by Hamel, B. B.
“If it’s an apartment building, we can just wait for someone to come out before we go in.”
“True. Good point. But if it’s not?”
“I’ll buzz her and say I have a package she might want.”
“You’re not making a penis joke right now, are you?”
He gave me a little sideways grin. “Yes. Penis joke.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, whatever. What if that doesn’t work?”
“Then we stake her out. We’ll wait until she comes outside. She’ll have to leave her apartment sooner or later.”
“That could be hours.”
“Could be days, princess. Think you can handle it?”
I gave him an annoyed look. If he could handle it, then so could I.
“Of course,” I said.
“Good. So that’s the plan.”
“What about when we get in there?”
“We ask her where the pictures are. And if she won’t talk, we make her.”
“You are not going to torture this girl.”
“What kind of guy do you think I am?”
“Crazy.”
“Maybe,” he said, laughing, “but I don’t hurt women, even ones that are blackmailing me.”
“Fine. How will you get her to talk?”
“I’ll threaten her, try and scare her. If that doesn’t work, we’ll offer to pay her.”
“And if none of that works?”
“Then we’ll figure something else out.” He paused, watching the road. “Relax, Alex. We’ll make this work.”
“Fine, but when this goes horribly wrong, you can’t blame me.”
He smirked at me. “What could possibly go wrong?”
I shook my head at him. “I wish you hadn’t just said that.”
Fifteen minutes, we parked a few blocks away from the address and walked over. It turned out that she lived in a pretty large apartment building.
“What now?” I asked him.
“Now we wait for someone to come out or to go in, and we follow them.”
I nodded. “Okay then.” I leaned up against the wall and he leaned up next to me.
Things had been tense between us ever since we had gotten back from the banquet hall. I couldn’t believe how incredibly soaked I had been, and how badly I had wanted him. Still, part of me had known it would have been a bad idea to give in to him, and so I had ended up closing the door and locking him out.
But I couldn’t stop myself. I had to get off, had to do something about all the difficult feelings swirling around inside me. I couldn’t believe that I was so wound up that I actually moaned his name out loud. Afterward, I was so embarrassed, almost positive he had heard me; I thought I had even heard him outside my door. But no, that couldn’t have been right.
Still, it was so much harder than I had thought it would to keep my hands off him. I wanted to grab his thick biceps and pull him against me, but that would only have complicated things needlessly.
“Got another fight coming,” he grunted suddenly.
“What?”
“I got another fight coming up soon.”
“Oh, that’s awesome.”
“It’s against Trent.”
That name rang a bell. “He was the guy Ronnie talked about?”
“Yeah. The one and only.”
“Your nemesis or whatever.”
“Fuck nemesis,” he said, shaking his head. “That guy is just a dick.”
I watched as a few people came walking down the sidewalk, but nobody was going in or coming out of the building.
“Why do you hate him anyway?”
“Long story.”
“We’re not doing much.”
“Okay then.” He launched into the whole story, beginning with his early days training with Trent and ending with the fight.
“Wow,” I said once he was finished. “He almost killed you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Almost ended my career at least.”
“Why?”
“Because the guy is a hothead.”
“You’re a hothead too, you know.”
He grinned at me. “I’m just hot.”
“Not what I said.”
What an arrogant ass. Even when he was opening up to me, he could somehow manage to turn it into a cocky joke.
But still, he was opening up to me. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just to have something to talk about, or maybe he genuinely wanted to share his feelings with me. The story about Trent made him look vulnerable and human for the first time since we had met. Before, he had seemed indestructible; now, he seemed tough as nails, but still a person.
“Yeah, well, MMA attracts a certain kind of guy,” he said.
“Clearly.”
“But we’re still professionals, you know? The goal isn’t to actually murder your opponent. It’s to win the fight. Most of us know the difference, but there are a few that are out just to injure everyone they see.”
“And Trent’s like that?”
“When he gets angry, yeah.”
I watched a few cars crawl by. The sun had dipped down below the horizon, and so I took my sunglasses off. It was a comfortable evening, but I wanted to move closer to Cole anyway for warmth. He didn’t react as my arm touched his, our flanks practically pressed together.
“What about you? Are you like that when you get angry?”
He was silent for a second. “Yeah, I am,” he said finally. “But I don’t let myself get to that point.”
“How can you control it?”
“It’s not easy, but there are ways. Techniques, mental and breathing stuff, the sorts of things that can help you focus during really stressful situations.”
“Is that what you do when I get close to you?”
He raised an eyebrow and broke out into a huge smile. “Well, well, well. Was that your attempt at a dirty joke?”
I laughed, not able to help myself. “I guess so. You’re rubbing off on me.”
“Not yet, but I’d love to.”
I rolled my eyes. “There we go. For a second there I thought you were a human and not a total jackass.”
“You started it, sis,” he said. His face and lips were so close to mine, and I felt my breath coming in sharp and jagged.
