Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (55 page)

“Oh. Sorry,” Denton said. He didn’t sound particularly sorry. I guess that’s what happened when you spent as much time around death as he did. “What happened?”

Mom would never forgive me for this next lie, but I had to do it. Lying about Dad’s death might help save lives. If it did, it would be worth it.

“He was killed by the police,” I replied. I didn’t have to fake a lot of anguish as I spoke. “My dad wasn’t always on the right side of the law, but he wasn’t a bad person.”

“I find the police rarely distinguish between good and bad people these days. They’re too quick to hand out their own brand of justice.”

I nodded. “Don’t even get me started on that.”  

Denton smiled for the first time, but the second I returned it with a smile of my own he went back to frowning at me and looking confused.  

So far this had gone exactly to plan. I’d explained why I was moving from New York to Chicago, and hopefully convinced him that being an FBI agent working undercover had nothing to do with it.  

I’d also managed to subtly show an appropriate amount of discontent for the authorities which Denton was bound to appreciate in a personal assistant.

But he still didn’t look convinced. We’d gone too far in making me look like Kara. We should have toned it down.

“What do you think is the quality I value most in a PA, Chloe?” Denton asked.  

In reality, it was probably the ability to be treated like shit and be at his beck and call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but that might not be the best answer to give right now.

“Discretion,” I replied. “PAs see and hear the inner workings of the business, but they have to act like they don’t.”

Denton smiled and nodded. “Were you ever tempted to make a quick buck on the stock market with that insider knowledge?”

“Not really. I wouldn’t have known what to do with it.”  

“Yeah, I guess the financials would have gone over your head a bit.”  

I bit my tongue, and forced myself to nod along. I understood financials well enough having dabbled with a few basic accounting courses in college, but Chloe
Tamworth
was clueless about those things.

Denton leaned back in his chair, and looked up at the ceiling before sighing loudly and looking back down at me.  

“This has been a waste of time,” he said moodily. “You shouldn’t have come here today. I don’t want a new PA. Not yet.”  

A feeling of violent nausea crashed over, and instinctively I looked around for a trashcan to throw up in. I took a few deep breaths in through my nose and managed to control the urge to be sick, but only just.

I’d done everything right. I’d said all the right things, I’d followed the plan exactly as devised. I should have been offered the job right there and then.

“How about a trial run?” I pleaded. “I could be a temp for a week and if things don’t work out then no harm done.”

“No,” he replied firmly. “I don’t want you around here. It’s nothing personal. Leave now, Ms. Tamworth.”  

That must be the voice he used when threatening members of other crime families and people he needed to control, because it scared the shit out of me and I was an FBI agent, though not a very good one if this first assignment was any indication.

There was no arguing with him.

“Sorry for wasting your time,” I muttered, as I stood up and shuffled out of the office. I couldn’t help but take a quick look back at him as I closed the door. That was a face I would have happily followed around for as long as it took to bring him down. How could someone blessed with such looks and magnetism waste himself with a life of crime?

I didn’t cry until I was outside the building, but once the fresh air hit me I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I had to call Lois and tell her that I’d fallen at the first hurdle. Weeks of planning had gone to waste, because a Harvard graduate couldn’t swing her way into a job as a PA.  

The concept of field work had terrified me when Lois first broached the subject, but now that it was all over before it had even begun, I realized that it had actually excited me as well. Going back to the desk job felt boring and mundane in comparison.  

That was what I deserved though. I’d fucked up. I didn’t know how, but the evidence was right there in front of me. There was no arguing with the facts. My life as an undercover agent had lasted less than twenty minutes.  

I should have known better than to get my hopes up. I wasn’t cut out for this. I laughed at myself and attracted a few curious glances from passers-by on the street. What had I been expecting? That a twenty-two year old, fresh out of college, was going to bring down a crime family that had been operating in Chicago for over fifty years?  

No, real life didn’t work like that. Real life was working your ass off only to be confronted with failure at the first sign of a real challenge.

I pulled my phone out of my purse to call Lois, but decided against it. The call could wait half an hour. I needed a hot tea to calm myself down first. It might take more than a strong Earl Grey to get me out of this mess.  

Today was my first day undercover, and it looked like it was going to be my last.

It was like looking at a ghost.

They were so alike.

She’d sat right there in the chair Kara used to sit in while she took notes. They even had a similar posture. If I hadn’t known Kara since we were both kids, I could have sworn the two of them were sisters.

I looked back down at her résumé. Chloe Tamworth. Born and bred in New York. Worked as a receptionist after graduating high school and then transitioned to being a personal assistant where she’d had a number of impressive positions.

Her résumé couldn’t have been any more appropriate for the job. She was the perfect candidate.  

Apart from how she looked.

Chloe was gorgeous, I couldn’t deny that. Her long, brown hair draped down over her slender frame, and she had a stunning smile, although I’d only caught a glimpse of it once.  

And that body. God, what I wouldn’t give to have a go on that.  

