by Maya Rossi
“Danny and Janet still giving you trouble?” the old Sheriff asked.
He was the closest person Brayden had to a father and he couldn’t stomach lying to the older man. “Yes. I had to pay him off with a hundred percent increase.”
“A hundred percent? That’s too much!”
“And yet they don’t do what I pay them to, keep their mouth shut.”
“Brayden, when are you going to learn you don’t pay for everything? Not everything comes at a price. Some gifts are better enjoyed freely given.”
“Speak for yourself, sir. It has worked for me always, nothing comes without a price.”
“And how’s that been working for you with Danny? I’ve told you to let me throw them in jail, I can rustle something up, God knows it won’t be hard,” he muttered.
“I might come over on the weekend, I wrapped everything up at this end.” Brayden frowned at Garth who was waving frantically at him to drop the phone. There was a time when he found Garth’s near apoplectic need for perfection amusing, now it irritated him to no end.
He wrapped the call up quickly and gave Garth his attention.
“I can’t believe Danny would do this,” Garth was saying as he tapped on his tablet. Rounding the table, he stood alongside Brayden to show him a video.
Brayden went cold all over as he watched along with millions of people the altercation with Danny. It was a public relations nightmare. As if on cue, his phone rang. Garth picked it up, his doe-like eyes filled with concern.
“It’s Luke,” he said. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Obviously, or he wouldn’t be calling.” Brayden closed his eyes, fingers at his temples. No way Danny released and recorded the video, he broke his ankle for God’s sake. The culprit was likely still within the building.
“Sir?”
“Brayden? What should I tell him? I can forward the details of Danny’s last four squatters. We can track him from there.”
Brayden opened his eyes. Twisting his neck from side to side, he considered his record of gathering publicity and shooting to the top of the trending list he usually shunned that kind of publicity. The first had been the mess with Ava. God, Ava.
“Brayden?”
“I will handle this myself, tell him not to worry.”
Garth shook his head, the almost angelic fall of blonde hair across his brow catching the light. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t really care what you’re sure of. Please, just relay my message to Luke. I will get back to you on Danny.”
Brayden put in the next call to an exclusive security agency. As the phone rang, he arched an eyebrow at Garth. “What now?” he mouthed.
“Ava’s here.”
How had he thought someone as beautiful and pure as Ava would want to be friends without asking for anything in return? Brayden couldn’t stop his eyes drinking every inch of her features. There were dark circles under her eyes and her eyes danced widely without meeting his. Ava was not a woman who demurred. Something was wrong. “I thought you said you never wanted to see me again.” Brayden perched on the edge of his desk.
She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But she was the only one who didn’t remind him of his mother. Aside from that failed interview she had never asked anything of him and it left him uncomfortable. Ava and Hannah were the two uneven beats in his life.
Ava raised eyes swollen with tears to his. “This time, it’s my fault. I take full responsibility. I’m so sorry.”
Unable to deal with her tears, he turned to the windows. “Please, stop crying. Clean your tears and say what you came to say.”
The sound of sniffling and blowing nose almost made him smile. Almost. “Okay, okay. I’m alright but the situation is…terrible.”
“Tell it like a story or one of you news articles--”
“Oh, God.” She practically gagged.
Brayden gritted his teeth and waited her out. When her tears subsided, he turned around. “Once, I would have loved nothing than to take you into my arms and give you comfort. But you made that impossible when you ran off at the first sight of trouble.”
“I had Eddy--”
“Do you now?”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip to still their trembling. When she spoke, her words came out in broken whispers, “I found him with Nance. Obviously, he’s been getting a part of me from her.”
“I’m sorry, I know how much you wanted a family.” Brayden let himself get close, stooping to his haunches at her side. “But that isn’t why you’re here, is it?”
Ava reached for him. Brayden stilled his body not to flinch. Her trembling fingers stopped just short of his cheeks and drew back. “After the huh-- after the interview, I wrote a piece. I wanted to capture, huh, reevaluate what went through my mind during the interview.”
A cold hard stone settled low in Brayden’s gut. “What part?”
“Huh?”
“What part of the interview did you need to, reevaluate?”
“The end,” she whispered.
Brayden vaulted to his feet and reached for his desk phone. “Garth? Get Luke for me.”
Garth laughed shakily. “I knew he would better handle--”
“Now.”
He gave Ava his full attention. “What was the title of this piece of careful reevaluation?”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. “Coward or champion.”
