by Maris Black
But I had no choice but to try. I was now the backup quarterback for some mysterious government agency, and this was my Hail Mary pass. If I came up even a little bit short, or if Aaron and his men dropped the ball, I knew it would probably be lights out for me.
Theo leaned forward, and I thought he would give me an answer about working together. Instead, he asked, “Did your uncle mention me in his journals?” The expectant, almost hopeful look in his eyes helped to guide my answer.
“Of course he did. That’s how I knew you two were so close. You were his ride-or-die.”
He smiled. “Ride-or-die. I like that.”
I relaxed in my seat, confident that I’d said the right thing to put Theo at ease. “That’s the impression he gave in his writing. I’ve learned a lot about him in those pages. Things I never dreamed of. I had no idea he could be so sensitive and caring, but I guess maybe that’s because he raised me. I suppose I always had a chip on my shoulder toward him, and now that he’s gone, I feel… regret. Does that make sense?”
“More than you know,” he said, his eyes fogging with emotion. “I just wish I knew why—”
I had a bad feeling he was about to bring up Santori’s alleged suicide, and that was one thing I did not want to talk about. I hoped maybe if I kept my mouth shut and didn’t prompt him to continue, he’d just leave his thought unspoken. But I didn’t have very good luck where Theo Brown was concerned, so of course, he went there.
“I just wish I knew why he killed himself. We had made it through rougher times than that. Hell, he didn’t even seem that sad before he died.”
Hearing the word sad used in a sentence to describe my uncle was strange. Sadness didn’t seem like something he would ever have felt, much less shown. But I thought back to the boy in the journals, and I had to acknowledge that he’d once had emotions. Theo Brown had known him then and had witnessed him actually feeling something other than the disdain he’d worn like a second skin.
I wanted to pick Theo’s brain. He was closer to my uncle than any other person in the world, and he would know things about the man that no one else could tell me. But I couldn’t risk the tentative connection we were forging. Maybe in time I would be able to get some answers from him, but today was definitely not the day.
“Alright,” Theo said, jogging me out of my thoughts. “I’ll take you on and teach you the ropes, but only because Peter would have wanted it. However disappointed he was in the choices you made, you were his heir. He knew he was putting the two of us in this position when he chose to end his life, but he did it anyway. He must have had faith that we could work through this without him, and so that’s what we should do. But if we do this, you will defer to me in all things whether you agree with me or not. I won’t be as lenient with you as Peter was. You fuck up, you pay. Got it?”
“Got it,” I said, swallowing around a lump. Because, oh god, what was I getting myself into?
“Be back here tomorrow morning at nine.” Theo pulled a stack of papers from the side of his desk and started reading through them as if I wasn’t even in the room.
Apparently, I had been dismissed.
I got up from my seat, considered trying to tidy up my glass, then decided that hanging around might anger him. He hadn’t texted anyone this time, so that was a good sign. I needed to make my escape while I could and come back the next morning with a fresh outlook. I pulled open the door and started out, but Theo wasn’t quite finished with me yet.
“Get rid of the boyfriend,” he said. “There’s no room for him in our arrangement.”
I spun around, mouth agape and my heart pounding like a million war drums. My brain scrambled in search of something—anything—to say to make him change his mind.
Several desperate pleas rose to my lips: I can’t do it, Theo. Please don’t ask that of me. He won’t get in the way, I swear it. And finally, He’s my ride-or-die, like Santori was yours. I was seriously considering going off script and risking everything, because Jesus Christ, not this. Anything but this.
In the end, I settled on the lamest thing I could have said. “Is that really necessary?”
“It’s non-negotiable,” Theo said without even looking up from his papers. His tone was flat, as if he didn’t give a good goddamn whether or not he was crushing my fucking soul.
Then again, what had I expected? To pluck the heartstrings of a man whose heart was long dead?
