Chapter 48

CHAPTER48

“You fucked up this time,” Tristan said, not bothering to look up from the file on his desk.

“Yes, I did,” Quinn said as he sat down in the leather chair in front of the large oak desk as he thought over everything he’d just learned and-

Christ, no wonder they were after her.

He didn’t know a lot about video games, but he knew enough to know that what she just told him was going to be a game-changer. It also meant that the pool of suspects just expanded into a fucking nightmare. Every video game developer in the world was going to want to get their hands on this game, which meant that she wasn’t going to be safe until the game was released.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew her?” Tristan drawled as he turned another page.

“I told you that I needed to be replaced,” Quinn reminded him.

Nodding absently, Tristan said, “Yes, you did, but you didn’t tell me why.”

“Would it have really made a difference?” Quinn asked as he watched the man who’d saved his life.

“Probably not,” Tristan murmured as he turned another page. “But it definitely would have made a difference finding out that you were fucking a client,” he drawled as he leaned back in his chair and leveled cold blue eyes on Quinn.

“She’s not a client anymore,” Quinn bit out as he forced himself to sit there, knowing that he was the one that fucked this up. He’d never crossed this line before, never been tempted, but with Bailey…

He wasn’t willing to give her up.

“No, she’s not,” Tristan said as he reached over and picked up the file that he’d been looking at off his desk and tossed it to him.

“What’s this?” Quinn asked as he looked down at the file in his hands.

“The background check that we ran on Kelly Johnson,” Tristan said as Quinn took in the face sheet, noting the list of convictions that Kelly managed to rack up by her eighteenth birthday.

Forgery.

Identity theft.

Burglary.

Theft.

Credit card theft.

Assault.

And finally, probation violation.

“When did this come in?”

“A few hours after it was confirmed that she was behind everything,” Tristan said, taking him by surprise.

“How?” Quinn asked as he tossed the file back on the desk.

“The only thing that I know right now is that it was confirmed that her computer has been set up with remote access to Haven Technologies. They were able to track her down through a virus that had been uploaded to their system to destroy all of Haven Technologies’ files, including the game that Bailey was currently developing. The police have a warrant out for her arrest.”

“Shit,” Quinn bit out as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face.

“Ten minutes after you left yesterday, she booked a plane ticket to Massachusetts. From there, she booked a hotel just outside of Chesterville where half of my men are heading now. The rest of my men are assisting the police, along with several Haven Technologies’ employees. So far, they’ve been able to tear through her bank records and found large deposits made just before each incident and immediately afterward, including yesterday’s attack on their servers.”

“What else?” Quinn asked, wishing like hell that he’d been wrong, especially since he knew how much this was going to hurt Bailey. For whatever reason, she’d trusted Kelly and now she was about to find out that one of her best friends had tried to fuck her over.

“They found a collection of thumb drives in her apartment filled with Haven Technologies’ files, including files for the latest game,” Tristan said, watching him closely.

“Who paid her?” Quinn asked as he started running the possibilities through his head.

“We don’t know that yet, but we’re looking into it,” Tristan said as Quinn slowly nodded, wondering what else he’d missed. As soon as he’d realized who Bailey had working for her, he’d assigned his men to take a closer look at Kelly and keep an eye on her, watching where she went, who she talked to, but clearly, they’d fucked up.

“She’s not going back there. Not until they find Kelly,” Quinn bit out.

“Well, that might be a problem,” Tristan drawled, watching him curiously.

“And why’s that?” Quinn asked, in absolutely no fucking mood to play this game any longer.

“Because I told her brother that we’d bring her home today.”

* * *

Bailey forcedherself to read the three words that left her feeling sick to her stomach one more time before she climbed off the bed and made her way into the bathroom, locking the door behind her before she placed the iPad on the bathroom counter and stepped away.

It was a mistake.

It had to be, Bailey told herself as she paced the large bathroom. Maybe she’d misread it, she thought as she found her gaze moving back to the iPad on the bathroom counter and…

“Screw it,” Bailey said, refusing to torture herself over this.

She was being an idiot.

That was it, Bailey told herself as she forced herself to walk back over to the iPad. Within seconds, she broke through the password and was opening the messenger app just in time to see the next text message show up and-

Did she tell you yet?

Her gaze flickered to the name at the top of the text box and took in the initials KJ before moving back down to watch as Quinn responded.

Not yet, baby.

Realizing that his iPad was linked to his phone, Bailey swallowed hard as she sat down on the edge of the tub and watched as Quinn told KJ how much he missed her, how he couldn’t wait to hold her again while KJ told him how much she hated this, only to watch as Quinn promised that it was almost over and that they were going to make her pay for everything that she did to them. That was followed by watching Quinn tell her that he loved her.

Feeling numb, Bailey forced herself to scroll back through the messages until she came to the messages that started just a few months before Quinn came back into her life. She read through every text message, each one more devastating than the last, as they discussed everything from the game that she was working on to the money they were going to make selling it, their plans for the future, and a breakdown of the security at Haven Technologies. They knew about Nathan’s connection to Tristan, about just how far they needed to push her to send Nathan running to Tristan for help, and how they were going to do whatever it took to keep her away from Haven Technologies building and away from a computer so that she wouldn’t be able to stop them.

In a matter of minutes, she knew everything.

She knew that they had been planning this for years.

She knew that they hated her.

She knew that they were willing to do whatever it took to ruin her life.

She knew that someone that she trusted had screwed her over.

And she knew that this was almost over.