Brayden dropped his head to his chest for a full minute, staggered to his core. “If I had offered money or a promotion for your very valuable friendship, would this have happened?”
Looking every inch adorably bewildered, Ava shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“In your opinion, am I a coward?”
“I swear to God, it wasn’t me. I told you I broke up with Eddy, he took my--”
“You only have to answer a yes or no.”
She grabbed a throw pillow off his office couch and threw it with all her might. Chest heaving in anger, Ava answered, “Personally, no--”
“But professionally yes?” Brayden goaded her softly. He would have enjoyed this back and forth were he not the victim.
“For God’s sake, that’s the point isn’t it? My personal opinion shouldn’t stop me from creating an objective analysis. It’s my job, that’s why I broke off our friendship.”
Brayden straightened, steeling his heart not to soften at the sight of her tear filled eyes. He had a public relations nightmare on his hands. “I guess it’s truly over now.”
Chapter twelve
“How many of your relatives are still alive, Sir?” James, a representative from the security agency asked.
“Just two,” Brayden replied shortly. “How does that have anything to do with the job I hired you for?”
“Just two?”
“My mother, Sarah Jacobs and Hannah my stepsister.”
“What about your father?”
“He’s dead. What’s going on?”
James handed over some files. “For the past two years, exactly six environmental causes has been created in your name, under the auspices of this foundation, whoever it is has raised approximately ten million dollars for these causes.”
Brayden didn’t blink. But deep inside his heart sank down to his toes. “And where has the money gone?”
For the first time since he asked to see Brayden outside the office, James hesitated.
“Where?”
“The trail leads to you but I’m not sure.”
He let the file drop to the ground between them. A scam in Benjamin’s foundation. With his eyes, he traced the letters, BMF across the letterhead and felt sick to his stomach. His head began to pound something fierce and his mouth went dry.
Brayden lurched to his feet. “I’m going to be sick.”
When Brayden returned, he was in control but lightheaded. Feeling fragile and out of sorts, he held out his hand to James. “Thank you for your time, you do good work.”
“You read minds too?”
“One trail leads to you but they are other suspects and the public will find out during your next audit. When’s that?”
“In two weeks.”
The moment James stepped out, his private phone rang. One glance at the caller I.D, Brayden walked over to his bar to get a bottle of his most expensive whiskey. He threw back a shot before returning the call.
“Mother.”
“Your father’s lawyer came to see me because you weren’t picking his calls.”
Eyes closed, breathing rigidly controlled, Brayden had to fight reverting to his five years old self. “Mother--”
“I don’t deserve his disturbance.”
“Yes, mother. I’m sorry, please.”
“Call him.”
The next call was to Jerry, the prosecutor assigned to Joseph Sidwell’s case. The man picked up on the first ring.
“Brayden, I’ve been trying to get to you.”
“You shouldn’t. I warned you the last time. I have no father, tell him to consider me dead.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“To hell with that. It’s easy, tell him I do it every day. When he thinks of his family, he should erase Brayden from his memory and consider him dead. And Jerry?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t report me to my mother again.”
∞∞∞
“I should tell you Brayden, the news isn’t good.” Luke announced before he sat down.
“And if that’s your professional assessment, I might as well hire my teenage step sister who has already called this morning to state her concerns.”
“The YES sports awards this year is set to be one of the most watched events this year. The public wants to know whether you’ll attend, whether you’ll have the courage to show your face.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Add the Ava interview, the ‘Coward or Champion’ article which I should point out has been trending for a week since it was released and the latest rumors and we have the equivalent of a nuclear disaster in our hands. Let’s not forget the Danny video. Brayden we can’t sit back and take the punches. You are not that kind of fighter, we have to fight back.”
Luke placed both hands on his office desk. “You’re a brawler Brayden, a one in a lifetime generational talent. I will be damned if I let a journeyman like Highland use you to shine.”
Brayden wasn’t listening. “Take it back.”
“What?”
“What rumors were you talking about?”
Mystified, Luke’s forehead creased in confusion. “About the foundation, money gone missing or something. They’re just rumors and my social media team are on it as--”
“Take it to the top of your priority list.”
“Brayden--”
“I want that fire quenched as ruthlessly as if I were delivering the punch, do you understand? Forget about Highland. I’ll handle him.”
“I think you’re making a mistake.”
