Ambition 2: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Driven) (3 page)

Sophie noticed me first, dropping down from the pull-up bar and coming over. "I think I've hit my limit for today," she said, barely audible over the music. "After all, I'm in my second trimester. Mark's about halfway done."

I nodded and she left, patting me on the shoulder as she did. I found an empty box against the wall and sat down. My bullet wound ached, so I leaned back against the plaster behind me and watched as Mark finished his circuits. From there he moved on to rope climbing, which was pretty impressive considering they had set the gym up in the main sanctuary of what had been the church. The vaulted beam ceiling went all the way up to about twenty, maybe twenty-five feet, and Mark climbed it over and over again using just his arms.

As he climbed, I could sense that he noticed me, even though he never looked my way or said a word. As he finished up, he went over and grabbed his towel and bottle of water. Still facing away from me, he started speaking.

"You had guts, I'll give you that," Mark said, popping the top on his water and taking a deep pull, "but guts runs out very quickly. You damn near got yourself killed last time. And you almost got me killed in the process."

"I'm sorry about that," I said, humbled. "When you called me an amateur before, I thought you were just being an asshole. I didn't realize how right you were."

"Which is why I'm shocked at what I'm going to say," Mark replied, still facing away from me. As he talked he gestured with his free hand for emphasis, looking out the windows at times. "Out there, I need a partner. Someone I can depend on, someone I can work with. I'm limited in what I can do, mostly to small work, surveillance and information gathering, only doing direct action when I have to. The streets need more. I need a partner. But it has to be a partner I can trust, someone I know is going to have my back and I know can get the job done. If I can't have that, I'm better off working on my own. Before this, I had Sophie when I took down the Confederation and Lynch. Your guess earlier was right, she was the person who took down Petrokias. But she's pregnant, which means for at least a year, maybe a year and a half, maybe even forever, she's off the streets. If she comes back, it’ll be limited duty only because I will not have my daughter grow up with both her mother and father killed in this fool's crusade. So, despite what you've shown me, despite my better judgment, I'm going to extend you the offer. Before you answer, it’s going to be a lot of work before you step foot out there with me. Do you want to train, become my partner?"

"You mean your sidekick? The Robin to your Batman?" I asked. "And what about my day job?"

“That’s a big part of why I’m even considering this. It’ll be just as important as anything we do at night," Mark replied. "Just like what Tabby does with the money I make is just as important, if not more important, than every criminal I take out with my hands or my guns. And no, I'm not looking for a sidekick, although you'd start in a similar role. If you know your comics, you know what happened to the first Robin. He grew up, became Nightwing, and for a while, he was Batman himself."

I considered his offer. "What do I need to do?"

Mark chuckled. "First, you have to recover from that wound. Then you're going to have to survive something even more painful."

"What?" I asked, a bit worried. "Martial arts training with you? Knives? Guns?"

Mark finally turned to me and shook his head, a sardonic grin on his features. "You're going to have to survive my wife."

T
hat night
I slept fitfully in the entertainment room. I would’ve loved to have had Tabby with me, but I’d been honest when I told Sophie that having her with me would have been too difficult for me. Despite the nearly constant pain I was in, and the stiffness in my back, having her nearby was so distracting I barely felt it. I knew that if she was in the same room as me dressed for bed, I would never have gotten any sleep, not without sex. And sex was not what my body could tolerate.

As I tossed and turned, the pain in my back increased. Sophie had checked my sutures after dinner, declaring that they were looking good. She even showed me a photo taken with her cell phone, and I couldn't really tell. I mean, how good is crusty tied up skin supposed to look like, anyway? It was still stained with the topical antiseptic she’d used for the surgery even, I looked like a golden carrot surrounded by large purplish black rings of bruising or something. The thing hurt.

Sighing, I sat up. Slowly rolling to the side, I made my way over to the rack of DVDs on the side, surprised that Mark hadn't had a Blu-Ray put in. Then again, maybe he had and I just hadn't seen them.

As I was flipping through, I heard a click behind me as the door to the room opened. Turning my head, I saw Tabby, thankfully wearing a robe on top of her silk pajamas. Even in the plain robe, she tugged at my heart strings. "Hi."

"Hi," she replied, coming in and closing the door. "I heard you tossing and turning, and I wanted to see what was up."

"How'd you hear?" I asked her, slightly confused. "I thought this room was soundproofed."