He would be utterly delighted to know he was causing me pain, because as we’d established at the beginning of our meeting, the sick bastard got off on it. Next time I saw him, he’d probably ask if he could crack open my chest and have a look at my broken heart. Then he’d dig a finger into it and watch me squirm.
The torture was coming whether I liked it or not. I’d signed a devil’s pact with Theo Brown, and there was nothing left to do but shut up and walk out of the room. The click of the door closing behind me was loud, like the sound of a hammer striking the final nail into my coffin, but this was only the beginning, and I knew it.
I wanted desperately to fight for Jamie. How in the hell would I get through this without him?
But Aaron had already threatened Jamie’s safety if I told him I was working with the government. Now Theo was telling me I had to cut him loose. Months before, my uncle had literally died trying to get rid of him.
What was it about that clueless little Georgia boy that inspired such strong feelings in people and made them want him out of the picture so badly?
I didn’t have to think long to come up with the answer, as Vanessa’s words from the UFC party we’d attended a lifetime ago came back to me. She’d told me that Jamie was my kryptonite. A weakness. Now it was finally clear what that really meant, even if Vanessa hadn’t fully grasped the weight of her statement.
Jamie was definitely a weakness, but not to me. He was my strength. In reality, the only threat he posed was to those who would seek to control me, because he was the only thing that could truly inspire me to buck the powers that be and fight for my autonomy.
In being who he was—a simple young man with realistic hopes and dreams—he was tempting me to stray from what others would have me be: a loveless monster who would do their bidding without a second thought.
Even the shit we had already been through—the stuff with Santori, the fears that Jamie was now a murderer—hadn’t brought the reality of the situation quite home to me. Now that I finally saw it in high definition, all the sex and love and blind denial in the world couldn’t make it go away.
Jamie Atwood, whose only crime was being loved by me, was a huge threat to some very powerful and ruthless men. He had the potential to fuck up their plans in a big way, and if I didn’t do what they said and remove him from my life, he was going to end up dead.
Not just being harassed. Not just rotting in a prison cell somewhere. But fucking dead.
The walk to the parking lot felt more like my final walk to the electric chair as I tried to work out a plan to try to save the only man I’d ever loved. I couldn’t tell him the truth about who I was really working for because Aaron had made it very clear he wouldn’t tolerate his mission being compromised, and without that tidbit of information, my working with Theo made no sense. Even if I was able to make him understand that it had to appear we were broken up, we couldn’t risk meeting in secret. There was far too much at stake.
No, I had to make him want to leave, and to do that I was going to have to make him hate me. God help me, I didn’t want to break that sweet boy’s heart, but what other choice did I have?
I bent over next to my car in the parking garage and puked what little was in my stomach onto the pavement. Then I drove around town and did everything I could think of doing that didn’t include going home.
CHAPTER 5
KAGE
When I finally couldn’t deal with my own morbid thoughts rattling around in my head anymore, I found myself back at the Alcazar, stumbling around like a crazy person. It was after seven, so I knew J
amie would be upstairs. I took the elevator to Dr. Key’s floor and banged on his door.
He answered a moment later in nothing but a pair of plaid pajama pants and fuzzy purple slippers, running a hand through his crazy brown hair. He squinted at me, his eyes bleary as if he’d just been sleeping.
“Kage. I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come see me.”
“Is this a bad time?” I asked. “I can come back some other time if it is. I just—”
“Not at all. You’re paying me to be at your beck and call, remember? I’ve been feeling a little guilty taking your money for nothing.” He cocked his head at me and took in my state. “Besides, you look like you need to talk to someone. Please come in and make yourself at home.”
The place looked like it could use a visit from housekeeping, with food cartons and papers scattered everywhere, but I didn’t care. It was better than being cooped up and claustrophobic in my Corvette with no one to talk to but myself.
Dr. Key went to the kitchenette without a word and came back with two bottles of Japanese beer. He popped the top on one and handed it to me, then opened his own and sat down on the sofa, tossing the cap into the cluttered mess on the coffee table.
