Hang Em' Up: A Bad Boy Sports Pregnancy Romance

by Ashley Stewart

  Judge Thompkins studied Adrian carefully. Finally, Judge Thompkins sat back in his chair, taking his glasses off and letting them hang from the collar of his black robe.

  “I’m going to allow these tapes into evidence, pending their validity,” he said. “Bailiff? If you could please play the tapes.”

  I handed the tapes to the bailiff. He was a young, incredibly slim Filipino man, who very adeptly set up the equipment.

  I looked over at Iraja and nearly felt sorry for her. She looked as though she was about to have an aneurism. I smiled openly.

  “Your honor!” she shouted suddenly. “My client has a right to be here for this. This is a violation of his sixth amendment right to face his accuser. I request a recess until I can present my client to the court,” Iraja stared at the judge, waiting for his reaction.

  “That’s interesting…” Adrian said. “I never mentioned your client being in the tapes. Only you and two associates. If you are naming your client as one of them…” he trailed off.

  The judge turned to look at Iraja, who looked as though a ghost was sucking the life out of her right in front of us.

  “Play the tape,” the judge growled.

  After all three had been played, the judge turned to look at all of us. Iraja had sat back down not long after the first tape had started, when she recognized Marisol on the screen. Iraja groaned, folding her arms on the table and placing her head on them. She seemed to understand how bad this was for her.

  “Well, then,” Judge Thompkins said slowly. “Bailiff, please take Ms. Iraja into custody on charges of fraud and conspiracy.”

  Iraja, completely drained of any fight, extended her hands for the bailiff to put the cuffs on.

  The judge turned to a second officer in the room. “Please send a team of officers to Ms. Puri’s headquarters downtown to have her client, Victor Vaskov, and her acquaintance, Ms. Sally Baker, arrested on the same charges.”

  “Actually, your honor, I believe Ms. Baker is in the courthouse today,” Adrian interrupted.

  I turned to look at him in shock. “What?” I said. “How do you know that?’

  Adrian turned from the judge, who was now issuing a lookout for Sally. “When I spoke to her yesterday, I told her what was going on,” he said, quickly averting his eyes.

  “Adrian… How…how could you do that? They’re going to run! You’ll never get your business back now!” I exclaimed.

  “No. Sally will do the right thing; I know it,” he insisted.

  “You can’t know that Adrian!” I was practically screaming at this point. His complete recklessness and disregard for himself was infuriating. “This is exactly what I was talking about when I said we can’t be together! You don’t think straight when it comes to Sally! You let her sabotage you, and I don’t have a clue why.”

  Adrian didn’t say anything. He simply let my words rain down on him. I didn’t even know if they were having any effect.

  “I just couldn’t do that to her, Danisha. I couldn’t let strangers break down the door and drag her out in handcuffs,” he said, still not looking at me.

  “Yeah, well, I can’t do this,” I said. Adrian’s head shot up to stare at me. “I can’t have you in my life if you’re going to make these kinds of destructive decisions. It’s not healthy, Adrian. I…I might have the best intentions for you, but you clearly don’t have them for yourself.”

  I walked out the courtroom doors. Standing there, I watched the bustled movement around me. Officers were swarming, trying to find Sally. It didn’t look as though they were having much luck.

  I should be on top of the world right now. I had just gotten my life’s work back, but I still felt so lost. I just wanted to go home, curl up under the covers, and sleep until the semester was over. I still had classes, though, which I needed to complete if I wanted to come back in the spring. Despite what Adrian had just told me, somehow the world had not stopped moving.

  Taking a lesson from that, I stepped into the cold New York air, and made my way home.

  The Billionaire’s Dark Escape Book 10

  Bella Rayne

  Chapter One

  Goddammit, Sally. I thought as I watched dozens of police officers swarming about searching the courthouse. She clearly wasn’t here. I cursed myself for trusting Sally enough to give her a heads up about what was going to happen.

  Had she been playing me all the way to the end? Had Sally called Victor the second I hung up on her and begged him for help? They were probably halfway around the world by now, laughing at me and my stupidity.

  I looked up to see a detective leading Iraja Puri away in handcuffs. He led her down the courthouse steps and helped her through the crowd of flashing cameras where he put her in the backseat of a cop car. He shut the door and loudly slapped the hood twice. The driver slowly pulled away from the curb, forcing the reporters to step to the side or get run over.

  Iraja.

  She would know. She would know where Sally and Victor would be headed. I had my driver pull around.

  “To the police station,” I told him.

  Detectives would obviously immediately begin questioning her about the same thing, but Iraja was a lawyer, so she would know better than to talk to them. Maybe, just maybe, she would tell me… It was unlikely, but it was worth a shot. Anything was worth a shot at this point.

  The police station wasn’t far and I arrived just as they were booking Iraja. She looked serene, but I could tell by the way her eyes were darting around the room that she was frightened. I thought a part of me would enjoy seeing her like this, but I found myself pitying her. I knew what it was like to have the rug pulled out from under you in such a manner.

  “Excuse me…” I said, approaching the front desk. My eyes slid from Iraja to the receptionist. “How do I go about speaking to her?” I asked, pointing at Iraja.