"It is, except for the baby monitor we put in here," she replied. She pointed to the bottom shelf of the cabinet next to the screen, and I saw the red glowing light of the monitor. "Sophie wanted us to split up sleep shifts again tonight, just in case you needed help."

"I see," I replied. I mean, it was on one hand somewhat insulting to be subject to a baby monitor of all things. On the other hand, it did show that they cared a lot about my health, which was better than I could say for the last doctor I'd seen. "I just couldn't sleep. I was thinking of maybe trying to watch a movie. Any favorites?"

“I’m sure I can find something.”

Tabby fumbled through and took out a disc and dropped it into the player. Grabbing the remotes, she pulled over one of the smaller bean bag chairs and sat down next to me.

"I know I want to be up there right beside you," she said, looking over at me with her beautiful eyes, "but I'm worried I'd jostle you too much if I did. I've wanted to hug you all day really, but I can't."

"Maybe Monday," I said. "I'm sure the stitches will be nice and secure then. I'll even ask Sophie tomorrow if I can give you a hug after she checks me out in the morning."

Tabby gave me a small grin and nodded. "I'd like that. Now, before we begin, let me just tell you, this is a very special movie to me, so no wise cracks, okay? Only very special people get to watch this with me, so if you screw it up, I'm going to jam a remote up your butt."

"Sorry, not into remote controlled sodomy," I countered. "But thank you."

"For what?"

"For letting me watch it with you.”

Tabby looked at me with unspoken words on her tongue for a moment, then shook her head. "Come on, let's watch the movie."

Using the remotes she dimmed the lights and turned on the film. "
People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it....
"

For the next hour and forty minutes, I let myself be sucked into the emotional, action packed story that meant so much to Tabby. I kept most of my attention on the screen, but I also paid attention to her, watching her as she was moved by different scenes and different characters. As I did, I saw a lot of insight into Tabby, and everything I saw made her even more precious and special to me.

As the final music played, I felt strangely at peace. I understood my role in this little grouping more than I had when I woke up that morning, that was for sure. "Thanks," I said to Tabby when she brought the lights up. "I'd seen it before, but it's a good film, and it’d been a while."

"You're welcome," she replied. I growled lightly in my throat when she got off her bean bag to crawl on all fours across the carpet to the player, her butt wiggling at me the whole time. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw what she was doing, and simultaneously blushed, giggled, and looked apologetic. "Sorry."

"You didn't mean to," I said, "but yeah, it's very enticing."

"I'll remember that," she teased lightly before getting to her knees and at least knee walking over to the player, taking out the disc and putting it away. "I know you still aren't tired though."

"Not really. After all, I slept until nearly noon again. It's kind of nice having a vacation, haven't gotten enough of those lately. I have a question though, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead,” she said, sitting cross legged on the floor like a little girl at a slumber party. It was innocent and cute, and her smile lit up the room. "What do you want to know?"

"When I went to the gym on one of my walks, you know Mark and I talked."

She nodded. She hadn't been too happy about the idea, but she understood Mark's point. At the same time, she didn't want Sophie out there risking her life alongside Mark either, so in a lot of ways her feelings were torn. "Yes, I remember. Go on.”

"At the end, when I said I wanted to do the training, he said the first thing I would have to do is survive his wife. What did he mean by that?"

Tabby grinned and smacked her hands together, again increasing the youthful factor in her appearance. "Okay, well, I don't know the whole story, but here's what I know. When Mark and Sophie first came back as Marcus Smiley and Sophie Warbird, one of the things they did was put Owen Lynch on notice. I'd found out that Lynch had brought in a couple of Russian mercenaries. Mark and Sophie came back into town, and in the end, they killed the two Russians. But, Mark ended up getting shot two times, once in the leg and once in the shoulder."

"Yeah, I saw the scars today," I replied. "The one on his leg is pretty nasty, all twisted up and stuff."

"That was just a flesh wound," Tabby said, "Anyway, after that, Sophie took over his rehab. I don't know the exact details or the numbers or anything like that, but she pushed that man harder than he'd ever been pushed before. You know that gym downstairs from my office? If you check their numbers, Marcus Smiley's name is up on their record board in quite a few places. I'm not saying that Mark's not a great athlete, he was beforehand too I bet, but Sophie.... Sophie's got a side to her that she turned loose on him in the gym that took him from good athlete to world class. She wasn’t like that before, but Mark brought it out in her, and I love it.”

