Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  —and no damn traffic jams clogging up intersections and serving as a distraction.

  I turn up the volume on my buddy Easton’s latest single, slamming my feet down with each thump of bass, determined to forget how to pronounce her goddamned name and the feelings that come with it.

  I’ll run myself ragged, pound the pavement until there are dents, if it means forgetting Astor.

  She’s in danger.

  No, she ain’t. She’s the most dogged, stubborn, instinctual lady around, and if anything makes it more dangerous for her, it would be me telling her not to do it.

  As Aiden assured me last night, when I got home from dinner with Mom and Pops, it’s impossible for her or her firm to unveil my identity.

  “Listen, Ben,” Aiden said over the phone, as I sat hunched over on my blue leather couch, the glass windows to my right showcasing downtown Manhattan in glaring relief against my retinas. “The number of people who’ve been found while under witness protection, who follow our rules, have been zero.”

  “You sure about that?” I asked.

  “Damn right. You were four years old when we took you into custody. The chances of you making a mistake were high back then, since you were so young and confused. But now? As a grown man? You’re careful. You’ve done everything we’ve asked you to do. You’ve never tried to delve into your past and under no circumstance have you gone back to the scene of the crime. You’re clean, Ben. There is no way, no freaking way, these lawyers are going to blow your cover.”

  “You don’t know this lawyer,” I mumble while rubbing my face.

  “Need I remind you, Ben. Literally zero protectees have been compromised. It’s only if you make a mistake landing you in hot water that could blow your cover, but you haven’t.”

  Except for that one time, I almost say to Aiden, with Dodge Hennessy.

  “We’ve removed all photos of you from the record,” Aiden continues, “and you have a new birth certificate and social security number. In essence, Ryan Delaney doesn’t exist anymore.”

  The name, Aiden’s use of my true birthright, sends my mind into—Ryan, come here before you hurt yourself, my little adventurer. Come to Mama—figuring out any holes Aiden might not have considered.

  “What if there’s a trial, though? Will I have to come forward?”

  Aiden sighed. “That’ll be up to you. The reason we have WITSEC is to keep material witnesses protected until they can testify. But you’re different. You were a traumatized child. We put you into protection for your lifelong safety. Has anything come to light since? Do you remember anything about that night?”

  I was quick to answer. “No.”

  “Then there really is no point, and our office will be sure to communicate that to both sides. But if it’s necessary, we can secretly bring you to the courthouse—”

  “I’m the number ten draft of the NFL 2016 season. I’ve broken records the two professional seasons I’ve played. There’s no way I’ll stay a secret, especially if there’s a damned jury.”

  Aiden grumbles. He doesn’t like that I’ve become so famous, and I can’t blame the guy. But like he said, the cartel remembers a four-year-old face. “Then you won’t testify. End of story. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The charges are barely dry on these guys.”

  I didn’t want to focus on the two men arrested—Angel Lopez and José Garcia. Didn’t want to see their faces and attempt to dig into my buried memories to see if they match.

  “Are you sure I can do that? Avoid the trial?” I asked.

  “Listen Ben, the only person who can blow your cover is you. You can voluntarily leave WITSEC at any time. I’ve told you this. Although I don’t advise it.”

  “I’m not planning to,” I said. Then, more fiercely, “I’m Ben. Ben Donahue.”

  Pound, pound, pound.

  The impact of my shoe’s soles shoot up my legs until my knees ache, my thighs burn, and I’m as far away as possible from my thoughts.

  A phone call interrupts Easton’s musical chorus, and I press on the knob on my headphones to answer with mostly breath, “Yeah?”

  “Good, you’re awake.”

  “I’m always awake, Ash.” I round the corner of my block, see the entrance to my apartment complex, and decide to run past it and take another city lap. “Question is, how are you awake?”

  “Can’t sleep. Thinking too much about the restaurant space I showed you yesterday.”

  “Told you then,” I say after a big inhale. “And I’ll tell ya now. It’s a good idea. Open your pastry display.”

