Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (77 page)

James turned around and looked behind him as if there might be someone else Chloe was pointing at. He then looked back to face me and gave a confused shrug. That pretty much summed up my feelings on the matter as well.

“Chloe, what are you talking about?” I asked. She looked distressed, and exhausted. She obviously hadn’t slept since I’d stormed out of her apartment, but that was no reason to throw accusations like that around. 

“James killed Kara,” Chloe staring at James as she said it. “I think he did it himself, but at the very least he ordered someone else to do it.” 

“Young lady, I think you need to go home and get some rest,” James said calmly. “I don’t know where this has come from, but I can assure you I had nothing to do with Kara’s death. We know who the culprit is now.” 

I trusted James with my life. Literally. James and I often walked into dangerous situations together. I had his back and he had mine. I trusted him more than I trusted my own father, as was evident from the fact that my father was gagged and tied up behind me. 

“Chloe, you must be mistaken,” I said slowly. But she looked so certain. She kept staring at James with a look of pure hatred. That must be how I looked with I thought about Roddy Barton, or Dad for that matter.

“I’m not mistaken,” Chloe snarled. “He did it. And I have proof.”

James flinched in my peripheral vision. That got a reaction. Strange.

“James couldn’t have had anything to do with this,” I insisted. “He couldn’t have.” 

“That man is not James,” Chloe said. “His name is Roddy Barton.” 

James snorted with derision. “Okay, I’m done listening to this nonsense. I tried to be polite but now you really need to leave. Let the grown ups talk.” 

I wanted to take James’ side, but Chloe looked so confident and sure of herself. I’d always known she was clever, but she wasn’t just clever, she was an FBI agent. That had to count for something.

“What proof?” I asked. 

“Denton, you can’t seriously be considering this? How long have we known each other?”

“Ten years,” I replied.

“You haven’t even known her ten weeks. And what’s this nonsense about me being Roddy Barton? I don’t look anything like him for one thing.”

“I’ve never seen him,” I admitted. “I only know second-hand what he looks like.”

“God, you’re fucking serious. You’re taking her word over mine.”

“I trust her,” I replied. Chloe had been lying to me from the moment we met, but I still trusted her completely and utterly when it came to Kara.

“You don’t need to trust me,” Chloe said. “I told you, I have proof.” 

Chloe stepped forward, keeping a close eye on James the whole time. He was starting to sweat. Could this really be true? Roddy Barton had been almost like a myth these past ten years. Coincidentally that was also the amount of time that James had been in our lives. 

Dad once told me James was the most loyal man he had on the team. If James had been working against us this entire time, it would explain a hell of a lot about why we’d been struggling of late.

Chloe handed me her phone, or at least, I assumed it was her phone. It wasn’t the one she normally kept on her, but Chloe having two phones was one of the less surprising things to happen this evening.

“James Bowman doesn’t exist,” Chloe said. “There’s no one in Chicago with that name.”

“I try to keep myself off the radar,” James said. “Glad to see it’s working. I don’t want filth like you digging around in my business.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” I agreed. 

Chloe flicked her thumb across the screen of the phone to the next image. “That’s Roddy Barton’s file. The FBI barely has anything on him, but then they’ve not really looked that hard. They’ve been more concerned with you and your dad. The passport photo is nearly ten years old and he was a lot thinner then. There is a more recent sketch though. We caught one of his men on robbery charges a year or so ago and he provided a description to cut a deal. Look familiar?”

The sketch artist couldn’t have drawn an image that looked more like James if James had actually posed for it. The likeness was unmistakable.

“You’re not going to accuse me of murdering that girl based on a fucking drawing,” James yelled. “Denton, we have the guilty party right behind us.” 

Dad wriggled in his restraints and tried to yell, but all I heard was a mumble. I had no intention of listening to Dad anyway. I didn’t know what was going with James, but I knew I didn’t trust Dad as far as I could throw his fat ass.

“James wouldn’t have killed Kara,” I said to Chloe. “They were friends too.”

“I know,” Chloe replied. “I saw some of the emails between them. They got on well.”

“There you go then,” James said. “There’s even email evidence demonstrating that I wouldn’t want her dead.”

“No, there’s email evidence clearly proving that you did have a motive,” Chloe replied. She was shaking now, although whether it was anger, fear, nerves, or a combination of all three, I couldn’t tell. 

“What motive?” I asked.

“She found out. Kara wanted James to sign some contracts for the company, but he couldn’t because his name isn’t actually James Bowman. Kara did some digging and found out the truth. She must have really trusted him though, because she went to meet him the night she died.”

Chloe took her phone back, pulled up the emails, and then showed it to me. She was right. Kara had found something on James, and he’d insisted on meeting her. That was the night she died.

“Alright, I’ve had enough of this,” James said angrily.

“What’s going on, James?” I asked. “How do you explain--”

James had no intention of explaining. He pulled out a gun from the inside of his jacket and pointed it towards us. 

I quickly stepped in front of Chloe, but if he wanted us dead, there wouldn’t be much we could do to stop him. He didn’t shoot. He hesitated, thinking about how this would go down. I could see him planning it out. James would want this to look like a shootout gone wrong. No doubt he would kill Dad too; he was just thinking of the best way to go about doing it.

“Take your gun out slowly,” James commanded. “Kick it over to me.”

I did what he said. James kicked the gun over to the back of the room, well out of reach.

“Why?” I asked. Partly I was trying to buy time to do a bit of thinking of my own, but I also needed to know. It didn’t make any sense.

“Because it was easy,” James--or should that be Roddy--replied with a shrug. “I built an empire in less than ten years, and I barely took any risks. It was perfect.”