"Yikes," I said. “Is she that tough with you? You told me once you did workouts with her."

"I do. She’s obviously not as hard on me, but she’s still tough. And that's the man she loves. What do you think she's going to do to a guy she doesn't even like that much?"

"She doesn't like me? She barely even knows me."

Tabby got to her knees and knee walked over next to me. "You nearly got her husband killed, and you're seeing me. After my last breakup, she's very protective, and I can't blame her. The guy really fucked with my head. But, she loves me, she loves Mark. Give it time, she'll come to see the part of you that I do. Until then though, yeah, a nice daily dose of Tylenol and a good glass of shaddap before workouts will be just what you need.”

I smiled at the light joke, and reached out, taking Tabby's hand. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when I get a chance to put my arms around you again."

Tabby leaned down and gave me a soft kiss, her lips caressing mine, until both of us were on the verge of losing control and pressing our luck further. Breaking contact, she looked into my eyes and smiled.

"I'll console myself with that until then," she said. She got up and went to the door, turning to look at me one last time with those beautiful eyes of hers. "Good night, Patrick."

"Good night, Tabby."

T
he following Thursday
, I was sitting in my office twirling my pen around my fingers when Vanessa came in, carrying a large file. "Here you go," she said, setting it on my desk. "Have fun."

"What the hell is this?" I asked, thumbing the folder nervously. It had to be at least an inch thick, and had little Post-It flags sticking out of it in more places than I could count.

"Forms from the city inspector's office on the community centers," Vanessa replied. "These will eventually be the job of the center managers, but as we don't have those yet...."

"They fall on my shoulders," I replied with a groan. Looking up, I grinned feebly. "Want a promotion?"

Vanessa shook her head. "Not until those forms are finished, thank you very much."

"Come on, it fits your personality type," I mock-whined. "Although I'd be out one hell of an assistant."

"Nope, sorry," she replied. "Remember, I'm the person who likes to work behind the curtain. Besides, I've got my hands full enough right now, again thank you very much. With helping Gwen that is."

I blinked, surprised. "You're helping Patrick's new assistant as well?"

"She's a friend of mine, and I trained her long ago," Vanessa replied. "And having your boss come down with a bad chest cold not even a week after starting work is hell on anyone. I'm just glad that Gwen's one of the better apprentices I've trained."

"You know, I never thought of administrative assistants having a mentorship sort of thing going," I commented. "I mean, in hindsight it makes sense. Executives learn from their mentors, why not their assistants?"

"You'd be surprised how many people don't figure that out," Vanessa said. "In any case, have fun with the documents. I put the Post-Its by the important parts."

"It's all important parts!" I complained, rifling the stack. "You've got at least half a pack in here!"

Vanessa grinned, disappearing from my office. I looked down at the light brown cover of the file, and made a mental note. From now on, I'd have Vanessa purchase pink file folders with images of My Little Pony or Minnie Mouse on them. If I had to slog my way through that much hell, at least the files would look cute doing so.

I saw a pattern developing as I started reading, one that I could even put a name to. That name, of course, was Berkowitz. The double checking forms, the lack of transparency, and what the hell did we need to fill out a form for a check on the use of raw fish in the kitchen? We were opening a community center, not a sushi bar. We didn't even have the buildings cleaned out yet, I still needed to confirm contractors for that first before I could go further.

Sighing, I went through the file, dividing it into three portions. The first portion were forms that I needed to sign and have Vanessa return to the city immediately. They were ones specifically associated with the clearing and renovation of the buildings, and applications for building permits. The second pile, ones to be signed later, I set back in the folder. It wasn't that they didn't need to be signed, but I couldn't answer them yet. For example, a form on water usage and the use of low flow toilets. How in the hell was I supposed to know that?

The third pile quickly became the largest, and that was the, to put it politely, the bullshit pile. Applications for renovation of historical buildings (we'd chosen four buildings that were all less than forty years old, and had been office space or warehouses). Applications for request for historical status. Applications for the use of caustic chemicals, etc, etc, etc. It took me the rest of the morning, and about half of the afternoon, but at just before three o'clock, I carried the now much thinner pile out to Vanessa. "Here. Send these back to the city, with my thanks. The others will be filled out as needed in a timely fashion."

