Blood Ties

5. Who Are You?

“f**k, Charlie. What are you doing here?” If Adam seemed exasperated, it was because he undoubtedly was. Charlie may have been his twin sister, but they were almost nothing alike. Adam felt he was much more laidback in most situations, whereas Charlotte—AKA Charlie—was a little more high-strung. She was energetic and a little bit of an empath, and she knew her brother almost as well as he knew himself. It was maddening to Adam.

“Adam.” The young woman popped her hip out and crossed her arms, lancing her brother with a glare that could stun.

“I was going to tell you guys where I went!” Adam seemed to explode, irritation marring his handsome features. “I was going to get to know her before—”

“Before what? And you kidnapped her, Adam! That’s not how this whole thing works and you know it. You…does she even know what this is?” Charlie looked over at Quinn, whose eyes were wide and mouth parted slightly in shock. “Looking at her face, I would say not. You went about this all wrong, and you know it.”

Adam scrubbed a hand down his face, sighing as they dropped to his sides. “I know, I know. I couldn’t help it. And I couldn’t wait any longer either. You know long Dad waited, and I didn’t want s**t to go sideways before that happened. What if she found someone else or something? What if I was too late?”

Charlie continued to shake her head from side to side vigorously, looking a lot like her mother would have had she been the one doing the yelling. “You know how these things have a tendency to work out in the end. Look at Mom and Dad.”

Adam snorted, his head tossing back as he ran a hand through his short hair. “And look at what happened. I don’t need something like that or similar to occur. I won’t be able to stand it.”

There were a few differences between Elijah Payne and his son, Adam. Elijah had waited so long to find his soulmate that patience was second nature to him. Adam had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth and wanting for nothing. It made him the opposite of his father—restless and agitated if things didn’t progress at his preferred pace. Living a luxurious life where things just appeared or happened was more of a curse when it came to things such as matings. You couldn’t rush them by any stretch of the imagination.

Charlie frowned, but didn’t speak. Adam, however, was irritated enough by his private time with Quinn being interrupted that he expressed it quite loudly.

“How the hell did you find me anyway?” Adam sat back down on the stool at the kitchen bar, his shoulders slumped over and demeanor weary. It was like he’d almost been expecting this, and as it turned out, for damn good reason.

“Mitch.” As if that explained everything, Charlie smiled at her brother, smug and unconcerned. “He’s a whiz at this s**t. You know that.”

“Mitch.” Adam said it like it was a curse word.

“Uhm, who is Mitch and what are you guys talking about?” Quinn’s voice was small, her having just recovered the ability to speak after the entrance of the older female.

Charlie looked over at her and moved in quickly and quietly. She held out her hand for Quinn to shake, and after a moment, she did. “My name is Charlotte, but most everyone calls me Charlie. Please do the same. Adam, your clumsy neighborhood kidnapper, is my twin brother.” She turned to Adam, who refused to look at her. “Mitch was able to track the GPS in your car with a little work. He was also able to hack into the video along the parkway and across the bridges. Once he saw you were heading north, it was fairly easy to figure out where you were going. It’s not like we have a ton of real estate in Upstate New York, big brother.”

While that was true, he honestly hadn’t thought his own sister would turn NSA on him. “And may I ask why you had the need to spy on me?”

Charlie’s mouth turned down in a frown. “Mom called me. Said she couldn’t get you on the phone. Dad couldn’t either, for that atter. Did you toss your cell into the Hudson or just turn off the ringer? They’ve been trying to get in touch with you for over 24 hours. Dad wants to know when you’re going back to work, and Mom is threatening to come to L.A. if you don’t respond to her texts. You know how she is. She won’t wait and will just do it and end up on your front porch with 18 bags of luggage. Plus, Nia’s been on my case as well about you. They called her too on the off-chance that you had spoken to her instead of me.”

“Who’s Nia?” Quinn was watching their conversation like a tennis match.

Adam looked over at her. “Nia, my dear, is my younger and least favorite sister. She lives out in Los Angeles and works as a video editor. She caught the family bug of being involved in the silver screen, just like my father and I. Charlie here is in stocks and bonds and lives in New York City, like yourself—well, until recently. My job is CEO of Payne Media Management.” He took a deep breath in and sighed. “If I don’t tell you all this now, my dear, sweet sister certainly will. I took over for my father, who funded movies for decades before me. They moved to North Dakota about ten years ago and left me in L.A., along with Nia. We share their old house in Beverly Hills, and my mother and father live outside a small town now—out of the limelight.”

He seemed to slump even lower after giving up that information, as if it weighed heavy on his shoulders. Maybe he was afraid that Quinn would judge him for not giving the information until he was forced, or maybe he just wasn’t in the mood to explain it all. Either way, things were looking bleak. Quinn had intel on him now, and would be able to pick him out of a lineup if it came down to it. He needed to work faster, make the bond clearer to her, if he could. She needed to feel some sort of connection to him, and Charlie was seriously interfering to the point where it was going to be difficult to balance his feelings and the actions he needed to take.

