The Arrangement (40 page)

Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother of two very young sons, two cats, and two dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her two boys under her feet, her spouse calling over his shoulder, and animals sitting by her side, she is nearly always writing something … when she can find the time.

“Hey, Jordan.”

Immediately, Nic’s older brother asked, “What’s wrong?”

Sighing quietly, she shot a fleeting glance out at the Grand Falls gorge from her apartment’s bay window. She should have known better than to call him back before she calmed herself down. There was no hiding anything from Jordan. Or maybe it was just Nic who couldn’t hide things from him. After all, because they were only a year apart in age they had grown up stuck to one another and even though he had moved an entire country away, they were still as close as ever.

“Nothing. I just—”

“Liar. You’re sniffy again.”

“Sniffy?”

A deep laugh filled the receiver. “Yeah, you get the sniffles when you cry and then you act all sniffy for hours after.”

“I do not!”

“Whatever you say, sis.”

“Did you want something?” Nic asked, trying to draw her brother away from her current emotional state.

“You called me, Veronica.”

“You called me first.”

“I can’t call my little sister for a chat when I’m bored?” When Nic didn’t respond, she heard her brother drum his fingers before he said, “Seriously, what’s wrong?”

Nic didn’t know what to say. Really, it was a lot of things. Between being fired from her job at the clothing store, the sudden emptiness of her bank account, and the crazy ex-boyfriend who just wouldn’t get the fucking hint and disappear, she was ready to call it quits.

“Is Don giving you issues again?” Jordan asked, voice turning dark.

“No,” she replied. At his disbelieving noise, Nic flinched. “Okay, so he’s been around.”

“Just around?”

“He showed up at Shreds yesterday going on like he usually does…”

Trailing off, Nic figured she didn’t need to say any more. Jordan would get the hint. Her ex-boyfriend was a sore topic, one she didn’t like to discuss. Don had a possessive streak, and while it wasn’t anything Nic couldn’t handle on her own, sometimes he got to be a little bit much. It certainly didn’t help that her hometown was so small everyone knew everyone else’s business. Or at least they thought they did.

Don happened to be the son of the county mayor, so his behavior was constantly being overlooked and excused. Nic, on the other hand, was the daughter of a less than favorable woman in everyone else’s eyes. A woman who had been known to sleep around, dabble in drugs, and neglect the children she’d bore.

People tended to lump Nic and Jordan in the same category as their mother without really giving them a chance. It was just assumed that Nic was a whore and that Jordan would be no better than the father who had up and left when they were only babies. It was a battle they constantly fought against, and a cycle Nic was determined to break. She wouldn’t ever be her mother. In fact, she tried so damned hard to be everything her mother wasn’t. She never touched drugs, didn’t step out of line as a teenager, and rarely took chances that would make her look irresponsible. That wasn’t who she wanted to be.

But closed-minded people were still closed-minded.

“And?” Jordan finally asked. Nic didn’t miss the tension in his tone.

“My boss wasn’t there yesterday.”

“Good.”

“Today he was,” Nic said softly. “And then Don decided to make another appearance.”

“Shit.”

Yeah, that about summed it right up. Nic had thought, when she’d explained to Don two months earlier that she was done with him and his ridiculousness, that he had finally gotten the point. Apparently, he hadn’t.

“I should have kicked his ass when I visited last summer,” Jordan muttered angrily. “I knew he was a spoiled little cock—”

“Jordan!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, but he didn’t sound a bit apologetic. “Lemme guess, he got you fired?”

Nic exhaled shakily, feeling her shoulders get heavier from the weight. “Yep.”

“Screw it. Come to Edmonton. Tomorrow. Why not?”

“What? That’s crazy. No way, Jordan.”

He grew silent as her panic started to rise. Just the thought of doing something like that screamed crazy and irresponsible. People would talk about her. They’d say things she wouldn’t be there to defend or refute. Gossip would spread like wildfire. Don would likely be patted on the back and told he’d dodged a bullet because she’d always been doomed to end up just like her mother.

Oh God, Nic couldn’t even breathe when she considered it.

Jordan seemed to pick up on her panic thousands of miles away.

