Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (60 page)

But there was more to him than that. He wasn’t shallow. One look in his eyes was more than enough to confirm that. Denton had a sense of humor, and if I didn’t know better I could swear there was a layer of compassion in there somewhere too.    

He treated me with respect at least, and that was more than I could say for at least one of my former bosses. Some important men were excellent at putting on a show in front of the crowds, but spend time alone with them and things became unpleasant quickly.    

Denton wasn’t like that. But I shouldn’t underestimate him. He’d beaten someone bloody right in front of my eyes, and I didn’t doubt that he was capable of much worse.    

Denton was dangerous in more ways than one. He was a threat to those who crossed him, but he was also dangerous for those who got close to him. Just look at what happened to his last girlfriend.    

Whatever I did, I couldn’t allow myself to get too close to Denton. I had to maintain an emotional distance for the sake of my own sanity. That had seemed so easy when Lois and I had discussed it in the safe confines of the office, but now I worried that it wouldn’t be so straightforward.

Denton had a way of pulling you towards him. I just hoped I had the strength to resist.

That hadn’t gone exactly as planned. Served me right for trying to put on a show.  

I’d encouraged Perry to come at me with his knife, but my attempt at casually deflecting him only succeeded in sending the knife tearing through my skin.  

Perry sent me a message apologizing, but it wasn’t his fault. I’d agreed to let him off with a beating instead of repaying his debt, and it had been my idea to take a few blows in the fight as well.  

All to test Chloe’s resolve and loyalty. That’s what I told myself anyway, but that didn’t explain why I let Perry punch me. I could have tested Chloe without getting a beating myself, but I wanted to look like the hard man in front of her.  

Perhaps I’d even wanted her to look after me, although I could hardly have predicted the stab wound or that she would have basic first aid training.

There was a lot about Chloe that I hadn’t predicted. The way she’d dressed tonight had been out of this world. I couldn’t get the mental image out of her out of my mind, and I’d only been half joking when I teased her about getting me naked.  

Chloe was going to make a damn good assistant. I’d have to give it a few days to make sure she handled tonight’s events with the appropriate level of discretion, but I had complete and utter confidence in her.  

Not every woman would have stayed by the door and watched the fight. Most would have run for a mile. Chloe had waited patiently for it all to finish and then cleaned up my wounds afterwards.  

I slumped down on the chair by my desk, but winced in pain as I felt the bandage slide against the wound. I should get stitches, but I’d made a huge fuss about not getting them that I’d look like an idiot if I went back on my word now. The wound would heal. Eventually.

I grabbed an old gym shirt that I’d left in a ball on my desk. It was dank with stale sweat, but it would have to do. I’d still smell better than most of the men in the club, especially by the time we turned on the lights and kicked them all out.  

There wasn’t much else to do in the office, but I wanted to give the wound a chance to stop bleeding before I called a car to take me home. I used my legs to slowly slide the chair over towards the safe on the wall and dug out some cash. A few thousand should do it.

It was a good thing my dad never looked too closely at the accounts for this place. If he did he might question why we spent so much on high-end whiskey when we didn’t sell any of the stuff. At least once a month I had to withdraw money from the safe to keep Dad happy. And to keep people like Perry alive.

My phone vibrated loudly on my desk. I quickly pulled myself back over, hoping it was Chloe calling. She had no reason to call, but it would have been nice. No such luck.

“Dad,” I said, as I put the call on speaker. “To what do I owe the pleasure.”

Neither myself nor Dad were under any pretense that we were a close, happy family. When we spoke, the conversations were strictly business. Dad invoked ‘family honor’ a few times, but that was always for business purposes as well.  

The arrangement suited us both. I didn’t like Dad, and I knew he didn’t much care for me. He saw me as his heir, which meant I was important to him, but it didn’t mean he had to like me.

“You get the money from Perry?” Dad asked.  

“About half,” I replied. “He insisted he couldn’t pay any more.”  

“Fucking hell,” Dad yelled. “That prick has had far too many chances. I’m sure he’s just having us on. I drove past that pizza place of his the other night. You should have seen the line of people waiting for his shit. The place was full of drunk frat boys and sluts.”

“The margins on pizza are low,” I pointed out calmly.

“I don’t care about his fucking margins. What about our margins?”

