Going for Gold (9 page)

Just when I reached the door, Rodrigo said, "Hold
on."

I spun around and looked at him.

"There's one more thing I wanted to show you. Isadora,
can you grab my computer?"

Isadora walked past me into the hallway and returned a second
later carrying a laptop. She opened it and put it on Rodrigo's lap. He typed a
few things and then turned the laptop around so I could see it. It looked like
some sort of crappy quality YouTube video.

"Does this look familiar?" asked Rodrigo.

"Not really."

"Let me switch to a better view." He hit a button
and the screen changed to a video feed of Emily sitting at her desk in her dorm
room typing on her computer.

I balled my fists.
That mother fucker.
While Emily was
out, Rodrigo must have had someone sneak into her room and plant cameras. I
suddenly realized that I had slightly underestimated Rodrigo. I originally
thought he was some two-bit thug trying to intimidate me into helping him. But
that wasn't the case. He had probably been planning this for months, setting up
an international network and thoroughly researching his marks. There was no
doubt in my mind that he knew my entire history and that I'd do anything to
keep Em safe. He was three steps ahead of me.

"I hate to be unpleasant," said Rodrigo, "but
it would be bad business to not have an insurance policy to keep my assets from
skipping town in the middle of a job."

"I assume you've done your research about me," I
said.

"I have."

"Did you happen to come across any information about my
last foster parents? The one's who weren't very kind to my sister?"

"Yes. Horrible tragedy."

"Was it?" I said, raising an eyebrow. Maybe
Rodrigo's research hadn't been that thorough after all.

"Now you're a tough guy, huh? Nice try, but I'm not
buying it. Call the police, mess up a mission, or try to fuck me over in any
way, and my friend Vitor is going to blow your sister's brains out." He
pretended to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. "Are we
clear?"

Every word out of his disgusting mouth made my blood boil. I
was going to kill him. "Are you sure that's how you want to play
this?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Alright then."
Big mistake, asshole.
"I hope you're making the right choice."

"Enough with the tough guy shit. Just check your emails
every morning and don't do anything stupid that's going to get your sister
killed. Isadora can vouch for me; I'm not fucking around."

For the first time, I could see emotion in Isadora's eyes.
She nodded her head slowly. I wondered what horrible thing Rodrigo had done to
one of her family members, but whatever it was, it had been enough to scare her
into being his sex slave.

"Don't worry, you'll win your bet," I said.

"Good. Then your sister will live and you'll be fifteen
thousand dollars richer. Everyone walks away happy."

"We'll see."

He ignored my comment. "It's a pleasure doing business
with you, Bryce. I hope you aren't as disappointing as my last operative. I'd
hate for this to end the same way that it ended for him. Cristiano will drive
you to wherever you need to go."

Monday

Alina

"Guys, this isn't funny. He left before us. He should
have been back by now."

"Alina, I'm sure he'll be here any second," Kristen
said. "His crazy driver probably got lost or something."

My phone buzzed and I quickly swiped my finger across the
screen.

"Holy shit," Alex said.

I looked up and saw that they had all received the same text
message alert. It was about a missing ITA athlete, last seen in a town on the
outskirts of the athletes' village earlier tonight. There was a picture of him
in the alert. I had seen him before. His name was Liam. He was on the Canadian
swim team. He had competed in a few races against Chris.

"What if whoever picked up Bryce was somehow involved
with this guy disappearing?" I asked. "Maybe they saw the three of
you dressed up as mustachioed Canadians the other night and..."

"Shhh!" Tim hissed. "Keep your voice down.
Don't bring up the operation in public."

"No one is targeting Canadian athletes," Alex said.
"Everyone loves Canadians."

"Yao Kai isn't thrilled with Canadians right now. Since
we ripped his pants and he thinks we're all Canadian."

"So you think the Chinese government is going around
kidnapping Canadian athletes because of a prank? It's China, not North
Korea."

"I don't know." My phone buzzed again. But it still
wasn't Bryce. It was another alert. The director of the ITA was suggesting that
all athletes stay inside the athletes' village until Liam was located. For our
own safety.

"Okay, I'm going to call him," Alex said. Before he
made the call, his phone buzzed again. Alex laughed. "He's fine.
Apparently his Uber driver got him back super fast and took the bumpiest route
possible. He felt car sick so he went back to our room. I told him to lay off
eating so many brigadeiros."

I took a deep breath.
Thank God.
"What a
relief."

Alex smiled at me. "I'll let him know how worried you
were."

I laughed. "I mean, we were all worried." I wasn't
sure why I was denying it. They had all been joking around and I had been
worried he was kidnapped with Liam.

