Turn Me Loose

by Anne Calhoun

  On a really bad day, anything could happen.

  Ian’s best defense against her father would be to tell him he was a cop; any injury to a police officer would bring down a swift, brutal response. But that would lead her father back to the undercover agent who had infiltrated the corrupt cops in Lancaster, threatening them and the case.

  The only way out now was through, all the way to the other side.

  Riva splashed cool water on her face until the stinging subsided, then shut off the water and patted her skin dry. She had a plan, and she needed to set it in motion before Ian got his body under control and came downstairs.

  She hurried down the stairs, using the newel-post to swing herself around and trot back to the kitchen. “Hey!” Hopefully desperate came off as cheerful. The right positive attitude could sometimes stop the slide into fuming cruelty. “How was your day?”

  “Good,” her father said.

  Riva went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Ian said he learned a lot running the route.”

  “He’s got potential, that guy,” her dad said. He opened the fridge and peered at the wall of Tupperware boxes Riva had stacked on the shelves. “Do we have any beer?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Let me get it for you. I’ve got things organized in there.”

  He watched her shift boxes and find the bottled beer at the back of the top shelf. “I’m glad you’re helping with your mom. I’m really worried about her.”

  “I am, too,” Riva said with total sincerity. She got the bottle opener from the drawer, popped the top off, and handed him the bottle. “It seems worse than it has before.”

  “She’s got no initiative to help herself. I suggested the fundraiser because I thought it would help her meet people, get involved in something besides the damn dog. Instead, it’s made it worse.”

  “Maybe she’ll get some confidence when the luncheon goes off without a hitch.” Riva sent up a silent prayer it did go off without a hitch. “She’s got so much to offer. I hate to see her like this.”

  Her father shrugged. “She never had our go-get-’em attitude.”

  Her mother was truly Rory’s victim, prey he played with when it amused him but didn’t finish off, just in case he got bored elsewhere. Riva needed to find out where he kept that laptop. Rory was too smart to mix his legal and illegal activities. He’d keep a separate machine somewhere else, and the club was as logical a place as any.

  “Ian mentioned you were taking him to the boxing club tonight,” she said, keeping her tone casual. “Mind if I come along?”

  Rory’s gaze narrowed fractionally. “Why the sudden interest in boxing?”

  “Because you’re interested in it.”

  “Tell me the truth, Riva.” His voice was whip hard. “Is it my fighters, or Ian?”

  In the blink of an eye he went from friendly to terrifying back to the jovial father role. Sweat broke out at her nape and her heart rate shot through the roof, sending a dizzying rush of blood to her face. “Dad,” she said, like she was embarrassed. “He’s just … He’s a guy I know.”

  “Because if you’re serious about coming into the business, the man you’re marrying matters. It’s too risky for you to be with someone who might get curious about how you’re making your money.”

  And there was the father she remembered, the one who wanted her all to himself, isolated her mother from family and friends, then played her and Riva against each other until they trusted no one, not even themselves. Only him.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “He might be okay,” Rory conceded. “Let me test him, see what he’s made of, if he’s loyal. See if he’s good enough for my baby.”

  In other words, let me choose your boyfriend. Let me take over every single element of your life, your work, your home, your bed. The situation was threatening to hit a screaming pitch of crazy Riva hadn’t experienced since the day Ian had put handcuffs on her. “Just … Dad, it’s not like that … Shh, he’s coming. Can I go with you, Dad? Please?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  “Why not what?” Ian walked into the kitchen, rolling up his cuffs. Riva caught a glimpse of hair-roughened wrists and his no-nonsense watch, and felt her body melt a little.

  “Why not bring Riva to the club with us? Beer?”

  “Sure,” Ian said. When she opened the fridge he gave Riva a hard glare and one firm headshake. She smiled bemusedly, as if she didn’t understand his crystal-clear meaning, then handed him a beer. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and leaned so close he didn’t even have to use his voice. “Back out. Now.”

  “No.”

  “Riva. That’s an order.”

  “Why?” She got right in his face.

