RecklessAttraction Vol. 3

by JJ Knight

  “I have a life,” I say. “A roommate. And a job.”

  “About that job,” Jo interjects.

  Colt touches her arm. “We don’t have to solve all those problems right now,” he says. “Our priority is to get these two someplace secure until we can contact The General and find out what he wants and why he had to send heavies over to get it done.”

  “Chloe, I agree,” Hudson says. “I'm not okay with you hanging out here alone when they obviously know where you live, and they think they know what you've done.”

  A shiny blue sports car careens into the parking lot. It races toward us and slams to a stop in front of the sidewalk.

  The door flies open and another man, just as tricked out as the others in our little party, jumps out. “Where are they?” he asks. “Who do I need to take down?”

  Colt laughs. “Hudson already handled it.”

  This makes the man stop.

  “Chloe, this is Parker,” Hudson says.

  Parker nods at me. “About time I got to see you in person.”

  Sounds like Hudson has told him about me. I've seen this guy in my research. He often headlines in Vegas for entire arenas of screaming fans, same as Colt did before he retired. The level of notoriety and fame standing on my doorstep at the moment is rather mind-boggling.

  Colt takes Parker aside to update him on the situation. Hudson turns to me. “Please let's go pack. If we need to find a place for your roommate to stay, we can do that, too. I just need you safe. And right now I don't think you are.”

  “But they got the guys.” I say, even though I know it's foolish. These were just hired guards. The real problem is this General person.

  Jo turns to me. “Until we get this worked out, and until The General calls off whatever war he thinks he started, we have to assume the worst.”

  Crap. I don't know what else to do. If I’m as unsafe as they say, it would be pretty stupid of me to ignore their help. They may not like me, but this group of people has been responsible for saving me more than once in the last few weeks. I know I can't expect any protection from my company or my boss. They just don't have the resources.

  So I head inside my apartment. I guess, at least for a little while, I’ll be living with the enemy.

  Chapter 11: Hudson

  As we ride in Jo's SUV to their house, Chloe’s quiet. I'm not sure what to say to make her feel better. I wouldn't be thrilled if I had to pack up and move in with perfect strangers. But I know Colt and Jo are right. No hotel would be safe. We’ve already taken the precaution of moving her beloved Jonesie to a secure garage. It’s too easily identified.

  I believe something bigger is going on. The General and The Cure have known each other since their boxing days.

  But I don't know the full story. From what I understand, the two were once friends. But while The Cure put his fortune behind the legitimate MMA circuit, The General took the path of illegal betting and underground fights.

  Until now, The General and his cronies did their own thing.

  And of course, I had to go and show off on their playground and bring the trouble to us.

  We roll up to the gate to Jo's driveway. Chloe watches out the window to get her first glimpse of where she’ll be staying.

  We still have a lot of issues to hash out. Chloe will want to go to work. I'm not sure we can secure a place like Action for Action.

  No doubt her boss will absolutely flip to learn she’s under the protection of the very fighters she was out to get arrested. My thought about us being a Romeo and Juliet story was not that far off.

  I’m definitely not going to let things end that way. Not on my watch.

  Chloe has gone silent with me. When we walk in, Jo watches how she glares at me when I try to take one of her suitcases and shows her to a room down the hall from me. We can’t make any assumptions that she’ll want to be with me—not now, and maybe not ever.

  Saving her may cost me her in the end.

  I stand in her doorway, watching her shove clothes into drawers with sharp, jerking movements.

  “You okay?” I ask. Which is silly, because I know she isn't. But I have no idea what else to say.

  She doesn't look at me. Shirts go into a drawer. And shorts. She slams it shut and turns back to her suitcase on the bed.

  Next is a stack of jeans. I guess she isn’t going to acknowledge me at all. Disappointment curdles in my belly. Having her so close full time could have been like paradise. With her so angry at me, it feels like hell.

  “I'm gonna go fetch my things from the hotel and shut down over there. I can wait for you if you want. Or I can just go.”

  She doesn't pause in her movements or respond in any way. Okay. I get it. This will be like starting over.

  “I'm going to miss that room,” I say.

  I sense an ever-so-subtle slowdown in her movements. That was the right thing. I made her think about the way we can be together. But even so, she continues pulling out T-shirts and other items of clothing and stuffing them in drawers.

  I feel dismissed, so I turn and head back to where Jo and Colt sit with Bear in the living room. Eve is here. They dropped Bear off with her when they left to check on us, and she’s returning him.

  “Hudson,” she says. “What trouble have you gotten into?”

  Bear runs up and rams into her knees in cool ivory silk pants. She picks him up and deposits him neatly onto her lap.

  “Same ol’, same ol,” I say.

  She turns Bear to look her in the eye. “Promise me you won’t be in trouble all the time like these boys,” she says to him. He grabs her nose.

  I wonder why The Cure never came. Or maybe he did and Colt sent him on his way when he realized The General wasn't going to show.

  Colt looks up. “You need a ride to your car?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. I don’t really want to call a SpeedRide from this estate. Especially since it can’t be Chloe. Which is another problem. She can’t take strangers for rides with all this going on. I’m not sure how much she relies on that money. Hopefully we’ll resolve this quickly.