“It’s great to see you again,” he said, patting the seat next to him in invitation. “What have you been up to?”
“Nothing.” I sat down beside him and took a swallow of beer, hating the taste. I almost gagged, then took another swallow. It wasn’t the most distasteful thing I’d experienced that day. If I could let Theo Brown feel up my bruises, I could stomach a little nasty beer.
“Nothing?” Dr. Key repeated skeptically. “Well, I’ve been trying to get some work done, but I’ll admit it’s difficult with the temptations of Vegas beckoning me night and day. I went out to have a drink last night and woke up this morning on the floor just inside the door of my suite with only one shoe on. Not my proudest moment.”
I tried to chuckle, but it was so weak it sounded more like a raspy breath. “Did you ever find your shoe?”
“No, that’s the crazy thing. I have no idea where it could be. I even checked with lost and found here in the hotel, and they said they hadn’t seen it.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink.” I knew it came out sounding rude, but I was beyond censoring myself. My mind was still flying a mile a minute trying to figure my own shit out.
Dr. Key held up his beer and looked pointedly at it, laughing. “That was my first thought, but as you can see, I didn’t even last twelve hours. To be honest, I rarely get drunk, but I’ve been holed up in here for a while working. It’s made me a little stir crazy, especially since I haven’t heard from you. It’s a good thing you didn’t need me last night. No telling what kind of advice I might have given.”
I thought about telling him that I had needed him last night. That I needed him at my side twenty-four-seven these days and was just too proud to ask for help. I settled for a partial truth. “A lot of shit has been going on lately, Dr. Key. I feel like I’m drowning sometimes, you know? My life is… Well, it’s spinning out of control. I don’t expect you to be able to help me, but I had to talk to someone because I can’t go home. At least not yet.”
“Why can’t you go home?”
I sighed. “Because Jamie’s there, and I have to tell him something.” I spun my beer bottle in my hand and tried to read Japanese. “I need to break up with him.”
Dr. Key’s eyes widened. “What on earth for? You two seem so good together. Of course, that’s just an outsider observation. I don’t know everything that goes on between you.”
“I love him,” I said. “More than anything in the world.”
Dr. Key waited a moment, and when I didn’t continue, he prompted me for more. “But…”
“But it’s complicated.” I paused and bit my lip. “How much can I tell you about my life, Dr. Key? We haven’t signed any papers or anything, and I’m worried. I don’t lead what you’d call a normal life. There are things about me that would probably make your hair stand on end. Things that could compromise me in a legal way.”
“I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign, Kage. I’m not here to report you to the authorities or sell your secrets to the press. You’re paying me a lot of money to be your confidante, and I take that very seriously. Short of murdering kids or planning to shoot up a McDonald’s, there is nothing you can tell me that will shock me or make me go running to the police or the media. So I’m telling you now if you are killing kids or planning a mass murder spree, you’d better keep that to yourself. Otherwise, we’re good.”
I turned this information over in my mind. “What if I was a drug dealer?”
Dr. Key shrugged. “No problem.”
“What if I was laundering money for the mob or planning to rob the vault at the MGM?”
He shrugged again.
“What if I was an assassin?”
There was a barely noticeable twitch at the corner of one eye. “Is this your way of telling me you’re here to kill me?”
“No!” I said, shocked that he’d even gone there.
“That’s good to know,” he breathed. “Are you killing innocent people?”
I took a swallow of beer and grimaced at the taste. “I didn’t say I was killing anyone. I’m just throwing hypothetical shit out there. But no. As a hypothetical assassin, I am not killing any hypothetical innocent people.”
It occurred to me that I had indeed killed an innocent child, but I had been an innocent child myself at the time, and I wasn’t planning on sharing that information with Dr. Key anyway. I had more pressing matters to deal with. Things that hadn’t happened eighteen years before. This shit was happening right fucking now, and I needed some advice on how to deal with it.