“Nic, take a breath and think about it. The job market in New Brunswick is crap. You were already accepted to the university here in the fall.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have the money for tuition. That was the point of this job. At least if I didn’t save enough for this semester, I’d have enough for the start of the next one.”

Not to mention, school actually gave her a responsible, adult reason to get the hell out of her hometown and away from the nonsense and drama.

Again, her brother grew quiet. “What if I could get it?”

“The money?”

“Yes. I could get it like nothing. You know I’m doing well with this company. I don’t want to explain it all over the phone, but if I needed a big sum at once, it wouldn’t be difficult for me to get my hands on it.”

Nic bit her lip, actually considering his offer. It would be a huge change to simply drop everything and move all the way across the country, but she had already been planning to do that anyway. Her roommate wouldn’t mind and Nic didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of things that she would leave behind. She missed her brother like nothing else, despite him making a serious effort to come and visit at least once a year.

“Veronica?”

“I’m still here. But, honestly, I don’t know if I should. You have like what, two roommates? They won’t like your little sister bunking with them, too. Not to mention, I won’t have a job right away. I still need to do the online courses before my acceptance to the university is approved. That just seems like a mess to me. You know I’m not one to take risks like that, Jordan.”

“Just say screw it. We’ll figure out the rest when you get here. Take a chance. Do something different, Nic. If you don’t, nothing’s ever going to change.”

Do something different
.

“Okay. Buy me a one-way ticket.”

• • •

Nic blinked awake with bleary eyes when her brother shook her shoulder, grinning playfully. The loud laughter ringing outside of the bedroom had her wincing. She was lucky she’d fallen asleep at all. Jordan’s friends had absolutely no concept of personal space, privacy, or how to use inside voices.

“Rise and shine, sunshine.”

“Go away.”

“Nope. Get up, Veronica. You didn’t want to stay here alone tonight, right?”

Hell no
, she thought.

Rubbing the sleep away, Nic finally sat up in her brother’s bed. She had only just arrived in Edmonton that morning, three days after giving her brother permission to buy her a plane ticket. More than once she had second thoughts over the choice, but this was her last ditch effort to try something different and start fresh.

Jordan glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I’ve got a couple of hours before I need to leave for the venue, so if you’re going with me, you need to get yourself done up.”

Nic scowled. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of high class, despite the bloodshed.”

Great
, Nic thought.
A fight club with money and rich people. Awesome
.

“And I need to call Dev, my boss,” Jordan added. “If you want, the guys will—”

“No thanks,” Nic interrupted.

She didn’t want to spend any more time than was necessary with Jordan’s roommates while he wasn’t around. While they seemed like nice guys, and she was sure they were when they weren’t slamming back beers, she’d had more than enough of their rowdy, hands-on approach for one day. God help one of those men if they happened to put their hands on her when Jordan was close enough to see them do it.

“So, hey…I wanted to talk to you for a minute.” Jordan seemed to turn nervous under his sister’s gaze before Nic waved at him to get on with it. “You know how I was sending money home for you every once in a while and whenever you asked, I wouldn’t really talk about it?”

Nic shrugged. “Sure. You didn’t need to do that, though.”

“I know, but that’s not really the point.” With a tense sigh, Jordan stood straight up and shoved his hands in the pockets of his dark wash jeans. “Chaine Lynk is kind of infamous around Alberta, okay?”

“Chaine Lynk, that’s the name of the company you fight under, right?”

Jordan nodded. “Yeah, but again, not the point. It’s not like every other fighting company, Veronica. The people on the guest list aren’t regular everyday men and women you could meet wherever. I just…shit, this should be so much easier than it is.”

Nic was confused. She didn’t understand why her brother seemed unable to explain whatever it was he needed to get out. Surely, it couldn’t be that bad—after all, whenever he talked about mixed martial arts, the cage, or fighting professionally, he always seemed to love it.

“Just spit it out, Jordan.”

