Hard Tackle: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by Jessica Ashe

  The FBI had tried to get a warrant to tap his phone and email, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convince a judge. That was one of the reasons why this operation was focusing on Denton; at least we knew where he spent most of his time, and he never made any effort to stay hidden.

  Lois would love to know where Denton’s dad worked, and thanks to Denton leading me right there, she now did.

  Kieran Russell had a fearsome reputation in Chicago. He was probably about as close to a mob boss as you could find today. I didn’t know a lot about the man, but I knew I was terrified as we pulled up to the side of the road in downtown.

  “Follow me,” Denton said, as he headed down the road, briefcase in hand, even though it must be empty.

  I’d never put much thought into where Kieran's base of operations would be, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years.

  “A flower shop?” I asked, as we walked inside. “Your dad works out of a flower shop?”

  “He likes the smell apparently,” Denton replied. “I suppose when you do so much shit day in, day out, you need a nice smell to cover it up.”

  We headed to the back of the store and into a small office filled with so much smoke that I couldn’t see Kieran until he was just a few feet away from me.

  Keiran and another man put their cigars out and both stared at me.

  “Who’s this?” Keiran asked Denton.

  “This is Chloe. She’s my assistant.”

  “She shouldn’t be here.”

  “I trust her,” Denton replied. “Chloe, this is my dad.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Russell,” I said, stretching out my hand and only just about managing to keep it from shaking. Some nerves were only to be expected; Keiran must be used to it.

  “Nice to meet you too, love,” he said, shaking my hand and smiling in a way that couldn’t have been more creepy if he tried.

  “And this is James,” Denton said, motioning to the other man who didn’t move from his chair. “He’s an old friend of the family.”

  James gave me a wave of acknowledgment, but didn’t say anything. Even with his silence, he managed to come across far friendlier and more polite than Keiren.

  “Alright, enough of the pleasantries,” Keiran said, sitting down at his desk and putting his feet up on the table. “You get the money from Bruce? If not, he better not still be breathing.”

  Denton was supposed to have killed Bruce over fifteen thousand dollars? No wonder Bruce looked so relieved to see Denton and not someone else. No doubt Kieran's other thugs would have put a bullet in Bruce the second he admitted he couldn’t pay the debt.

  Denton unlocked the briefcase in his hand and passed it to his father. “The money’s all there. And I took a few grand extra that I found in the cash registers and safe.”

  There was no way that store had a few thousand in the cash registers early in the morning, and Bruce had made it clear he only had a thousand dollars at most. Where had that money come from?

  The money must have been in his briefcase all along. Denton was paying Bruce’s debt for him.

  Keiran pulled out a few of the stacks of bills and flicked through them, taking a rough count of how much was in there.

  “Good, good,” Keiran said, when he’d finished counting. “I’m thinking you should kill him anyway. Bruce messed us around for months. We need to send a message that we’re not to be messed with.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Denton said. He was trying to remain calm, but I could tell he looked tense. His hands were clenched by his side, and he looked about ready to deliver his second beating of the day. “I gave Bruce a serious lesson in paying his debts. He won’t be walking or talking for a while.”

  “A few punches doesn’t get the message across,” Keiran argued.

  Denton opened his mouth to speak, but his uncle beat him to it. “I agree with Denton. If we kill everyone over late payment, no one will want to do business with us, period. This is a good compromise.”

  Keiran seemed to agree, although he clearly wasn’t happy about it. How many men had died just because this oaf thought he needed to send a message? He talked about death as casually as other people talked about going to the movies with friends.

  I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, and when Keiran’s phone rang we had a good excuse for leaving.

  “Denton, wait up,” James yelled after us, as we were walking out of the store. “Good work back there. Your father is getting more trigger happy with each passing day. It’s practically a full-time job to keep him from killing everyone who looks at him funny.”

  “Tell me about it,” Denton replied. “Thanks for agreeing with me in there. Hopefully that was enough to save Bruce’s life.”

  “Until the next time he takes out a loan and doesn’t repay,” James said. “That man’s a screw up. I know he’s your friend, but he needs to lay off the gambling.”

  “I’ll have a word with him.”

  “Remind him that he owes you his life. And fifteen thousand dollars. I am right in assuming that you repaid the debt for him?”

  Denton nodded. “He’s broke.”

  “You’re a big softy,” James said.

  I laughed, and both Denton and James turned to look at me, having seemingly forgotten I was there.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve just never heard anyone refer to Denton as a softy before.”

  “Yeah, I bet he’s never soft for you, eh love?”

  “Jimmy,” Denton scolded. “Enough of that.”

  “It was a joke. Alright, I’d better be going, before your father puts out another kill order. Nice to meet you, Chloe.”

  “You too,” I replied. By comparison to Keiran, James was a bona fide pleasure to be around, rude jokes and all.

  “So, you’ve met my dad,” Denton said, as we stepped back into the car. “Feeling okay?”

  “Surprisingly exhausted, actually.”

