Revenge: A Bad Boy Romance (20 page)

The money must have been in his briefcase all along. Denton was paying Bruce’s debt for him.  

Keiran pulled out a few of the stacks of bills and flicked through them, taking a rough count of how much was in there.  

“Good, good,” Keiran said, when he’d finished counting. “I’m thinking you should kill him anyway. Bruce messed us around for months. We need to send a message that we’re not to be messed with.”  

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Denton said. He was trying to remain calm, but I could tell he looked tense. His hands were clenched by his side, and he looked about ready to deliver his second beating of the day. “I gave Bruce a serious lesson in paying his debts. He won’t be walking or talking for a while.”

“A few punches doesn’t get the message across,” Keiran argued.

Denton opened his mouth to speak, but his uncle beat him to it. “I agree with Denton. If we kill everyone over late payment, no one will want to do business with us, period. This is a good compromise.”

Keiran seemed to agree, although he clearly wasn’t happy about it. How many men had died just because this oaf thought he needed to send a message? He talked about death as casually as other people talked about going to the movies with friends.

I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, and when Keiran’s phone rang we had a good excuse for leaving.  

“Denton, wait up,” James yelled after us, as we were walking out of the store. “Good work back there. Your father is getting more trigger happy with each passing day. It’s practically a full-time job to keep him from killing everyone who looks at him funny.”

“Tell me about it,” Denton replied. “Thanks for agreeing with me in there. Hopefully that was enough to save Bruce’s life.”

“Until the next time he takes out a loan and doesn’t repay,” James said. “That man’s a screw up. I know he’s your friend, but he needs to lay off the gambling.”

“I’ll have a word with him.”

“Remind him that he owes you his life. And fifteen thousand dollars. I am right in assuming that you repaid the debt for him?”

Denton nodded. “He’s broke.”

“You’re a big softy,” James said.  

I laughed, and both Denton and James turned to look at me, having seemingly forgotten I was there.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve just never heard anyone refer to Denton as a softy before.”  

“Yeah, I bet he’s never soft for you, eh love?”

“Jimmy,” Denton scolded. “Enough of that.”

“It was a joke. Alright, I’d better be going, before your father puts out another kill order. Nice to meet you, Chloe.”

“You too,” I replied. By comparison to Keiran, James was a bona fide pleasure to be around, rude jokes and all.

“So, you’ve met my dad,” Denton said, as we stepped back into the car. “Feeling okay?”  

“Surprisingly exhausted, actually.”

“In that case, how about we take the rest of the day off? Fancy seeing my apartment?”

It didn’t occur to me until after we left Dad’s office that I had just introduced him to a girl I was interested in. Chloe and I weren’t seeing each other officially--yet--but it felt inevitable now. Mom would be pissed that Dad got to meet her first.

Chloe never batted an eyelid when I suggested going back to my place to chill out for the afternoon. She made no effort to claim it was inappropriate or wrong for us to spend time alone together outside of work. I took that as a good sign.

I hadn’t planned for her to come home with me, and that much was apparent from the second we walked in the door. 

Not only was the apartment a mess, with the kitchen full of dirty pots and pans, I had left out all the paperwork on Roddy Barton, including the information we’d stolen from the office last week. 

“You’ve been busy, I see,” Chloe commented, as she looked at the papers strewn across what was supposed to be a dining table. 

I had to be careful with what I printed and viewed on my laptop. If the police ever came calling, I didn’t want them to find my laptop with a browser history full of searches related to Roddy Barton and his address.

Hard copies could be incriminating as well, but at least I could destroy those after the crime. I’d printed them from the local library, using an account set up with a fake ID. I wasn’t naive enough to think I’d never get caught, but at least I’d taken a few precautions.

“I have to do my research,” I said casually, as I quickly gathered all the papers into a pile. 

“You promised me you were going to think about this,” Chloe said. 

“And I am thinking about it.”

“It looks like you’ve made up your mind.”

“I haven’t,” I lied. I’d come to my conclusion a long time ago. No amount of time could make me change my mind. I had to do this. “But if I do decide to kill him, I need to be ready. If I make a snap decision then things could go badly.”

“I don’t want you to kill him,” Chloe said calmly. “That’s not who you are.”

“Says who? I’ve killed before.”

“In self-defense. You’re not a murderer.”

“Six months ago, I would have agreed with you, but now I’m not so sure. No one knows who they really are until they’re faced with circumstances that truly put them to the test.”