The total opposite of what kept me calm, actually. He had that effect on me every time he got closer than a few feet. And yet I let myself get that close all the time because I loved it, loved the thrill in my chest, the hammering of my heart, the anticipation of what would happen next.
“I may have started it, but you’re always one step away.”
He had a huge, cocky grin on his face. “And don’t ever forget it.”
His lips were moving closer to mine. I could smell him. Everything about him filled my senses, flooded my mind. And then I caught something out of the corner of my eye, something glinting, something moving.
“Cole,” I whispered.
“Alexa, just give in to what you need,” he said.
“Cole,” I said louder.
He looked puzzled, his face inches from mine. “What?”
“Door!”
He spun around and saw it: a man had hustled out of the door, talking on his phone.
Cole moved faster than I thought he could. One second he was near me and the next he was lunging for the handle.
The guy on the phone didn’t even notice as Cole caught it just before the door clicked shut. He yanked it open, grinning hugely at me.
“See! I told you.”
“We almost missed because of you,” I said.
“Your fault, actually.”
I followed him inside, sighing loudly.
“Told you this would be easy,” he said as we walked toward the elevator.
“The hard part starts now, actually.”
“Which apartment?”
“3-C.”
“Got it.” He hit the button and we climbed into the elevator. We rode it up to the third floor. I spent the whole agonizingly slow r
ide trying not to look at him, trying to forget that I had been inches away from kissing him again. All because he had been vulnerable, or at least as vulnerable and human as Cole was capable of being.
The door opened and he walked down the short hall, whistling to himself.
“Shh,” I hissed at him. “Be quiet.”
“Why? We’re just delivery people.” He smirked at me.
“But wait—”
Before I could stop him, he pounded on 3-C’s door loudly.
“FedEx. Got a package,” he grunted.
I stared at him wide-eyed. Quickly, he moved off to the side, pushing me up against the wall. We stayed there quietly and listened as someone came to the door.
“Hello?” she called out.
“Yeah, it’s a big one,” Cole grunted. “You order a refrigerator or something?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Let’s go, lady. This thing is heavy as hell.”
There was a slight pause, and then the sound of locks clicking. Cole was practically buzzing with joy as the door swung open.
Marla was a bit shorter than me, maybe five foot four inches, and she was practically a dwarf compared to Cole. Her chestnut-brown hair was cropped short, and her nose was covered in freckles. She looked like she hadn’t showered in a day or two, and she was wearing sweats.
“Marla?” Cole asked.
Her eyes practically popped out of her head.
“I guess you know who we are,” he said, smiling. “Can we talk?”
Marla didn’t say a word. She just tried to slam the door in Cole’s face.
But he was too fast. He stuck his hand out, stopping it. He pushed it back open, but Marla was gone, already darting back into her apartment.
“Cole, wait!” I said as he followed her inside.
“Don’t be slow!” he shouted back at me.
I moved after them, entering the girl’s small apartment. It was nicely decorated with some decent thrift-store artwork on the walls and nice second-hand furniture, but it looked more like a student’s crash pad than where an actual working adult lived.
The living room was empty, and Cole was stalking across the place toward the bedroom.
“Marla, open up,” he called out. “Don’t make me break this door.”
There was no sound from the bedroom.
“Cole,” I said nervously, “I’m pretty sure we just broke into this girl’s apartment.
“Nah. She opened the door.”
“That doesn’t mean we can just barge in and smash whatever we want.”
“Sure it does.”
Without another word, he kicked the door just above the handle. It buckled but didn’t break. He kicked again and it burst inward, the frame splintering slightly.
We charged inside. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I was pretty positive we were going to end up in jail for a very long time for this, but it was too exciting and Cole was too magnetic for me to turn around and stop.
The bedroom was neat, similar to the living room. I noticed her desk had a laptop plus a nice camera and another smaller camera.
“Fuck,” Cole said.
He charged across the room, and I noticed that her window was wide open.
“She went out the fire escape,” he yelled.
I opened my mouth to stop him, but he was already jumping out and climbing down.
“Marla!” I heard him shout. “Stop!”
I ran to the window and saw him running down. The rickety stairs were practically tearing away from the wall, and I was waiting for the whole thing to go crashing down. Marla was halfway to the bottom.
“I’ll go around front!” I yelled, and I turned and sprinted back through her bedroom. I tore down the hallway, my head buzzing with excitement, and dove into the staircase. I didn’t think I had ever ran down steps so fast. I took them practically four at a time, flying down the landings, and burst out into the bottom floor hallway.
I shoved through the front door and ran out front.
Nobody was there.
“Cole!” I yelled. “Where are you?”
I moved toward the side of the building with the fire escape. I jogged, worried they had both gotten away already.
Suddenly something bowled into me head-first.
I didn’t have time to say anything, because we went down together in a tangle of limbs. Whatever hit me immediately began to struggle and try to scramble to its feet.
