Dirty Ties

by Pam Godwin

  Collin nodded in answer. “We got in a fight one night. It was bad.” His knee bounced, stopped. “He hit me, I hit back. His head hit…” He shoved a hand in his hair, and his knee bounced again as he struggled to maintain eye contact with her. “His head hit the wall at an awkward angle. I thought I killed him.”

  Fuck. I could fill in the rest, but Kaci did it for me. “You called Trent for help, didn’t you? Except he didn’t help you.” Her tone lowered, her hand on my leg sliding restlessly. “He finished the job and used it as a threat against you every day since. Am I right?”

  He rose and walked around the kitchen island with his fingers laced on top of his head and ghosts in his eyes. “He showed up at my apartment with a man I’d never seen before. By then, I’d realized Brad was still alive.” Bracing his arms on the granite counter top, he stared out the window, his gaze unfocused. “The man shot Brad as soon as they walked in. Removed the body. You know the rest.”

  My stomach hardened. It was a murder Collin was undeniably connected to. It was his apartment. His lover. But it was Trent’s assassin who pulled the trigger. And probably some purchased evidence to make sure everything pointed to Collin.

  Why the fuck would Trent go to the trouble? I stood and paced out of the open kitchen and into the sitting room. Beyond the windows, the sun blazed high above the city, casting the river and lake in deep aqua.

  The day was half over, and my skin tightened with edginess. I wanted a decision made, a plan devised, and a future started with my girl. But first, I had to clear out every side road. “As concerned as your parents are about keeping your sex life a secret, news that Trenchant’s favorite commentator is a murderer would be much worse.”

  Kaci’s sweet scent reached my nose before her hands slid over my t-shirt, moving up my spine and around my shoulders. “My mother cares about image, and Collin’s mom despises the fact that he’s gay. Each of our parents have their own agendas, and Trent balances their demands to keep them happy and loyal. But in the end, he doesn’t give a shit about Trenchant’s name or who Collin is fucking. He’ll risk a scandal to maintain the power he holds over the people beneath him.”

  People like Kaci and Collin, who he’d controlled their entire lives. My body heated, and my fingers flexed. I wanted to knock him to his knees, whimpering and begging, before I showed him the control in a six-inch blade.

  That wasn’t going to happen, but I did have one final ruse I hadn’t shared. “I sent the Timex you collected at the nightclub.”

  Her footsteps shifted around me. In the next breath, she stood between me and the window, the light in her blue eyes spitting a thousand rapid questions. Fuck, she was heart-stoppingly beautiful with her teeth pressing into her bottom lip, the gold in her hair gleaming against the backdrop of the bright sky, and the heave of her irresistible tits in that tight t-shirt.

  Fire leapt in her eyes as she poked a finger at my chest. “You said no more shit between us, remember?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was mad or just being sassy, but a delicious shiver of arousal raced through me. “No shit between us, baby.” I bent my knees and stole a quick kiss. “We’ve been exchanging watches for months, each with a message on a chip soldered inside.”

  Collin leaned a shoulder against the glass beside us, his expression filled with cautious interest as he said to me, “I assume he doesn’t know it’s you behind the watches?”

  I grinned. “I’ve been contacting Trent as an anonymous, influential member of the Chicago Police Department. He ignored my messages for a while until I made an offer he couldn’t refuse. All he needed to do was provide me with information on the underground racing network.”

  Trent owned the largest multimedia company in the world. If anyone could unearth the illegal network, one of his top-notch investigative reporters could. Hal Pinkerton turned out to be that guy. And somewhere along the line, Kaci got her hands on the same information.

  Her teeth were really working that sexy bottom lip, her gaze focused inward. “What does Trent get in return?”

  I caressed a thumb over her mouth. “He provides the map of a race, which I don’t need of course. But he thinks the police will use it to organize a raid and trap the racers. A raid that would target Evader near the finish line and hold him up long enough to let the underdog win.”

  Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. “Holy shit.” A startled smile caught her lips. She shoved against my chest and slipped around me. “You promised him the police would fix the race in exchange for the information?” She rubbed a hand over her mouth. “Just to bait him to place a bet against you?”

  Collin straightened from the window. “My father… our father finds the whole racing thing beneath him. Which means this bet must be a hell of a long shot with a payoff so astronomical he couldn’t pass it up.”

  I nodded. “If I lost the race, it would be the biggest upset in illegal gambling.” Pulling the wallet from my back pocket, I removed the dollar bill and handed it to her. “He gambled millions. Already transferred it to a private account on the network. It’s locked down. He can’t back out.”

  I answered their questions, but my eyes locked and held on Kaci, our silent connection braiding between us. I explained the intricacies of criminal gambling on the racing network, how it was invite-only, and how Trent had gained his invite to gamble through Hal Pinkerton. The message on the dollar bill went through a local bookie on the network, one I’d used time and time again.

  Eventually, she sat on the couch and stared at the zeros written on the bill. “Since the Chicago PD isn’t really involved, there won’t be a raid. Evader will win, and Trent will be broke. Or at least a lot less wealthy.”

  Collin moved to sit beside her, his attention locked on the bet amount. “My father doesn’t have this kind of money.”

  “Then he’s pulled in my parents as well.” She folded the bill, a staggered breath tumbling past her lips. “There goes our inheritance, not that we’d see a penny of it anyway at the rate they spend money.”

  Collin gave me a hard look, his eyes darting between Kaci and me. “Just so I understand, your original plan—before you met Kaci—was to seal his bet, place your own bet, kill them, then walk away with a lot of money by winning as Evader?”

  “Yes. But we’re not killing anyone. Deep down, neither of you want to give that order.” My breath bottled up in my chest. “I have another idea. We put all our money on Evader, do the race, split the winnings, and turn in your parents. Then Kaci and I disappear.”

  An anxious look slid over his face.

  Kaci tilted her head to the side, watching him with a similar expression. “What about Collin’s connection to an eight-year-old murder?”

  “Trent has no power without money.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the windows. “Your parents will be broke, and Collin, you will still be wealthy. If Trent tries to send you to prison on false charges, you’ll have the money, and therefore the legal representation, to fight him and prove his involvement. He won’t have shit. Honestly, I don’t think he’d even try to go after you.”

  Collin’s lips quirked, but Kaci’s face was frozen in thought.

  I felt no resentment or remorse for giving up my revenge, because looking into her eyes and seeing my future there meant so much more than clinging to my past. It made my heart reach out and grab hold of her with every blood-pumping beat.

  I erased the distance between us, crouched before her legs, and tilted her chin up with my knuckle. “I meant what I said about my choice. I’ll walk away from the bet and everything else as long as you’re at my side.”

  She placed her hands on my face and touched her brow to mine.

  I closed my eyes, and silence settled through the room, filling the space with an impending decision. Things always felt more intense in the quiet, all the other senses working harder to perceive what wasn’t heard.

  When I looked up, I caught the full impact of her blue eyes, the skin around them smooth an
d relaxed. Her lips were parted rather than pinched in a line. I waited with my pulse in my throat to hear what she would say.

  She caressed a palm over my whiskered jaw, her gaze searching. “The race is October twenty-seventh, isn’t it? The date on the watch. Tomorrow.”

  I grinned. “He took months to place that bet. I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to bite, so I laid on the pressure and put an expiration date on the offer.”

  “Time’s up,” she murmured. She chewed the inside of her cheek, exchanged a look with Collin, and they both turned to me, smiling.

  A prickle of excitement surged through me as I rose to my feet.

  For the next hour, we made a plan. I would race and win. Then Kaci and I would disappear while Collin turned over the evidence against Trent and the others.

  “What if you don’t win?” Her stunning wide eyes stared up at me, as if she were imagining the horror of Trent actually winning all that money and the damage he could do with it. “Who are you racing against?”

  “I’ll be racing you.”

