SCRATCH (Corporate Hitman Book 2) (6 page)

“Anything else, agent?” he asked, when they didn’t leave. The look on his face said clearly he didn’t understand why they were still standing there.

“Monica will expect the files by end of business today,” Roderick finished and walked out the door. Monica didn’t look back as she followed him out. One thing was for sure, George Hines wasn’t a normal accountant, and she needed to find out why.

Chapter 10

He needed
to do something. Pacing the length of his office wasn’t helping Scratch to calm down, and his brand new Italian loafers were hurting his feet. He was still fired up from his exchange with Monica and her sidekick. It was bad enough that she left him in bed feeling like a whore, but she her lack of acknowledgment when she was in his office was too much.

Yeah, he knew all about karma and knew he had it coming since that was how he treated his lovers in the past, but he thought things were different this time. At least he felt different, and he was almost sure that Monica felt the same way. It was in her eyes, the way she kissed him, and something else he couldn’t put his fingers on. But he’d felt it. So for her to completely blow him off was a problem. His feelings were a fucking problem.

Being with her—being intimate with her, had ignited something that set his internal wiring askew. His nights were spent sitting up and staring at the walls while he abused himself with memories of how she felt. Questions of what he could have done wrong, or what he could do to change things ruled his thoughts. Rejection wasn’t in his vocabulary. It never happened before, or he never cared enough for it to matter.

So as he made one last lap behind his desk, feeling like a dope fiend that was days late on their next hit, his anger hit a dangerous peak. Years of programming had taught him to handle situations like this with his hands. He wanted to follow the two agents down to their car, punch Axe in his face, and take Monica somewhere, anywhere, as long as she would talk to him. The silence was killing him more than the desire he had to kiss and hold her.

Thinking about the way Axe had disparaged her enraged him. When Scratch looked on his desk and saw the folders holding the account information that he couldn’t use, he lost it. Snapped. The chair that he had ordered, special request, was kicked until it toppled over and one of the padded leather arms cracked in half. Then he kicked it completely out of the way and set his sights on his desk. He scooped up all the papers and files and shoved them in his trash bin. Fuck recycling. His computer had the misfortune of an email notification coming in at just that moment. The ping agitated his already frazzled senses and he swept the entire desktop onto the ground. And it wasn’t enough.

The walls felt like they were closing in on him. It had been that way for a while, but he always found a way to breathe. Drinking worked. Fucking was better. Except now, the one person he wanted to have sex with was treating him like he meant nothing. The thought of going back to his thoughtless existence made him feel like he was going to suffocate. He yanked and tugged at the knot of his tie until it loosened its hold around his neck—gulping in a deep breath of air as if he was suffocating.

“Fuck!” The roar accompanied a pounded fist to his desk. Scratch couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so helpless. The first time he allowed himself to want something, and this is where it got him. He felt like a complete ass. Hadn’t his plan been to seduce her in order to throw her off balance? Instead, he was the one who was all jacked up. The thought was almost laughable.

Scratch knew he had a choice. He could fall back into his old routine. He could go back to the pretend world of being an accountant by day and a playboy at night. Or, he could fight. He could trust the part of him that believed her words, and believed what he saw shining in her eyes when she looked at him over that candlelit table. No, he didn’t have to accept things the way they were, and he wasn’t going to.

Just as he made up his mind to go confront Monica and straighten things out, his office door swung open. Jack strolled in, looking around at the visible destruction without any expression of shock or concern.

“Taking a late lunch?” He looked at Scratch, glancing down to his hand that held his keys and to the jacket flung over his arm.

“I’ve got to take care of something,” Scratch grunted as he moved to brush past his friend. Jack calmly held out his arm, barring the other man from passing him.

“Looks like you have a situation right here that needs attention.” Jack cocked his head to the side at the smashed computer monitor on the floor.

“Something more important.” The two men stared each other down. When it was clear that Jack wasn’t going to budge on his stance, Scratch swore again, and launched his jacket across the room.

“Look,” Jack said as he closed the door and leaned his back against it. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that if you don’t pull it together you’re going to make things worse than they already are. Where were you headed anyway?”

Scratch looked up to the ceiling as if it held the answers to all his problems and then shrugged before answering. “I need to straighten something out. That’s all.”

He wasn’t trying to be vague, but they both knew that certain conversations couldn’t be had within the walls of Hawk Global. Jack nodded his head in acceptance, already seeing that Scratch had calmed down considerably.

“Why don’t you take off? I’ll have someone take care of,” he gestured towards Scratch’s aftermath. “your mess.”

Scratch just nodded and waited for Jack to move so that he could walk out. Going straight home was not an option. While he may have regained some of his composure, he hadn’t lost the urge to pummel something, and the punching bag at the gym was calling his name.

There was no surprise when he got home and he had a waiting audience. Jack and Glitch were sitting in his living room, waiting for him like his mother used to do when he got in trouble at school. Having worked off most of his aggression, he was able to laugh at the situation. After the temper tantrum he’d thrown earlier that day, it was to be expected.

Scratch threw his gym bag onto the varnished wood floor, landing it in the corner next to his ficus plant.

“So who wants to get this party started?”  He slumped into his favorite chair as he waited for the firing squad.

