Dirty Playboy

by Wolf, Alex

  I march toward Decker’s office, nerves fluttering in my stomach, but I shove them all down. There’s no place for fear right now, only what’s right.

  His secretary is away, so I walk right through the door.

  The other three brothers and Tate are sitting in front of his desk while he discusses something with them. All ten eyes dart up to me.

  Whatever. I don’t care. They can hear this too.

  Decker stands up, his face already morphing to an angry red, like he knows what this is about, and he’s been through it and won’t do it again.

  I don’t stop. I keep walking toward them.

  “Now’s not the time, Mary.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t care. We’re making the time.”

  Decker goes stiff as a board.

  Tate’s eyes bug out, and she looks away and whistles out the side of her mouth. The other brothers look shell-shocked. I don’t think they’ve ever seen me look this way. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way; nothing but determination pumping through my blood.

  Decker finally just rolls an arm forward. “Fine, get it all out and make it good before you pack your shit too.”

  I do exactly what he told me to do. I get it all out, tell them everything I know so far. They all glance away when I mention the stuff about Dominic’s father. By the time I’m done, I know I’ve won over Tate, but the brothers still look unsure, and Decker is about to burst at the seams and probably send me on a plane back to Dallas.

  I. Don’t. Care.

  Finally, he glares at me. “I can’t have this shit at the firm.”

  “Decker.” Tate levels her eyes at him.

  He glances to her and softens for a moment, but it’s short-lived. “He’s not even a fucking PI. There’s going to be a review. His license is gone, never existed. We’re liable. Everything he’s touched is tainted. It puts every one of us at risk, but beyond that—” He points out to the firm. “It puts everyone out there at risk. They all have families. They all have mortgages. I feel bad for his story, but we have to think for the firm, not one person.”

  “What message does that send to your employees? I’m one of them!” I don’t realize I basically scream the last sentence at him.

  Everyone freezes, even Tate.

  I point a finger inward at my chest. “What does that tell me? That if something happens to me, you don’t have my back? Because of the ‘greater good?’” I do air quotes when I say “greater good” then take a step and get right in his face. “That you’ll cut me loose? I no longer turn a profit when you assess me on a spreadsheet? Despite all the profit I’ve generated for you in the past? If you don’t help him, you’re a coward. Look at everything he’s done for this place, for all of you. He doesn’t deserve to be in that jail cell, and you know it.” I finally take a deep breath, and it’s like the walls are closing in on me. I’m losing my sanity, and it’s because the man I love is rotting in a concrete box. Finally, I just stare at Decker, pleading with my eyes. “Will you please just call Wells Covington? He can verify everything I’ve told you, and he’ll drop these charges against Rick. And let me do some research on the other stuff from Detroit. Let me see what I can find out and see if there’s a way out of it.” Tears roll down my cheeks and I finally snap. “Please, just let me try to help him. You have nothing to lose.”

  Tate jumps up and wraps an arm around me and I almost collapse into her. It hurts so bad, everything. Every second Dominic or Rick or whoever, his name doesn’t matter to me, is in that cell, I’m losing him, little by little.

  Tate looks at me, then glares at Decker. I don’t know if Decker has any humanity in him, but if he does, I pray his heart softens for just one moment and gives me a chance. It’s all I want.

  His brothers all stare at him, even Donavan, who I really didn’t think had much of a soul. He’s the best criminal attorney, probably in the world. He could get Rick out of this in a heartbeat if he wanted. I’ve seen what they do for people who write huge checks to them.

  Decker’s chest finally sinks in a little, like he’s being forced to deal with something he doesn’t want to, and he’s finally giving in. His gaze moves from his brothers and lands on me, then he huffs out a sigh, like he’s finally relenting to his own ego. “Get with Donavan. See what you can find, and if there’s something that can be done, we’ll go down and get him. Okay?”

  I rush from Tate, before I can stop myself, and wrap Decker in a giant bear hug. He stumbles back a little, then stands there while I squeeze him, all awkward, unsure what to do.