  “Because I don’t want you to see what could happen in the ring.”

  Her gaze flickered. He took the beer from her and twisted the top off. “Back out. I’ve got this.”

  “Let her come,” her father said unexpectedly. “She says she can handle it. Let’s find out.”

  It was a neat piece of manipulation. Riva watched Ian’s face darken as he realized that her father had been watching their interaction with interest, searching for the cracks, the place to drive the wedge. Riva crossed the kitchen floor to lean against the same counter as her father, who turned his attention on Ian. “You got some gym clothes?” When Ian nodded, he added, “Come on, kids. I’ll show you the real South Side of Chicago.”

  * * *

  The setting sun drenched the sky in glorious red-gold swaths while her dad took Ian on a run of his old childhood haunts. They stopped for Chicago-style pizza at a Lou Malnati’s, then drove to the club. Ian cornered her beside her dad’s car while her dad wandered off to say hello to a trainer leaving the club.

  “We have one rule, Riva. One rule. That rule is you do what I tell you to do when it comes to safety.”

  “That works both ways,” she shot back. “I don’t want you off somewhere alone. Dad’s getting stranger.”

  Ian’s forehead wrinkled. “This is strange for him? He’s getting more friendly. Letting his guard down.”

  “That could mean he’s thinking about whether or not to take you under his wing. It could mean he’s about to destroy you. I can tell you from extensive personal experience, he’s at his nicest right before he does something awful.”

  This didn’t have the effect she wanted. She’d hoped Ian would reconsider this incredibly dangerous plan and supervise from a distance while she got what they needed: his hidden laptop. Instead, Ian’s gaze narrowed. He shifted his weight, looked at the horizon, his body language as casual as if he was buying a candy bar at a gas station. “He’s being pretty nice to you right now too.”

  He was. The only person he was tormenting was her mother. “Which means my plan is working.”

  “Nevertheless, you’ll step off and fade into the background. I’ve got this.”

  “I like this thing where you’re just Ian,” she said, and his lips flattened together. “You go do your macho thing. I’ll be in the office, trying to hack into his partitioned hard drive.”

  She snatched her jacket from the back seat, then slammed the car door so hard it would have rocked her truck, but her dad drove a Mercedes too well engineered to register a slamming door. Ian grabbed for her, then changed the motion into something less threatening when her dad joined them.

  “The building used to house an auto repair and body work shop.” They crossed the parking lot, Riva pulling on her denim jacket as they walked, Ian wearing the bright-eyed office-drone expression she was beginning to hate. “Back in the day it was an after-hours chop shop, stripping stolen cars for parts. Bernie bought it for cheap when the owners got arrested.”

  The building made no pretense at being a suburban gym. The big windows were painted black; the grimy exterior glass reflected only the light from the gas station across the street. Over the door hung a weather-beaten wooden sign: SWEET SCIENCE. Her dad opened the door. Ian politely stepped
to the side to let Riva precede him. She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked in.

  The space wasn’t huge. The first thing she saw was the red-roped ring, spotlit in the back corner of the room. A fighter in protective gear and another, older man wearing mitts on his hands circled slowly in the ring, the boxer dancing on the balls of his feet, the older man calling out commands.

  “Smells like a gym,” Ian commented.

  Riva gave a tentative sniff, then wrinkled her nose. The air in the room, big as it was, smelled like fresh sweat layered over the ranker stench of an unwashed sock forgotten for weeks. She caught hints of other smells, rubber mats, chalk, the unique scent of industrial food handed in a bag through a window. “Someone had cheap tacos for dinner,” she said, resisting the urge to fan the air in front of her nose.

  Her father gave Ian a little smile, one she recognized. It was his it’s your turn to be on the inside smile. Them against her, boys against the girl. A couple of other women sat on the benches along the wall, one flipping through a magazine, the other watching her boyfriend hit a heavy bag.