"Mhm," Alex said. "Come on, Tim, let's go see
if he's okay." He slapped Tim on the back.

Tim bowed slightly. "Ladies."

Kristen giggled.

Tim immediately grabbed her hand. "Until tomorrow."
He kissed the back of her hand.

"See you later, guys," Alex said and started to
walk away.

"Guys?" Tim dropped Kristen's hand and ran after
Alex. "They're women. You're always so disrespectful."

I tuned out the rest of their conversation and turned toward
Kristen. "You like him?"

"What? Psh." Kristen walked past me in the
direction of our dorm.

"Are you denying it?"

"I'm not the one denying anything." She raised her
eyebrow at me.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Clearly you like Bryce."

Kristen knew me better than anyone. And she always knew when
I was lying. I was starting to feel butterflies in my stomach just thinking
about seeing Bryce at the game tomorrow. Bryce. Even his name was sexy.
"Yeah, I do."

Kristen squealed. "I knew it!"

I couldn't hide the smile that had spread across my face.
There were a million reasons why I shouldn't be feeling the way I was feeling
right now. But I didn't care. "I really like him, Kristen."

She threw her arms around me. "I told you everything
would be okay."

"But..."

"No buts!" She pulled away from me. "You can
get over Chris, win Gold, and get Bryce. For once in your life you're allowed
to have it all. If you don't stop worrying, you're going to miss out on living,
Alina."

Yesterday I felt like I had lost everything. I needed time.

"We're in Brazil. Did you ever think we'd end up
here?" She looked up at the stars above us. "We worked so hard. We
deserve to enjoy this moment."

I looked up too. She was right. I took a deep breath. It was
time to start living. I'd never forgive myself if I let Chris ruin the most
amazing week of my life.

Monday

Bryce

My hands were shaking as I clicked on Em's name in my phone.

"Hi!" Em said after just a few rings. "Are you
calling me to tell me you won over that girl you're crushing on already?"

I put my face in my hand and exhaled. I just needed to hear
her voice. I needed to know that she was okay.

"Bryce?" This time her voice sounded concerned.

I cleared my throat. "Yeah. It's me. Sorry, the
reception here is pretty shoddy."

"Is everything okay?"

It will be.
"Yeah. You were right. I was calling
to brag about my date."

Em laughed. "It went that well for you? What happened to
the complication?"

"She was dating the biggest scum bag on Team USA. He
cheated on her with this girl that used to bully her in school. He's a complete
asshole."

"Wow. What a dick. So they're definitely done?"

"I think so."

"Well, it sounds like things just got a little less
complicated. When's your next date?"

Less complicated? Yeah, right. Hearing Em's voice had calmed
me down, but things were definitely still complicated. What the hell was I
supposed to do when I got Rodrigo's first demand? What was he going to want me
to do?

"Bryce?"

I ran my hand through my hair. "Sorry, I'm still here.
I'm going to her game tomorrow."

"That's so cute."

I laughed. "So cute!" I said in a high pitched,
valley girl voice.

"So cute!' she said in an even higher pitched, squeakier
voice.

We both laughed.

"I have to get back to studying, Bryce. Good luck on
your second date. Love you!"

"I love you too, Em." I looked down at my phone as
soon as the line went dead. I had three text messages from Alina asking if I
was okay. I smiled to myself. She was worried about me. Granted, she should
have been. I was fucking kidnapped. But my friends hadn't texted me at all.
Alina cared, and that was a really good start. I was about to text her back
when I saw I had a few more unread messages. The first was an alert about a
missing ITA athlete. A Canadian swimmer named Liam Clark. He had last been seen
in a town near the athletes' village earlier tonight. The other message was
another alert. The director of the ITA was suggesting that all athletes stay
inside the athletes' village until Liam was found. For our own safety.

I didn't think it was a coincidence that news about the
disappearance of an athlete came through right after I had talked to Rodrigo.
He was most likely Rodrigo's last operative. And I had a sinking feeling that
Liam wasn't just missing. Rodrigo had said he'd hate to see it end the same way
for me as it ended for him. Liam was most likely dead.

Instead of texting Alina back, I sent a message to Alex,
saying I got sick on the way home. I couldn't talk to Alina right now. The
butterflies in my stomach had disappeared and now my insides felt like they
were twisting. Maybe I was going to be sick.

I pulled the phone out that Rodrigo had given me. There
weren't any new messages in the drafts folder. Maybe he'd never send anything.
Was it possible he had more operatives? I couldn't be the only one. How was I
supposed to get any results by myself? And if I got caught sabotaging the
games, I'd end up in some Brazilian prison. I wasn't Tim. I wouldn't do well in
prison.