  I feel bad, because I realize I’m hugging Tate’s husband right in front of her, but when I look back her eyes are a little welled up. I don’t know if it’s because of me or if she’s proud of her husband.

  Decker gives me a couple awkward pats on the back, then says, “If you don’t let go, you won’t be able to get your damn boyfriend out of jail. Those are words I never thought I would speak to you, of all people, Magdalene.”

  I let go of him and back up, adjusting my blouse, then I look up at him and let out a little laugh. “That’s two of us, trust me. Thank you. I mean it, thank you.”

  He shakes his head and looks around. “Don’t thank me. I don’t deserve it. Sometimes I lose track of what’s actually important around here. I should thank you for reminding me.”

  I give him a slight nod, everything hitting me all at once. I can’t believe I just barged in here and did that, but I don’t regret it. Not for a second.

  I turn to Donavan who’s already standing, and I swear, it might be the first time I’ve ever seen him smile at anyone besides Paisley and Payton. He holds out a hand, gesturing to the door. “Come on. Let’s go see what we can find.”

  I nod and walk past Deacon and Dexter, who both smile at me too.

  When we’re at the door, I hear Decker say to Tate, “I swear, I’m implementing a policy on dating in the workplace. This shit is out of fucking control.”

  “Oh, shut up, Decker.”

  “Whatever, it’s happening. I’m done with the drama. It’s a fucking episode of The Good Wife around here.”

  Donavan follows me out into the office, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I have something to hold onto.

  I have hope.

  Dominic Romano

  It’s been a few days, but they’ve all blended together by now. I spend most of my time reading the little Bible they gave us and staring at the wall. It’s something I’ll have to get used to. I have the money to make bail, but what’s the point? I’m not calling anyone to have them pay it for me. I’ll get credit for these days instead. Might as well get it over with as fast as I can, plus a day in jail is way better than a day in prison. I want to spend as few days there as possible.

  I sit up in my bunk and stretch my arms behind my little bolted-down cot.

  Another day in paradise.

  The big sliding door buzzes with electricity; it’s time for us to go out to breakfast. I file out with my cell mate, and we stand there, waiting for them to count us before we can head down to the cafeteria area.

  If there’s one cool thing about jail, it’s that it’s all predictable. Every day, same time, same thing, over and over. It’s much less chaotic than living outside these walls. I actually have a routine for once.

  A guard walks up. “Romano.”

  I turn to him. “Yeah?”

  “This way. Made bail.”

  “Huh?” I stare blankly at him. The fuck?

  “Made bail. Get your shit together and let’s go.”

  I stand there, dazed, not knowing exactly what to do. I should feel happy, but I’m just confused. How the hell did someone get me out of here? Who would do it?

  Mary.

  The pain I haven’t felt the last day or so socks me in the chest again. She’s going to want to see me, talk to me. Why can’t she just leave me alone? It’s too painful to see her right now. I just can’t.

  It’s not like I have a choice at the mome
nt, though. What am I going to do? Tell this dude no? Might be the first time in history anyone’s ever done that, begged to not be bailed out. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to say no.

  I don’t have anything I give a fuck about in my cell, so I just follow him. They take me down. I wait in a chair for what seems like hours. Jails are the most inefficient fucking systems on the planet. How hard is it to check and make sure you’re releasing the right person? It’s shit a toddler could do.

  They give me my clothes I was wearing when they took me into custody, along with my wallet and other random stuff from my pockets, and I go into a bathroom and change. Then, a buzzer sounds, and they let me walk right through the doors.

  No instructions after that. No, “Hey, thanks for staying with us.” I’m just a free man who doesn’t even really know who the fuck he is anymore.

  I walk down a corridor and through another set of doors. As soon as I pass through it, I expect to see Mary, but I don’t.

  It’s the Collins brothers, all four of them, smirking their asses off, shaking their heads at me.

