Enforcer (48 page)

“Let’s go, Jeeves,” she said with a smile after getting in. Her smile faltered when she saw his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“I’m starving. But before we go anywhere, you need to tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Bullshit. It’s all over your face. It’s been there for days now.”

“I’m trying to deal with you fucking all of these men each night before we do it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning in to put her head on his shoulder, her face a bitter mask. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m the one that has to deal with it.”

“It probably doesn’t help if I say they mean nothing, does it?”

“No, not really,” he sighed, cupping her cheek for a moment before starting the car and backing out of the client’s driveway. “I don’t really want to think about it, but it’s hard when I’m sitting in the driveway or parking lot waiting for you to finish.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, resting her hand on his leg. “Pancakes won’t make it any better, but at least you’ll be thinking of pancakes.”

Connor glanced over at her and couldn’t stop the smile from overtaking his face as she mimed a little girl being surprised at getting pancakes for dinner.

*****

“So what’s the plan?” Jera asked between mouthfuls of pancake and sausage.

“I don’t know,” Connor said. “We have to wait a bit. It’s too suspicious to walk into his office with a bag of cash so soon.”

“So I have to keep doing this for weeks? Months? Can I at least get an idea?”

“I don’t know, Jera,” he said, pausing with his fork halfway to his mouth. “I have enough money to wait a couple of months if we need to.”

“Great. That’s just great for me. So I have to keep spreading my legs until you deem it time?”

“Look, if you think it’s easy to sit in the car while you do your thing—”

“Do my thing? Is that what I do? Why don’t you just say it. While I fuck other men. While I suck their cocks. While I let them fuck me in the ass, a service they paid
your
boss for.”

“He’s your boss too,” Connor said, not wanting to get drawn into an argument.

“I’m just a whore though. You’re the big shot. The killer.”

Jera saw the flurry of emotions that crossed Connor’s face, knew her words had been cheap and unnecessary.

“I didn’t kill Larry,” he said to his remaining pancakes.

“What do you mean?”

“Petre did it. He knew I couldn’t. He thought, anyway. I don’t know if I could have done it or not. I couldn’t even watch. I tried to apologize to Larry at the end, that I didn’t mean for it to end like that,” he said.

Jera reached across the table to grab his hand, but he pulled it away. She began to cry, reliving her last memory of her former lover tied to a chair, covered in bruises, his right hand a mangled mess missing two fingers. Hearing Ojacarcu’s words to Connor to take care of it. The look on his face as she was led away to the car while he had to stay and finish the job.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, trying to dry her eyes with a napkin.

“We are going to keep doing what we have been doing. It’s the only thing we can do that won’t be suspicious, that won’t get us killed.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she said in a small voice.

“I don’t either, but for the moment we are still alive, and we still have one last card to play.”

“What if he refuses?”

“I don’t know.”

CHAPTER 40

Spring

“I’m glad you could join me,” Ojacarcu said to Connor as he walked up to the table. “The game has just started.”

Connor shook his boss’ hand and looked over the balcony to the two teams playing on the ice below. He and Jera had kept to a normal schedule for the last two months, and he was surprised to be invited to the owner’s luxury box. As he’d made his way around the concourse to the elevator, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being trailed. Paranoia had been a part of their daily lives after Larry’s death, but as the weeks went by, the feeling had gradually dissipated. For some reason though, he was sure undercover drug agents were staked out in the arena, waiting, watching Ojacarcu and anyone he invited up to his suite.

“I received a call from Glanding today,” Ojacarcu said after the waitress took his order and departed.

“Yeah?” Connor asked, hopeful that the UPHL president would rescind his suspension.

“He won’t budge, I’m afraid.”

“I understand.”

“How is life treating you?” Ojacarcu asked, changing the subject.

“Without hockey? Boring. I’m getting out of shape.”

“You aren’t working out? I thought your body was your temple?” his boss asked, eyebrows pointed down in concern. Connor couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not.

“Been a lot of stuff on my mind, I guess.”

“Ah, yes. Are you sleeping well?”

Connor looked at the man while taking a drink from his beer. He wondered if Ojacarcu had a conscience, had ever lost sleep because of something he regretted having to do. Connor decided he didn’t give a damn if the Romanian had triple the amount of nightmares that he did because of it. He hoped the man woke in a screaming bout of terror multiple times every night.

“Yeah, I’m sleeping fine,” he answered.

“It helps to have company, yes?” Ojacarcu asked with a hint of a smile.

“She’s not exactly what I would consider charming company.”

“Ah, but she doesn’t need to be charming to take care of your needs, does she?”

“I guess not,” Connor replied, becoming angry at the suggestion that Jera was nothing more than a wet hole for Connor to use as he saw fit when she wasn’t using it to extract money from clients.

“I’ve asked you to dinner so we could discuss your contract,” Ojacarcu changed the subject once again.

“My contract?” Connor asked, wary of the man who sat across from him.

“Yes. Your hockey contract. I have it all drawn up. Glanding assures me that your hearing at the end of the season will see you reinstated as an active player. It took a little convincing, but the man knows how important you are to me.”

Ojacarcu winked at Connor as he pulled a thin stack of papers from the empty chair next to him. He slid the contract across the table. Connor looked down at the contract, then back to his boss.
Now or never
, he thought, feeling his guts clench with fear at what he was about to say.

“I’m not sure I want to re-sign,” he said, pushing the contract off to the side.

Ojacarcu’s eyes narrowed, contradicting with the smile still on his lips.

“Why wouldn’t you want to sign it? You want to get back into uniform, don’t you?”

