16. Harvey
Chapter 16
Harvey
“ Y ou’re going to stand there like that?” The look on Connor’s face is the same one I’ve seen on other silver-spooned yuppies just like him. Cocky with a heavy dose of do you have any idea who I am ?
“That’s the plan,” I button my suit jacket, making sure my double holster isn’t on display.
“All day?” His smile widens. He thinks this is humiliating for me. Which makes me curious why’d he’d think that.
“Until you leave, and then I’ll follow you,” I remind him.
“What happens when I’m home tonight—will you be outside?”
“Yes. As we previously outlined with you on the phone and in the new contract we sent over, you will be under twenty-four seven protection by my team and me.”
“Will you be outside my house tonight?” he repeats the question slowly, pointing a finger directly at me.
“No. Jimmy will be part of the night crew as well as Luka Storm from my team.”
He scoffs, this time stepping toward me when he jabs his finger in my chest. “I thought I told you and Jimmy I wanted you there specifically. Some protection service this is, just wait till I?—”
I don’t let him continue. I have him on his knees with his arm twisted behind his back, screaming obscenities at me as his face turns bright red.
“You fucking prick! I’ll have your job!” he shouts just as his assistant Natalie comes running around the corner, her mouth hanging open as she runs toward us.
“Mr. Blake!”
“Go, now.” I point toward her office before turning my attention back to Connor who’s sweating at my feet. “I think what you meant to say is, ‘I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t read the contract clearly or listen when you told me that you can’t be my bodyguard twenty-four seven because you’re a human being that requires sleep and food.’ You dumb motherfucker.” I release his arm, pushing him away from me so that he falls into a heap on the floor.
“You’re fucking fired!” Spit sprays from his mouth as he staggers to his feet, pointing toward the elevators. “Get the fuck away from me.”
“Now see”—I take a step toward him and he stumbles backward—“that’s not how this is going to work.”
“Help!” he screams but I grab him by the lapels and push him through his office doors, slamming them behind us once we’re inside.
“Sit.” I point toward his desk. His face scrunches as if he’s about to threaten me again, then he glances toward his desk and scurries over to it, almost falling over when he reaches his chair. He fumbles with the bottom drawer, finally yanking it open to retrieve his 357 mag he’d shown Jimmy and me previously. “Do you really think that is a good idea?” I say as I undo my suit jacket and flip it behind my holster on one side.
“Do you think your partners would think assaulting your extremely powerful client is a good idea?” His eye twitches, the hammer of the gun cocking in his lap piercing the silence.
“Is that a risk you want to take?” I stare at him unblinking, his jaw clenching in rage. His hand hesitates beneath the edge of the desk for a second before he releases the hammer. A second later, I hear the thunk of the gun being dropped back into the drawer before he slides it shut.
“I was hired to protect you, to keep you safe, and that’s exactly what the fuck I’m going to do so if you think for one second I’m going to let you disrespect me or question my judgment, I will remind you who the fuck is in charge here.”
He runs his hands through his disheveled hair. “Is this about Aspen?”
“This is about you and me and the fact that you can’t respect boundaries. Maybe next time you’ll think twice about sticking your finger in another person’s face.”
He chuckles. “Hmm? Jealous you’re not the only man who’s had her?” He sticks his tongue out and wags it in the most vile and disgusting manner possible. “I thought for sure it’d take you a lot longer to snap with all that Special Ops bullshit training.”
I take the few steps toward his desk, leaning forward to rest my hands flat on his desk so I can look him in the eyes.
“There will come a time very shortly when my contract is up and I’ll no longer be required to protect you. I want you to keep this moment in mind, because I’m going to remind you of it when I cut your tongue from your fucking throat.”
His face goes white in a split second, this time a smile on my face as I push off the desk and turn to walk out his office door.
“I’ll be posted out here,” I say, slamming the door behind me and retaking my position just outside of his office door.
“You want to tell me why Connor Blake called me earlier telling me he doesn’t want you within one hundred yards of him?” Jimmy looks down at a Post-it note in his hand. “And said quote, ‘you better put your rabid dog down before someone else does.’”