  “I said a fuckin’ restaurant.”

  “Bakery.”

  “Restaurant.”

  “Cream puff shop.”

  “Fuck you. I need to round up the team, since your opinion means shit without their consensus. Really hash it out. You free for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “Monday? Yeah, man. Season’s over.”

  “Awesome. Gonna see if the rest of the crew are around, too. I’ll text you the time. See ya then.”

  Ash hangs up, and Easton’s naturally soothing voice kicks back in. I use it as a balm and refuse to feel weird about it, since his lyrics help me regulate the emotions clanging around in my chest.

  Astor is also part of Ash’s crew round-up. She’ll likely be there, too, tomorrow night, if she decides to free herself from the bonds of her career. Her and her sorry ballsack of a fiancé, Mike.

  I slow my steps, encouraging my heartbeat to fall into a regular rhythm. Lifting my shirt, I wipe sweat off my face.

  Whistles sound from across the street, and I notice it’s from construction guys, the only other people awake and running their jackhammers on this fine winter morning. I flutter them the bird.

  Every time I see Astor, I have to forget the one time she went supple in my hands, bowed to my will, and was ready to do anything I asked. How rock hard I’d gone, and, if I ever thought about it in front of her, how bone solid I’d go again.

  Fuck, and I thought making it to the Super Bowl was tough.

  12

  Astor

  It’s better to go the polite route first.

  That’s what my mom taught me, a bunch of nonsense about catching more flies with honey that I groaned at as a teenager, but now wish I could hear from her lips as an adult.

  Finding the number for the US Marshals Service was easy enough. Taryn’s in her own cubicle today, attempting to research other ways of tracking down a material witness under protection.

  The futility of our goal is like a loudspeaker against my ear, but I can’t shake the idea that there’s a reason Yang wants the associates on Ryan Delaney’s tail, and hell if I won’t be the one to figure it out first.

  Then I was laughed at—repeatedly—over the phone by a man named Aiden Watts, Federal US Marshal.

  “Listen, honey—”

  Big mistake. “I’m not your honey or dear or sweetheart or strawberry tartlet,” I interrupt. “I’m an associate at Costello, Wine, & Cottone, and I want answers. If you can’t give them to me, I’ll be forced to get creative, and believe me, when I do that, I usually unearth facts that the other party really wants kept quiet.”

  “You’re not going to find anything, anywhere,” Watts says, my scolding having zero effect.

  “I want to know where Ryan Delaney is. His life could be in danger. This is a well-known, well-funded crime ring we’re talking about.”

  “His life is not in danger,” Watts says, “because he’s adequately protected. I want to say that any sniffing around you do will likely compromise him, but sniff away. You’re not gonna find him.”

  “He’s a grown man. What does he want? Have you considered that?”

  “He wants nothing to do with whatever you’ve got going on with your two men in custody.”

  “Aha, so you’re admitting you talked to him.” I prop my elbows on my desk, holding the phone in the crook of my neck and ear and write down, AIDEN WATTS - contact for RD.

  Aiden muf
fles a curse, then recovers quickly with, “Of course I have. I’m a Marshal.”

  “But you might not’ve been his Marshal.” I tap the pen against the desk. “Is he in New York City?”

  “He’s not anywhere you’ll be able to locate.”

  “Yet.”

  “He doesn’t want to be found, Miss Hayes.”

  “Well, I work for my clients, not for him.”

  “Goodbye, Miss Hayes.”

  “Until I call you again, at least.” I rush to say before he hangs up, “Which I will.”

  Click.

  God. Some parts of this job, I really do feel like a tabloid reporter.

  I set the phone back on its handle, and slump back in my chair, thinking. The polite route didn’t work. I didn’t think it would but had to cross it off my list before the deluge of phone calls Mr. Watts is going to get once the other associates get a whiff—but now I’m stumped.