What the fuck was I going to do?

Tuesday

Bryce

My morning walk over to the practice arena had quickly become
one of my favorite parts of my daily routine at the ITAs. I would always leave
a few minutes before Tim and Alex and grab a breakfast bar at my favorite food
stand and then take the long way to the practice arena. They were both awesome,
but living with them was a little much. These few minutes every morning were
exactly what I needed to stay sane.

But today, my walk served another purpose. It was the first
time I could look at Rodrigo's phone since last night without Tim and Alex
looking over my shoulder.

I took a deep breath and pulled the phone out of my backpack.
Maybe there won't be any messages.
Maybe Rodrigo will have forgotten
about me.
I clicked on the email folder and smiled when it came up empty.
Then I remembered that he said we'd be communicating through drafts to leave
less of a trail.
Damn.

I opened up the drafts folder and clicked on the message:

Your expertise is required for two events taking place
tomorrow. Win your race, and make sure that Marco Kramer loses in the Table
Tennis finals. I don't think I need to remind you what's at stake here.

I already intended to win my race, but knowing that Em's life
depended on it did make me slightly more nervous. Sabotaging the competition
crossed my mind for a split second, but I quickly buried the thought. I had
worked my whole life for this race. I could do this.

Marco Kramer was a whole different matter though. A quick
Google search told me that he was heavily favored to win gold. How was I going
to sabotage him with only one day of planning? For Yao Kai, we had done a week
of surveillance and learned his every move before breaking into his room. Not
to mention that I had the help of my friends. I was going to have to go solo on
this one since it was going to effect an actual event.

Shit, shit, shit. How am I supposed to do this alone? And
how will I live with myself knowing that I robbed a man of his dream just so
fucking Rodrigo can make a few bucks?

The morning air suddenly felt stifling. I sat down on a bench
and tried to regain my composure. There had to be a solution to this. I just
had to think.

I sat there for a good five minutes thinking through every
possibility, but nothing was coming to me. It was all too risky or too awful or
both. Sometimes I found that I thought best when I wasn't actively trying to
think about something, so I pulled out my other phone and started scanning the
news. The top story was about Liam being missing, and the second story was
something about the ITA Committee announcing that Germany, China, Russia,
Brazil, and the USA will take part in a tiebreaker event if necessary at the
end of the games. I clicked on the article and read it on my way to the
practice arena. There was a list of events that experts were hypothesizing
Brazil might choose to be the tiebreaker. Since they were the host nation, they
got to choose. The most popular theory was that they would choose footvolley,
which as the name would imply is volleyball played only with feet.

The end of the article mentioned that the odds of the
tiebreaker actually happening were extremely small, which made me think that
maybe the tiebreaker was Rodrigo's ultimate goal. After all, if he wanted to
make money fixing the ITAs, the best way to maximize his investment would be to
bet on the outcome least likely to happen.

I got up and started walking toward the practice arena.
Luckily there was something else that helped distract me from Rodrigo. Or
someone else, rather. Alina. I knew that she needed time to get over her ex. It
was good that I hadn't gotten to say goodbye to her last night, because I would
have ended up kissing her goodnight. And if I gave into kissing her, I knew it
would lead to more. I wouldn't be able to stop myself. It wasn't the sex ban
that was getting to me, though. It was more so the fact that I hadn't had sex
since I broke up with my last girlfriend six months ago. I guess it was a self
inflicted sex ban.

It wasn't just a lack of sex that I wanted Alina, though. I
had never been so attracted so instantaneously to anyone. And it wasn't just
physical. She was easy to talk to and funny. I'm sure we didn't have similar
childhoods. I wouldn't have wished my childhood on anyone. But she seemed to
understand me. Maybe it was because of what happened between her and that bully
at NYCU. Or maybe it was something else. But I wanted to know more about her. I
wanted to take the time to get to know those things.

Certain parts of my anatomy disagreed with me. And I could
tell that the same thing was on Alina's mind. The way she pressed her thighs
together when Tim was talking about devil's threesomes. The way she reacted to
my hands on her hips. The way she looked at me when she bumped into me in the
locker room. The way she looked at me even when I was fully clothed. I knew
because I was looking at her the same way. Like I wanted to rip all her clothes
off and fuck her wherever the first place we could find to be alone. And now I
was starting to get hard.
Shit.
I shifted my athletic shorts. They were
horrible at hiding boners.

I opened my locker and saw a flyer for a prostitute laying on
top of my stuff. There was a message written on top of it: "Dude, I think
I found the one!"