“Sure, I love playing. I can’t wait to play again. But I’m not sure I want to play here in Boise anymore.”

“What is it that you want, Connor?” Ojacarcu asked him, his lips now forming the same frown as his eyes.

“I want you to let Jera go,” Connor said, his mouth almost too dry to get the words out.

His boss leaned back, staring at Connor’s face, his own eventually breaking into a smile.

“I thought she was not what you would consider ‘charming company?’” Ojacarcu asked. His smile suggested that Connor had walked perfectly into the middle of his web.

“She’s not. But she’s not a slave. She’s not yours to keep forever. Or until you get tired of her.”

“Watch what you imply,” Ojacarcu warned, leaning forward.

Connor caught Dracul taking a step toward the table from the corner of his eye.

“I’m not implying anything,” Connor said. “I’m stating that she’s not a slave. She’s a human being and you have her working off someone else’s debt. If you want me to sign another contract and work for you, you’ll let her go, free and clear, not just ship her off to Miami or San Diego.”

Ojacarcu watched him for a few minutes. Connor was barely able to sit still without squirming, without acting like his life was on the line. He visibly shuddered when his boss began to chuckle. Ojacarcu leaned forward again, reached into the chair next to him and handed Connor a pen. Connor hesitated, unable to believe that the Romanian would bow to his demands.

“Go on, don’t look so surprised,” his boss said.

Connor reached out and grabbed the pen, struggling for just a moment as Ojacarcu refused to let go of it. Connor leaned forward, pulling the contract in front of him as if to sign. He put the pen to the paper, but instead of signing it, he looked up.

“I’ll sign it when she’s gone.” He laid the pen on the paper and scooted both across the table.

Ojacarcu gathered up the contract and put it back in the empty chair before putting the pen in his suit’s front pocket. He tilted his head at Connor.

“There’s the little matter of how much she owes,” the Romanian said.

“It was fifty thousand a couple of months ago. At a thousand a week interest, it’s up to seventy-two thousand,” Connor replied before Ojacarcu even finished his sentence.

“Yes, that sounds correct,” Ojacarcu said, leaning back once again, looking to Connor like a spider in a business suit. “But there’s the matter of Mr. Fallon’s debt, one that hasn’t been paid yet.”

“I suppose there’s interest on that as well?” Connor asked.

“You are lucky I am even having this conversation with you,” the older man growled at him. “Watch your tone, Connor.”

“I’m just asking.”

“Why do you care so much for this woman?” Ojacarcu asked. “What has she done for you other than make your life miserable?”

Connor started to reply but caught his tongue before it slipped out. He had no doubt Dracul would happily toss him over the railing and claim Connor had tried to attack poor, frail, respectable Mr. Ojacarcu. With Connor’s breakdown on the ice and subsequent suspension, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch. Another hockey tough guy who took too many punches to the head has a frightening, rage-fueled breakdown, almost killing an unsuspecting owner of a professional hockey team. He could already hear the sports analysts’ voices in his head having endless debates about the violence in hockey and the concussions that resulted from them.

The boss’ voice brought thoughts back to reality. “Are you in love with her?” Ojacarcu asked, peering at Connor after not getting an answer to his previous question.

“No,” Connor lied, thinking of when she’d called Larry after he’d
rescued
her, the beating he’d been forced to take because of her, some of it coming from Petre, the one person that might actually be his friend. “But this is America. We don’t have slavery anymore. You might, but not her.”

“You aren’t even an American,” Ojacarcu laughed.

“We outlawed slavery in Canada before America,” Connor said. “We didn’t have to fight a civil war to end it, so that should tell you my views as a Canadian.”

“The only reason it was abolished in Canada,” Ojacarcu replied, “is because it was banned across the entire British Empire in 1834.” Ojacarcu laughed again at the look Connor gave him. “You think I am a poor immigrant that knows nothing? That I’m a gangster from a mafia movie? Or do you think all Romanians are unintelligent thugs?”

Connor said nothing, wondering if he’d stepped into a minefield.

“I’m very well educated, Connor. I know a lot of things. It is a point of pride that I’m knowledgeable rather than a simpleton immigrant. Do you think an ignorant Romanian would build all of this?” Ojacarcu asked, sweeping his hand out across the arena.

“No.”

“No what?” his boss demanded.

“No, an ignorant Romanian wouldn’t be able to pull any of this off.”

“You are testing my patience, Connor. Did you know I pride myself on learning a new word each day? I have one of those calendars on my desk, and each day I tear off the old date and am greeted by a new date and a new word to learn. Would you like to know what yesterday’s word was?”

Connor nodded his head, sure more than ever that he’d stumbled blindly into not a minefield, but a hungry spider’s web.

“Yesterday’s word was ‘flippant.’ Do you know what that means?” Ojacarcu asked.

Connor shook his head, not familiar with the word.

“It means ‘a frivolous or disrespectful attitude or answer.’ Would you like to know what the word of the day is today?”

Connor remained as still as a statue, unable to nod, shake, or even breathe.

“Today’s word is ‘aseptic’. It means ‘to prevent infection, to be free from viruses or other pathogens’. It also has a second meaning. ‘Lacking emotion or vitality’.”

Ojacarcu rolled his chair back and stood up, waiting for Connor to do the same. Connor had to will himself out of the chair, wondering if Dracul would escort him downstairs to show him the final error of his disrespect.

“You will pay her debt of one hundred and ten thousand dollars by Friday, or you will sign that contract with a broken hand. This is the final time you will test me, Connor. There will be no more warnings, no concessions, no speeches.”