“Stop her!” I heard Cole’s voice and realized that Marla was the one trying to untangle herself from my limbs.
Without thinking, I wrapped my arms and legs around her and pinned her down.
“Ah! Fuck!” she yelled, trying to get away. “Help me!”
“Stop, Marla,” I grunted at her, working hard to keep her still.
A few seconds later, I felt a pair of strong hands grab Marla and lift her up into the air.
“Let me go, you prick!” Marla screamed.
I stood up slowly, catching my breath. I ached in a hundred places, but I was okay otherwise.
“You good?” Cole asked me, holding Marla while she struggled.
“I’m good.”
There wasn’t anybody around, which was damn lucky, because I was pretty sure it looked like we were abducting the poor girl. Actually, was that what we were doing?
“Cole, let’s go into the alley.”
He nodded and carried Marla back toward the fire escape and away from the sidewalk.
We stopped near some dumpsters.
“Can I put you down?” Cole asked Marla.
She sighed and went limp. “Fine.”
He let her down softly. She looked like she wanted to bolt but thought better of it.
“Well?” Cole asked.
“It wasn’t my idea!” she said instantly, her eyes wide.
He gave me a look and I shook my head. “What wasn’t, Marla?” I asked her.
“The pictures.”
Cole looked smug, and I felt my heart skip a beat. “You took them?” he asked.
“Of you two kissing, yeah,” she said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“It is,” Cole said, “but we weren’t sure you actually did it.”
“Shit,” she said.
“Where are they, Marla?” I asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“You know this shit can ruin my whole family’s life, right?” Cole growled at her. “I don’t like when people fuck with my family.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know who they were when I took the job.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her. “Who hired you?”
She held up her hands. “Look, she said it was just a normal job. I take a few pictures of the rich San Fran elite, I get paid like normal.”
“So why are you afraid, then?” Cole asked. “You seem to know about the blackmail.”
Marla nodded. “I overheard her on the phone after I made the drop. I didn’t mean to. I went into the bathroom and she just made the call. I guess she forgot I was listening?”
“What did she say?
“Just that they were going to send the letter soon and now that they had pictures, they could finally destroy your family, or whatever. I put two and two together.”
“Who is she, Marla?” Cole cut in.
Marla cocked her head. “You really don’t know?”
“Tell us,” he growled.
“I don’t know her name,” Marla said quickly, “and I don’t know who she’s working with, but I’ve seen her hovering around Mrs. Redson. A little shrill, blond, stuck up.”
My heart nearly stopped. I looked at Cole. “Madison.”
He looked like he had come to the same conclusion.
“Yeah. Her assistant, I think,” Marla said.
“Are you sure about that?” Cole asked.
“Man, it’s my job to know these people. That’s why I get paid so much.” She looked afraid, and she went on quickly. “But I don�
�t do blackmail. You have to believe me! I’ve been hiding out ever since I found out what they were doing.”
Cole stared at her seriously for a second, and I put my hand on his arm.
“Cole,” I said softly, “I think she’s telling the truth.”
He nodded slowly. “She better be,” he growled. “Or else I’ll be back.”
Marla squeaked. “I’m not lying!”
Cole stepped away, moving back toward the sidewalk. Marla relaxed visibly, clearly scared shitless of Cole. I didn’t blame her; Cole could be terrifying, all muscle and intensity. I was even a little frightened of him at the moment even though I knew he would never hurt me.
“Listen, Marla,” I said softly, “do you know anything else that can help us?”
“No. I’m sorry. I don’t even know who she works with.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “We’re sorry about the doors, and about chasing you.”
“So, uh, you’re not going to call the cops on me?”
I choked back the desire to laugh as I realized that Marla thought we were going to have her arrested. She was probably terrified that she was going to get caught up in a blackmail case, and she probably thought she was going to go to jail for it.
“No,” I said. “You’re fine. Just lie low for a little while, okay?”
“Sure, yeah. I can do that.”
“Thanks, Marla.”
She nodded like a frightened squirrel. I smiled at her gently and then turned and walked away.
My mind was buzzing with all of this. I found Cole standing against the car, shaking his head and grinning at me.
“I can’t believe that worked,” he said.
I gaped at him. That arrogant bastard! “You mean you weren’t sure,” I said, incredulously.
“Hell no,” he replied. “We broke into that girl’s apartment. That shit’s insane.”
“Isn’t that what you did to the paparazzi guy?”
“He’s different. He’s a professional. Probably gets that all the time. This is some normal-ass girl we’re talking about.”
“Fortunately for us, she thinks she’s in trouble for the blackmail stuff. So I think we’re calling it even.”
Cole grunted and nodded. I leaned up against the car next to him.
“Your mom’s assistant,” I said softly.
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“She’s Cindy Redson. She hires the most intense and ruthless people she can find.” He looked at me and grinned. “You know, people just like her.”