  Weeks of studying Kaci’s every reaction in the office had taught me how to interpret her silence. Sitting on the couch beside Collin, she tightened her fingers around his hand and pulled it into her lap. Her tongue pushed against her teeth, her lips not quite lifting, but her smile glimmered in her eyes as she looked up from beneath thick blonde lashes.

  She wanted to race.

  My heart drummed wildly at the idea of chasing her to the finish line, but it didn’t dispel my worry about the danger it put her in. The possessive, protective part of me needed her to reject the idea. She could crash the bike or get caught in a police trap or…fucking hell, all those perverts gawking at her ass? If one of those biker bastards hit on her or tried to touch her at the starting line, I’d lose my shit. A reaction that would shatter the pretense that we were racing competitors and nothing more.

  Collin’s initial smile flattened, and his brows knitted together. If he was realizing some of my concerns, he didn’t seem compelled to voice his objection. Perhaps he knew as well as I did how much she wanted this.

  I’d debated the wisdom of putting her in the race. Benny was supposed to be the challenger but her skill set would be more valuable in the background, monitoring the race and coordinating the diversion I had planned for the escape.

  Kaci tilted her head, her eyes never leaving mine. “Isn’t the competitor already determined?”

  “Yes. The race has been billed as the undefeated Evader versus the underdog Lady Silver.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Lady Silver, huh? You really had this all planned out.”

  “I had to. Challengers are chosen days in advance.” Investors submitted their racers. There was a voting process, but in the end, money talked. “Benny and I put down a lot of cash to sponsor Lady Silver’s placement.”

  Hype over a female challenger had already created a buzz of early gambling. As expected, the betting odds were spectacularly against her.

  I sat on the couch beside her, sandwiching her between me and Collin. “If you have any hesitations about this, Benny will ride as Lady Silver. She knows the maps and the racing equipment, and she can handle a bike convincingly enough to pull it off without drawing suspicion.” I touched Kaci’s hair lightly and moved to the sensitive skin at the side of her neck. “You don’t have to do this.”

  She lifted her gaze, her expression serious. “Oh, I'll race you. And I guess I can take one for the team and let you win.” Her lips twitched. “On one condition.” The power of her full smile electrified my pulse. “I want a helmet like yours.”

  An incredible feeling of weightlessness flowed through my veins, and I knew this was just one in a series of moments with her that would change my life for the better. She had me by the balls, the heart, and every other vulnerable bit of my body. She could have my air as well, because I couldn’t breathe without her. I hoped to hell I’d never have to.

  Her beauty, strong ethics, and need for love had never been factors in my plan. The last thing I expected was to find myself in desperate need of her love, too.

  Two hours later, I left the glinting steel architecture and congested traffic of downtown Chicago and exited off I-88 to head home. The open road stretched west, the sun glaring in its dip toward the horizon.

  The spare bike I’d ridden to Kaci’s vibrated between my legs and filled my chest with a throaty hum. The chilly wind penetrated my borrowed clothes with a refreshing sense of freedom. But the best part of the ride was the woman hugging my back.

  Her thighs squeezed my hips and her arms wrapped around my middle, and I wondered if she was the one holding me on the bike and not the other way around. Her chest pressed tight against my back, her gloved hands tucked beneath the opened buttons of my wool coat. Collin’s coat. The suit, tie, thin-striped shirt, everything I wore was from his closet.

  He was taller and leaner, but the fancy threads fit and saved me the headache of sneaking out of Trump Tower in my attention-grabbing leathers. The backpack on Kaci’s back held my clothes and a few days’ worth of hers.

  We didn’t discuss the possibility she might never return to the condo. Nor did we give Collin a final good-bye. After the race tomorrow night, we would make our escape to DuPage County Airport where a chartered plane would wait. Destination to be determined. All arranged by Collin, who would be there to see us off.

  Forty minutes outside of the city, we were off the main roads and winding around smaller streets, headed deeper into farmland. When the traffic thinned and we hit a long stretch of empty asphalt, Kaci’s hand wandered from the coat, down my abs, and cupped between my legs.

