But that wasn't the reason I was working so hard. Okay, not the only reason. Instead, I was busting my butt because I wanted to earn Mark's trust and be allowed back on the streets with him. I knew that he could probably handle it himself, and that I could be of use with my City Council position, but I wanted to do more than that. I'd trained for months now, and as Christmas approached, I felt the itch inside me.
It was my desire to make the city better that fueled me through the workouts, through the study sessions with Mark and Sophie. I learned more about the city, about tactics and urban combat than I had ever imagined. I learned how the different criminal groups in the city operated, far beyond the basic understanding I had from my teen years. I studied how economics, social structures, and even cultural conflicts were used and exploited by the different powers in the city to feather their nests while sucking the blood from the very people they were alternatively cozying to and exploiting.
It was a crash course on how to become one half of a two man wrecking crew, and how to be a walking disaster by myself if needed. I was also taught how to be a manipulator, a shadow, the ghost in the walls if I needed. As I looked back on how I'd acted the first few weeks by myself, I agreed with Mark. I was lucky to not be a corpse in the graveyard. Still, I wasn't ready yet, despite the itch I felt inside. It was that frustration that was fueling me when I was lifting that Friday night, just a few days before Christmas.
"Slow down," Sophie said, sitting inclined against a soft pad. She was so close to giving birth that I didn't think she should be in the gym, but she insisted, saying that sitting around the house all day left her feeling like a lump. Still, I insisted that she at least relax, and that I do all the loading and unloading of my equipment. She could talk, she could offer coaching and motivation, but I wasn't going to have her lifting weights. "You're not giving yourself enough rest."
"Out there, I won't get a chance to rest," I grunted in reply as I tightened the wrist strap on my gloves. "There are no rounds out there."
"And if you're throwing punches for that long, you're going to be in deep shit anyway," Sophie replied.
I huffed and nodded, wiping my forehead. "Fine. I'm warmed up enough anyway."
Sophie kept her silence as I started my workout, only talking in my rest periods. "What's biting at you? I know it's not you and Tabby, you two are doing better than ever."
"No," I admitted. "Things are great there. We've even talked about moving on to becoming physical again."
Next rest period. "So what is it?"
"I'm tired of being on the sidelines."
Sophie waited for me to shift to a less intense exercise, then continued. "Do you think you're ready?"
"No. That's what is most frustrating," I replied. I was able to talk while I lifted, although the words came in between little grunts. "I know I'm not as good as Mark."
I was surprised as Sophie started laughing. "Patrick, you probably never will be,” she said, not unkindly. "But there are things that you can do better than Mark. In case you forgot, you're a city councilman. He's a groundskeeper. You really don’t need to be on the streets to do good. You can do things that he can’t.”
I had to laugh at Sophie describing her husband as merely a groundskeeper, considering everything the man could do. Sophie saw my improving mood and smiled herself. "See, you do have talents, Patrick. The whole point of this team, this family, is that we each bring something unique to the table. There will come a time for you to use your unique position and skills to help out."
"That could be very soon," Mark said, coming into the gym. "I just got a message on a blind e-mail that Pressman has some information for me. He said it was something to do with another member of the city council."
"Sounds good. Any name?"
"Not on the e-mail. We'll see what develops."
* * *
I didn't have many colleagues on the council. First off, as an independent, I didn't have a party affiliation that lent power to one side or the other. I didn't even vote consistently with one side or the other, instead going with my conscience and what I thought would do the best for the city as a whole.
Because of that, I'd pissed off a lot of people. Still, there was one member of the council that I could consider at least a colleague. Shawn Northrup was the second youngest member of the council. At thirty six, he was also considered one of the rising stars of city politics. He was a conservative Democrat, which allowed him to pull votes from both sides of the ideological divide during elections. He'd been on the council for six years.
Politically, he and I aligned more often than we disagreed. He was big on increasing education and social services, while at the same time we didn't endear ourselves with the social justice warriors either. I don't remember who got more flack when the two of us both were caught laughing our asses off during a Halloween party when Tabby and I dressed up as Belle and Beast from Disney fame, with Tabby making sure that her dress more than showed off her amazing figure. The trouble happened when Tabby and I danced, and my tighter pants showed off a bit too much when photos were posted online. Combined with the angle of the shot, which showed off a very impressive amount of Tabby's creamy, silky smooth cleavage in her yellow dress, both of us had laughed. That we were doing so while a group of radical feminists wasn't helpful.
Shawn topped me though the time he had gone off on a religious group, who’d come before the city council to make a proposal that we pass a resolution asking for God's forgiveness due to the recent court decisions on marriage and health care. Shawn had gone off on a ten minute rant against them, even telling another member of the council to shut up as he lit into the group. He was gaining friends and pissing off people on both sides of the aisle.
In fact, the only area he and I seriously disagreed on was the Union. Despite his normal position of being strongly anti-corruption, he'd always been strongly for the Union, stymieing me every time I tried to put a knock into the armor of the Union. He had plenty of reasons why, but I still didn't like it. I kind of liked him, though. He was an okay guy.
