Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (57 page)

I hated women like that.  

When I lay in bed that night, I kept reciting my fake background in my head until I fell asleep. I was Chloe Tamworth. I used to work for a Fortune 500 company in New York, and for a fashion magazine. I hate the police, because they killed my father.  

That was the lie I struggled with most of all. The police didn’t kill my father. Not even close.

-*-

Lois needn’t have worried too much about security here. After arriving at nine on the dot, the human resources team quickly took my picture and issued me an ID. I logged onto the computer system and was ready to go in less than an hour.  

Denton hadn’t even arrived for work yet. Did he always come in late? Perhaps his routine involved doing the rounds and beating people up first thing in the morning to get the blood pumping before a day of office work. Some people went to the gym, others beat the living shit out of people. I’d stick to the treadmill.

I already had access to his calendar, but most of the entries were suitably cryptic. There was rarely an address, just the name of a person to “meet for lunch” or an even more generic “sales call.”  

Goosebumps appeared on the back of my neck before spreading down my spine as I imagined just what those meetings would entail. Even worse, I would be helping him keep track of them.  

Don’t forget your four o’clock beating of the O’Leary twins, sir. You’ll want to take your golf clubs for this one. Oh, and at nine o’clock tonight you need to be waiting outside the country club to kidnap Mrs. White for her husband’s failure to repay his debts. Would you like a coffee?

I told myself that most of the people on the receiving end of these beatings were likely criminals as well, but not all of them would be. Some of them just got in over their heads and couldn’t think of a way out. I knew that from personal experience.

My desk was just outside Denton’s office, so I would always be in yelling distance, ready to answer to any of his demands the second he called. Other than that, I couldn’t complain too much. Unlike at the Bureau, no one could walk behind my desk which meant I had a decent amount of privacy should I want to spend a few minutes browsing the Internet instead of working.  

I also had two large flatscreen computer monitors that put the FBI equipment to shame. If that’s what I had as a PA, I dreaded to think what the important people had access to.

Suddenly a hush descended over the office, and the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard became pronounced instead of just adding to the background noise.  

Denton was here.

Everyone said good morning to him as he walked past, but they were tense, and nervous greetings, as opposed to heartfelt messages. He returned a few mumbled replies, but looked like he’d rather just ignore everyone.

I reminded myself that not all the employees here were guilty of any fraudulent behavior. A few of them had to be involved in helping cook the books, but most people were just going about their jobs, clueless to the bigger picture.

I now realized why no one had batted an eyelid at Denton’s bloody knuckles yesterday. Denton scared people. You didn’t ask questions of someone like Denton; you kept your head down and hoped he didn’t notice you. That wouldn’t be possible for me.

Denton headed straight towards his office, looking straight above my head as if I weren’t there. My heart rate increased the closer he got. I wasn’t scared of him. I didn’t feel in any immediate physical danger, although if he found out I worked for the FBI….

Denton walked straight passed me and into his office. I’d been holding my breath without even realizing it, but now I could relax slightly.  

“Chloe?” Denton yelled out impatiently from his office.

I grabbed a pen and paper, ready to take my first set of instructions. Apparently assistants never went anywhere without a pen and paper, because you never knew when you were going to have to get a random demand from the boss.

“Good morning, Mr. Russell,” I said, with highly exaggerated enthusiasm as I walked into his office.  

He looked up at me and for a brief second he looked like he’d seen a ghost. He was thinking of Kara.

“Morning,” he muttered. “Call me Denton. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so there you won’t be able to keep up the formalities forever.”

“Okay, Denton.”

“We need to do ‘first day’ stuff.”  

“I’ve already had a tour of the building from human resources,” I replied. “I’m all set up with email, and I already have access to your calendar.”

“That’s not what I meant. Close the door.”  

I closed the door and took a seat when he motioned for me to sit down. The second the door was closed, the room felt more intimate, as if we were about to do something we shouldn’t. For the second time in the space of a few minutes, my heart rate sped up, but this time I was excited, not scared. I was going to get confidential information; perhaps not now, but at some point soon I would get the information we needed to put his father behind bars.  

And Denton would join him. For some reason, that didn’t excite me as much. He deserved to be in prison as well. I knew that. I’d read the file. But he seemed too… charming. Even with his moody demeanor, and a day’s worth of rough stubble around his face, he still looked too smooth to be a master criminal. I suppose that was the point. He had the perfect disguise.

“Always close the door when you come into my office,” Denton explained slowly. “I entrust you with a lot of confidential information--more than I would like to be honest--but that doesn’t mean I want everyone in the office hearing about it.”

“Of course,” I replied, trying to sound casual, as if I didn’t really care about the juicy secrets behind a large criminal organization.

“First of all, I should explain that you will have to work a lot of hours. I’ll often require you to stay late in the office and you’ll even accompany to meetings after hours. You’ll be paid double for all overtime. Triple for hours worked on weekends.”

“That’s very generous,” I replied honestly. That money would all go straight back to the FBI, and they wouldn’t bother with any common courtesy like paying me extra for the overtime I would need to do as part of this operation.