  My breath caught as her thumb rubbed the head of my cock. A mile later, I strained against the wool slacks, the muscles flexing in my thighs. I moved a hand from the grips to slide gloved fingers over the tight denim leg pressed up against my hip.

  She wasn’t wearing her leathers, but her silver helmet lowered to my shoulder. Her hips rolled against my ass, the hand between my legs pulling on my most basic and fundamental need. I fought the urge to jerk the bike over, slide her onto my cock, and fuck her on the side of the road in front of God and everybody.

  She didn’t remove those tortuous fingers, and by the time we reached our destination, there was no oxygen left in my lungs.

  The remodeled church where I lived was on a dead-end, country road, off the grid and hard to find. It stood sturdy and strong in an open field, with overgrown weeds between the gravel lane and the reinforced-steel front door.

  As I veered around to the rear of the red-bricked rectangle, her taunting hand retreated and she sat taller. During the ride, she’d kept her helmet tilted to avoid blocking the rear camera view so I could watch for tails. Now that she’d straightened, her silhouette flashed on my visor, her helmet ticking back and forth as she drank in the surrounding pastures and woodland and the small shed that concealed my jeep.

  The custom garage door in the back of the church activated when it sensed the microchip in my helmet. I pulled into the dark, single-bay garage, the steel floor rattling beneath the tires, as the automatic door shut behind us.

  From an outsider’s perspective, it was just a garage. A completely empty garage. For a reason.

  Balancing the bike between my legs, with my boots on the floor, I hooked an arm behind me to hold her against my back and said into the mic, “Activate lift.”

  The voice-control in the helmet signaled the gears behind the walls. They whirred quietly, and the floor shook, then descended.

  “Holy shit.” Her voice muffled through the helmet, tinged with awe.

  We reached the warehouse two-stories below ground. I rode the bike off the lift and parked it among fifteen others.

  She slid off the seat, her long braid draped over her shoulder, her hands on either side of her helmet, wriggling it from her head. She set it on the floor and turned in a circle. Her wide eyes grew wider and brighter by the second as she took in the rows of bikes, th
e high-end gear boxes, the diamond-plated bike lifts, and the power tools lining the walls.

  I would be abandoning all of it. Benny would sell what she could. The rest would be left behind with the remodeled church. That was always the plan. What I hadn’t planned for was Kaci running away with me and everything she would be leaving behind—her dreams for making Trenchant a better company, her career, her best friend.

  But she wanted the fourth option, and thank fuck for that.

  I removed my helmet, setting it beside hers, and remained on the bike. I propped a boot on the frame slider and rested an elbow on my knee, wanting nothing more than to enjoy the pleasure of watching her.

  She had no idea how beautiful she was. The flickering excitement in her eyes. Her tight, curvy ass in those jeans. And her abandoned smile when her attention caught on Evader’s BMW S1000RR.

  For a ridiculous moment, I was jealous of that damned bike. I wanted that smile pointed at me. But at the same time, it was her interest in racing that initially drew me to her. The mysterious Miss Ducati at the finish line captivated me long before I knew who she was.

  Her attention shifted, and her eyes locked onto mine. She nibbled on the corner of her smile and shook her head. “So this is Evader’s cave.” She walked slowly toward me. “It’s unreal to be here.” Three more steps. “With the man I’ve fantasized about for so long.”

  I felt something press against my breastbone from the inside, and just beneath the pressure, it strummed and warmed.

  Her steady gaze held mine as she approached. I couldn’t look away. There was nothing hotter or more breathtaking than the view before me. Not just as a body to bury myself in or a purpose to fight for. Her beauty was in her loyalty to her best friend, her goodness amid a family of corruption, and her need for…something more.

  It took me weeks to understand it, why I was so driven to be near her, why I wanted more than just sex with her, and why I wanted to give up everything to make her happy. She was my connection to life, my reason for fighting. She was why I felt so alive and wild and terrified. Because I felt all those things in her.