“You’re forgetting about his new arm piece, Quinn,” Crystal scoffed. “What are we going to do about her? How are we ever going to gain full control of Jasper’s wealth if she’s around? Love sick puppy probably already changed his will and left it all to her.
“He hasn’t changed his will. I’m his lawyer, remember? Besides, a will can always be contested.”
“What if he marries her? If something happens to him, the money will most likely end up in her hands and then we’re right back to where we started! Contesting the will against a wife will be difficult. Especially since Jasper’s been advertising her around town by bringing her to every event and telling anyone dumb enough to listen that she’s the reason he’s a better man in every aspect of his life.”
“Quinn isn’t a problem in the slightest. She will be handled–”
“How? What, are you going to start crushing up the pills in her food too? Yeah,thatwon’t be suspicious at all!”
“No.” Eddie sounded eerily calm. “I’ve got other plans for her. We have to keep Jasper alive right now, but there’s no use in keeping Quinn around. She’s a nobody in the grand scheme of things.”
“A nobody who is now connected to Jasper King, who happens to be a somebody. We can’t just take a hit out on her and expect people not to ask questions.”
“This isn’t a mob movie, Crystal. I’m not going to take a hit out on her. Not in that way, at least. She’ll win an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii or be asked to fly out to interview for the position of Beyonce’s personal chef and have a tragic airplane accident or something, I don’t know. There are a million ways to get rid of her. I’m not concerned with the details right now. It’ll be easy enough to pull off either way. The point is, you need to relax. I’ve got everything under control, I promise!”
“You’re right.” Crystal sighed after a brief pause. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m just getting antsy, that’s all. We’resoclose to getting our hands on that money–”
“I know.” There was shuffling and I rolled my eyes as I heard what sounded like a sloppy kiss being exchanged. “I think I know how to calm you down, though,” Eddie muttered, and I nearly gagged as Crystal let out some odd mix of a squeal and a moan.
I hung up quickly after I was sure that they were finished talking for good.
“Jasper–”
“Let’s go,” I growled, walking down the hallway as quickly as I could. Not very quick thanks to those damn drugs Eddie had probably slipped into my meal earlier. When I got my hands on him —
“Jasper, wait! Go where?”
“Where do you think?”
“To the police?”
“Try again.”
“Jasper!”
“Quinn.” I winced as my muscles ached, trying to lock up on me. “There’s nothing you can say that’s going to keep me from going to kick Eddie’s ass at least once!”
“Jasper, I know that what he did to you was beyond fucked up, but—”
“It’s not what he did to me,” I spat. “It’s what he’s willing to do toyou. Just to get his hands on a few million.”
“Well, it’s much more than afewmillion,” she muttered as we hurried down the pathway.
“Either way, it isn’t more valuable than you.” I clenched my jaw, shaking my head. “I know I can’t do much damage when I’m still a bit weak, but I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try. I need to get my hands on him at leastonegood time.”
Quinn did a poor job of hiding her smile as she crawled into the car before I did.
“Hewaswilling to lie about Beyonce wanting me as her personal chef.” She pouted. “I can’t lie. He does deserve a good punch in the face for that.”
The driver drove as fast as he could to get us to Eddie’s house and it couldn’t have taken more than fifteen minutes for us to get there, but it felt like decades. The longer I sat and thought it over, the angrier I got. The more my muscles tingled and ached, the angrier I got. The more Quinn tried to calm me down, the angrier I got, only because I was reminded of the fact that Eddie had talked so casually about harming her. Quinn was a great woman, already immensely successful despite her young age, and the most hard-working, selfless, kind-spirited, pure-hearted woman I’d ever known. And Eddie thought that he could just take that all away? He thought he could plot to take exactly the kind of woman this world needed before she did more great things? For the sake of getting one step closer to screwing me out of my own money?
He must have been out of his mind.
I showed Quinn where Eddie kept his hideaway key once we arrived at his house, and I stormed inside the second she managed to get the door unlocked. I knew right where to go. It must have been the adrenaline, but even the obnoxious amount of stairs couldn’t keep me from getting to his bedroom in record time.
I swung the door open, and it hit the wall hard enough for the knob to knock a dent into it. Crystal and Eddie were moaning one second and jumping apart the next. Crystal flung herself out of bed the moment she saw me, shaking her head quickly.
“J-Jasper, this isn’t what it looks like! I can explain!”