He licked his lips and stared down at the bed avoiding her gaze. “It’s a private company. The guests who are allowed inside to view the fights have a lot of money. The men who own Chaine Lynk have a lot of money, too. Sometimes they get bored, so that money gets tossed around between them and the patrons to make it more interesting. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

A lump had formed in Nic’s throat. If her brother was involved in something illegal, she wasn’t all too sure she wanted to know. “Are you saying they gamble?”

“And if I was?”

Nic tossed her hands in the air, frustrated. “Don’t play word games with me. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I’m telling you that when you go in there tonight, you might see stuff like that. If you do, you should turn cheek. It doesn’t affect you. You have no hand in it. Ignore it. Say nothing when we leave. That’s all.”

“Jordan…” He only shrugged again, refusing to acknowledge the warning in her tone. “I know your dreams are wrapped up in fighting professionally, but if it’s going to get you locked up, is that really the road you want to travel to achieve them?”

Then she had another thought and had to ask, “Is that where the money for my tuition is coming from?”

If it was, Nic didn’t want to touch it at all.

Instead of answering her question, Jordan cleared his throat and reached over to tousle her short hair. The action was teasing and familiar, as he’d done it a million-and-one times to her before. It didn’t matter how close they were in age, Jordan never let her forget he was the older one. Sometimes that came in the form of words, and other times it was actions that showed Nic he would always look out for her no matter what.

“Don’t worry about it, huh? Just do what I asked and in the morning, you’ll be one step closer to getting into the university.”

Something akin to worry settled in the pit of Nic’s stomach. “Anything else I should know?”

“Well, maybe…”

“What?”

“Stay away from the fighters, okay?” Jordan made a face, feeling wholly uncomfortable. “I know you’re twenty-two, and I’m not a fucking idiot, Veronica, but please stay away from the fighters. You’re right. This is my career here. It wouldn’t look good for my sister to be chumming it with someone involved with Chaine Lynk—it might cause issues.”

“I wouldn’t—”

Jordan’s deep laughter stopped her words up short. “I know you wouldn’t, sis. It’s not you I’m worried about. God knows you wouldn’t do anything that made you look bad. It’s
them
. Some of those guys couldn’t turn away from a pretty face if their life depended on it. Be careful, that’s all.”

Nic could do that. “Sure. Just say no, right?”

“Right.”

• • •

A chat call rang through on Devon’s laptop. His cell phone hadn’t stopped ringing all night, and now this?

Why was it that everybody seemed to think he had no life on fight nights? That, suddenly, every second of his time needed to be spent fulfilling those around him with mindless chatter and boring information?

He tapped the key to allow the call without seeing who it was first. “What?” His teeth clenched. “Is it extremely important or could it wait an hour?”

“Well, that depends on what or who you consider important, Dev.”

His shoulders relaxed at the sound of his half-brother’s voice. “It’s been a long day.”

“No doubt there.” There was a sound of shuffling papers on the other end before Chaine laughed. “Did you see the
Sun
today?”

“You know I don’t pay attention to that rag,” Devon muttered while he sat down. “There’s nothing in it that interests me unless it’s a new name to add to the client list for the company.”

“Daddy-Dearest and his new wife are sporting three pictures this week.”

Devon pulled up the
Sun
’s website, and in an instant the social pages were lining his screen. He rolled his eyes, and disgust fell from his mouth in a half-growl.

“At least she’s somewhat pretty,” Chaine said.

“She is young enough to be your sister.”

“Yours also, bro.”

He replied with yet another half-growl. The Albertan oil baron and multibillionaire Jeffery Wolfe had created enough children around Canada that his dick should have been considered a sperm-donating machine. Devon’s mother, Mia, was just one of the unfortunate women who’d fallen directly into the trap that was Jeffery.

Chaine, on the other hand, was the only recognized child by their father. Having been married to Chaine’s mother when he was conceived and staying with her throughout the vast majority of the pregnancy, it was the longest relationship Jeffery was known to have. The man had been proud of his pretty wife who came from just as good of stock as he in oil country, so he hadn’t held back from fawning over the pregnancy like a father would.
Father
being a term Devon used very loosely when it came to Wolfe, as dropping off a weekly deposit of sperm versus actually being a parent when the child was living and breathing were two completely separate things.