“I thought you were supposed to be with him now?” I ask him, avoiding the question.
“Luka wanted to switch shifts; his daughter had an appointment and Harper was working so she couldn’t take her.” He wads up the paper and tosses it, turning back toward me. “What’s up, Harvey? You’ve been a little more reclusive lately and I know what that usually means with you.”
I shake my head in frustration, half at myself for losing my cool with Connor which I told Aspen I wouldn’t do and half because I’m annoyed I couldn’t just finish the job right then and there.
“I hate that fucking guy,” I mutter, knowing damn well how immature I sound right now.
“You and I both, buddy, but come on. We both know how to take our feelings out of the game. This is basic, entry level 101 stuff.”
I take a seat in one of the chairs in our office, leaning forward to let my shoulders and head sag.
“He’s blackmailing her,” I say, knowing full well there’s aspects of this situation I won’t be able to tell Jimmy no matter what but this he needs to hear.
“His wife?”
“Aspen.” Jimmy’s brows shoot upward in surprise, then furrow in confusion within a second of each other.
“What?”
Before I launch into the facts, I stand and close the door to our office. I tell him about the flirting, how he gained Aspen’s trust and disarmed her, only to blackmail her with a threat of releasing a video… one that turned out to be fake.
“What the fuck?” Jimmy shakes his head in shock. “I take it he doesn’t know that you know all of this?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I don’t get the feeling he thinks I know. I think he’s banking on the fact that Aspen would be too scared to tell me out of fear of retaliation from him. She told me he knows about her debt; she confided in him about how her mother died after months of treatment and hospice leaving her drowning in bills that he has since promised to pay off once she delivers her part in the financial fraud.”
“So what was this morning about, then?”
“He got in my face, being disrespectful, and when I reminded him that I was the one in charge, he didn’t take kindly to it. He brought up Aspen, though, thought that I was doing it out of jealousy.”
“Jealousy?” He eyes me suspiciously and I just ignore the question. I had no intention of getting into the dynamic of Aspen and me with Jimmy this morning and that’s the way I intend to keep it.
“Look, I’m not backing down with this fucker. He doesn’t like that I’m the one standing outside his office door. I don’t give a fuck. This is my operation and I’m taking point, but I’ll be damned if he thinks that he’s going to walk away from this whole situation intact, Jimmy. It’s not going to happen.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that when this shit goes sideways with him, and we both know it will, I need you to trust me that I can handle it. I made a promise to Aspen and I intend on seeing it through.”
He nods his head. “What was the promise?”
“That she wouldn’t have to go through this alone.” I stand up and stretch, looking at the time. She went to her yoga class after work so she should be done soon. “I’m going to go pick her up from yoga now.”
“Hey,” Jimmy says to me.
I turn around to look at him. “Yeah?”
“We both know that this world we’re in doesn’t operate like everyone else. You know we trust you to handle things, Harvey, but whatever you decide, just make sure you see it through because a target on your back from a man like that only means one thing.”
“Got it.”
I can’t get home to her fast enough.
Her hands are in my hair, her thighs wrapped around my waist as our tongues dance against each other’s.
“More,” she pants, clawing at the hem of my shirt.
“Wait.” I still her hands, her lips coming forward slightly to kiss me once more before I untangle myself from her legs and step back from the counter where I sat her. “We need to talk.”
“Talk?” She repeats the word, sliding off the counter to her feet. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“We have to talk about what your plan is because I’m already hanging by a thread here.” Her face twists in confusion. “There’s too much at risk for me to go in blind to things; you need to let me in so I can help.”
“I can’t.” She shakes her head. “Harvey, it’s revenge, it won’t be legal. It could ruin your reputation, your company.”
“I know, baby, but I promise you”—I step toward her and hold her face in my hands—“it won’t. We make a good team and there’s not a chance in hell I’m going to let you do this on your own.” I want her to understand that it wouldn’t matter if I had to sell my soul to Satan if it meant keeping her alive.