  She didn’t know anything about boxing. Didn’t care to. Her father’s interest in the sport was recent, after she’d dropped out of college. But she trailed after Ian and her dad as they strolled between the heavy bags hanging from the ceiling along one side of the ring and the speed bags in neat rows kitty-corner. Newspaper clippings and autographed photos of typical boxing poses—menacing guys with gloves lifted in sparring stance—hung on the walls, interspersed with posters promoting upcoming fights. A rack of weights, medicine balls, kettle bells, and jump ropes lined one mirrored wall.

  Ian looked around. “Looks like the real deal,” he said. “Not one of those big box gyms running kickboxing classes.”

  “This place has history on the South Side. Lots of history.”

  A guy, shirtless and running sweat, worked the rope with methodical concentration, not even sparing them a glance. “How do you pick your boxers?” Ian asked.

  “Killer instinct.” He cut Ian a look that was part challenge, part mockery. “Lots of guys come in here wanting to look like boxers. They want the muscles, the one-two punches, the swagger. They don’t want to do the work, because they don’t have the killer instinct. Winners have it. Losers don’t. Hey, Trev.”

  As if given permission, the guy stopped midjump, the rope slapping to the floor. “Mr. H.,” he said, coming over to shake her dad’s hand.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Finished my warm-up. I’m just staying loose while they spar.” He threw a glance at the ring.

  “I’d like you to meet my daughter, Riva,” her father said.

  “Miss,” Trev said with a respectful nod.

  “And her colleague Ian.”

  Ian got a handshake, and that look guys gave each other, the sizing-up look. “Trev’s in training for a fight next month. Ian’s a fighter, too,” Rory said.

  The look on Trev’s face was almost comical. “Not a fighter,” Ian said. “I train for the exercise.”

  “Ever been in the ring with a real boxer?”

  “Just the guys at my gym,” Ian said.

  Rory nodded at the ring, where the trainer and the other boxer were still circling. “—exhale … eyes on me … stay balanced, you’re too far left—” The steady stream of instructions came as the trainer held the mitts up for the boxer to hit.

  “How much longer, Jimmy?”

  “One more round, Mr. H.,” the trainer called back.

  “They’ve got a few more minutes. He’s sparring today.”

  “I’m not going to be much help,” Ian said.

  “It’s an easy day,” Rory said.

  “You got gear I can borrow?”

  “No problem. Get warmed up,” Rory said. “Locker room’s through there.”

  Ian picked up his bag and strode into the locker room. Riva took a seat along the wall. When Ian emerged he wore a loose pair of basketball shorts and a tank top with the sleeve holes extended. The complex weave of muscle and bone forming his ribs and torso flexed as he walked to the ring and ditched his bag by one corner.

  Her father was watching him too. “You look pretty good for a bureaucrat.”

  “Just staying in shape,” Ian said.

  He reached for Trev’s discarded jump rope and started warming up. Riva tried not to be too obvious about watching, but as a minute passed and Ian’s footwork grew more complex, she couldn’t stop watching. He slipped into a completely different headspace, mental focus on something she couldn’t see and wasn’t sure she wanted to if she could. His shoulders, arms, and wrists tensed and flicked with each revolution of the rope, too fast for the eye to catch in individual motions.

  Watching him encapsulated everything wrong about her relationship with Ian. As a purely physical body, he went beyond attractive into dead sexy, all muscle and bone, exuding strength and power and a discipline she found almost unbearable. Unlike Trev or the other boxer in the ring, he wasn’t shirtless, showing off his muscles. She couldn’t shake the intuition that the T-shirt hid something he didn’t want her father or Trev to see.

  “Maybe that’s part of your fantasy,” she muttered to herself. “You want him to be smart and interesting and not just another muscle-bound jock cop lifting weights so he can take down the bad guys.”

  Smart? Check. Philosophy degree.

  Interesting? Check. He cooked. He boxed. He wasn’t some one-dimensional cop.

  Except for the fact that everything Ian did sharpened his focus on righting the kind of wrongs her family committed, she committed. All she could have with him was this chance to destroy her father. Maybe, just maybe, if he didn’t discover the truth, they could part as friends. She wouldn’t have to fear seeing him walk through Oasis’s front door, but could greet him with a smile. Even if he was always forbidden, her secret would be safe.

