work, pretty sure I created a new company just so I wouldn’t stalk you every day. I convinced myself that I could love you from afar, but it was torture.”

“It was for me too,” he admits, and then he’s moving toward me. “I watched you too, begging for a little taste of the life you didn’t want me to be a part of.”

“But I did,” I stress as the toe of his sneakers touches my bare ones. “I missed you daily. I wished you were with me, working by my side and helping me succeed. But damn it, I let fear win. Our relationship was toxic and messy. I take full responsibility for it. As much as I wanted you, and as good as you made me feel, the fear of the unknown kept fucking with me. I pushed you away the moment I realized I loved you more than you could ever love me. I have spent years watching and listening to stories of people murdering each other, and all I could think was that getting my heart broken by you would be so much worse than any of the terror they experienced.”

His eyes soften, but his brows stay furrowed. “Why did you think you loved me more? I did everything I could to prove my love to you.”

I swallow hard, and here goes the big one. “When you didn’t want to run EMQUINNY with me.”

His eyes widen a fraction before he sighs. “We had different goals, Em.”

“I know,” I say softly. “But I started a company named after us, and you didn’t want any part of it. It made me feel like you didn’t want any part of me. It was like our baby, and you didn’t want it.”

He slowly shakes his head. “That wasn’t it at all,” he insists, his eyes searching mine. “To do that with you, I would want to put my whole self into it. I’d have had to give up everything I had been working for my whole life. I knew you could do it on your own, and I wasn’t worried. Plus, you know, I had to make my dad proud?—”

“Quinn, he loves you because of you, not because you are following in those big hockey footsteps. He just loves you.” He swallows. “Ask him, and he’ll tell you the same.”

“I don’t want to talk about my family,” he says, shaking his head.

“It felt like you chose your career over one that was something we did together. Then I realized I’d give up everything to follow you, and I got scared. I ran.”

His brows pull in tighter. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you thinking I was a lunatic.”

“I already knew that,” he says in a teasing tone, his lips tilted up at the side. “And I still want you.”

I smile. “Quinn?—”

“I still can’t believe you thought you loved me more,” he whispers, and then we both stare as he brings his hand up to cup my jaw. He moves his thumb along my bottom lip just as our eyes meet. “Not when every time I look at you, I fall even deeper for you. And when you smile, my heart feels like it’s exploding. I feel you everywhere, like a fucking tattoo along my skin. Lovebug, you’re in my fucking DNA. You are and always will be everything to me. It doesn’t have to be a contest. It can just be two people in love.”

His words slam into my chest, knocking the breath out of me. “You said you didn’t love me.”

“I lied,” he admits, his eyes burning into mine.

“You did?”

He nods, dropping his eyes to my lips, and my breath catches as I prepare for what I hope is coming. “I did, and I hate that I hurt you. But Em, not a day goes by when I am not completely in love with you.”

“Please, Quinn,” I whisper. “Kiss me, lick me, take me—just fucking destroy me.”

“In that order?” he asks, his eyes ping-ponging from my lips to my eyes.

“I don’t care. Put us both out of this misery I caused.”

“Fuck it,” he growls, and then his mouth crashes to mine.