“I understand that, but--”

“No, you don’t. You can’t possibly understand.”

“Oh really,” Chloe snapped. “And why not? Because I haven’t lost someone I love? Because no one I know has been murdered? My father was killed, just like Kara was.”

“Sorry, Chloe. Shit, I didn’t mean that.” I sat down on the sofa, and tugged gently on her hand so that she collapsed down next to me. “You never talk about him. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“You know what happened.” 

“I know the basics. You don’t have to elaborate if you don’t want to, but it might help. I’m guessing you don’t talk about it a lot.”

Chloe shook her head. “Mom and I do occasionally, but never for that long. It’s too difficult for both of us.”

“Well, now’s your chance to get it all out in the open.”

“There’s not that much to say. You already know he was killed by the police. They shot him as he was running from a store. They said he’d stolen something, but there was nothing on his body afterwards. Case of mistaken identity I think. Dad did look a bit… disreputable.”

“Was anyone ever convicted?”

“No, Dad wasn’t exactly able to give any evidence. He never regained consciousness, and eventually they had to turn off life support. The bullets damaged both of his kidneys beyond repair, and we couldn’t find a donor.”

“Shit,” I muttered. That must have made his death even harder for Chloe. Knowing that if they could just have found a kidney he would still be alive today. How do you even process that? “I take it your grandparents passed away a while ago?” 

“Uh, no, only in the last two years,” Chloe replied, looking confused. “Why do you say that?”

“Aren’t parents usually a match for kidney transplants? I just assumed one of them would have helped him out if they could.”

“Oh, they tried to, but neither of them had compatible kidneys.” 

Showed how little attention I had paid in biology class I suppose. No kidney transplant could be guaranteed--sometimes the human body just refused to accept the donated organ, no matter how good a match it was--but I thought parents were usually suitable donors.

“Do you know who it was that fired the fatal shot?” I asked. I knew I was touching on a sensitive subject, but it was the only way I could think of for Chloe to understand why I had to kill Barton. 

“No,” she replied with a shake of the head. “The officers involved were suspended, but I don’t know who it was that actually shot Dad.”

“But if you did know, wouldn’t you want them dead?” 

Chloe did take a few seconds to consider the question, but her answer was as predicted. 

“No, I wouldn’t. It wouldn’t bring Dad back. I’d like to see him punished, but not killed. And I certainly wouldn’t want to bloody my own hands by being the one to do the deed.”

I didn’t know what else to say. We were never going to agree on this. At some point, I would kill Roddy or die trying. If I succeeded in killing him, then I would lose Chloe. She would never trust me again. 

“Why do you think it was Roddy who killed Kara?” Chloe asked after a few long minutes of silence. 

“I heard the same thing from a number of sources. He wanted the information to get out, so all my contacts came back with the same story. 

“Maybe they were wrong.”

“No, it was Roddy’s MO. I got the information from the coroner's report. He kidnapped her, tortured her, and killed her. The knife marks were typical with his style. He’s known for his love of knives.”

“Jesus, I’m so sorry. But--”

“But what, Chloe? Didn’t you hear what I just said? How can I not want to kill this man?”

“Because it wasn’t him.” 

I went to dismiss her again, but there was so much heartfelt honesty in her voice that I immediately knew she was telling the truth. Or at least she thought she was.

“I don’t know what you mean.” 

“I looked into it,” she said. “I can’t tell you how I know this, but Roddy wasn’t even in the country the day Kara died.”

I frowned. How the hell would Chloe know something like that? 

“How do you know--”

“I told you, I can’t tell you.”

“But you want me to believe you?”

“Yes.” She took hold of my hand. Hers was cold, so I pressed my other hand on top to help warm it up. It felt like ages since I’d last felt her flesh on mine. Holding her hand was better than sex with any other woman. How was that even possible?

“I trust you,” I said, “but--”

“There can’t be a ‘but.’ You either trust me or you don’t.” 

I trusted that she thought she was telling me the truth, but so much just didn’t add up. I had connections everywhere in this city, including the police department. Dad practically had them in his back pocket. 

Chloe had only been here a few weeks. How could she possibly know something like that? I failed to believe Roddy had gone on vacation and posted his beach pictures on Facebook. 

I squeezed Chloe’s hand. I knew what she wanted to hear. This was the point where I was supposed to call the whole thing off and promise to live a good life from now on. But I couldn’t.

Roddy might not have done the deed himself, but he sure as hell gave the order.

He deserved to pay the price. 

And I was the only one who could collect.