Pinned Down: A Triple Threat Sports Romance

by Cross,Lexi

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Yeah, we’re both pretty tough,” I admitted.

  “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it. Anyway, I figured you had a good reason, and it was none of my business. I mean, Grayson’s my best friend, but you were like my little sister. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was give him a hug and kiss his stubbled cheek. “It really is good to see you,” I whispered. “I missed you.”

  “Missed you too, Jess.” He sounded a little choked up, so I pulled away and changed the subject---slightly, anyway.

  “I’m not asking this to be overly nosy or anything, and I know it won’t be easy for you to answer…but how did he take it? When I left, I mean?”

  “How do you think he took it?” Tony blew out a big sigh, slouching on the sofa. “He was a total mess. He couldn’t believe you would do something like that. At first, he thought you had to be screwing around with another guy.” He shook his head. “None of us believed that, though. It wasn’t your style.”

  “Thank you for giving me a little credit,” I murmured.

  “Then, he looked for you. All over the place. It was like an obsession. No matter what I told him—and I told him a lot of things—he wouldn’t give up. I mean, I begged him once. I told him, if you left, you had your reasons. You told him in your letter that you couldn’t go on the way things were. And hey, I knew how he was back then. He couldn’t handle the shit we were into. You know what I mean. All the violent shit. God, he hated himself for that.”

  “He did?” I sat up a little straighter, looking at Tony. “What did he say to you?”

  “He didn’t have to say anything. You know those pictures you see of guys who came back from the war a little…different? Like they couldn’t handle remembering the things they did when they were there? That was Grayson. He couldn’t handle it. He used to sit there just staring into space. Or he would walk around with blood on his hands after he got in a fight with somebody—I used to have to tell him to wash up. When he would get hurt, he wouldn’t take care of himself. We all had to look out for him. One time after you left, somebody hit him over the head, and he needed six stitches in his scalp. He didn’t even wanna go to the hospital.”

  “Oh, God,” I murmured.

  “And that wasn’t your fault, the stitches thing. That’s just the way he was then. He didn’t wanna have anything to do with anybody he used to care about. Not even himself. It was a bad time.” He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “I guess he couldn’t have been easy to live with.”

  “That’s an understatement,” I murmured, mimicking Tony’s posture. “It was the worst. And I knew something was eating him up inside, I just knew it. But he wouldn’t come to me. He wouldn’t tell me anything about it. How could I help him?”

  “You couldn’t. The only reason any of us put up with him was that we were in the club with him—I know that sounds shitty, but it’s true. I mean, I wouldn’t ditch him no matter what, but that’s not the same as being married to somebody. I don’t think I could have stood it.”

  I smiled at Tony. “You’re a good friend. You know that? I’m glad he’s had you all this time.”

  “What about you? Do you have any good friends? Anybody to help you through?”

  “My friend Cindy.”

  “She cute?”

  “Jesus, Tone.” I smacked his arm. “But yes, she’s cute.”

  “Single?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think she’s interested in club life.”

  “How do you know? Did you ever ask?”

  “Of course not. She’s the kind of girl who goes to coffee shops and off-off-Broadway shows about men trapped in glass cages and poetry slams.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “You can’t blame me for asking.”

  “Anyway, she’s my best friend. She’s been an amazing help to me, too.” I told him all about losing my job, how Cindy kept an eye on David for me while I looked for new jobs, how she sometimes floated me a little money or offered to make dinner for us. Then I got to the part where the heat in my apartment was cut off.

  “Well, I think you know the rest,” I said, nearly whispering. I was so ashamed. Looking back, how could I have thought that going to a loan shark was the way out? I reminded myself that hindsight was twenty/twenty.

  “If anybody can find a way to get you through this, it’s Grayson.” Tony sounded supremely confident.

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “Because I know him. I know he won’t give up until he finds this guy and makes him pay for what he’s doing to you.”

  “I don’t even want to make him pay,” I admitted. “I just want to make him stop.”

  “Sweetheart, guys like this don’t stop unless they’re made to pay. They won’t just give up. Know what I mean? They take shit like this personally. You gotta make sure they won’t come back. It’s like a cockroach. You can’t just hope he goes away if you leave him alone. You’ve gotta kill him.”

  I shuddered, not liking the direction our conversation had taken. “What about trapping him under a glass and setting him free somewhere else?”

  Tony smirked. “You ever done that to a cockroach? Honestly?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  We sat in silence for a long time, both of us staring up at the ceiling. “Do you think he still loves me?” I asked.

  “More than anything.”

  The thought warmed my heart, as did the unflinching way Tony responded. Like he’d been waiting for me to ask.

  “What about David? Do you think he’ll want to be a father?”