  It would be comical if I wasn’t so emotional right now, mentally prepared to see Mary’s face.

  “Oh, what the fuck?” I glance around instinctively. I know what I’m doing. I’m looking for her, even though I shouldn’t. Deep in my heart there’s nothing I want more than to see her and hold her. My heart breaks in half, and at the same time, relief washes over me because I don’t have to see her.

  I’m just trying to do the right thing, but I see how people stray now. It’s so easy to just dodge your problems, push them all away in a dark recess in your mind and go on like nothing happened. Doing the right thing is so fucking hard, and it’s so much easier to just skate by, shave off the corners, take shortcuts to avoid difficult things.

  “You’re welcome, asshole.” Decker grins at me and gestures toward some chairs against the wall.

  It’s not like I have somewhere pressing to be, so I take a seat, and the brothers sit in pairs on each side of me. I just stare straight ahead.

  Decker starts to say something, but I interrupt him.

  “I didn’t ask you to do any of this.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought your innocent little girlfriend was going to burn down the firm if we didn’t.”

  The pain hits my chest when he mentions Mary. I want to say so many things, but my throat closes off, and the walls move in on me. “I was just trying to do what was right.”

  Decker sighs. “Is that why you pulled that shit in my office? Sever ties to the firm so we couldn’t be implicated in anything?”

  I nod, feeling even worse than I did before. “I’m sorry. I knew my license would be voided. I didn’t want to fuck anything up for you, more than I already had, and I’m sorry I lied. I just…”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting a better life, Rick. I mean Dominic, fuck. This is so weird.” Donavan reaches over and grabs my shoulder.

  I shake my head. “How? I mean, what happens next? What the fuck happened? How am I sitting out here? Am I still facing charges?”

  Donavan grins at me. “No charges. You’re free.”

  My eyes widen, and adrenaline shoots through my limbs. It takes me a few seconds to really understand what he just said to me. He wouldn’t lie and make something like that up, though. It’s so intense I get a little dizzy for a second and think I might pass out. I finally gasp. “What? How?”

  “You need to thank Mary,” says Deacon.

  Donavan nods. “There’s a lot to go over with you, but it’s all because of her. I don’t know what the fuck she sees in you, but she sees something. Maybe next time you really should just talk to her first instead of setting out on a righteous crusade.” He leans back. “Oh, and you might be interested to know, you’re actually thirty-one and not thirty-two.”

  I snicker. “You fucking kidding me?”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “Mary went digging. We got Wells to drop the current charges. Said he was only doing it because you made him, like an idiot. He said you wanted to implicate yourself for whatever dumb-fuck stupid reason you had in your head.” He pauses. “The Detroit stuff was trickier. It was all Mary, though. She found CPS reports from when you were a minor. Run-ins your father had with them regarding you.” He pauses and swallows, proceeding with caution. “Detroit dropped the ball, handling things with you when you were too young to remember. They had reports and complaints and didn’t ask, didn’t follow up. Your father had multiple birth certificates for you, for various reasons we couldn’t track down, but it’s assumed they were nefarious. We managed to find the real one. Your birth date was one year younger than the birthdate you’ve been using.”

  My hands start to tremble. It’s too much information all at once. But one little piece of it makes all the sense in the world. It changes everything, and that’s when reality hits me. Everything, in this one moment, slams into me out of nowhere. “So, the jewelry store, when I ran…”

  Donavan nods like he’s reading my thoughts. “You were seventeen, not eighteen. Still a minor.”

  My eyes start to well up as he continues.

  “I talked to the DA, did a little blackmailing with the CPS stuff, laid on the guilt about how all this could’ve been avoided, how you’re a victim of your father and the state, not a damn criminal. They dropped everything.”

  “So, my license…”

  “We need to get you one under your actual name. I’ll talk to some people I know. But you’re not a convicted felon, you have no felony charges pending, so you’re eligible to be a licensed private investigator.”