“You already had an empire,” I replied. “You inherited it from your dad.”

James shook his head. “No, Dad squandered it all. I had nothing when he died. I needed to build a legacy for my kids, but I needed to do it quickly.”

“So you gained my dad’s trust?”

“It wasn’t difficult. I just had to give him good advice, and with someone as stupid as your dad, it’s not difficult to give advice that helps out.”

“Why not just kill him?” Chloe asked. She’d moved out from behind my back and now stood by my side. I reached out an arm and tried to push her back behind me, but she wasn’t having any of it. So bloody stubborn sometimes.

“Because Denton would have just taken charge.”

“Well why not kill--”

“Because all the assets are in his name and things get messy legally,” James said. “I’ve been gaining the trust of your dad’s men for years and gradually converting them to my side. He barely has a quarter of the resources he used to have. I’ve been the most powerful man in the city for years and no one has even known about it. Not even the FBI apparently.”

James walked over to my dad, keeping the gun pointed at Chloe and me. He untied Dad, but left the gag on him. He was setting it up so that it looked like we all killed each other. The gun was too far away. I couldn’t run over there without leaving Chloe exposed. Even if I got the gun, he’d kill her, and then what was the point? 

I deserved to die. I’d done terrible things in my life. Things I would regret for the rest of my short life. But I didn’t regret meeting Chloe. I just wished she’d never met me for her own good.

James stood on Dad’s bullet wound until Dad lost consciousness. Or so it appeared. Dad was faking it. He looked at me, while James had his back turned. I just needed to distract him. Chloe had noticed the same thing.

“It was you who brought me in,” Chloe said. “You were the FBI’s contact at the company. You wanted me there to bring down Denton and his dad.”

“Yep,” James replied, as he dragged what he thought was Dad’s unconscious body across the stage. “That way all of Denton’s assets would have been seized as part of the trial. They would never have been a threat to me again, and I would own the city.”

Just then, Dad looked at me and nodded his head. I returned the nod, and Dad sat up, swinging a fist up into James balls. I moved immediately, leaping towards James and grabbing the arm that held the gun, before he could swing it round to shoot Dad.

James was strong, but Dad’s blow had weakened him considerably. I slammed his arm down onto the floor, making him drop the gun, which I quickly picked up and pointed at him.

I nearly pulled the trigger straight away, but he was lying on his stomach, and I didn’t like shooting people in the back. Even I had a code of sorts.

This wasn’t even about Kara anymore. Not just about that anyway. I didn’t even care that he’d been lying to me and my dad this entire time. But I did care about him pointing a gun at Chloe. He’d have killed her. I didn’t doubt that for a second. 

“Turn and face me,” I yelled. I was spitting and not entirely in control of my emotions, but then if I were, I wouldn’t have the nerve to pull the trigger. There would be time for me to dwell on this moment later, after James--Roddy--was dead.

“Denton,” Chloe’s voice called out calmly from close behind me. I hadn’t even heard her approach. “Don’t do this. Don’t kill him.”

“He would have killed you,” I snarled. “Both of us.”

“I know. But you’re better than that. I recorded his entire confession. He’ll go to prison.”

“He doesn’t deserve prison. He deserves death.”

“That’s not your call to make.” 

I didn’t know if I still had a chance with Chloe, but I knew whatever hope we had depended on me not pulling the trigger. If I killed James, she’d never be able to trust me.

“Listen to her,” James moaned, a cocky grin spreading across his face, even though he was clearly still in agony. “She talks sense that one. Not like Kara. She was a dumb bitch.” 

I pulled back the safety and held my arm out straight ready to fire. Chloe didn’t try to stop me. She understood why I needed to kill James, and I didn’t think she’d blame me for it. But she wouldn’t forgive me either. 

My entire arm shook as I held the gun out straight, pointing it directly at James’ face. Dad groaned in the background, urging me to shoot James.

I reached my other hand out and took hold of Chloe’s. Her hand was cold, while mine was damp and clammy with sweat. She held my hand and stood by my side, determined to support me in whatever decision I made. 

Except I’d already made my decision. I had made it the second I took hold of her hand. 

I lowered the gun and pulled Chloe towards me for a hug. She breathed a sigh of relief, and wrapped her arms around me. 

“I’m so sorry I lied to you,” Chloe said, as she pressed her head against my chest. She started sobbing, but did her best to hide it from me.

“I’m not,” I replied. “If you hadn’t lied about who you were, then I never would have met you. Besides, I should have listened to you from the start. I was so hell-bent on getting revenge for someone I’d lost that I didn’t focus on who I had.

We hugged for a few minutes, but eventually the painful whimpering of James and my Dad began to lessen the romance somewhat. That and all the stripper poles.

“We should probably get out of here,” I whispered in her ear. “I’ll call an ambulance for Dad.”

Chloe lifted her head away from my chest, and held her finger up to her lips to silence me. “Did you hear that?” 

I shook my head. Right now the only thing I could hear was my heartbeat. 

We walked hand in hand towards the exit, but Chloe froze and pulled me back. 

“I can hear something,” she said again.

I turned to look at her, but the only thing I could hear was James struggling to get to his feet. “You should have killed me, Denton,” James yelled theatrically. “I’m going to set my entire team on you. You’ll be dead by the end of the--”

Chloe and I both jumped in shock as the sound of a gunshot split the air. James went staggering back as a bullet exploded into his chest, followed by another shortly after. He landed on the floor with a thud, and died after a few short, straggled breaths.

I looked towards the sounds of the gunshots and saw the shooter. 

It was Kara.