  She needed to get access to her father’s laptop. “Mind if I take a look around, Dad?”

  He waved at her rather than responding, all of his attention focused on Ian. Riva made a quick tour of the club, peeking into the grotty bathroom reeking of urinal cakes and damp before rattling the doorknob on the office at the back of the club.

  Locked. “Hey, Dad,” she called. “Can I borrow your laptop to check in on things on the farm?”

  “Not now, Riva,” he snapped.

  “All yours,” Jimmy said. He tugged the mitts off his hands and held up the rope so his boxer could duck out of the ring. The back of his T-shirt clung to his spine as Ian replaced the jump rope and jogged over to the ring. Jimmy started to wrap his hands and wrists, while Rory did the same for Trev. He murmured something to Trev, then slapped him on the shoulder to send him into the ring.

  Riva took advantage of the distraction to peer through the grimy glass. No laptop obviously in sight, but the brick wall held a safe. “Dammit,” she muttered.

  When she turned around, Ian was suited up for his round with Trev. The protective headgear gave him a hard, almost mercenary appearance, reducing his face to the deep lines on either side of his mouth, the thrust of his jaw and nose. Any softness disappeared into the ultramasculine image, all hard muscles, fast hands, dancing feet.

  “Jabs only,” Jimmy said. His voice was a rasp that carried through the room. “Warm up first.”

  Ian and Trev started circling each other, trading jabs. Ian threw the first one, landing a blow, only to rock backward when Trev’s left connected with the side of his face.

  “Not bad,” the trainer said to Rory as they watched Ian and Trev get a feel for each other. “No chicken wings. Keeping his head up.”

  “What am I looking for?” Riva said.

  “Watch his body,” her father said, distracted. “He should look like Trev. Knees bent, staying on the balls of his feet. Glove up to protect his face. He’s got good reflexes.”

  It was no hardship to watch Ian Hawthorn fight. When Jimmy called time, they bumped gloves and backed off a few steps. Ian’s gaze wa
s narrowed, assessing Trev, who was about Ian’s height but carrying more muscle.

  “Go,” Jimmy said.

  The first flurry of punches came faster than Riva could catalog them. All she saw was Ian’s left up, parrying Trev’s punches while his right powered straight from his shoulder at Trev’s ribs. When the two men separated, blood trickled from a cut over Ian’s eye. Breathing hard, he rolled his head on his neck, feinted right, and bulled into Trev’s body.

  This time, when they separated, Trev was working his jaw and eying Ian with a new, cautious respect. “Whoa there, brother,” he said. “Mr. H. said to go easy on you.”

  “You can step it up a notch or two,” Ian said.

  Trev shot Rory a look. Riva felt Rory shrug, then smile. “You asked for it.”

  Two blinks later, Ian was on the ropes above her, taking punches to his ribs for what seemed like forever but had to be only a few seconds before he evaded Trev and backed into the center of the ring again.

  “Nice slip move,” Jimmy said. “You sure this guy isn’t on the amateur circuit?”

  “I’m sure,” Rory said.

  They boxed two more rounds. Before the final round, Trev leaned down to catch something Rory murmured in his ear. Trev asked a question, and Rory shook his head, brief but firm. Trev nodded, then went back to the ring. This time, his punches came full speed and full strength at Ian, who was quickly propelled into the rope. His gloved hands came up to protect his face while he landed the occasional punch, finally driving Trev back. Ian threw one fast cross at Trev, who slipped to the side and roundhouse clocked Ian on the side of the head. He went down to the mat and didn’t get up.

  Understanding flashed like a lightning strike: Trev wouldn’t hesitate to kill Ian if her father gave him the nod. That quick little headshake was the only thing holding him back. Ian wouldn’t stop in his quest to get the evidence they needed to arrest her father and root out the corruption in the Lancaster Police Department. The deeper into this they got, the more danger they faced.

  Trev glanced at Rory, eyes questioning. A snakelife flicker of smile, then nothing but concerned attention.