That said, it pained me when I knocked on Shawn's office door, late at night. I had waited until most of the staff was gone, because while I wanted to put pressure on Shawn, I didn't want to humiliate the man. It wasn't time for it then.
"Patrick? Come on in," Shawn said, setting his paperwork aside. "Just finishing up a letter to a Lion's Club that had me in to speak to them last week. What can I do for you?"
"Just wanted to see how you're doing, and to talk about a proposal I wanted to bring before the council tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Damn, can't it wait until after the New Year?" Shawn said, his face breaking out into a grim. "It's not the sort of time to make big proposals. Everyone's trying to get home or to the airport to go see family."
I shook my head, setting my face. "Can't wait. I know it's going to create some headaches, but this is the best time to do it."
Shawn chuckled good naturedly and leaned back in his office chair. "I was a crusader like you, about six years ago. So I guess it's unavoidable. All right, what's your proposal?"
I handed him the proposal over. Two pages long, it was simple enough. "I want to open up the city contracts again."
"No way," Shawn said, handing it back to me. "You know I'm not for changing the bid process for city contracts. The Union gets first and last dibs on bids. That isn't going to change any time soon."
I nodded. "I thought you'd say that. Fuck Shawn, you've seen the figures just like I have. The Union bid system is costing the city nearly a hundred million dollars a year. That's a hundred million dollars pissed away on second rate road repairs, shitty civic buildings, and a heating system that leaves me wearing wool socks to the office, and thinking of adding a damn hoodie to my typical work wear. I don't want to spend half the winter walking around City Hall looking like Bill Bellichek."
"I don't care about the fashion, Patrick. I'm not changing my position on the bid system. The Union has a long, strong h
istory in the city, and I'm not going to...."
I sighed and looked at him, shaking my head. "Melinda."
Shawn's flow of words cut off like a speaker that suddenly had its power cord pulled, and he stared at me, open mouthed. "Melinda? What do you mean?"
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the SD card, handing it over to him. "Don't worry, I have copies of it. You can pull it up if you want, but it shows you and a woman named Melinda Pressman, and another girl, and what looks like an impressive pile of either heroin or maybe cocaine. How old is she, the other girl, Shawn? Only reason I'm asking is because if she was over eighteen, I'll leave this between us. If I find out she was under eighteen, I'm taking it to Bennie Fernandez. City Council isn't as high profile as Deputy Mayor, but I'm sure there's someone in his office that's more than willing to add your scalp to the DOJ's wall."
In fact, I knew the girl was over eighteen, Mark had tracked her down. It was only her look that made her look like she was in junior high school, but I didn't know if Shawn knew that or not. His fingers trembled as he picked up the card. "I know that Roberta and Jack are going to support my proposal, they've been against the Union as much as I have. Mayor Joe will sign off if the council approves it, I know that too. That leaves me needing one more vote."
"And you came to me...." Shawn said, his voice quavering. “Asshole. Why me?"
I sat back, knowing I'd broken him. "Just bad luck, Shawn. I need just one more vote, and you were the first person I had leverage on. I couldn't let it wait any longer."
Shawn's hands still trembled, and I knew he had thought that 'Mary Sophie Collins' had actually been fourteen. I felt bile rise in my throat, and swallowed it down hard. Shawn looked at the card, and dropped it into his front shirt pocket. "You do this, and you're going to have very powerful enemies, Patrick. They'll eviscerate you come next election."
"They might," I agreed. "You know a lot of my skeletons. But I have an advantage on that. Most of the people in the city know my background. Hell, it was part of my campaign, remember? They know I ran in the streets, even if they don't know exactly what parts of the Confederation I was running with. They know that I worked in bars, and that I don't even have a college degree. What else do they have? There’s not a lot of dirt left out there on me.”
Sure, I had one large, very large skeleton in my closet, but that was not something to worry about. After all, I was doing this exactly for that reason. "So what do you say, Shawn? You going to tell Berkowitz to fuck off, or are you going to fall on your sword? You know this could be in Fernandez's inbox about thirty seconds ago, and I’m sure Channel Four would love to make something like this their lead story on tomorrow's five o'clock news."
Shawn blinked, and I saw tears in his eyes as he looked at the ceiling. "Her husband was your source, wasn't he?" he whispered, so low I could barely hear it. “Dammit. She told me she was leaving him, that we'd be able to be together once the lawsuit against MJT was over."
"And you believed her," I said quietly. "You believed her."
Shawn nodded, then looked at me. "We've been at cross purposes for the entire time we've known each other, you know that Patrick? I couldn't believe it, when you moved in with Williams. The one guy on the council I actually liked, and we were working at loggerheads."
I nodded. "Shawn, I actually like you, as a person. That is, until I saw that video. But we've all fucked up in life. Just think about it, and tomorrow, don't let what Melinda Pressman and Francine Berkowitz have on you stop you from voting your conscience."
I got up and left. As I was at the door, I heard Shawn clear his throat. "Patrick?"
"Yes, Shawn?"
"You realize they have the same dirt on me, of course."
