Chapter 22 Angel
Neil looked at me and then over his shoulder to Onyx, who waltzed away like he had said nothing more damning than it was hot today.
“Err . . .”
I jumped in before I got a lecture. “Neil, please, it’s nothing to worry about.”
Neil was a great guy, older, refined, proper gentleman from the South. His suits were always sharp, and his shoes were always polished. I liked that about him — shiny shoes.
And I was obviously freaking out.
“It’s just you two are—”
“Difficult. I get it, I do. Please, just ignore him. He says things for shock value, you know he does. He’s just an attention-seeking brat.” I was nodding like a puppet. I was going to kill him.
“So you didn’t, you know, last night?”
Well, just come out and ask me, Neil, why don’t you?
“It won’t happen again,” I assured him. He looked more concerned when I confirmed it, and I knew that I couldn’t stand here any longer. “I’m going to start work,” I said with a bright fake smile.
As I passed the dickhead’s office, I gave him a death stare that would have made other men quake. He simply ignored me, because he wasn’t a man, he was a monster.
Why had I forgotten who Onyx Santo was?
At what time in the last few weeks had my guard slipped so low that I humanized a Devil?
Furious with myself, I opened one of my contract renewals for a client whose team was being evasive. Skimming it one more time, I saw the nuances, the soft gives, and the hard nos. As I looked at it, my anger with people who took what they wanted and gave nothing back mounted.
Fuck this contract.
Hitting delete, I phoned my client.
“Hey, Tyquan, how are you?” I asked him.
“My Angel!” he greeted me warmly. Tyquan was one of my pro footballers, and honestly, he was my favorite. He was generous, kind, a pillar of his community, and a shit hot safety. His team were dicks for not biting my hand off for his renewal. “How’s talks?”
“I want to pull you from LA.” The line went silent, and I waited.
“Ohhh-kay . . . why?”
“They treat you with no respect,” I said as I leaned back in the chair, fixing my ear pods so I could be hands-free. “I sent the contract renewal, and they made changes. The changes are for pussies.”
Tyquan laughed out loud. “Who fired you up today?” he asked me.
“Dickheads who think they can take what they want from nice people who deserve more,” I told him truthfully.
“You’re an asset and a game changer. Have you seen your stats from last year?
I mean, come on, what’s that worth if it’s not an extension of some really incredible income growth or a new team that recognizes gold not brass. ”
Tyquan whooped loudly. “I hear you. Okay, who wants me?”
“Three. I won’t share yet — you know I hate to influence you.” Or don’t have three to share. Onyx wasn’t the only one who could bullshit.
“Okay, Angel, but float it past my current GM. Shake him up to realize he may get hit by the Balan Tornado.”
I laughed out loud. Only Tyquan called me that, and I secretly liked it. “I will, give me two days, and be prepared to pack your bags, my friend.”
“All good. Thanks, Angel.”
With the go-ahead from Tyquan to look, I then spent the morning finding the right teams for my client.
I also drafted the terms I wanted to get him and the salary range he deserved.
By mid-afternoon, I had my proposal sharpened and calls in and was waiting for three general managers of opposing teams.
The East Coast called me back first, which was good because this was who I really wanted him to trade to.
“Hey there, thanks for getting back to me,” I said. I knew within five minutes he was interested, and we began to talk around the issues, then I floated some of what I was looking for out to him, and he didn’t back off. Within fifteen minutes, I was smiling.
“We’ll need a full medical,” he said gruffly, which was his usual demeanor.
“At LA or with you?”
“Here,” he said firmly.
“I need more than a promise to think about it. If I send him out to you for a medical, you know that’ll make people sit up and notice.”
“Get Mays on the plane, Balan. We’ll talk Wednesday.”
“Will do.” I immediately called Tyquan. “Where are you?”
“Florida. Kids wanted to do Disney World and all the other shit,” he said, and I could hear his smile.
“Florida works. How long they got left?”
“Where do you need me to be?” he asked instead.
“Boston. Tuesday.”
“Are you for real?” he asked me excitedly.
“I am. He wants a full medical there,” I told him with a grin. “It’s just a medical and some preliminary terms have been discussed, but nothing is finalized, so don’t get your hopes up.”