  I’ve never had to locate someone in WITSEC before, an acronym for Federal Witness Security, the official term for witness protection. And from my research, nobody else was successful, either. Not if the witness played by the cops’ rules and stayed clean. As far as I can tell, Ryan Delaney poofed out of existence the night his parents were killed. He hasn’t done anything to make his identity known, that I can see, and he’s been under protection since he was a toddler. He’s unlikely to do anything now.

  Unless.

  He must’ve heard about Lopez and Garcia’s arrests. I have to use this to my advantage, flush him out somehow, maybe go to the press anonymously with some insider information about the case. But that blurs a whole bunch of lines.

  Am I that desperate?

  Is that what Yang wants?

  If I screw up, then I’ll lose everything. My attorney’s license, my credibility, my reputation.

  Is it worth it?

  “Hey, babe.” Mike’s face looms over my cubicle wall. “What are you working on?”

  “Fuck off, Mike.”

  “You used to like the way I fucked.” He smiles the one that used to have me smiling back, but all I can muster is revulsion.

  “Well, you ruined it when you stuck your dick in a whole bunch of other women,” I say tiredly.

  Mike dips down so he’s closer in range. “Astor, c’mon. Don’t be saying that stuff so loudly.”

  “Worried people will get to know the real you?”

  “No, I’m worried you actually mean what you’re saying.” Without invitation, he takes the chair that Taryn left beside mine. “It’s been two days, Astor. Hasn’t this been enough time to realize we were good together?”

  “Not good enough.”

  Mike leans closer. I lean away, closer to my monitor. “Honey, I’ve told you—”

  “Don’t call me honey.”

  “Fine. Astor, I’ve told you how sorry I am. I’ve emailed, texted, left voicemails, saying I screwed up bad. I shouldn’t’ve said the things I did. I didn’t mean them. I still love you. Of course I still love you.”

  I shake my head, holding up my hand to him. “Mike, enough…”

  “Why are you still wearing our ring, then?”

  I clench my raised hand into a fist, refusing to answer.

  “It’s because you still have feelings for me. You don’t want to let us go.”

  “Yesterday you couldn’t wait to trample me for a chair in the Delaney case. And now—what? You’re giving me unrequited love? Which is it, Mike? Do you want to use me for business or pleasure?”

  “Can’t it be both?” He dares to touch the back of my hand and stroke down. “We were so fuckin’ good at both.”

  “Don’t,” I whisper.

  “You miss me, Astor. I know you do.”

  “I miss what I thought we were,” I admit. “But you ruined it, Mike. You. Because you couldn’t keep your dick loyal, because you lie, because you cheat me both in bed and in business. I’m not yours anymore, so go away. Just go. Away.”

  Mike’s mouth, so supple and shining before, hardens into a thinly veiled sneer. It’s when his gaze cuts to the paper under my hand, the one with Aiden Watts’s information, that I feel so utterly gamed.

  I flip it over. “Leave.”

  “With pleasure,” he says. “But you’ll realize your mistake soon enough. You’ll be begging for my cock. I’m the only one, the only dude who’s ever loved you. Got that? No one else is gonna get through your cunty barrier. Well, maybe the ones who want your inheritance could deal with it.”

  I go still.

  “Hear that?” he persists. “You just pissed off and ditched the one guy who was willing to fuck you despite what you look like, who would’ve kept doing it as much as you wanted, and it wasn’t for your money. I have my own family stock to pilfer. You lost a sure thing, Astor. Now, whoever you choose, you’re not going to know if they want you for you, or if they’re only willing to tolerate you for your Momma’s cash.”

  Mike storms off, and I remain stiff-backed, staring blindly at my computer’s screensaver. The only sign of movement is a slight gulp in my throat.

  The way Mike can go from so endearing to vicious, how did I not notice it before? Is it because what he’s saying is true? I’m so desperate for a guy to love me, I blunt the sharp edges?

  Mike is right about the inheritance. Locke’s and my trusts, set up by our late mother, kick in when we’re thirty, and it’s a lot of money. Somehow, she managed to keep a lot of it away from our father, who tends to squander money as soon as he sees triple digits in his bank account.