“You might not think that after a few eighty-hour weeks, but I appreciate the enthusiasm. Now then, we need to talk about confidentiality.”

“I don’t have a problem keeping secrets,” I said straight away. “Unless you expressly say otherwise, I’ll keep everything between the two of us.”  

Just me, you, and a few hundred people at the FBI.

“Don’t make that promise lightly,” Denton said seriously. “This isn’t a normal job, like the one you had at the Fortune 500 company. You won’t just be keeping secrets about the company’s financials and new products.”

“All secrets are the same to me. I don’t try to decide which ones are important and which ones aren’t.”

“Good.” Denton leaned back in his chair and stared at me, just like he had in the interview. Was he thinking of Kara again? That was the plan, but for some reason I wanted him to see me for me now.  

Denton didn’t seem perturbed by the silence, but it freaked me out. There’d never been a lot of silence in my house as a child--although I would have preferred that to my parents arguing--so I didn’t know how to handle it.

“Is there anything I can do for you now?” I asked. “Would you like a coffee?”

“No.” Another silence fell between us, but this time Denton eventually broke it. “What do you know about the businesses I run?”  

“I’ve read the information on the website,” I replied. “So I know some of the companies you work for, but that’s about it.”  

I’d also studied the accounts, and my computer at home had PowerPoint slides with charts showing all the companies under the control of Denton and his father. In total, they owned about fifteen, and most of them were conveniently small enough to not require audited accounts.  

“I own companies other than this one,” Denton said. I tried to look mildly surprised. “We have some nightclubs and restaurants in the portfolio.”  

Places that deal in cash. How surprising.

“That sounds fun,” I said innocently.

“They’re hard work. The entertainment space is competitive. We have to do everything possible to stay one step ahead of the competition. Things can get… violent. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded. I had to walk a fine line between appearing accepting of Denton’s business practices, and being too nonchalant about it. He might get suspicious if the sweet looking young lady opposite him showed a complete disregard for violence.

“Will I be put in any danger?” I asked. That seemed like the question an assistant would ask in these circumstances, but I was curious anyway. I wanted danger. Danger meant dodgy dealings which meant evidence. I needed the danger.

“No,” Denton replied immediately and aggressively. “Never. I will not let any harm come to you.”

Now he’s definitely thinking of Kara. She’d been his assistant and lover. Now she was dead.

“In that case, I don’t see any problem,” I said. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve turned a blind eye to that kind of thing.”

Denton raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Your former employers don’t really seem like the type.”

“Not them. My father. He didn’t always keep within the letter of the law. Frankly, he wasn’t always working with the same alphabet.”

Denton smiled. That was the first time I’d seen him smile. I’d remember. In the space of a second, he went from being a hard-nosed, serious criminal, to looking like a regular human being. Well, not ‘regular’ perhaps. He was still densely packed with muscle, and few people on the planet looked that damn good, but still, he looked kind of normal.  

“Good,” Denton said eventually. “In that case, you can accompany me to one of my nightclubs this evening. I have business to take care of there and I’ll need your help to keep me on task.”

“Certainly. Should I go home and get changed first? Is there a dress code?”

“What you’re wearing is… perfect. In the meantime, go through my emails and get yourself caught up. Make sure I have all appointments in my calendar. I don’t think I have anything until this evening, but who the hell knows?”

After getting a few more instructions, I left and went back to my desk. Denton was throwing me in at the deep end, but that was just fine with me. The quicker I got the evidence I needed, the quicker I could arrest his father.

And Denton. I had to keep reminding myself of that. If Denton’s father went down then so would Denton.  

But that was a good thing. Wasn’t it?

Tonight was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. In fact, make that three birds. I had some business to take care of at the club on 43rd Street, and I could test out Chloe’s fortitude for violence at the same time.  

I already knew she’d pass the test. I saw steel in her eyes. She didn’t cower easily, and wasn’t just some pretty young woman sheltered from the realities of life.  

Finally, tonight would be a test of Chloe’s loyalty. I had less confidence in that part, although the fact that her dad had lived on the wrong side of the law at least meant she probably wouldn’t go running to the police at the first sign of violence.

Despite saying she didn’t need to go home and get changed, I did end up letting her leave just after lunch. There wasn’t much for her to do yet, and we wouldn’t be going to the club until about ten o’clock at night. I would need her to work long days at some point, but I could at least go a little easy on her the first night.

Once in the nightclub, I made the rounds talking to the staff and making sure things were running smoothly. The nightclub ran at a small loss, but that was more than offset by its ability to legitimize other funds that ran through the place.  

I kept an eye out for Chloe, whom I’d told to head to the VIP area when she arrived. The place was already packed, and the strobe lights didn’t exactly make it easy to find people.  

When I stopped to think about it, I couldn’t quite believe I owned a nightclub. This one was in my name and my name only, but I hadn’t wanted it--Dad just insisted I run the place and that included owning it. He made it sound like a generous gift, but all he was doing was making sure I was just as implicated in his illegal dealings as he was. I had no escape, even if I wanted one.