“Damn, woman!” He whistled in appreciation. “You get me this gig, I will fucking love you forever,” he said, and I heard a young voice protesting in the background that Daddy shouldn’t swear in Mickey’s house. I kind of agreed.
“I’m sending you details. Keep me updated on everything.”
“Always do, Tornado, always do.” He said goodbye, and I settled back in my chair, content that I might have a better result for my client.
Realizing the time, I picked my purse up and headed out to grab some lunch. In the foyer, I met Cooper coming in, and I braced myself.
“Where you going?” he asked me.
“Lunch.”
“Alone?” He looked like he wanted to tell me off.
“The street’s packed,” I said as I pointed outside.
“All the more reason to be with someone,” he grumbled as he turned and started walking. “Hurry,” he barked back at me.
“I don’t need you,” I told him irritably as I followed.
“Sure you don’t.”
“Okay, let me put it another way,” I growled. “I don’t want you.”
“Honey, I heard you squealing over his dick; I know exactly who you want.”
I stopped walking. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Cooper looked back at me and grinned. It was not friendly, but then neither was he, and when he advanced, I took a step back.
“You are and always have been a stuck-up bitch,” he told me.
“I didn’t like you then, I don’t like you now.
But Onyx does, and he wants to make sure nothing happens to you, so move your fucking tight ass and get to where you’re going, because if you don’t, I’m going to drag you. We clear?”
Cooper looked down at me, and I saw his loathing for me in his eyes. “Fuck you, Coop.” I stepped around him and walked outside, knowing he was behind me and deciding that ignoring him was my best option.
My relationship with the Devils had always been fraught.
The way I was introduced to them won neither of us any favors.
Then I slept with Onyx, and very soon after that, I realized who they were and that Onyx, although the youngest of them, ruled the roost. Because he was a Santo, and therefore he was in charge.
I did my best to avoid them, but Onyx was in one of my classes because the douchebag was also some form of intelligent bastard, too, who could do advanced classes. The loathing for him deepened.
They were all sports-oriented. Jer was on the football team, and to my surprise, so were Cooper and Onyx — not first team, though.
Charlie, whom I met later, played basketball and was semi-decent but had no focus, and it was obvious to me he wouldn’t go pro.
The last little nugget of the pack was Owen, and he was loud, blond, brash, and when I learned he was doing journalism, it made sense.
He was a frat boy through and through. When he made anchor on ESPN a few years ago, I hadn’t been in the least bit surprised.
I also suspected where a lot of his “tips” came from.
From college to adulthood, they stuck together.
Owen was a prick, but not overly so. Jer was actually decent, and I grew to like him.
Charlie was Onyx’s man and helped Onyx when clients acted outside of propriety, and he stepped in to stop bad press.
He was like a fixer for them, and I wasn’t a hypocrite.
I had used his services myself for when a client fucked up.
Sometimes agents were nothing more than babysitters.
Cooper was a PI, and I had no idea how that started, but I knew he was good at it.
He worked independently, and that was his danger.
He was loyal to his brother, as he called him.
He and Onyx were tight — tighter than the others — but Cooper was still a loner.
Which made sense since Onyx wasn’t overly friendly either.
A few months after my morning with both of them, I’d been in the library, late at night. I heard the crying, and I’d ignored it. Exams were coming, and people were stressed, so if you needed to break down and cry in a corner of the library, well, it was better out than in.
Callous, possibly, but I had my own stresses, and I reasoned that if it got worse, I would investigate then.
When I heard the thumping, then the grunt, and the crying getting worse, I looked up and wondered what the hell was going on. Slipping out of my seat, I went to look.
The girl was on her knees, her hand to her cheek, and Cooper was standing over her, his jeans loose, and he looked angry. Had he hit her? Stepping forward, I startled both of them. He looked at me with fury, but it was her I concentrated on.
Her cheek was red, her skirt rumpled, her tights torn. He hit her?
“Fuck off,” Cooper barked at me.
“Are you hurt?” I asked her as I stepped forward. “Did he hurt you?” I helped her to her feet.
“Did I hurt her? Are you for real?”
“Tell me,” I asked her as I turned my back to him. “Are you okay?” She looked past me to the Devil behind me and shook her head. “I’ll help you out of here,” I told her.
His hand grabbed my shoulder, and he turned me around, pulling me roughly toward him by my sweater. “I told you to fuck off.”