“Well, those are my hard limits,” Dr. Key said. “No killing innocent people, and no killing me. Feel free to throw anything else on the table, and we’ll sort through it together.”
I thought for a minute, hesitant to move forward, but I needed to trust someone. Living with all of this shit in my head was going to drive me fucking insane. But when Dr. Key only sat quietly waiting for me to continue, putting no pressure on me and showing no signs of being overly enthusiastic to get me to confess my secrets, I gave in to the need to unburden myself.
“Okay,” I said finally. “My uncle left me a lot more than a hotel when he died. Apparently, he was involved in a lot of shady business, and now by default, so am I. The thing is, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I’m an MMA fighter. I just want to do my own thing and enjoy the money I inherited, but there are people who don’t want to let me do that. I’m sort of stuck dealing with these guys who are way more powerful than I am, and they don’t want Jamie involved. Hell, I don’t want Jamie involved in anything that’s going to put him in danger, and we’re talking a lot of danger. Not just from the police, but maybe… mortal danger. I’d love to get him out of harm’s way, work my way out of the mess I’m in, and then live happily ever after with him. I just don’t know how to do that. I hope to have everything straightened out within months, or maybe a year at the most, I don’t know. But what if he doesn’t want me back when it’s all over? I’m so confused right now. Part of me wants to make him hate me so that he’ll disappear off their radars completely, but the larger part of me wants to figure out how to keep him close.”
Dr. Key didn’t say anything immediately. He seemed to be trying to make sense of everything I’d just told him. His forehead wrinkled, and he got a faraway look in his eyes. Finally, he spoke. “Could you explain the situation to him? Maybe the two of you could pretend to separate with the promise that you’ll be together when it’s all over. He could live somewhere else for the time being, and you could possibly even see each other on the sly.”
“But what do I tell him?”
“What you just told me.” He bit his lip, considering his next words. “Is there something about the situation you can’t tell him?”
“Yes. There is a sen
sitive bit of information that I’m not allowed to tell him.” That same bit of information I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, even Dr. Key. That I was an unofficial spy for the good old US of A.
“Well, I say leave that part out and explain it to Jamie just like you explained it to me. It seems pretty simple. If he loves you and values his freedom and his safety, he’ll understand and back off. Is there a reason you don’t want to do that?”
“Hell, yeah,” I said, grabbing my beer off the coffee table and taking an angry swig. “I don’t want any of this to be happening. I don’t want to risk him thinking badly of me for joining forces with some really bad people. He’ll try to talk me out of it. He’ll think I’m bad, too, for even considering it. I don’t know how to make him understand why I’m doing it without telling him about the other thing. The thing I’m not allowed to tell him. I have to make it seem like I’m cool with everything.”
Dr. Key settled back against the sofa cushions, took a deep breath, and got lost in thought again. I closed my eyes and felt myself swaying on the seat.
“You can’t secretly tell him the other thing?” Dr. Key finally asked. “Maybe no one would have to know.”
I was already shaking my head before he’d finished the thought. “Absolutely not. It would put him in too much danger and potentially compromise my chance to get out of this mess. These people… They have eyes and ears everywhere. Trust me, I know this from experience. If I told Jamie, there would be a very good chance they’d find out about it, and that’s something they’re not going to put up with. Quite frankly, I don’t blame them. If Jamie slipped up and inadvertently put them in jeopardy—” A fine tremor of fear shot through my body. “Let’s just say that a lot is riding on no one finding out this secret.”
“At the risk of prying, I need to ask you one question because something isn’t adding up for me. I understand that someone has a secret that you can’t share, but the fact that you seem reluctant to tell him you’re going along against your will makes me think—” His eyebrows came together in confusion. “Are you dealing with two people, or maybe two groups of people? It seems like you need to pretend to go along with one while keeping a secret for the other. Am I reading that right?”