  “Are you her attorney?” the receptionist asked.

  “…Yes, I am.” I gave the receptionist my credentials and she handed them back to me, along with a visitor’s pass.

  The officers were bringing Iraja into a room. I hurried to catch the officers just as they were exiting.

  “Excuse me!” I said, a tad breathless. “I would like to speak to my client.”

  The officers looked at each other. “Ms. Puri hasn’t asked for counsel,” said the one on the left.

  “I think if you tell Ms. Puri her lawyer—Mr. Adrian Ardic—is here to represent her, she’ll want to see me,” I insisted.

  The two men exchanged glances again. The one on the left shrugged and went into the room, shutting the door behind him. He came out a few seconds later and held the door open for me.

  “Let us know when you’re done,” he said.

  I stepped into the room, the door shutting gently behind me.

  Iraja was handcuffed to the table. She had been crying, but her voice was even when she spoke. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Do you know where Sally and Victor are?” I questioned.

  “Getting right to the point—I appreciate that. But I’ll tell you what I told them: I don’t know anything,” Iraja said with an insolent smile.

  I pulled out a chair and sat at the table with her, leaning in close. Iraja pulled back and looked at me warily.

  “Look, as long as I’m your lawyer, they can’t listen in on anything we say,” I said, pointing at the security camera in the corner. Its light was off.

  Iraja looked at the camera then turned back to me. “So? That doesn’t change anything. I still don’t know where Victor is.”

  “Not knowing anything isn’t very helpful, Iraja. You’re a smart woman. You know if there’s no one else to share the blame, then you’ll be going down for everything,” I reminded her.

  “If I’m so smart, then why are you being so condescending?” she asked me scathingly.

  I bit my lip and sat back. This was not going as planned. I needed to change tactics.

  “Okay, fair enough. That was a bit disin
genuous of me. But I truly do believe you to be an intelligent woman, so please, explain to me why you’re covering for Victor,” I paused. “Surely you aren’t…in love with him, are you?” I asked tentatively

  Iraja snorted in a very unladylike manner. “God, no.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, then, what is it?”

  Iraja tapped her fingernails against the table, agitated. She was obviously struggling with herself. “They’re not going to catch him,” she said, finally.

  “What do you mean?” I pressed.

  “Victor is out of the country by now. There’s no way they’ll be able to extradite him, which means that I have nothing to make a deal with. If I tell them where he is and they can’t get him, I’ll definitely be left holding the bag. At least if I pretend not to know anything they can’t try to add charges for aiding and abetting a fugitive,” she shrugged.

  “Fine. Don’t tell them, Iraja. Tell me,” I reached a hand across the table and laid it across hers. “The police may not have the means to retrieve Victor, but I do. I want him back here to face justice for his crimes.”

  “He’ll be dangerous,” she warned me.

  “I can handle it,” I assured her. “He’ll mysteriously reappear back in the U.S., with the police none the wiser of how that came to be.”

  “He’s on the island,” she said the instant she was confident she wouldn’t be held responsible.

  “Thank you,” I said. I stood, about to exit, when I turned back. “Do you think he brought Sally with him?”

  Iraja looked over her shoulder at me. “Now that I truly do not know.”

  I knocked on the door and the officers opened it for me. I stepped out of the room and pulled out my phone. I needed to get home to Colorado and start planning how I was going to get Victor back into the U.S.

  Jackson answered on the fifth ring, slightly out of breath. “Uh, hey, boss. How’d the trial go? Marisol and I didn’t think it would take so long, so we’re just…Entertaining ourselves here…”

  “Normally I would wait and take commercial, but I need you on this one, Jack. Finish up and get the plane together,” I told him, immediately hanging up afterwards.

  Jackson actually did exactly what I told him for once, and we were in the air within an hour. I sat in the back of the plane. I needed to focus on how to go about getting Victor off of the island—that is, if Iraja was even telling the truth about him being there. Victor wouldn’t go without a fight, that was for sure.

  We got into Colorado around nine pm, but I was exhausted.

  “Take whichever bedroom you like,” I told Jack, waving to the doors around me as I yawned. I headed up the stairs to my own bed, which I was very much looking towards getting reacquainted with.

  “Thanks…” Jack said behind me. “Hey, Adrian…?”

  “Yes?” I said, turning on the steps to look back at him.

  “Marisol says Danisha’s pretty upset, and-”

  “Jack, no. I’m not getting into that right now. Not for a while, either. There’s just too much going on. Goodnight.” I could not mentally handle how terribly things had gone between Danisha and I at the trial when I told her I had given Sally a warning. The way Danisha had looked at me…like I had betrayed her…

  It was too much. I needed to sleep. My brain was going to explode if I had to deal with anything more complex than brushing my teeth. I opened the door to my bedroom, stripping my jacket off as I stumbled towards the bed.

  “Adrian?” a soft voice said in the darkness. A sudden light illuminated the room. Sally was sitting on the couch by the fireplace.

  She had been waiting for me.

  Chapter Two

  I sat on the back terrace of my island home. The last time I had been here was when I had kidnapped Danisha and brought her here. That was over six months ago. My, how time flies, I thought.