“Go to hell.” Wrenching free of his hold, I stepped back. “You’re a fucking animal,” I snarled. Turning swiftly, I grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her away from him.
He didn’t follow, and when I was outside, the girl had refused to talk to me and had run off back to her dorm. I didn’t know what happened, not really, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.
They thought they were gods because of a black bandana and a stupid gang name. They weren’t gods, though; they were jumped-up little pricks who needed people to remember they were boys playing at being men.
They had disgusted me.
As I stood in line at the counter, my hastily grabbed lunch in my hands, I thought back on that day. He had never denied it.
Here we were six — almost seven — years later, and he was helping Onyx with my stalker. And I knew he was helping Onyx, and he wasn’t doing it for me, but he was still helping.
Turning to look at him over my shoulder, I saw him leaning against the doorway, blocking it, eating a sandwich. Where the hell did he get a sandwich? And then I realized he had just picked it off the shelf and opened it.
What a colossal prick.
His hair was shorter than it used to be. It no longer hung in his eyes. Dark hair, blue eyes, chiseled jaw, he was a good-looking guy. Broad-shouldered, he was broader and slightly taller than Onyx, his body trim and in shape. I saw many women pass him by and give him an appreciative glance.
“Ma’am?”
Turning, I saw I was next to be served. “Sorry, this please and,” I looked over my shoulder again, “I don’t know what he’s eating, but he’s already started.”
The clerk looked at me and then Cooper, and with a heavy sigh, he rang through a price. “Fine.”
Paying, I left, and Cooper walked beside me, tossing his wrapper into the trash can as we passed.
“You buy it?”
“Yes,” I answered with a clipped tone.
“Knew you would,” he grinned smugly.
“So very glad to be predictable,” I snapped.
“That’s how he’s going to get you,” Cooper told me as he dropped his voice. “You stick to the same routine, you never change things up, and even when you think you’re being spontaneous, you’re easy to predict.”
“Am I indeed?”
“Yeah,” he snorted. “Course you are. You get a few ruffles in your feathers, you go to the police. The police pick up on the fact you and your boss used to fuck, and point the finger at him. You know you’ve led them wrong, you call and tell him.
But he pisses you off, so you don’t tell him it all.
Then the police do, so you scramble for help.
When he offers, you say no. Then you get another scare, so he’s the one you call.
Not the police.” Cooper looked down at me.
“How do you know that’s not what he wanted?
To avoid the police, to go to the person you think that you would never ask? ”
I slowed walking and looked up at him. He met my look and didn’t blink. “Is it you?”
Cooper barked out a laugh. “Fuck me, you arrogant bitch, why the fuck would it be me?”
“You hate me,” I told him plainly.
“So? You think that makes me want to jerk off over your bedding? You think thoughts of you get me hard? Get a fucking grip.” Cooper shook his head and resumed walking.
“You hit that girl,” I blurted out. “In the library that night, you hurt her.”
Cooper looked me up and down and shook his head. “You’re as blind now as you were then, only seeing what you want to see,” he said with scorn. “I have no idea what Onyx sees in you.” With a disgusted shake of his head, he walked back to the office and left me on the sidewalk.
He still didn’t answer my accusation, and I was fed up with his attitude. Hurrying after him, I jumped into the elevator with him and fixed him with a glare.
“Did you hit her, yes or no?”
“No.”
“Why was she on the floor?”
“Who the fuck cares?” Cooper flicked a glance at me and returned to looking at the doors.
“I do,” I told him. “I care. I cared then and I care now.”
“Bullshit, you didn’t care. You never followed her.
You passed her by the very next day and didn’t fucking look her way.
You’re no fucking angel, so stop pretending I’m the only dick in here,” he scoffed as he exited and made his way to Onyx’s office.
“Don’t follow me, vampire,” he snarled as he entered Onyx’s office and closed the door firmly behind him.
Onyx looked up as he entered, and he looked between me standing outside his office and Cooper prowling to the nearest seat. He turned his attention to Cooper, and I knew I had been dismissed by both of them.
Fucking Devils. Entitled pricks in college, entitled shitheads in adult life. But as I walked away from his office to mine, I couldn’t stop hearing Cooper’s words. He was right. I had never pursued it. Did that make me worse than them — or even worse, the same?