With a quick prayer for self control, Brayden breathed through his nose and let it out slowly. “Make those BMF rumors the most important thing in your life this week, silence the questions and I’ll reward you handsomely.”
“You’ve weathered worse.” Luke was clearly puzzled. “You’ve beat down every challenger you’ve ever faced. What makes this special?”
Brayden shook his head. “Get to work, Luke. There’s not much time.”
Was it any wonder he eschewed award shows? There were millions of children, men and women living in the worst conditions, dying from curable diseases and here some of the richest and most pampered people in the world gathered in opulence to stroke their swollen egos.
Standing with a group determined to convince him just how wonderful he was, Brayden nursed his drink and fought to push the call with his mother where it belonged. But like everything that involved his mother, he just could not. Where his mother was concerned he was far from a champion. He was a coward through and through.
“Yes,” he replied to a question put to him without thinking.
The person, a foremost promoter who handled young talent with a finesse and care unusual in their plodding profession beamed his thanks and moved on. More like ran off. It wasn’t a feeling Brayden was used to arousing in people. The hair on the back of his neck tingled and he raised his head, and just in time too because Ryan Highland came barreling towards him with all the force of a pit bull.
Brayden cursed under his breath. Quickly he surveyed the on rushing interim champion, calculating the path of least resistance. With his hands shoved into the pocket of his bespoke suit, he looked the picture of gentlemanly elegance but inwardly Brayden seethed. He hated being manipulated and Highland was clearly looking for cheap publicity.
Two things were clear. One, he couldn’t turn away from the in your face challenge. Two, he had to control the outcome and win. He threw back his drink and shoved the glass at a waiter. As they collided, he swiveled to protect his healing shoulder, rolling with Ryan’s punch, deceiving him into thinking he had made a hit before shoving him at his grinning promoter, Isaac Foreman.
The promoter screamed like a girl when Ryan clashed against him. That’s what it means to take a punch Mr Foreman, Brayden thought.
Thirty minutes later, on his way back from the disastrous YES awards, Brayden undid his tie in the back seat of his car. His muscles spasmed with boiling anger and resentment at being manipulated. There was no reason for the throw down but cheap publicity for a fight he didn’t want. That throw down had Isaac’s name written all over it.
Brayden groaned out loud. A living darkness he had always feared, one mother was sure he could never run away from threatened to get out. “Let me out,” he ordered his driver brusquely.
“Are you sure?”
Brayden jerked the door open and jumped out of the moving car. He rolled his body along the curb before smoothly getting to his feet. What he really deserved was to jump into an incoming car but the roads were empty.
He ran twelve miles to the gym. By the time the old garage turned boxing gym appeared in the distance, Brayden was calmer. The doors rolled up automatically, and he spotted Ryan sitting dejectedly on the corner of their boxing ring.
Rolling his shoulders to relieve the tension, Brayden got out of his ruined suit, leaving the clothes by the door. It was something he never did, not once since the three years he and Ryan became friends.
“Deborah will feel honored you left a mess for her to clean up. Brayden ‘The gentleman’ Marshall.”
“Let’s spar.”
Brayden stalked to their locker room and changed into athletic shorts and his latest boxing shoes released after a groundbreaking partnership with an athletic apparel giant. He could feel rather than see Ryan changing and taking his place in the ring behind him.
Six brutal rounds later, Brayden sat on a low bench, wheezing as he watched Deborah rouse a knocked out Ryan. He was out of shape and past due for a fight. But tonight had made it impossible to fight no one but Ryan, Isaac had neatly manipulated them both into a corner.
Worse, after the public bout today, his reputation would take another beating.
“You’ll kill him if you both ever make it into the ring,” Deborah said, running a calming hand over her husband’s brow.
Brayden managed a smile, surprised at Deborah’s ability to draw one from him. She was those motherly types that spent more time washing their husband’s clothes and cooking in the kitchen than having a single free time for themselves.
“He wasn’t himself today. We usually last thirteen rounds. If I fought him in my condition, I’m finished.”
“Which condition?” Deborah arched an eyebrow, tucking her honey blonde hair behind her ear. “You mean in super shape?”
“See me gassed after just six rounds? T
hat’s what I mean. An elite fighter can’t afford to be gassed out. In the sixth round no less.”
Ryan joined them with a loud groan. He held his head between his hands. “I need it to stop hurting.”
“You chose boxing.” Deborah ruffled his hair. Grinning, he kissed his wife. She smacked his chest lightly and went off to get Brayden’s clothes.