Chapter 6 Onyx #2
I knew the rest of the Devils were creating havoc, and I slipped down the stairs to the basement to flip the fuses for the house, to turn the lights back on.
Working quickly, I jogged back up the stairs and already had my bandana off.
I stepped back as I saw Angel had moved over to the wall and was looking around wide-eyed at the chaos.
“Hey, is it safe to come out?” I asked her.
Jumping in surprise, she turned to me, but just as she did, two guys barreled toward her, and thinking quickly, I reached out and grabbed her wrist, hauling her into the stairwell with me. I immediately let her go, and she thanked me as we both peered through the crack in the door.
“This is madness,” she told me as we watched the scene unfold in the main room.
I knew Cooper was the reason a table just got thrown, and I fought back my laughter as Angel watched in fascination as the main party room turned into one giant fight.
“They’re going to wreck this house,” I said to her as I looked over her head at the brawl that had happened.
“How do we get out?” Angel asked me as she turned to look at me fully, assuming I was taking refuge like she was.
“We may be safer in here for a while,” I admitted just as someone landed heavily across the door, shutting us in completely. Which was not part of the plan, because I knew the fucking lock only opened from the outside.
“Are we trapped?” she asked me breathlessly.
“There will be a way out,” I told her confidently as I banged on the door for effect, knowing no one was opening it anytime soon. “You got your phone? My battery died,” I lied.
“No! I left it in my dorm.” Angel looked at me with alarm.
Result. “Okay, let’s go see if there’s a way out of here,” I told her as I brushed past her to head back down the stairs again. I didn’t miss the slight gasp as I did so, but I pretended I didn’t hear it as I went down the stairs, fighting my smile.
This was going to be the easiest three hundred bucks I ever made.
And she was.
After I slept with her, I really had no other interest in her.
I’d proved my point to my friends, and they had shut up and paid up.
I saw her a few times on campus and in the class we shared, but Angel was never in my circle of friends; she avoided parties where the Devils were likely to be, and that suited us all fine.
All we’d ever really been interested in with her was if she would talk about the night when we first met, and she didn’t, which was all we needed from her.
And then she made it personal. I was in some advanced classes because I was intelligent enough to be in them, a fact that she seemed to take offense to.
And in the class we shared, she tried to beat me.
Whether it was a higher test score, a debate, anything, she seemed to want to prove to me, or fuck, maybe even herself, that she was better than me.
I’m a competitive man; I like to win, so I played her game. It passed the time if nothing else.
When she graduated, I never thought about her again until I saw her at law school, and there, we continued to avoid each other as before.
Then one day, I walked into my office as she was leaving.
I knew my dad and Neil were looking for agents to hire, ones that had passed the bar and could sign off on my legal contracts.
I never expected Angel Balan to be an applicant.
I had left the details to them. I was deep in my studies, and I was also about to land a very big client, and between those two things taking all my attention, hiring a sports agent to dot my i’s and cross my t’s wasn’t my priority.
Everyone knew my contracts were good, and until I passed the bar, I only needed them signed off on my behalf.
It should have been simple.
Easy.
It should not have been Angel who was offered a full-time position in my firm.
Of course, she thought Neil was the owner, and she met with him and only him.
My dad had been so confident in her ability.
He told me later she’d practically been rubber-stamped on application before they even met her.
I’d had some very strong words for my father that night, and he told me she would be a great asset because she was apparently that good but also because she was female, so it rounded out the diversity of the agency.
Diversity? I didn’t give a fuck if she was a piano-playing zebra; she was Angel, and I’d fucked her in college for a bet. She knew it was for a bet — afterward, granted — and she’d openly hated me ever since. I did not want her in my firm.
And my dad had refused to rescind the offer of employment to her. So, for the first time in years, I made contact with her and told her exactly who she would be working for.
The paperwork had been signed and returned the next morning with the comment “challenge accepted.” The college animosity and rivalry had been ongoing from her first day in the office. It wasn’t constant, but it was always present.
Like she was.
Always there, trying to prove she was better than I was. Getting my JD and passing the bar meant I was now more present than I ever had been, and it was getting more and more heated.
I took her signing, and in return, she took my sponsorship.
The next move was mine.
For now, I would let her think she had gotten one over on me, and then I would rip her victory from her grasp as I did with everything else.