Fucking Charlie.

“You fund movies?” Quinn asked, narrowing her eyes. “Which ones?” She was pretty suspicious, not that Adam or his sister could blame her. It was like showing up at a party and finding out the cute guy you slow-danced with was actually a real-live prince. Quinn was never one for Disney movies.

“Loads of them,” Charlie answered.

“So many, but I can claim and explain that until my tongue goes numb from talking. Better if I have proof.” He picked his cell phone out from his pocket before opening up his email. He selected one for an upcoming film called The Ties That Bind, and gestured for Quinn to come closer. She did with some trepidation. “This is the last email I received before the weekend. You can see we’re talking about money for the project. Millions of dollars in order to make this film. Tons of intrigue, good script. Like my father before me, I read everything before I decide whether or not to get involved. It would be lazy not to. Some of the s**t that gets produced these days is pure and utter crap. I’ve had a few flops to my name, but mostly I make up the difference with some with others.”

“It’s all in the producers,” Charlie explained. “I may be in the boring money biz according to my family, but I’ve heard enough from my father to know that a great producer can make a mediocre production see cash it shouldn’t receive. It’s all about knowing the right people, having the proper advertising. Just look at that shitty old movie, Titanic. It was nothing but crappy CGI, a lousy script, a real-life setting, and a run-of-the-mill romance. If I was that iceberg, I’d have killed those two leads just to shut them both up.”

Adam shook his head with a smirk. “Charlie doesn’t understand the work that goes into making movies.”

“I just don’t like anything by James Cameron,” she muttered with a scowl. “He thinks he can write, direct, and do everything at the same time. He can’t do any of it well. Maybe if he stuck to one thing at a time, he’d be okay.”

“Yes, yes—we’ve heard it all before,” Adam interrupted. “He spread himself too thin, rest the poor man’s soul.”

Charlie shrugged. “I have my favorites. I might be biased, but I agree with Mom more on what constitutes as good film. And they don’t make them like they used to.”

“Jesus.” Adam rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, Adam, how much have you told Quinn, or does she even know—know anything?” Charlie’s eyes were narrowed, and Quinn looked at them both with big eyes.

“Nothing as of yet,” he grumbled. “You came before I could tell her anything. We legit just got here a few minutes ago.” He pulled the phone away now that Quinn was done analyzing it and slipped it back inside his pocket. It had dozens of missed calls and oodles of texts he didn’t bother to check. He knew what they all would say.

“Say anything about what?” Quinn thought she was bewildered before, now she was completely lost. What did she need to know? What were these two keeping from her? “And who the hell is Mitch? I am so confused.”

“Mitch is a buddy of mine that I work with,” Charlie informed her. “Used to be a hacker and now works with me. Had a head for business, but he still is great at hacking into s**t when I need him to. He would make bank working on his own, but he’s not too smart when it comes to staying out of sight.”

They all paused.

“Meaning…” Quinn was still bewildered.

Adam sighed and replied. “He got caught hacking government files a decade ago. Got incarcerated and then got out on good behavior. Then he did what all other good crooks do—got into where the big money is at on Wall Street.”

Charlotte frowned but didn’t bite back. She seemed too used to her brother’s jabs at her preferred profession to comment. It was probably just sour grapes on his part this time since he wasn’t too thrilled with her being there and spoiling his time with Quinn.

“This isn’t much better.” Quinn still seemed irritated. “Who are you people and why am I here? What is the point of kidnapping me? What is your endgame? Are you in it together?”

Charlie looked from Adam to Quinn and back again. “What is she asking exactly?”

Adam blinked before speaking. “She thinks I’m going to sell her into human trafficking, or something. Char, I told you I hadn’t had enough time, and you came barging in here like typical overbearing Charlie, always a hair up your ass about something. If you’d let me live my life—”

“I’d be letting you f**k it up,” Charlie interjected. “Honestly, Adam, how stupid can you be?”

He looked down shamefacedly. “I couldn’t wait any longer, sis. It was killing me.”

There was a long pause as they all looked between each other.

“What was killing you?” Quinn’s arms felt heavy, her fingers numb. “What couldn’t you wait for? I don’t understand any of this.”

“You,” Adam responded to her after a beat. “I couldn’t wait for you. I can’t explain it, because you wouldn’t understand. I wanted to get to know you—force what we will have someday, if I could. Sometimes I don’t know how to feel and what to do about it. I’ve kept an eye on you for a while, Quinn, but it’s not really stalking. You belong with me—it’s that simple. We were meant to be together.”

Quinn looked from Adam to Charlie, who looked morose and concerned. She wanted to ask him more questions, but only one came to mind.

“Who are you people?”

And for that, they didn’t have a ready answer.