  “In that case, how about we take the rest of the day off? Fancy seeing my apartment?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Denton

  It didn’t occur to me until after we left Dad’s office that I had just introduced him to a girl I was interested in. Chloe and I weren’t seeing each other officially--yet--but it felt inevitable now. Mom would be pissed that Dad got to meet her first.

  Chloe never batted an eyelid when I suggested going back to my place to chill out for the afternoon. She made no effort to claim it was inappropriate or wrong for us to spend time alone together outside of work. I took that as a good sign.

  I hadn’t planned for her to come home with me, and that much was apparent from the second we walked in the door.

  Not only was the apartment a mess, with the kitchen full of dirty pots and pans, I had left out all the paperwork on Roddy Barton, including the information we’d stolen from the office last week.

  “You’ve been busy, I see,” Chloe commented, as she looked at the papers strewn across what was supposed to be a dining table.

  I had to be careful with what I printed and viewed on my laptop. If the police ever came calling, I didn’t want them to find my laptop with a browser history full of searches related to Roddy Barton and his address.

  Hard copies could be incriminating as well, but at least I could destroy those after the crime. I’d printed them from the local library, using an account set up with a fake ID. I wasn’t naive enough to think I’d never get caught, but at least I’d taken a few precautions.

  “I have to do my research,” I said casually, as I quickly gathered all the papers into a pile.

  “You promised me you were going to think about this,” Chloe said.

  “And I am thinking about it.”

  “It looks like you’ve made up your mind.”

  “I haven’t,” I lied. I’d come to my conclusion a long time ago. No amount of time could make me change my mind. I had to do this. “But if I do decide to kill him, I need to be ready. If I make a snap decis
ion then things could go badly.”

  “I don’t want you to kill him,” Chloe said calmly. “That’s not who you are.”

  “Says who? I’ve killed before.”

  “In self-defense. You’re not a murderer.”

  “Six months ago, I would have agreed with you, but now I’m not so sure. No one knows who they really are until they’re faced with circumstances that truly put them to the test.”

  “I understand that, but--”

  “No, you don’t. You can’t possibly understand.”

  “Oh really,” Chloe snapped. “And why not? Because I haven’t lost someone I love? Because no one I know has been murdered? My father was killed, just like Kara was.”

  “Sorry, Chloe. Shit, I didn’t mean that.” I sat down on the sofa, and tugged gently on her hand so that she collapsed down next to me. “You never talk about him. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “You know what happened.”

  “I know the basics. You don’t have to elaborate if you don’t want to, but it might help. I’m guessing you don’t talk about it a lot.”

  Chloe shook her head. “Mom and I do occasionally, but never for that long. It’s too difficult for both of us.”

  “Well, now’s your chance to get it all out in the open.”

  “There’s not that much to say. You already know he was killed by the police. They shot him as he was running from a store. They said he’d stolen something, but there was nothing on his body afterwards. Case of mistaken identity I think. Dad did look a bit… disreputable.”

  “Was anyone ever convicted?”

  “No, Dad wasn’t exactly able to give any evidence. He never regained consciousness, and eventually they had to turn off life support. The bullets damaged both of his kidneys beyond repair, and we couldn’t find a donor.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. That must have made his death even harder for Chloe. Knowing that if they could just have found a kidney he would still be alive today. How do you even process that? “I take it your grandparents passed away a while ago?”

  “Uh, no, only in the last two years,” Chloe replied, looking confused. “Why do you say that?”

  “Aren’t parents usually a match for kidney transplants? I just assumed one of them would have helped him out if they could.”

  “Oh, they tried to, but neither of them had compatible kidneys.”

  Showed how little attention I had paid in biology class I suppose. No kidney transplant could be guaranteed--sometimes the human body just refused to accept the donated organ, no matter how good a match it was--but I thought parents were usually suitable donors.

  “Do you know who it was that fired the fatal shot?” I asked. I knew I was touching on a sensitive subject, but it was the only way I could think of for Chloe to understand why I had to kill Barton.

  “No,” she replied with a shake of the head. “The officers involved were suspended, but I don’t know who it was that actually shot Dad.”

  “But if you did know, wouldn’t you want them dead?”

  Chloe did take a few seconds to consider the question, but her answer was as predicted.

  “No, I wouldn’t. It wouldn’t bring Dad back. I’d like to see him punished, but not killed. And I certainly wouldn’t want to bloody my own hands by being the one to do the deed.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. We were never going to agree on this. At some point, I would kill Roddy or die trying. If I succeeded in killing him, then I would lose Chloe. She would never trust me again.

  “Why do you think it was Roddy who killed Kara?” Chloe asked after a few long minutes of silence.

  “I heard the same thing from a number of sources. He wanted the information to get out, so all my contacts came back with the same story.

  “Maybe they were wrong.”

  “No, it was Roddy’s MO. I got the information from the coroner's report. He kidnapped her, tortured her, and killed her. The knife marks were typical with his style. He’s known for his love of knives.”