I turned back and looked at Shawn. "That's the thing, Shawn. If they knew, they'd try to get further leverage. I'm just leveling the field. You can upset them, or upset me. Either way, you are in a minefield of your own creation. If it were me, and I was going to be blown away regardless of which direction I stepped, I'd make sure that last step was done because it was the direction I wanted to go, the statement I wanted to make. Do the right thing, and who knows? There's a chance you might not get blown up immediately."
I left Shawn in his office and left City Hall, my hands shaking in my pockets as I made my way to my car. My keys chittered against the side of the door when I tried to unlock it. It was that little bit of noise that distracted me enough to not hear anything until it was too late, and all I could feel was a prick in my neck.
Chapter 12
Sophie
I was just scrubbing the last of the dinner plates with Tabby. "Are you worried about Patrick going to talk to Shawn?"
Tabby shook her head and wiped down another plate. To be honest, she was doing most of the washing, I was so damn swollen. I couldn't wait for the next few weeks to pass so I could get my daughter out of me. "I know he's ready. Besides, he's just going to talk, not to do anything else. How about you? You didn't exactly eat a lot at dinner."
I rubbed my tummy and shook my head. "I'm fine. I'm just running out of room down here, and need to shift to a lot of smaller meals. Guess I just need to start grazing. I'm the size of a small cow anyway." I smirked and looked over at Tabby. "You know, I'm actually a bit disappointed."
"Oh? Why?" she asked me, taking the scrub brush to the spatula we'd used, which was crusted with cheese. "Wanted to have the baby before Christmas?"
I shook my head and looked at her. "After you told me that you and Patrick were engaged, part of me was kind of hoping we'd have some overlap to pregnancies."
Tabby snickered and looked over at me. "Really?"
I shrugged. "It was just a little fantasy of mine. I wanted to hand down some of these pregnancy clothes to you, that's all."
"Maybe you still can," Tabby said. "I kind of got Patrick a Christmas gift, one that he gets to open early if he wants."
"Oh?" I said, smiling. "Anything you can tell me about?"
Tabby blushed and leaned over, whispering in my ear. "Red satin teddy, trimmed in white lace, thong, and a Santa hat."
I growled and then chuckled. "Really?"
Tabby nodded. "It's time we got a little more physical again. A girl can only hold off so long."
I couldn't help it, I felt like when Tabby and I were back in college, giggling and dreaming occasionally about our dream guys. My grin threatened to split my face in half, and I could only want it to grow. "Really?"
"You're saying that a lot in the past minute," Tabby replied, her grin also growing on her face. "But yes, really. Sophie, the past few months have been a revelation for me. I’m not just falling too fast this time. Patrick is the one."
I thought about it, then nodded in understanding. “All right. As long as you’re sure. So you're planning on rocking his world and your own as often as you like after Christmas?"
Tabby laughed, her green eyes sparkling in the light of the kitchen. "Oh yeah babe. That poor man's going to be walking funny from Christmas straight through to Valentine's perhaps. Just tell me when you're doing a leg workout with him, so I know when to back off a little bit."
"That sounds more like my Tabby," I said. "Uhm, I know this might be jumping the gun with Mark and all, but him and I, we were kind of talking. I don’t mean to rush it or anything, but once our families start growing, this house is going to start getting small real fast.”
"I know," Tabby replied. "I didn't want to think that far ahead, because I didn't want to even consider that you and I would be living apart again. I didn’t think I’d like it so much, but I’ve gotten so accustomed to it. I don't want it to end, but it's not fair having Patrick keep living in a converted broom closet."
"I know," I said. "So what Mark and I were thinking is a couple of options. The first one was to expand this building, kind of turn it into a two wing complex with a shared common area in between."
"Or?"
I grinned. "This property is big enough that you could certainly h
ave a full sized servant's quarters on the grounds. Knowing how generous and eccentric Marcus Smiley is, it'd certainly be bigger than a two bedroom cottage, you know."
Tabby grinned and wrapped wet hands around my shoulders, hugging me as tightly as my belly would allow. "I love you so much, Sophie. Thank you."
I returned the hug, kissing her forehead. "I love you too Tabs. Now, tell me more about this red satin teddy. Think I might fit into it after I lose the baby weight?"
"Hell no, it'd be too short, and you'd be spilling out of it with those big boobs of yours. Although in fact...." Tabby said, before the phone rang. She held up her wet hands and smiled. "Think my servants can get the phone?"
"Yes milady," I teased back, before grabbing the handset. "Hello, Williams residence."
"You must be the maid," a raspy voice said in my ear. "Where's Tabitha?"
"She's not available right now, may I help you?" I said, immediately tapping Tabby on the shoulder. She turned to me, and I covered the mouthpiece. "Phone call, strange voice asking for you. Go get Mark, I have a strange feeling."
Tabby went without a single complaint, and I uncovered the mouthpiece again. "I'm sorry, I must have missed what you said, this isn't a very good handset. Can you say that again."
"Tell her that if she wants to see her boyfriend again, she needs to come down to Pressman Contractors by midnight. Or else she's going to have a dead city councilman to mourn in the morning."
Ambition 2: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Driven) Page 10