"You caught it too, huh?" Vanessa said. "You should have seen what I waded through. Whoever set it up thought they'd try and bury us by including a lot of the forms in triplicate. I had to empty the paper shredder twice to make room for it all."

"Thank you then. I'll have another load for you to shred here in a bit, the ones that I'm just calling bullshit on. Speaking of the community centers though, I think I'll give Gene over at the Spartans a visit, see if they're catching flack on this as well."

"Want me to give his office a call?" Vanessa asked.

I shook my head and turned to go back into my office. "No thanks. I'll handle this one myself."

I heard Vanessa get back to her work, and I closed my door. Going to the phone, I looked up Gene's phone number and dialed. "Gene?"

"Hello Tabby. How are things at MJT?"

"Great. By the way, I didn't take the chance to thank you yet for the tickets a few weeks ago. We enjoyed the game very much."

"For Patrick, anything. What can I do for you today?" Gene asked.

"Do you have some free time this afternoon? I had a massive form dump on my desk from the city office on the community center project, and wondered how the Spartans are doing on it, and maybe see if I could pick your brain for some advice."

"I've got some time at about five o'clock, the team's at practice and a lot of the office staff have left. If you want, we can watch from the stands even, they're doing walk-throughs in preparation for Saturday's game."

"You're playing on Saturday? Isn't that college time?" I asked, surprised.

Gene laughed. "I see you're an even bigger fan than I thought. Yeah, the league did it because the NCAA scheduled nothing big for this holiday weekend. So the league is getting double TV coverage, including a Saturday prime time game. We're kicking off against Oakland at seven."

"Sure, I'll be there. Mind if I wear my suit?" I asked. "I don't have my Spartans t-shirt right now."

Gene laughed. "Sure. Although I should say no, I know how you look in those. You'll distract half the team."

I got to the stadium just before five o'clock, and a security guard let me through the entrance. I found Gene in the main rotunda, near the entrance to the Spartan Hall of Champions, a sort of Hall of Fame at the team level. He was dressed in what I guess could best be called office casual, a Spartans polo shirt and slacks.

"Gene, thanks for finding the time," I said, offering him a handshake. "How's the team looking?" I asked. I usually try not to get right down to business. Of course I was a fan, but business was my main concern, I just didn’t want to jump right to it.

"The preseason went well, and I think we've got a shot at a playoff run. A lot's going to depend on our line play, we're pretty thin on backups there. If some of our rookies continue to develop, Coach thinks we can go deep."

"Good to hear," I replied. "So, you said we could watch some of practice?"

"Sure, I doubt you're a spy from Oakland," he said with a laugh. "Come on."

It was pleasant inside Spartans Stadium, as the late summer slash early fall weather was taking hold. It was warm enough that I could feel it on my face, but not the stifling heat of mid-summer. Still, I knew why Mark was wearing warmer tops under his vest when he went out on night patrols, the early morning hours were still starting to be chilly.

Down on the field, I saw as the players were stretching out in helmets, t-shirts and shorts. "Reminds me of a high school boyfriend," I told Gene as we took a seat on one of the benches that made up a lot of the so-called cheap seats. Spartan Stadium had been built with a very old fashioned feel, but still had a lot of high tech and modern conveniences. "He played football when I was a junior."

"Oh? Knowing you, he was the star quarterback."

I chuckled and shook my head. "Nope, wrong there. Actually my boyfriend at the time wasn't even a starter, he played backup defensive end and a lot of special teams. We first started talking because of a time like this."

"What do you mean?" Gene asked. He sat down on the bleacher bench next to me, his eyes on the field. "Wasn't paying attention at practice?"

"No, actually he was the most dedicated guy on the team. Showed up early, made every off season lift, everything like that. But we had a pretty stacked team that year, and the guys in front of him were two seniors who ended up both of them going on to play Division I ball. So Alex sat the bench a lot. Anyway, a couple of my girlfriends and I used the stadium to run back then, and he and I started talking after one of these Thursday walk-throughs. We dated for most of my junior year."

"What happened senior year?" Gene asked curiously.

"Simple. Like I said, he was the most dedicated guy on the team. When it came time to choose between football and me, I was always second. I couldn't deal with that any more, so we just broke it off amicably," I said. "But enough on me. Gene, have you been catching flack from Francine Berkowitz?"