  I rub at my eyes, considering now is the time to go home and do the rest of my thinking on my laptop, safe in my apartment. I could pour a glass of wine, play music, and pretend that I don’t only seek out men who are intent on hunting and destroying, a habit my mom would be so disappointed to see. Apex predators, willing to conquer and discard without so much as an oops.

  I push away from my desk, reminding myself that I’m an apex predator, too. I’ve made grown men cry in courtrooms and depositions. I’ve won cases considered losers that Yang and his other partners tossed to me like garbage they needed dumped.

  And if I can give such a dominant title to Mike Ascott, then I sure as hell can own it, too. That’s more my mom’s style.

  I’m useful, I’m smart, I am not Acne Hayes.

  Inheritance.

  The word whispers through my mind, an indistinct voice so distinctly my mother.

  I blink. Peer harder at my monitor.

  As soon as Locke and I were born, my parents put a will in place so we would always be comfortable, in case the worst happened. And the worst happened.

  They did it as soon as we were born.

  My fingers fly over the keyboard as I type in what I need.

  Ryan Delaney’s parents must have had a will, and somehow, some way, that little boy would’ve received his inheritance.

  13

  Ben

  Ash’s place is what you expect.

  Lofty, spacious, lots of pointless industrial tubing on the ceiling, a state-of-the-art kitchen, and no walls.

  His bed is laid out in the far corner, near a giant, frosted window that looks like a checkerboard. The vast interior (about 2,000 square feet, which is virtually unobtainable in NYC unless you’re a rich asshole—case in point) is supported by random silver columns, a sign of its past life as a bread factory.

  Ash scored a coveted loft in the Meatpacking District, a feat now impossible due to Manhattan’s skyrocketing living expenses and the inability of anyone, except celebrities and trust fund babies, to live in the exclusive clubbing and designer district.

  He comes from very old money. Locke knows more about it, but something to do with the railroad days. Essentially, Ash doesn’t have to work a day in his life to support this kind of lifestyle, but he does anyway, and he actually excels at it.

  I wasn’t joking when I said he was an excellent pastry chef, and now, apparently, a restauranteur.

  When I step into his space Monday evening
on an oversized, manually open-and-shut, elevator on the third floor, I’m the first one there.

  “Hey,” he says over a cauldron on his stove. His insane amount of tattoos are blurred by the steam billowing out in front of him. “You’re early.”

  “I’m always punctual,” I say, and drop my duffel near the entrance. “Also, I was bored after finishing my workout.”

  “That sucks,” Ash says, opening his giant, metal fridge and cracking me open a beer. “Not making it past the playoffs, I mean.”

  “Your sympathy is noted,” I say dryly, and accept the cold bottle.

  Ash jumps up with spirit hands, a sight that would scare kids in Freddy Krueger costumes on Halloween. “There’s always next year!”

  “Go back to cooking.” I bend over on the other side of the island, where his stove is, to inspect what’s inside the pot.

  “I’m cookin’ up something simple,” Ash says. “Truffle carbonara with pan-seared shrimp in white wine sauce and garlic bread.”

  “All I know is it smells good.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The elevator creaks its descent, and I’m again dumbfounded on why such a ritzy place has such a haunted mode of transportation. I take a seat on a stool I drag out from under the island, watching Ash putter about on his side of things, chopping green stuff and carving bread in half.

  “Everybody coming?” I ask him after tipping the beer to my mouth.

  “Yep. Even East.”

  “Wow.” I lift my brows. “You’re so popular.”

  The elevator shakes and rattles, and before you know it, the man himself steps out.

  “Hey y’all,” Easton says, clad in his usual attire of a black leather jacket and black, ripped denim. He’s kept his longish hair down, straight jet black to his shoulders, and digs his fingers into the mane to shove it out of his face as he greets us.

  “My man!” Ash says, smacking a wooden spoon on the marble countertop. “Did you get mobbed on the way over?”

  “Nah,” Easton says, and fist-bumps me when he comes closer. “I’ve learned to keep a low profile these days.”