  I exhale a huge breath. “Thank you.” I turn to the other brothers. “Thank you so much. I’m sorry you guys had to do all this.”

  Decker stands up, steps in front of me and holds out a hand. “Bullshit. We take care of our own. You’re the best fucking PI I’ve ever seen in my life, and you always have a place at the firm, no matter what. Always.” He pauses for a moment. “Even if you’re an asshole. No more feet on my desk, bitch.”

  “Thank you.” I close my eyes. I can’t believe this is all happening; it’s too much to take in all at once. I’ve lived my whole life believing I was one thing, pretending to be something I wasn’t, just living in survival mode every day. The weight of that lifting off my shoulders is indescribable. I don’t even know how to express my gratitude to these guys. Anything I say isn’t enough.

  I shake Decker’s hand, but it’s like I’m glued to the seat. I don’t know if I can finish what I know comes next, an even harder situation. The person who deserves the most gratitude of all.

  “An-and Mary’s okay?” I can barely get the words out.

  Donavan shakes his head. “She’s safe, but she’s not okay. She’s hurt, man. She’s hurting bad.”

  Any joy I had in me leaves my body, and again, I’m crushed. I can’t believe I did this to her. I’m not worthy of being in the same room as her. As much as I want to believe things have changed, I just don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I’m ready. I’ve done so many bad things. There’s so much past there, and I don’t know if I can jeopardize it, bringing that into her life more than I already have. “She’ll have to get over it.”

  Decker’s glare hits me in the side of my skull. “Wait, we did all this shit…” He takes a deep breath and stares lasers at the wall on the other side of the room, then turns back to me. “Not even us. She did all this for you, and you’re not even going to try? Did you not hear us? She’s the reason you’re getting out of here. She’s the reason you still have a fucking license.” He looks like he’s about to hit me right in the side of my face.

  His brothers all glare at me the same way.

  I lean back in my chair and let my head hit the wall behind me with a thud. “Look at me. Look at my fucking life, regardless. My name’s not even Rick. Everything was a lie. Do you know how bad I already hurt her? Do you know the things I said to her? You and me in the office was mild compared to how I treated
her. How the hell do I make up for that?”

  Donavan grinds his teeth. “You act like a man.” He shakes his head right at me. “Know what? Fuck this; I just watched her go full-on manic mode the last two days, doing the work of a damn entire legal team for you. Fucking nut up and quit feeling sorry for yourself. She believes in you, so you can believe in yourself. I don’t care if we have to kick your ass all the way back to the office.”

  Deacon and Dexter both nod in agreement.

  “Goddamn right,” says Decker, but he leans down in front of me, and actually looks compassionate for once. He lowers his voice. “I get it, you’ve been through some shit. More shit than any of us have ever been through.” He points at my chest. “But you need to stop being that guy. You were never that guy. Tabula rasa, you have a clean slate now. This is your chance to step up and be the man you need to be for the woman you love. You’ve never been a little bitch, no matter what name you used. Stop acting like one.”

  I finally nod. Fuck it, they’re right. I’ll never be my own man if I let my past define me. I crushed Mary, and she still went through all this for me. She gave her best effort to fight for me when nobody else would. I should’ve never stopped fighting for her. I should’ve been right there with her the whole time, told her the truth, then made a plan. I could’ve avoided all this to begin with if I’d just opened up to her, accepted her help.

  If I don’t go after her, my father wins. He fucking wins, and I’ll be goddamned if I let his actions dictate who I’m going to be. “Fuck that, you guys are right.”

  Decker throws up a hand. “Finally, he’s in there. Praise the Lord, eat some crackers and shit, or whatever the fuck you two do. Now, can we all get back to work and be normal again, so I can stop dealing with this teenage drama bullshit?”

  I glare up at him, then burst into a laugh. “This really is killing you, isn’t it?”

  He reaches for his head like he has a migraine. “Fuck yeah it is.”