"If you mean have we had Union reps around here trying to get everyone from the janitor to the popcorn vendor trying to join the various unions, then yeah, but nothing different than usual," Gene replied. "They've been trying to crack us ever since the strike back in '99. The owners are standing pat though, no unions other than the Player's Association. They don't care if it costs us twice as much to do things. I assume you don't quite have that much leeway in your operations budget."

I tilted my head, chuckling. Mark had plenty of money, but he didn't have the operating budget of a professional football team backed by a textile manufacturing powerhouse. Then again, we didn't have shareholders to answer to either. "Not quite. I'm trying to take a balanced approach to this. I've told her, I'm not outright rejecting any participation by union workers. Hell, if they do good work at a good price I'll have nothing but union workers. But I'm not going to hamstring the non-union companies with the Union's bid-rigging crap either."

"So she's trying to drown you in paperwork," Gene replied. "She did the same to us last year when we renovated the bathrooms on the upper deck. Simple enough job, just going to modern urinals and toilets, should have been a simple two month job from start to finish. City inspectors and everyone else turned that thing into a six month headache. We barely got the damn thing finished less than a week before the first preseason game."

"But you kicked off on time," I said. "So is that a pattern?"

Gene nodded. "Pretty much. If you have power, she'll hamstring you, delay you, try and just wear you down until she can expose a weakness to exploit. Thankfully the league is supportive of us, and the players are fine with it as long as we take care of them. The stadium workers know that, by law, we can't prevent them from unionizing. Did you know that the security guard who let you in the door, he makes fifty six thousand a year with full team benefits? Guy goes to the same doctor I do. Anyway, my advice is to continue the same way. Treat your contractors well, and you'll find workers for you. The Union works off of public perception just as much as the Spartans do. They know this. As long as they can harass and frustrate you without coming off looking like assholes, Berkowitz is going to be a bug in your ass the whole time. But as soon as she thinks that public light will make them look bad, she'll have the Union guys fall back until the next fight."

"And how long will that fight go on?" I wondered.

Put it like this, I’ll tell you when ours is over, and that might give you an idea. So far we've been fighting them for nearly two decades."

"Damn."

Gene nodded, and we watched the field for a while longer. It was a lot simpler, football that is, compared to the headaches I was dealing with at the time.

I
got home late
that night, nearly nine at night, as I wanted to start looking over contractors for the first of the community centers. The first building, in the heart of The Playground, needed to be cleaned out, and I wanted to find a general contractor to get that done as soon as possible. If Francine Berkowitz was going to continue to be a thorn in my side, I might as well damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead, after all.

I was surprised when I came in to see Patrick's car parked in front of Mount Zion. I knew that Mark had recovered it from Filmore Heights earlier in the week, discovering as he did that Patrick had not only painted the old Civic, but had tuned it up to the point it was a cheetah under the hood, but hadn't expected Patrick to be back so quickly. We hadn't talked that day, and I figured he was overloaded with catching up on what he had missed at City Hall. Parking my Mercedes SUV, I made my way inside, curious.

I found Patrick and Sophie in the gym, sweat dripping off his face as she pushed him through a workout. "God's sake woman, I'm a week removed from getting shot!" he groaned as she pushed on his back, his legs stretched out in front of him. "You trying to kill me?"

"The gunshot has nothing to do with the fact that you've got hamstrings that are weak and stiff, along with enough knots in your hips you should be a Boy Scout merit badge," Sophie replied matter of factly. "Now be quiet and breathe out."

I suppressed a chuckle as Patrick tried his best to comply, Sophie pushing more until his body wouldn't go any further. "I think I saw God there as the air left my body."

"I'll remember that. I've been called a lot of things, but never God before," Sophie replied, dressed conservatively in sweat pants and a t-shirt. She was being no-nonsense, but I could tell by her facial expression she was amused. He must have worked hard, because if he hadn't, she wouldn't have replied except to push him harder.

"You're terrible," Patrick groaned, "my legs feel like about a hundred pounds of fried rubber right now."

"They'd smell a lot worse if they were. But I think I see something that might put some energy in those muscles," Sophie said, seeing me and waving. "Hey Tabs. How was work?"

Patrick rolled over, his face breaking out in a silly smile that I couldn't help but return as I came in and gave Sophie a hug. "Good. How about you?"

"Mark's on the computer doing some things right now, we were holding off on dinner until you got back. I was just putting Patrick through a light workout after he got done at work."