Page 106 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

That si­lenced Gabriel, but waves of fury rolled off his rigidly held body. Their next pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion was go­ing to be dif­fi­cult.

“Okay, why do you want to give this in­for­ma­tion about Dupont to Mikel?” Quinn asked her fa­ther. “Why not tell Dupont your­self that you’ll use what you know against him if he does some­thing you don’t like?”

“Be­cause Dupont is not afraid of me. His mis­take.” All the soft­ness drained from her fa­ther’s face, leav­ing his mouth a grim line and his eyes flat. A chill shiv­ered down Quinn’s spine. Then Bren­dan shook his head, and the charm­ing con man was back. “Silva will know when and how to use what I know against Dupont most ef­fec­tively.”

“Mikel is a cop,” Quinn said. “He will be ob­li­gated to hand the in­for­ma­tion over to the rel­e­vant ju­ris­dic­tion.”

“Even­tu­ally,” Bren­dan said. “From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, your boss has a lot of lee­way in his du­ties. Or maybe he just takes it.”

“Why don’t you give me the in­for­ma­tion, and I’ll pass it along to Mikel?” Quinn asked.

“I want to meet your boss,” Bren­dan said. “He’s an in­ter­est­ing man.”

She nar­rowed her eyes. “You want to tell him to keep me out of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“I would never do that. As you said, it’s your job.” His in­stant re­as­sur­ance did not make even a tiny dent in her sus­pi­cion.

“Fine. I’ll ar­range a meet­ing, but I will be present as well,” Quinn said.

Gabriel stirred but said noth­ing. She cast him a grate­ful glance, not­ing the clenched fists rest­ing on his thighs.

This was trig­ger­ing all his pro­tec­tive in­stincts…and quite a few sus­pi­cions.

“Quin­nie, I don’t think it’s wise for you to know what I’ll be shar­ing with your boss,” Bren­dan said. “If Dupont finds out you have that in­for­ma­tion…”

“He won’t find out,” Quinn said. “Be­cause none of us is go­ing to tell him. Be­ing kept in the dark is not ac­cept­able. What you know might even con­trib­ute to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“No, this has noth­ing to do with”—Bren­dan’s eyes clouded with com­pas­sion as he flicked a glance at Gabriel—“the un­pleas­ant­ness of the ab­duc­tion.”

Quinn stood and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “Let me talk to Mikel about a meet­ing time for to­mor­row.”

“I would pre­fer tonight,” Bren­dan said. “I broke my prom­ise to you about not com­ing to Cal­eva. I want to re­move my un­wel­come pres­ence as soon as pos­si­ble.”

Now he was play­ing the guilt card. She huffed in ex­as­per­a­tion. “You had a strong rea­son to come. You can stay in my guest room.”

Bren­dan shook his head. “Let’s get this done, Quin­nie. I owe you that and much more.”

A nig­gle of doubt wormed its way into her brain. Her fa­ther’s usual ooze of charm was ab­sent. Maybe he gen­uinely re­gret­ted break­ing his prom­ise.

And maybe pigs with wings were hov­er­ing over her house.

“Suit your­self, but I can’t guar­an­tee Mikel will be avail­able.” She walked away from the two men and up the stairs, won­der­ing what they would talk about in her ab­sence. Once she was in her bed­room with the door closed, she speed-di­aled Mikel.

“Quinn, I know your fa­ther is there,” Mikel said be­fore she could speak. “He came in by pri­vate boat, so it took some time to hear of his ar­rival. Do you wish me to es­cort him out of the coun­try?”

Her boss’s con­cern for her made tears burn in her eyes. She pressed her fin­gers against her eye­lids to stop them. “No, it’s fine. In fact, he wants to meet with you. Tonight. He has some lever­age over Dupont that he’s will­ing to hand over to you. If you can’t make it, I’ll un­der­stand.”

“I’ll be there in thirty min­utes.” Her boss dis­con­nected.

Quinn perched on the side of her bed and gripped the edge of the mat­tress so hard her fin­gers hurt. Ev­ery­thing was hap­pen­ing at high speed. In­ves­ti­ga­tions of­ten went like that. Months of comb­ing through reams of data would sud­denly pay off. She would tug one string, and the whole mys­tery would un­ravel. It was too bad her life had got­ten en­tan­gled in this web.

Gabriel had heard enough to know that Bren­dan was not an or­di­nary fa­ther. Nau­sea roiled in her gut as she re­al­ized she would have to re­veal the ug­li­ness of her past to Gabriel sooner than she wanted to. She’d hoped their trip to New York could be a last mem­ory of un­al­loyed hap­pi­ness to store away be­fore he learned the truth. He might not even want her to go once he knew who she re­ally was.

Two tears spilled over and traced hot tracks down her cheeks.

A force­ful knock sounded on the door. She scrubbed at her face be­fore fold­ing her hands on her lap. “Come in.”

Gabriel opened the door, his face a vivid mask of frus­trated anger. “What the—?” His gaze found her, and the anger van­ished. He was across the room in two strides to sit be­side her. “You are dis­tressed,” he said, wrap­ping his arm around her waist. “What do you need?”

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