  Colt ruffles Bear's hair affectionately and tilts his head upstairs. “She okay?”

  “I get the sense that she doesn't want me around, at least for a little while.”

  “Can you blame her?” Jo says.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I ask.

  “Stop being an insensitive jerk!” She stomps off toward the kitchen.

  Colt snatches his keys from a bowl by the door. “Let's go.”

  As we walk over to his car, I ask, “What's wrong with my sister?”

  He unlocks the doors. “When Jo and I were first seeing each other, we had a situation not terribly different from this one,” he says.

  When we’re both seated in the SUV, he continues. “She had to leave her apartment abruptly to move in with me. It's an independence thing with women like Jo and Chloe. They don't want to depend on anyone else.” He fires up the car. “You and I have the same taste.”

  I’m grateful for Colt right now. My sister seems to run hot and cold with everything going on. But Colt is someone I've come to rely on.

  “Will Chloe come around?” I asked.

  “That depends on how you play it,” Colt says. “The key is getting this mess straightened out. Until everyone can relax, it’ll be hard for her to get out of fight mode.”

  We ride back to my car in silence. I run through the scene in Chloe's apartment over and over again, trying to figure out how I could have done anything different. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t come in with fists flying, they would've thrown the first punch at me. But I know how Chloe feels about violence, and it didn't do our relationship any favors for her to see me cream two men in her private space. They left in ambulances, no less.

  For maybe the first time in my life, I realize I’m a threat.

  Maybe I am the bad guy.

  Colt lets me out by my car, and I fire it up. He rolls down his window, and I lower min
e.

  “You want help packing?”

  I shake my head. “No, I got it.”

  He takes off. I sit in my car, staring at Chloe's front door. There's no evidence that anything happened here. No crime scene tape. No busted lock. Even though two men left on stretchers, there was remarkably little blood. I'm glad for that. I don't like picturing Chloe having to clean up bloodstains.

  I'm about to put my car in reverse when I’m startled by three quick knocks on my window.

  I whip my head around.

  It's Zeba. Chloe's roommate.

  I roll down the glass. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I guess,” she says. “Is everything over?”

  “The two guys left in an ambulance. The cops are gone.”

  “Can I come back home?”

  “Chloe hasn't texted you?”

  “Just to say that she was staying with your sister for a while.”

  I kill my engine. “I think she thought you would stay with a boyfriend.”

  “About that,” Zeba says with obvious hesitation. “We've only been dating a few weeks. And he has three roommates. I'm not sure that's the best idea.”

  I open my door and get out. “Tell you what. I was about to shut down my hotel room, but how about I move out and let you take it for a while? I can let you know when it's safe for everyone to return here.”

  “I can't afford a hotel room,” she says.

  “Don't worry about it. It's paid for as part of my training, and I’ll be with my sister and Chloe until this blows over. It's not a problem.”

  We walk back to their front door. Zeba unlocks it with trepidation.

  “Let me go in and make sure it’s all good,” I say.

  She steps aside. There are a few signs of the scuffle. The coffee table is out of place. A stack of books fell onto the floor.

  I walk through the living room and kitchen and check both bedrooms. Nothing.

  I head back to the door. Zeba stands beside it, her arms wrapped around her middle.

  “All good,” I say.

  “Who were those people?”

  I sit on the sofa and pick up the books from the floor. “Fighters,” I say. “After the second bust by the cops, they started putting two and two together about Chloe.”

  She sits on a well-worn side chair opposite me. “I was worried this would happen.”

  “I was, too.”

  “You can't talk to them?”

  “I don't know these people. They work for a guy called The General, who profits from the fights. Chloe’s making a serious dent in his income.”

  “You think they'll come back?”

  “Actually, I don't. Especially now that we've moved Chloe's car, and they’ll see she's not here. But for a few days, at least, we should lay low.”

  “What difference will a few days make?”

  “We’re trying to open a negotiation. See if we can appease him. Chloe has cost him a lot. We’ll have to make it right.”

  Zeba twirls a long black strand of hair around her finger nervously. “But this is Chloe's problem, right? Not yours. You’re a fighter. You should be on The General's side.”

  Before I can even think twice about it, I say, “I love Chloe. That trumps the fighters.”

  Her eyes widen. “Have you told her that?”

  “No.” I hadn't actually told myself.

  I won't ask her not to say it to Chloe. Their friendship runs tight, and at this moment, Chloe probably needs her roommate than she needs me.

  “Can I see her?” Zeba says.

  “Absolutely. You guys can arrange it at any time. We don't think she should take her yellow Beetle out. We had it secured. Jo has a ton of cars she can borrow.”

  “She won't be able to take SpeedRide clients,” Zeba says. “You realize she’s barely making it as it is, right?”

  “I do,” I say with a grimace.

  Zeba gets up to go pack, and I wonder about the price Chloe is paying for her convictions. But since a fighter murdered her father, maybe the price of vengeance is worth the cost.

  Chapter 12: Chloe

  I keep to myself most of Saturday. Hudson’s gone anyway to empty his hotel room. Jo and Bear stay downstairs, doing whatever moms and toddlers do all day.