“I heard you got into a fist fight with your computer today. Like I don’t have enough to do without having to replace and program a new one,” Glitch jabbed.

“Yeah? Well it had it coming,” Scratch joked.

“Procurement wasn’t happy to be tasked with replacing your special chair either. It took them long enough to find one that met your specifications the first time,” Jack added.

“Right. And I guess I need to write a sorry note to the cleaning service for not separating my trash properly either. Now that we’ve got that all covered, let’s get down to the reason you’re both here.”

“See that’s the thing. We don’t  know why we’re here. Maybe you could enlighten us.” Jack’s tone was smooth and even, but Scratch knew it was time to get serious. So he recanted his run in with Monica and Axe. Both men were aware of his short fuse, so it could have been a feasible excuse, but they weren’t buying it. 

“Yawn,” Glitch said, voice full of boredom. He wasn’t even going to pretend to be fooled by the idea that Agent Axe could insight that much rage out of Scratch over a simple disagreement. Ego or no ego. “So what happened on your date with Monica?”

Scratch glared at him, but didn’t reply right away. He wasn’t even sure if he would be able to convey the way he was feeling, or if he even wanted to.

“Were you able to get under her skin?” Jack went straight to the point. He couldn’t care less about the details of their dinner.

“Huh,” Scratch snorted. “Nice choice of words. You could say that, yes.”

“And you got her talking?” Jack’s question felt like a cattle prod to Scratch.

“Yes. I got her talking, but she didn’t reveal anything I didn’t already know. Then I took her upstairs and got ‘under her skin’ all night,” he replied dryly.

Jack and Glitch exchanged suspicious glances.

“And then?” Glitch gestured with his hand for Scratch to get on with it.

Scratch groaned and then ran his hands through his hair.

“And then I woke up and she was gone. I haven’t spoken to her since, except for today.”

Glitch replied with a drawn out, “OK...” Jack, who had a better understanding of the situation, let out a harsh curse.

“Dammit Scratch!” He jumped up and began to pace the room, much like Scratch had done in his office.

“What the hell is going on?” Glitch, for the first time in a long while, was confused. Scratch was acting like a teenager, and Jack looked like he was about to start climbing the walls.

“I think lover boy over here just got tangled in his own damn web. I knew this shit was gonna go down like this,” Jack grumbled.

“OK. Fucking, Dionne Warwick! Why didn’t you do something then?” Scratch was beginning to feel his anger trying to reignite, and he wasn’t in the mood to be chastised. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t want this for himself either.

“Is it bizarro day? I’m clearly missing something,” Glitch complained.

Jack stopped pacing and folded his arms across his chest. “The plan was for you to soften her up to make her easier to handle regarding this case. Fuck her, not fall for her and still be at square one! Now she’s got her damn partner riding us. Jesus H!”

“Fuck who to make her easier to handle?” All three men jerked their heads around to find Araceli fuming in the doorway. Her hands were on her hips, and she looked like she was ready to go to war.

“Che cazzo!” Scratch groaned as he got up and headed to the kitchen to grab a much-needed beer. Glitch burst out laughing so hard, Araceli lessened her combative stance, slightly.

“Come on over here babe. This is the ‘don’t know what’s going on corner’. I’ve been here for a minute now.” Glitch patted the cushion next to him where Araceli reluctantly sat. She noticed the abnormal body language that both Scratch and Jack were projecting, and narrowed her eyes.

“Did something happen?” She asked the room, but her eyes were focused on Jack.

“Scratch is in love,” he said blandly. Araceli snorted in disbelief.

“Not in love,” Scratch mumbled on his way back from the kitchen.

“Yeah. We’ll see,” Jack shot back.

“Seriously?” Araceli looked around confused. “What’s going on?”

Tired of the shenanigans, Scratch told the whole story including how he felt, felt, about her, and how it seemed like the noose around his neck was getting tighter. The silence was loud until Araceli spoke.

“Let her come to you. If you go charging at her, it will put her in a position to make a hard choice, and she will have to choose work.”

“Choose?” Scratch echoed. “I don’t want her to choose anything.”

“Right. That’s why you're over there pouting. Of course you want her to choose. Choose to take a risk on your crazy ass,” she added.

“I’m just tired of this case. This bullshit with Eagle. It was either break my chair, or go up to his fucking office and strangle him. And I am not pouting.”

“Yes you are. And you’ve got those perfectly pouty lips too. Big baby,” Araceli crooned.

“Hey! What about my lips?” Glitch gave her hair a playful tug.

“Yes baby. Your lips are cute too.”

“Please. Enough,” Jack shook his head in true disgust. Not so much for the joking around, but for the fact that he was still concerned.

“Sorry boss,” Araceli teased.

“Look. Just give them the TopSec files. All of them. Make a mess. Mix up accounting with proposal research. Give them all the past performance crap. Make them dig, work for it.  They’re looking at the money. Even if they find something off, it will take them a minute to piece it together. We’ve got everything almost in place anyway as far as our escape hatch goes. If we need to do an early extraction for Scratch, then so be it. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Again, there was silence. Scratch perked up at the mention of him being the first to go. While it did relieve some of his pressure, it wasn’t the relief he was expecting. And he knew exactly why. Damn. He had it bad.