It took me a second to realize that Alex had put this here.
Why
didn't Rodrigo kidnap him instead?
I was sure he would have loved to help
Rodrigo in exchange for some quality time with Rodrigo's girls. It was a match
made in heaven.

Wait a second! That's it!
All of a sudden, a plot
started for form in my head. I knew what I had to do. And it was absolutely
perfect.

I pulled out my burner phone and created a new draft:

Consider it done. I need your help though. Send Isadora to
the north village exit tonight at 8. Have her bring her favorite sex toys.

The sound of wet feet slapping against the tile floor made me
hit save and throw the phone in my locker. I looked up just in time to see Tim
skid to a stop at the end of the hallway. He put one hand on the wall to stop
his slide and grabbed the top of his towel with his other hand, just barely
saving me from getting an eyeful of his junk.

"Dude, you've got to come see this!" he yelled.

"What is it? A naked girl?" I hoped the answer was
yes, because that was the only acceptable reason for a man to be so worked up
after coming from the showers in the men's locker room.

"No time to explain. Just come look."

"Oh God, did you find Liam? Please tell me he's
alive."

"What? No. Come on, hurry!"

"I'm coming." I slammed my locker shut and
reluctantly followed Tim into the foggy showers.

After passing a few shower stalls, Tim turned to me and
whispered. "Okay, don't be obvious about it, but walk past and look in
that shower." He pointed at one of the shower stalls on our right.

"Why shouldn't I be obvious about it? Unless there's a
naked girl in that shower, I'm leaving."

"Just look. I promise it's worth it."

A guy with a towel around his waist exited a shower stall at
the end of the hall and came towards us. As he passed, he gave us a weird look.

We stood there awkwardly until he was out of the hall.
"This is getting weird," I said. "I'm leaving." I turned to
walk away.

"If you don't look, I'm going to yell pervert."

"You wouldn't..."

"Three, two..."

"Okay, okay. Fine. I'll look."

Tim smiled triumphantly as I walked toward the shower stall
that he so badly wanted me to see. The curtain was mostly pulled, but it was
cracked enough for me to be able to look in. I faced straight ahead as I
passed, just looking out the corner of my eye into the stall.

There was no body, and there was no naked girl. In fact,
there didn't seem to be anything at all. I stopped and pulled the curtain back
more.

"Dude! What are you doing?" whisper-yelled Tim.
"You're going to freak him out!"

Him!? Was Tim seriously trying to get me to check out some
dude in the shower?
I was about to tell Tim that there was no one in there,
but I decided to mess with him instead. I leaned back out of the stall and
turned to Tim. "It's okay. He said he wants to meet you."

Tim's eyes got wide. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, come on." I beckoned him over.

He hesitated for a second and then approached. The eager look
on his face dissipated when he saw the stall was empty. "What the hell?
Where'd he go?"

"Where did who go?" I asked. "Did you really
want me to look at some guy showering?"

"Well it sounds weird when you say it like that."

"Is there another way to say it?"

"Uh, yes. You could say I wanted you to see an interesting
physical specimen."

"That might be worse. Actually, it's definitely
worse."

"Seriously, where could he have gone? He was there one
second, and now he's gone."

"The other set of lockers?" I said. "Or maybe
this interesting physical specimen of yours has magic powers and turned
invisible."

"I hadn't considered that, but I guess it's possible.
That's the only explanation of how his penis could be that big."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I said, no longer
whispering.

"No. Dude, you'd understand if you saw it. This thing
was insane. It was bigger than most fully erect penises, and I don't think he
was even hard."

I couldn't help but laugh. Tim was already the weirdest
person I knew by a long shot, but this just confirmed it. "Tim, can you do
me a favor?"

"Track down the penis magician so that we can learn his
ways? Yes. Challenge accepted."

"What? No. Not even close. In fact, that's the exact
opposite of what I was going to ask."

"Oh my God." Tim's eyes widened and he took a step
back from me. "You want me to kill him because his monstrous penis is too
powerful for mankind to handle? I think that's a little extreme."

"Never mind. I was going to tell you to not mention this
to anyone to save you from endless teasing at the hands of Alex, but I can see
that you're too far gone to help. Just don't mention my name when you tell
people about this. And anyway, what are you doing showering
before
practice?"

"I always shower before practice. A gentlemen always
presents himself..."

"Okay, whatever. Just hurry up and get ready so we can
finish practice early and catch some of the girls' volleyball match. Or should
I just tell Kristen you were too busy checking out dudes in the shower so we
had to start practice late?"