“Let me?” She gives me a snarky grin.
“Mm-hmm.” I run my hands over her delicate curves. “You can run the op, baby, but I’m gonna remain in charge.”
“And what gives you the right to be in charge?” She runs her hand down between us, her fingers brushing firmly against my cock that stiffens beneath her touch. “Just because you have a big dick?”
Her brashness makes me laugh, sending a red glow over her cheeks. We stare at each other, smiling like idiots for several seconds.
“Seriously though, Aspen, you were open and vulnerable with me last night and I need to do the same with you. You deserve to know—” My eyes shift away from hers because I know that what I’m about to tell her could be the end of it for us.
“To know what?” She cups my face now, turning my gaze back to hers. Her eyes search mine frantically and I hope and pray that this isn’t the last time I see her look at me this way.
Because once you confess to someone that you’re a murderer, it’s impossible to take it back.
“I killed my father,” I say flatly. “In cold blood.”
Her hands drop from my face as she takes a step back and then another, an expression on her face like she’s trying to decide if she really heard me correctly.
“You, you—I’m sorry, you killed your father?”
“Murdered him actually.” Maybe it’s silly to think she has a leg to stand on to judge me when her father is also dead, partially at her hands, but it’s not the same. She had no idea that Jaxson would continue their crimes to include making sure her father met an early end. Even if she can’t know for sure that it was arranged, the burden of suggestion is enough to weigh heavily on her.
“What’d he do?” she says finally. “To deserve it.”
There’s no need for me to beg her to hear me out or try to understand, because she already does. She looks up at me with the same loving, nonjudgmental gaze she had only seconds ago.
“He killed my mom.”
“Oh my God.” Her hands cover her mouth in a flash, her eyes already brimming with tears. “What?” She grabs me around the waist, her arms hugging me tightly as she presses her face against my chest. “I’m so sorry.”
I close my eyes, my own tears threatening to fall as I wrap my arms around Aspen and hold her. This is something I’ve never experienced. The yet unspoken love that’s building between us. Like the entire world could come crumbling down around us and it wouldn’t shake us. Finally, I move us over to the couch where I sit with her in my arms, her back against my chest as I tell her about my mom.
“My parents were a normal couple I guess, although I know that probably sounds completely contradictory after what I just said. But they were. Penny and Derek.” My mind immediately tries to bring up memories from those years, the happy, Leave it to Beaver years as my aunt Terry would later call them.
“What changed?”
“Honestly, just life.” I shake my head, thinking about how fucking normal my parents’ problems were. “The arguments I do remember them having were just like any other couple’s arguments as far as I could tell. My mom would be frustrated that my dad left tools around or half-finished projects and Dad would get mad at Mom for leaving too many lights on in the house and forgetting to fill the car up with gas.”
“Sounds like the kind of problems I would have loved to have,” Aspen says and I agree.
“But then it all changed. Maybe I was oblivious at that point. I was seventeen, in high school, preoccupied with my own relationship drama.” I roll my eyes at how trivial it seems now. “My mom came home one day, blindsiding him out of the blue as my dad would later say, and said she wanted a divorce. She had met someone else, our insurance guy, Gary Flowers. She was in love with him and there was nothing my dad could say that would change it.”
“Oh my God, what did you think when all that happened?”
“Honestly, I took my dad’s side at first. I thought they were happy, but according to my mom, they hadn’t been happy for years. I didn’t understand. I asked her why she didn’t tell him earlier, give him a chance to work on things and fix it. I was so naive.” I take a second to gather myself. “But when things started to progress with the divorce and my dad realized she wasn’t just ‘doing it for attention’ as he’d often say, it was like the gloves came off and I saw who he really was for the first time.”
Aspen twists so that she can look back at me. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I know that feeling.”
“I started talking more to my mom about what he was like before and that’s when the real illusion shattered. The illusion that we were a happy family. Little did I know, my mom was covering for him, but behind closed doors he was a controlling, manipulative liar who threatened her. So I confronted him.”