“We charged him twenty percent interest. Compounded. Our margins are more than enough to take the odd loss once in awhile.”

“I didn’t get where I was today by accepting losses. I want every penny you can get out of him.”

“I did. Trust me, I was very persuasive. Took a few blows myself as well.”

My hand instinctively went down to my side, but the second I made contact with the wound, I pulled it away again in pain.

“He hit you back? Fucking nerve of the guy.”

“He was barely alive by the time he crawled out of here.”

“Next time, less of the barely. Speaking of which, I have a job I need you to take care of.”

If Dad wanted me to handle something personally, then it either involved a large amount of money, someone with a presence in the city, or both.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.  

“Barton’s boys are back in town.”

Barton?
“His two sons?”  

“Yeah. They were spotted down by the docks last night by some of my informants. This is our chance to strike a big blow. I need you to have their contracts terminated.”

That was Dad’s not so subtle way of saying he wanted them killed. Dad didn’t usually give instructions over the phone, so this was likely urgent as well.  

“They could lead us to Barton,” I suggested. “Why don’t we just watch them for a bit. See where they lead us?”

“Fuck that. Did Roddy just watch Kara and see where she went? No, he fucking killed her. We’re going to do the same to the people he cares about most.”

Dad didn’t care about Kara. He was just bringing her up to get me motivated. It worked. I was going to kill Roddy, and soon, but the more torture I could inflict upon him in the meantime the better. He didn’t get to die a quick death; he would watch those he loved most die right in front of his eyes.

I wouldn’t find it easy to kill them, but if I thought about Kara, pictured the smile I would never see again, I would likely find the motivation.  

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“We don’t know, but I have people looking out for them.”

“Okay. Let me know when you have a location. I’ll handle it.”

“No,” Dad responded firmly. “No need to get your hands dirty on this one. They will likely have protection with them, and if so it’s going to become a firefight.”

So much for talking in code, Dad. You’re getting too old for this.

“I didn’t know you cared,” I replied sarcastically.

“I don’t want you making fucking headline news in the middle of a shootout.”  

That was more like it. He just didn’t want any negative press attention. The jobs that might make it to the press were best handled by nobodies. The hired goons we paid to do our dirty work. But not this job.

“I’ll get someone on it,” I lied. “When you know where they are I’ll give the order.”

Dad hung up. It hadn’t escaped my attention that he could have just handled this himself if he didn’t want me to be the one to pull the trigger. Dad wanted an extra layer of protection between himself and whatever shit went down. This way, if one of the thugs in our employ happened to talk, the police would be led straight back to me. Dad would be in the clear.  

With such a great role model, was it really any surprise I didn’t want children of my own?

I had no intention of paying anyone else to take care of this mess. I had no issue getting the men to make house calls and break some bones if need be, but I could never ask anyone to kill for me.  

This was something I had to do myself. I didn’t enjoy killing. I’d only ever done it twice and that was unarguably in self-defense. The only man I wanted to kill was Roddy Barton, and that was revenge for Kara’s death.  

Killing Roddy’s sons could count as revenge. Part of it at least. They were just as bad as their father, possibly worse actually. They ran a strip club in a rough part of town, and a few of the bartenders at my club used to work there.  

The stories they told were harrowing. The sons regularly abused the women, and didn’t even have the decency to do it behind closed doors.  

One of the bartenders, Suzy, had left after having to watch her friend be raped in front of her eyes. Make no mistake, these men deserved what they had coming to them.  

They were living on borrowed time now. When I got their location, they were going down.

I barely slept at all that night, despite the fact that I’d had a long day and my body was physically drained.

Too many emotions were flowing through my body, and I couldn’t force it to shut down for the night. The more I tried, the more awake I felt. On top of being my first day working undercover, I’d also watched a fight up close and personal, seen someone get stabbed, and half-undressed my new boss.  

That brought out emotions I’d never even felt before. I was a nervous person, so nerves were nothing new, and after what I’d seen my dad go through, violence wasn’t a huge issue either. But the chemistry I’d felt with Denton had definitely been new.  

Did it still count as chemistry if only one person felt it? I doubt Denton had even noticed me. Having a woman touch his body was likely a weekly occurrence, whereas I’d only been with a handful of men before. Actually, they weren’t much of a handful, but that wasn’t the point.