Her looks probably opened doors for her, but not this time. Her looks were the problem. She was the spitting image of Kara. I still thought about her every night when I closed my eyes, and I probably would do for the rest of my life. I couldn’t have her doppelganger following me around everywhere.

This had probably been Dad’s sick idea of a joke. Or maybe he thought the best way to replace Kara as a PA, was to bring in a new PA that looked as much like her as possible. Kara had been much more to me than just a PA, but Dad couldn’t understand that.  

I could hardly tell him how I really felt about her death. That would involve showing emotions, and emotions were a weakness ready to be exploited. Roddy Barton knew all about that. That’s why he’d killed Kara; to get at me. Kara was dead because someone thought it would help them replace us as the family in control of this city.

I would have given up everything, including the city, to get her back, but it was too late.  

I picked up the phone and called Dad. I needed to yell at someone.

“Yeah?” he said, as he answered the phone with his usual level of affection for his only son.

The noise of a violent interrogation, not unlike the one I had been a part of this morning, could be heard in the background. Dad liked to show his face occasionally, although he rarely threw the punches these days. He wasn’t in the best of shape anymore, and even throwing a few punches left him out of breath. Not that he’d ever admit as much, and he’d kill anyone who dared insinuate it. Even me.

“Was that your idea of a joke?” I asked angrily. It never paid to be soft or deferential with Dad. He’d only see it as a sign of weakness.

“Get to the point, Denton. I’m kind of busy right now.”  

As if to emphasize his point, a man groaned loudly as the air was forced from his lungs following a punch to the gut.  

“I’ve just interviewed a young girl for a job as my new personal assistant.”

“Good. About time you got a new one.”

About time? Christ, Kara had only been dead a couple of months. Was the official mourning period over already?

“And you thought one who looked like Kara would be a good replacement?”

“What? How the hell would I know what she looked like?”

“I assumed you scheduled the interview.”

“I have more important things to worry about than what lucky girl gets to be your PA and bed warmer. She probably went through the usual channels.”

Even now she was dead, Dad didn’t treat Kara with any more respect than he would afford to one of his mistresses. He was nice enough when he wanted something from them, but a piece of shit otherwise.

“Whatever. I showed her the door.”  

“You need a PA, son. You’re a fucking shitshow without someone telling you where to go and when.”

“I’ll find one myself, and I’ll take as long as I want.”

“If you pull some shit like you did with the Mitchell brothers that time then you’re going to get more than a thrash around the ears the next time I see you.”

Would he ever let me forget that? I’d hooked up with some chick and spent the night screwing. I missed a debt collection, and the guys skipped town, never to be seen again, along with about twenty thousand dollars.

“Good speaking to you too, Dad,” I said, as I hung up the phone.

Maybe I was just being paranoid. Chloe and Kara were both in their early twenties with long brown hair and relatively slim builds. They were hardly the only people in Chicago who fit that description. The likeness might have been entirely in my head.

It had been a long morning. The one lead I had on Kara’s killer had proved to be a dead end just like all the others. I would get him in the end. Roddy Barton was living on borrowed time.  

I looked down at my hands and realized they were covered in dried blood from my little breakfast networking event this morning. That must have been there during the entire interview, but Chloe had never batted an eyelid at it.

What was that she said about her dad? Killed by the police. She looked all sweet and innocent on the outside, but perhaps her upbringing had a little in common with mine. A little, not a lot. No one’s upbringing could be quite like mine.

I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and splash some cold water on my face. Looking myself in the mirror afterwards was always the hardest part. When the rage hit, I could roll with the punches, so to speak, but when the adrenaline had left my system I often found myself haunted by my actions.

Not that I regretted what I did this morning. I’d have done anything short of killing that man if it gave me even a one-in-ten chance of finding Kara’s killer.  

But not regretting it didn’t make it any easier to live with my actions. At least I hadn’t been beating up random men who owed my dad money. I hated it when he left me in charge of the dirty work.  

I didn’t have to do it myself, that’s what the hired thugs were for, but I didn’t feel right asking people to do something I wouldn’t do personally. That was my dad’s
modus operandi
and I was determined not to take after him, even if it did look inevitable that I would take over the family business one day.

At this point, the family business
almost
looked like a legitimate operation. Most of the money now came from our food packaging business. We even had one of the big accounting firms signing off on the accounts each year. Best not to think too much about the source of the start-up capital though.  

We ran other businesses that dealt in cash and served as a decent way to launder money that otherwise would look suspicious appearing in our bank accounts. I didn’t work with those on a regular basis, but I couldn’t deny profiting from them.

Once I’d washed the dried blood from my hands, I went back to my office and tried to get my mind focused on the job. As much as I hated the ‘beating people up’ part of the job, I wasn’t exactly cut out for office work either.  

I typically made it through about two or three emails at most before my mind started to wander and I picked up my phone or browsed the Internet. Corporate work was just so fucking boring, but I needed to keep on top of things. If I wasn’t seen to be running the business then people would start getting suspicious. Appearances were important.