  “That’s not such an easy one to answer. Before he found out about the kid, I would have said no. He didn’t wanna be tied down like that, you know? But the kid’s already here, and he’s your kid. That’s different. I think he could step up and be the kind of dad that kid needs. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I think he could do anything he wanted to do. But he’d have to want to do it. I hope he wants to do it.”

  “I know him. Now that he knows about the kid, nothing’s gonna stop him from wanting to be a dad.” Tony looked at me, and I looked at him. “Do you want him to? That’s the question. Because you’re not gonna stop him once he makes up his mind. He already lost you once.”

  “You really think he wants me? After what I put him through?”

  “I do. I think he would take you back tomorrow if you said you wanted him to. He’s only waiting on you, beautiful.”

  I knew Tony meant it—he wouldn’t lie to me. Grayson would probably kill him if he knew what we were talking about, but he wouldn’t lie.

  If Grayson wanted to come back into my life, could I accept that? Or would I only put him in danger?

  “I have something to tell you,” I said. “I hope I can trust you with a secret.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Grayson

  Back at the clubhouse, I had more questions than answers. I’d spent hours with my crew, covering block after block in some of the city’s sleaziest sections. Nobody seemed to know of a man named Joe Green—even the ones who jumped a little when I said his name. Every time I saw that, it was a reminder of the sort of person I was up against. Everybody was scared shitless of the guy. And my ex-wife was mixed up with him. Wonderful.

  “Nothing?” I asked Rex, one of my top lieutenants, when he left the pawn shop. He shook his head.

  “No, boss. Not a thing. They never even heard of the guy.” He rolled his eyes.

  “I guess you don’t believe that,” I said.

  “Please. I think the guy pissed his pants when I asked. He knows who Joe Green is. He just ain’t talking.”

  “Fuck this.” I couldn’t believe nobody would tell us anything. “And you told him we don’t work with the guy, right? I mean, it’s not like we’re trolling around, collecting for him.”

  “I know, I know. I told him a buncha times that we don’t got anything to
do with Joe. We just wanna know who he is, where he does business. That sorta thing.”

  “And he wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Nope.” Rex shrugged. I was just about at the end of my rope, and sick to death of people who wouldn’t help me. I wasn’t asking for anything that big, just a little help. Joe had scared the entire city shitless. Who was he that he had that sort of power?

  I had to find out for myself. I had made it a point up until then not to show my face inside the businesses we checked out. I didn’t wanna intimidate anybody and make them afraid to talk. It was time to start intimidating.

  When I walked through the pawn shop door, the owner’s eyes widened. “Please. I don’t know anything. You got the wrong guy.” He backed up, away from the Plexiglas window between me and the merchandise behind the counter.

  “Give me one good reason not to drive my bike through the front window of this shop.”

  “I told your buddy I don’t know anything. Why isn’t that good enough?”

  “Because I know you’re lying to me, pal. And I don’t like it when people lie to me. So why don’t you start telling the truth. Start by telling me what you know about Joe Green. And don’t pretend you never heard of the guy, because I’ll know if you’re lying.”

  Rex had been right—the poor old man looked like he was about to piss himself. “Listen, I don’t know him personally, okay? That was what I meant.”

  “Sure, sure. But you’ve heard of him. Right?”

  “Right. Everybody knows the name. I mean, seriously. Everybody around here has heard of him. He’s like one of those stories you tell kids when you wanna scare them. Like a legend or something, man.”

  That didn’t make me feel much better. “Okay, so he’s a legend. A scary dude.”

  “More than just a scary dude. I’m pretty sure he’s the devil. He’ll do anything to get what he wants. Only really desperate people borrow from him, or people who don’t know any better.” I wished I could find whoever the hell told Jess’s friend about him and wring their fucking neck for it.

  “What sorta things does he do to people? Do you know?”

  “Sick, twisted shit. One guy, he killed his dog. He bombed another guy’s car—it killed him. He was a buddy, too.”

  “What about women?”

  “Women don’t borrow money from him, man. Did you ever know a woman who would do something like that?”

  I only looked at him. “No. I never knew any woman who did that.” For all I knew, he was a friend of Joe’s and would go back to him the minute I left the shop. “So, you have any idea where he is? Or maybe you’ve got a friend who could point me to him?”

  “The hell’s the matter with you, man? You got a death wish or something?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Stop wasting my time.”

  “I don’t know, man. I really don’t. The last thing I heard, he sorta disappeared. He’s like smoke, though. I mean, I don’t think he stayed in one place around the city for too long, if you know what I mean. He didn’t want the cops getting wise to him. He probably paid ’em off anyway, but still.”

  “Right.” It felt like swimming upstream. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move forward. When I left the shop I had the urge to drive my bike through the window just because I was pissed and didn’t know what to do. I had to calm myself down, think like a rational person. What would this Joe guy do? How would he think? Where would he go?

