Under the Boardwalk (Costas Sisters 1)

Quinn couldn’t help but watch and listen in amusement.

“I’d given it my best shot though, and so I still needed to fix my lipstick before I went back out to the customers. I dropped my bag and the lipstick must have rolled out. See?” She held up the tube of gloss for Damon to see.

“Convenient,” he murmured, rubbing a hand over his clean-shaven face. “But I’m not taking any chances. Not with her and not with you,” he said, turning to Quinn.

Catching Quinn by surprise, he reached into his jacket and pulled a gun and trained it on Ari.

A startled cry escaped her throat, but Quinn didn’t take his gaze from Damon.

Under his breath, Quinn muttered a curse. His gun was in his holster at his side, but reaching for it now would give Damon a chance to fire fast. “Two sisters can’t disappear from here without drawing suspicion. You’d be the likely culprit,” Quinn said, trying to slow Damon down and make him think.

Warning bells went off in Quinn’s head, instead. Reality clicked into place. Damon’s surprise return, his lack of shock at federal interest, his sudden distrust of Quinn, and the careless order to take care of Ari told Quinn one thing—someone had tipped off Damon to trouble and now he was running scared, reacting without thinking things through.

Still, Damon obviously didn’t know who in his organization was working against him or he’d have put a bullet through Quinn’s head by now. The thought provided some comfort. The other man was testing him instead, giving him needed time.

With the gun still pointed at Ari, Damon propped a foot on the desk and withdrew a handgun from a hidden holster. “The entire time I was with Cynthia, something was bothering me and I finally figured out what it was.” He leveled the other gun at Quinn. “I violated my cardinal rule.”

“What’s that?”

“I put you in charge of keeping this beautiful lady busy and you were too happy to oblige. But the more I thought about you and Zoe’s twin, the more I thought about Zoe. And I realized I never saw her body. That was my mistake. I trusted you, Donovan, and a smart man trusts no one.”

Quinn remained silent.

“It’s time for some action. Prove yourself.” Without warning, Damon tossed the first gun to Quinn. “Get rid of her.”

A small squeak sounded from Ari’s corner of the room.

“Get rid of her,” Damon said again. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

Until now Quinn’s best bet had been to stall and talk Damon through this, all the while hoping Ari remained calm while Quinn waited for the opportunity to overpower the other man. There was always the slim hope that someone on the floor would get wind of Damon’s return and head on back here to check things out. But Quinn wasn’t counting on it.

He needed another plan and he needed one fast, especially since he was now Damon’s target.

Ari glanced from Damon to Quinn, unable to believe this was happening. She let her gaze settle on Quinn, who hadn’t broken a sweat, but who also now had a gun pointed directly at her heart.

“I don’t think you want a blood trail in your office,” Quinn said coolly to Damon.

“What’s the difference to me?” Damon asked. “You’ll be the one pulling the trigger. You can call it a lover’s quarrel, or the three of us can take a ride somewhere and you can do the job there. It’s all the same to me, but either way, I’m going to see this one’s dead body.” Damon’s voice dropped an octave and turned as cold as his words. “Or you’ll be the one on ice.”

And Ari had no doubt he meant what he said.

Quinn wasn’t going to like what she did next, but to her way of thinking they were out of options. She glanced from Quinn’s gun pointed at her, to Damon’s gun pointed at Quinn, and she knew she had to take Damon by surprise.

“All I wanted to do was find my sister,” Ari said, and both men turned her way. “Or at least I wanted to find out what happened to my sister. But I’m a schoolteacher, not an investigator, and now I’ve gotten myself into a heap of trouble, haven’t I?” she asked, deliberately rambling.

Damon groaned. “Shut her up, Quinn.”

“You know, I thought you cared about me,” she said to Quinn. “But you’ve never stopped being loyal to him.” She jerked her finger at Damon. “Which means I’m really going to die. Even if I don’t know anything,” she said, her voice rising in pitch.

“Ari,” Quinn said in warning.

She ignored him. “But aren’t I entitled to a last wish? At the very least a last meal?”

“She’s stalling and you’re letting her,” Damon said. “Do it now.”

“I don’t want to die,” Ari wailed and dropped to her knees. “But if I have to, can I at least have a blindfold? Please?” She moved awkwardly closer to Damon, who stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Okay, no blindfold. Then how about a drink to numb the pain?”

“Well. . . wait a minute, this is ridiculous,” Damon muttered.

“Please let me live,” Ari wailed.

“For the love of—”

In the biggest gamble of her life, Ari cut him off, and with a final howl, she wrapped her arms around Damon’s knees. Laying her head against his thighs, she pushed against him with all her body weight.

At the same time, she shut her eyes and prayed.

Quinn’s blood pressure shot up as Ari begged for her life, her hysteria building with each word she spoke. Though he knew better than to fall for the act, Damon had always surrounded himself with bubbleheaded, whiny, crying women, and he obviously believed she was another hysterical female. And he went on believing it until she pushed his legs in her final supplication.

For a split second, Damon glanced down. Distracted by her caterwauling, he let his gun arm drop down.

In that split second, Quinn fired.

•  •  •

Just like every other case Quinn had worked on, everything that happened next was in a blur of activity. Connor burst in after the gunshot, with the feds on his heels. Damon, wounded in the shoulder, was hauled off, cursing Quinn in one breath and himself in another for being suckered by Quinn for so long. Ari had been brought to another room, where she gave her statement. And while Quinn knew he’d be busy with wrap-up and paperwork for a good long time, right now he was more concerned with his relationship with Ari than he was with this case.

Damon had taken years off his life when he’d tossed the gun at him, demanding he shoot Ari. Ari had taken at least another decade with her hysteria act. So by the time she walked back into the office hours later, he’d worked himself into a good case of impotent fury.