  There isn't a lot of staff here. When we drove up, I expected butlers and nannies and cooks and who knows what.

  When I look outside my bedroom window, I do see security just inside the gate. There might be more on the perimeter. But as far as I can tell, there are no other people inside the house.

  I move my clothes around half a dozen times just to have something to do. After a couple of hours, Zeba texts me. She ran into Hudson, and he’s given her his hotel room. Adeel did not respond favorably to the idea that she should stay with him. He and his three roommates took some sort of vote, and she didn't stick around to see the outcome.

  I really hope my problem doesn't drive a wedge between her and Adeel. Although I suppose it already has. I’m sure this situation doesn’t make any sense to anyone else.

  I feel stuck. And dependent on this family. Most of my paycheck goes to rent at an apartment I no longer live in. My cache of ramen noodles is back in a home I can't enter. And I can't exactly afford to order take out all the time.

  So it will be their home, their meals, their rules. I bristle at this. I don’t want to live my life this way. Hudson or no Hudson.

  Despite all these feelings, I have to acknowledge that the room they gave me is beautiful. In a funny coincidence, the bedspread and curtains and accents are all bright yellow, same as my room back home. I wish I brought one of my smiley face pillows.

  The space is easily the size of two of my bedrooms before. It has its own bathroom, a gleaming white and blue room stocked with anything a guest would need, with shampoo and soaps and even little pre-wrapped toothbrushes.

  I wonder if they have a lot of guests. With the baby, I can't imagine. But then, maybe they like to do these things for family when they come from Hawaii.

  I lie back on the bed, releasing a heavenly scent of clean linen and April showers. There's definitely housekeeping staff. I can't imagine someone who trains as often as Jo must can raise a kid and keep a spotless house, too. Maybe there’s some impossible level of expectation for the wives and mothers of the McClure clan. Although I guess, technically, Hudson is his own clan. His sister married into this one.

  A quiet knock on my door makes me sit up straight. “Yes?”

  “It's Jo. I'm not sure when Hudson will be back. Are you hungry?”

  Their schedule. Their meals.

  “No,” I say, although my stomach rumbles in contradiction to my answer.

  “I’m going to order some deep-dish pizza. If you have any preferences, let me know, and we’ll order one for you.”

  Okay. So maybe I will try to be accommodating. I go to the door and open it.

  Hudson’s sister is out in the hall, baby on her hip.

  “Oh, good. Cheese? Pepperoni? Veggies?” she asks.

  The baby looks at me with solemn blue eyes.

  “This is Bear,” she says.

  I meet his wise baby gaze. “He’s adorable.”

  “He’s a tornado.”

  Bear watches me for a moment, then something seems to click in his head. He lurches forward, his arms outstretched.

  Jo wasn't quite prepared for him to do that, because she fumbles. I instinctively reach up my arms to catch him. He transfers his weight to me, pulling at my long hair and clutching at the neckline of my gray hoodie.

  “Well, hello, Bear,” I say.

  “Sorry,” Jo says. “Bear doesn't know a stranger.”

  I shift him to my side. He’s lighter than I expected. He twists my hair around his chubby fingers. “Hudson said his name was Barry. Is that a family name?”

  “Yes. Barry was my father. He died when I was eight.”

  My stomach turns over. “My father died a year ago,” I say.

  “It’s a tou
gh sorrow to bear.”

  She understands. So does Hudson. What a terrible thing we all three have in common.

  “I can come down and help you with the pizza,” I say.

  “Good,” Jo says. “Colt is on this vegan kick this week. I’ve been hopeless at feeding him. Tell me you’ll order meat with me.”

  “I'm your girl,” I say. “Why he is going vegan?”

  “Some of the young fighters are doing it to get lean. Colt, in his infinite wisdom, has decided this is something he should try.”

  “The organization I work for does a lot of meat protests,” I say, then want to kick myself. I've brought up the very group that started this whole problem for us.

  “Oh, I get it,” Jo says. “The slaughterhouses are horrible.”

  “There are good meat producers,” I say. “I could never give up bacon.”

  “I know,” Jo groans. “And Colt insisted on buying the vegan kind. I’m all — if you’re vegan, be vegan. Don’t eat fake stuff.”

  “Maybe it won’t last,” I say.

  “I’ll be surprised if he makes it through the weekend, honestly.”

  We head down and enter a room filled wall to wall with toys. Bear worms his way down from my arms, and I set him on the floor.

  “This is Mama Central,” Jo says. She heads to a desk and pulls out a sheaf of takeout menus. “I’m a horrible cook. We have a fitness chef six days a week, but she’s off Saturday night through Sunday night.”

  “So you're on your own,” I say.

  “To my great dismay.”

  I look around. ““Well, you make this whole wife and mother thing look easy.”

  Jo says, “Money. It makes the world go ’round. When I was your age, I was so poor that sometimes even ramen packets were out of my budget.”

  “You have just described to the entire contents of my kitchen,” I say.

  “Well, live it up while you're here,” she says.

  We’re reading through the pizza choices when Colt walks through the door. He sees the menu and says, “You got me a meat lover’s, right?”