  “Jesus, I’m so sorry. But--”

  “But what, Chloe? Didn’t you hear what I just said? How can I not want to kill this man?”

  “Because it wasn’t him.”

  I went to dismiss her again, but there was so much heartfelt honesty in her voice that I immediately knew she was telling the truth. Or at least she thought she was.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I looked into it,” she said. “I can’t tell you how I know this, but Roddy wasn’t even in the country the day Kara died.”

  I frowned. How the hell would Chloe know something like that?

  “How do you know--”

  “I told you, I can’t tell you.”

  “But you want me to believe you?”

  “Yes.” She took hold of my hand. Hers was cold, so I pressed my other hand on top to help warm it up. It felt like ages since I’d last felt her flesh on mine. Holding her hand was better than sex with any other woman. How was that even possible?

  “I trust you,” I said, “but--”

  “There can’t be a ‘but.’ You either trust me or you don’t.”

  I trusted that she thought she was telling me the truth, but so much just didn’t add up. I had connections everywhere in this city, including the police department. Dad practically had them in his back pocket.

  Chloe had only been here a few weeks. How could she possibly know something like that? I failed to believe Roddy had gone on vacation and posted his beach pictures on Facebook.

  I squeezed Chloe’s hand. I knew what she wanted to hear. This was the point where I was supposed to call the whole thing off and promise to live a good life from now on. But I couldn’t.

  Roddy might not have done the deed himself, but he sure as hell gave the order.

  He deserved to pay the price.

  And I was the only one who could collect.

  Chapter Twenty

  Chloe

  This time I did spend the night at Denton’s. Nothing happened, but I slept next to him for the first time. I wondered if he’d ever shared a bed with a woman and not had sex with her. Probably not.

  Not going home meant I had no access to my laptop, and no access to my laptop meant I couldn’t upload yesterday’s recording. I was going to catch so much shit for this, but right now I didn’t care.

  Denton’s place had been a mess when we’d come back yesterday afternoon, but while I’d been enjoying a lie in, he’d been tidying the place up and cooking breakfast.

  “You know we’re both going to be late for work?” I said, as I shoved a piece of toast into my mouth.

  The smell of scrambled eggs and sausage wafted over from the kitchen and made my mouth salivate. I hadn’t had a cooked breakfast since I’d moved to Chicago and I was now realizing just how much I missed the food from my favorite café in New York.

  “I’m the boss,” Denton responded, as he shoved some spinach leaves into the pan. “I can’t be late. And you’re my assistant, so you can’t be late either.”

  “People will gossip,” I replied. “You know what offices are like.”

  “There’s nothing to gossip about,” Denton said. “We didn’t do anything last night other than hang out and watch television. Unfortunately.”

  “Was there something else you would have rather done?” I teased.

  I knew exactly what he’d wanted. I’d fallen asleep with his cock hard and pressing into my back. I wanted him to just take me. To just pull down my panties and thrust himself inside. Instead, he somehow held back, and resisted the urge to follow the instructions his penis was clearly yelling at him.

  I’d wanted it as well. At least, physically I had. I’d been dripping wet just thinking about him. But mentally I hadn’t been in the right place.

  Things had been a little awkward after all the talk of death and revenge, but a good night’s sleep seemed to have put everything back in its rightful place. For the time being at least.

  “I h
ad been hoping to watch the Bulls game,” Denton said, not looking away from the pan in front of him.

  “I really hope that’s a joke.”

  “Why? You not a Bulls fan?”

  I pursed my lips and crossed my arms under my breasts. “I could feel your cock twitching against my back this morning. I thought you were sending a message in Morse code at one point.”

  “I was. The message was ‘get up and make me a cup of coffee.’ ”

  “I’m supposed to be the one who makes bad jokes. You’re supposed to be the sulky, silent type.”

  “What can I say? I’m in a good mood when I wake up next to a beautiful woman.”

  “How good a mood?” I asked.

  As hungry as I was, it wasn’t my mouth watering now, demanding to be satisfied. There wasn’t much in life sexier than Denton with a tight t-shirt on, standing in the kitchen cooking. Well, maybe if he had an apron on, too…

  “Let me show you,” Denton said, stepping away from the pan and turning the gas off. “This is how good a mood I’m in.”

  He walked away from the kitchen worktop so that I could see his lower body. He only wore a pair of boxers, and they were stretching at the seems, with his hard, thick shaft, peaking out the top.

  “Holy crap,” I exclaimed. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the size of that thing.”

  “I thought I was going to explode last night. Breakfast can wait.”

  Denton walked over and grabbed me roughly by the arm, pulling me up from the chair and dragging me towards the bedroom. Breakfast could definitely wait.

  We both fell onto the bed in a heap. I wrapped my arms around Denton as he landed on top of me, his lips crushed against mine so hard they never parted while we bounced lightly on the bed.

  I wanted him so much. Everything else that had passed between us these last few days seemed irrelevant. My mind wasn’t capable of focusing on facts or logic right now. It was like being in a dream, but one of those ones you could control and savor until you had to wake up and face reality.