  The sun was warm on my tan skin, and I thought back to the phone call I had received from Sally the other day. Or perhaps it was yesterday? I didn’t really understand time zones all that well.

  I had told Sally to meet me at the airport. I had a private plane commissioned for such an occasion. It could have accommodated Iraja as well, but the EyeRead had such a huge impact on the community that I knew the police would need at least one of us in order to satisfy the public’s demand for justice. Unfortunately for Iraja, that meant it had to be her. It wasn’t going to be me, and Sally wasn’t a crucial enough member to give the police what they wanted.

  But Sally hadn’t come to the airport. I waited five minutes longer than I had said I would, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to come.

  “Fool,” I had sneered to no one. I had turned to get onto the plane, when I heard a voice behind me.

  “Victor!” Sally called as she ran to me.

  I smiled. “You barely made it,” I told her. “You’re lucky I waited.”

  “Actually…I’m not going…” she said.

  “What?” I asked, totally bewildered.

  “Victor, what we did was wrong. We deserve to pay for what we did. Please, come with me to turn yourself in. Iraja shouldn’t have to take the blame for all of us,” she pleaded with me.

  “You’re fucking crazy if you think that sad excuse for a motivational speech was supposed to rouse some sort of emotional guilt trip. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a plane to catch and you have already delayed me long enough,” I snapped at her. The nerve of her!

  I shook my head of the memory and went back inside the house. It was foolish to hope Adrian would be satisfied that Sally had stayed behind. I walked down the hallway and out to the garage.

  He would come looking for me eventually. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and opened my safe.

  I would be ready for him this time. Adrian had taken my handgun when he was last here, but with my rifle, I could shoot down his plane the second it crossed the horizon.

  ***

  The first thing I did when I got home after the judge gave me back the rights to the EyeRead was sleep. With only five days until winter break, I had managed to save my life’s work and secure my place at MIT next semester. Everything had worked out perfectly.

  Well, almost.

  I was pretty much in denial about what Adrian had done. I couldn’t believe he had given Sally a head’s up about the appeal. I don’t know why he thought she would turn herself in. I was certain she had called Victor the second Adrian informed her she was facing jail time, so they could plot their escape together.

  The worst part about this was that Adrian was the one who would suffer the most for his generosity. I had won my case, but Adrian’s reputation would never recover unless Victor was behind bars. Adrian’s business would eventually go bankrupt.

  Mentally incapable of dealing, I slept for fifteen hours, waking up around noon the next day. I made myself breakfast and finally got around to turning my phone back on. I had turned it off for the appeal, and I didn’t want to be disturbed while I slept, so I left it off.

  I had twenty-seven voicemails. Disturbed by the number, I began to listen to them.

  The first was from the Dean of Admissions, Julia Brunner, congratulating me on the outcome.

  “Danisha, I always knew it was you. I’m so glad everything got cleared up.” I rolled my eyes. “Please call my office at your convenience; I’m sure you’re wiped out with everything that’s going on, but we need to discuss strategy as soon as possible.”

  The next two were from Marisol and my parents, respectively, asking how the appeal had gone. I quickly deleted the one after that—it was from Raphe. There was another one from my parents that was only screaming. I guessed that was after they had heard the outcome on TV.

  The rest were from various companies, all offering services I might need in the upcoming days. Agents, marketing companies, tech companies, financial investors, anyone who wanted to be a part of making the EyeRead.

  I called Julia’s office right away. I wanted to hear it from her very lips that I could come back
next semester. I was still waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath me. Her secretary told me that Julia had blocked off the entire afternoon for me in case I called. I told her I would be there within an hour.

  I leisurely finished my breakfast. I figured the Dean could wait a little longer for everything she’d put me through these past weeks.

  I got to the admissions building within an hour and a half. As soon as I stepped inside, Julia opened her office door and ushered me into the room.

  “Danisha! My dear, how are you? How was the trial?” she asked before I had time to even sit down.

  “I’m sure you’ve already heard everything about it,” I said. It had barely been a day, but the media had run wild with the story.

  “Yes, it’s been all over the news. MIT has already received a sudden rush of donations due to our connection with you…which brings me to the agreement we made a little while back, if you recall?”

  “If by “agreement” you mean where you held my education hostage, then yes, I recall,” I retorted.

  Early in the semester, I had been so focused on working on the EyeRead that my grades had begun to suffer. MIT was going to kick me out until I showed them the EyeRead. They were so impressed, they were going to let me stay—until Victor had stolen it.

  The Admissions Board decided I could only come back to graduate if the court ruled the EyeRead was mine, and I lost the appeal. I had begged Julia to give me until the end of the semester to prove the EyeRead was mine. She had agreed—for a cost. Half of a percent of the EyeRead’s future profits.

  Julia’s smile fell a little at the corners. “Er… Yes. That…is what I’m referring to.”

  The silence stretched between us. I raised my eyebrows at Julia, waiting for her to continue.

  “Well, because of that…”she seemed reluctant to say the word ‘agreement,’ “MIT feels that it should be allowed some say in the future choices for the EyeRead…”