“Your poor mom,” she whispers. “What’d he say when you did?”
“He lost it. Literally unhinged. He started stalking my mom and me, feeling the hood of her car to see if it was warm. I had moved in with her and Gary at that time and I installed cameras which caught this behavior. I knew I’d be enlisting as soon as I turned eighteen, so I just had to get through the next six months. I thought that once the courts heard my mom’s complaints when she filed a restraining order that my dad would snap out of it. I tried talking to him but there was no reasoning. He started losing sleep and saying crazy shit, shit that”—my voice catches in my throat—“shit I should have taken seriously.”
Aspen wraps her arms around me tighter, her cheek against my chest.
“I just never thought… I never thought my dad would do this. That day when I came home from football practice and found Gary dead in the kitchen and my mom barely clinging to life a few feet from him, it was like all of my adolescence was gone in a flash.” I close my eyes, reliving that moment as if it was yesterday. “I can still hear my mom’s shallow breath as I held her in my arms. She waited until she could tell me one last time that she loved me and then—she was gone.”
Aspen doesn’t say a word, she doesn’t need to. Her arms are squeezing me as the tears begin to flow down my cheeks.
“He waited too… until she told me those words and that’s when I heard the hammer cock. I looked up just as my dad lifted the gun and shot me.” Her arms squeeze me tighter, a small sob coming from her lips. “I managed to lunge toward him and kick the gun away. I ran to get it but my dad ran out the back door. I panicked. I couldn’t leave my mom, even if she was already gone. I couldn’t so I stayed until I finally called the cops.”
Finally, she lifts herself from me, my shirt and her cheeks stained with tears. “Did they catch him?”
I shake my head. “He was a Ranger in the Army for years, my inspiration for wanting to join the military actually. When the cops went to his house, they found that he’d been planning this for months. He already had a bug-out bag and everything he needed to go off grid, full survival mode for however long he needed.”
“How’d you find him?”
“I waited,” I say, thinking about how my desire for revenge was fueled by nothing but white-hot rage for my father. “Patiently for a very long time. I enlisted, stayed focused, and channeled every bit of anger I had into making myself a killing machine that someday he wouldn’t be able to outsmart or outrun.”
“And that’s what you did,” she says, reaching out to stroke my face.
“That’s exactly what I did. I spent every spare second and resource I had tracking him, hunting him until I found him, and then I came up with a plan to annihilate him, the same way he annihilated my mother and Gary.”
Her eyes scan my face like she’s trying to find an answer to a question she hasn’t asked yet. “Did he know? In the end, did he know that it was you?”
“Yeah. I made sure he did. I made sure he was looking me in the eyes when I pulled the trigger. I wanted my face to be the last one he saw so that he would leave this life remembering what he did to my mom.”
“Did anyone know?”
“No,” I reassure her. “He was living in a foreign country at the time, using a fake name and a fake passport from a different foreign country.”
“And what about when the local authorities found his body? Did they tie him back to being a US citizen on the run?”
I look down at her lying on my chest, brushing her hair behind her ear.
“They didn’t find his body or his belongings. I made sure they never will.”
“Do you”—her eyes shift—“do you struggle with guilt at all?”
That’s something I didn’t ask her. Something I’m guessing she must struggle with, although she has zero reason to.
“I do,” I admit. “Guilt for not doing it earlier. Maybe if I had, my mom would still be alive.”
She sits up suddenly. “Harvey, you know that’s not fair to do to yourself.”
“Doesn’t matter, I still do it. I know it’s not logical and had I killed him before he killed her, I’d be in prison. I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s the reality I live in, Aspen, and that’s why I won’t let you do this alone. I know we both understand loss, baby.” I press my forehead against hers. “And now that I’ve found you, found this, what we have, I won’t risk losing it.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I wish I could take it away from you.”
I pull her to me until our lips touch, our kiss soft and tender.
“I know, baby. I wish I could do the same for you. I can love you, though, and I plan on spending the rest of my life showing you just how much.”