  “We have to get back to the clubhouse. Bret, call around, have everybody meet us back there.” We made good time on the way back there, beating everybody else. I watched as they came in, two and three at a time. None of them looked like they were any more successful than I had been. I wanted to break something, hit something, do something to vent the rage inside.

  “I can’t believe not a single fucking person in the entire city knows where this piece of shit is hiding.” I slammed my fists against the clubhouse bar so hard the glasses shook in the rack overhead.

  “It’ll take a little time, prez. That’s all.” Jaxon shrugged.

  “Yeah, that’s it. People are afraid of him. Well, they’re afraid of us, too. I ain’t against doing what needs to be done.” Spike laughed, and a few of my other men laughed with him.

  I wasn’t laughing. I wanted to scream. None of them knew how important it was to me, how desperate I was to make things right for my family. That was who they were. She was my wife, she had always been my wife, no matter how many years had passed since the divorce. She had never left me. And my son! Holy Christ, my son. I only knew about him for less than a day and I loved him already. I needed to keep them safe, both of them, and make up for lost time. Nobody knew how that felt except for me. To them, it was all fun. Just the way Jess had described it when we fought. Fun and games.

  I looked around, realizing somebody was missing. “Where’s Ralph?” All of them looked at each other, shrugging. I pulled out my phone to call him, afraid he might have stumbled on Joe Green all alone, when he came rushing through the doors.

  “Oh, shit, man. I think I found something.” He was out of breath, talking so fast I could barely understand him.

  “Calm down. Take a breath. What are you saying?”

  He took a deep breath. “I went to McKenzie’s, that crappy little strip joint across town. You should see the skanks they’ve got on the pole at this time of day.”

  “Okay, move it along. What did you find out?”

  “Oh, right. So I talked to the guy behind the bar. I asked him if he knew a guy named Joe Green, who worked as a loan shark. He didn’t just know him. He had a fucking picture of him hanging on the cork board behind the bar. I guess he likes to go there.” Ralph pulled the picture from the inside pocket of his kutte and handed it to me. I could hardly breathe, I was so excited.

  My eyes went wide. My heart almost stopped. “This is him?” I asked. I looked at Ralph.

  “That’s what he said. What’s wrong?”

  I stared at the picture, white-hot hate filling my chest as I did. “I know this man,” I said. I looked up at Spike, Danny, Marco. “Remember Nikolai Ivanov?” I watched their faces go pale.

  “You gotta be shitting me,” Danny said. “No way.”

  “He’s been outta the picture for years,” Marco added.

  “Yeah, I know. But this is him. I would bet my life on it.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laid eyes on that piece of shit. Nikolai. Even thinking about his name left a sour taste in my mouth, like bile.

  “You’re sure? It’s gotta be him?” Randy asked.

  “I don’t know. It looks a helluva lot like him. And you’re telling me this guy behind the bar told you the man in the picture is Joe Green? Or the person he knew as Joe Green?”

  “That’s what he said. I asked him three times to be sure he was clear. And he seemed sure as anything. This is the man he knew as Joe Green, the loan shark.”

  “Oh, shit.” Time had aged him a little more than it had aged me, but then again, he was at least twenty years older than I was. He had to be around fifty when the picture was taken. He’d put on weight, lost some hair. But his eyes were the same. Two black beads, like a shark’s eyes. He had no feeling, no conscience. Nothing behind those eyes but greed.

  “You didn’t know him,” I said, pulling my eyes from the picture. I couldn’t look anymore, so I handed it to Danny. He looked grim, nodding. Spike nodded, too, and so did Marco.

  “Holy shit, Grayson. I can’t believe it.” I nodded. Of all the fucking people for Jess to get mixed up in.

  “Who was he?” Ralph asked.

  “He was the evilest, most vicious person any of us ever knew. When we tangled with him, it was the bloodiest time in the history of the club. Some pretty bad shit went down back then. Shit I don’t like thinking about.”

  “Why’s he going by this other name, do you think?”

  I looked at the men who had known him, and they all looked as clueless as I felt. “Who the hell knows? Nikolai might not have be
en his real name, either. He wasn’t just some low-life, low-level criminal. Rumor was, the man had serious connections in the Russian mafia. There were enough rumors about him to write a book, I swear. Nobody knew which rumors were true and which weren’t.” I rubbed my eyes, very tired all of a sudden.

  “Did you know him? I mean, did you ever have to meet with him or talk to him?”

  “Oh, sure. I killed his second-in-command, and I almost killed him.”

  “No fucking way.” Randy looked impressed with me. I shook my head.

  “It’s nothing I’m proud of. And it was either him or me—anybody could have seen that. I had to stop him. Nikolai hated me. I never knew why—maybe because he hated Axel, and he knew I would take over for Axel one day. Maybe he wanted me dead to cut the legs out from under the club. The worst part was not knowing, I guess. Not knowing why he wanted me dead the way he did. But he definitely did.”