Love Me Ruthlessly (Beautiful Rivals #1)
CHAPTER 1
THE WITNESS
OLIVIA
The first time Olivia Carter saw Alex Morgan bleed, he was smiling over another man’s body.
Not the broad, camera-ready smile the Chicago Titans’ public-relations team begged him to produce at charity dinners. This one was smaller. Colder. A private curve of his mouth that said the man at his feet had finally given him a reason.
The service tunnel beneath Titan Crown Arena smelled of industrial cleaner, stale ice, and the expensive champagne that had been spilled upstairs.
Twenty minutes earlier, Olivia had been trapped beneath crystal chandeliers while donors congratulated her father on another record-breaking season and pretended not to stare at the daughter who had left Chicago three years ago.
Now her heels clicked against concrete as she stood beneath a flickering fluorescent light and tried to decide which part of the scene should frighten her first.
The blood on Alex’s split knuckles.
The stranger’s ruined mouth.
Or the fact that Alex looked completely in control.
His black tie hung loose around his neck.
The top two buttons of his white shirt had been torn open, revealing the hard line of his throat and the edge of a tattoo she had never seen before.
A thin cut marked his lower lip. He held the stranger by the front of his jacket with one hand, as casually as if they were discussing the weather.
The stranger made a wet choking sound.
Alex tightened his grip.
“Step away from him,” Olivia said.
His gaze lifted to hers.
For one second, nothing changed. Then the smile disappeared.
“Go upstairs.”
Three years away, and he still spoke to her as if she were a problem he could solve with an order.
“That stopped working when I was twelve.”
His eyes traveled over her evening dress, the silver heels she had already started regretting, and the security badge still clipped to the satin belt at her waist. There was no admiration in the inspection. No apology either.
Only calculation.
“You took the wrong elevator,” he said.
“I wanted five minutes without my father arranging my face for photographs.” She looked at the man on the floor. “Apparently I chose the wrong level.”
The stranger laughed. Blood shone on his teeth.
“Carter’s little girl,” he rasped.
Alex’s entire body went still.
Olivia had watched him play enough games to recognize the warning. The most dangerous version of Alex Morgan was never the one shouting at a referee or dropping his gloves. It was the man who became quiet just before deciding how much damage a situation required.
“Don’t speak to her,” Alex said.
The stranger ignored him. His swollen gaze fixed on Olivia with a recognition that made cold fingers trail down her spine.
“Ask your father what he buried for the Titans.”
Olivia’s breath stopped.
Alex dragged the man upright and slammed him back against the concrete wall. The impact echoed through the tunnel.
“What did you say?” Olivia demanded.
The stranger wheezed, but his smile widened.
“He knows.”
“Who are you?”
“Olivia.” Alex did not raise his voice. He did not need to. “Leave.”
She stepped closer.
His eyes narrowed.
She had forgotten how much she hated the way he looked at her when she refused him. Not because he expected obedience. Alex expected resistance from everyone. But because some secret part of him seemed to enjoy hers.
It had been the foundation of every argument they had ever had.
And, if she was honest, the reason she remembered every one of them.
“Take your hand off him,” she said. “Or I call security.”
“You think security doesn’t know he’s down here?”
The question landed wrong.
Olivia glanced toward the ceiling camera at the intersection behind them. Its red status light was dark.
The stranger noticed her looking.
“So smart,” he whispered. “Just like your mother.”
Olivia’s pulse kicked.
Her mother had been dead eight years.
Alex saw the reaction. His grip shifted, not tighter exactly, but more deliberate.
“What do you know about my mother?” Olivia asked.
A metal door banged open at the far end of the corridor.
All three of them turned.
A figure in a dark security jacket appeared in the opening, face obscured by the shadow of a cap.
The stranger drove his elbow backward into Alex’s ribs.
Alex grunted. His hold loosened for less than a second, but it was enough. The man twisted free, shoved Olivia sideways, and ran.
Her shoulder struck the wall. Pain flashed down her arm.
Alex caught her before she hit the floor.
The stranger disappeared through the open door. The person in the security jacket followed, slamming it shut behind them.
Alex released Olivia and sprinted after them.
The electronic lock flashed red when he hit the bar.
“Damn it.”
He stepped back and drove his heel beside the latch. The metal groaned but held.
Olivia pulled out her phone.
Alex turned and crossed the distance before she could unlock it.
His hand closed around her wrist.
The contact was not painful. That somehow made it worse.
His palm was hot. His thumb rested over her pulse as though measuring exactly how hard she was trying not to react.
“Let go.”
“Who are you calling?”
“The police.”
“No.”
“Very persuasive.”
His jaw tightened. A bead of blood slid from his knuckle and touched the inside of her wrist.
Olivia stared at it.
Three years collapsed into a single unwanted memory: Alex standing in her father’s office after a disciplinary hearing, his face bruised from a game and his voice flat as he told her she did not understand what men like Robert Carter did to keep a team alive.
She had defended him that night.
He had humiliated her for it.
She yanked her wrist, but he did not release her.
“That man knew my mother.”
“He wanted you to think he did.”
“He mentioned my father and the Titans.”
“He wanted you scared.”
“Mission accomplished?”
His gaze dropped to where his blood marked her skin.
“No,” he said. “You’re angry. It’s different.”
She hated that he could still read her.
“Call the police if you want,” he continued. “But when the report reaches the wrong desk, my brother disappears before sunrise.”
Olivia stopped fighting his grip.
“Ben?”
The name changed something in Alex’s face. It was small, almost invisible, but she saw the fear beneath the control.
“What does Ben have to do with this?”
Alex looked toward the locked door, listening for footsteps on the other side.
“That man has been following him for two weeks.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
“You care enough to stop me calling the police.”
He leaned closer. The corridor seemed to narrow around them.
“I care about keeping my brother alive.”
There was no performance in the words. No manipulation she could identify. Alex’s loyalty to Ben was the only thing about him she had never questioned.
They had grown up on the west side with a father who vanished and a mother who worked nights until she broke.
Alex had been seventeen when he entered the Titans’ development system and became the only adult Ben could rely on.
He still checked his brother’s college schedule.
Still attended every birthday. Still watched every door when Ben was in the room.
Olivia lowered her phone but did not put it away.
“Tell me everything.”
“No.”
“Then move.”
“You’re not leaving alone.”
“Watch me.”
She stepped around him.
His hand caught the wall beside her, blocking the corridor without touching her.
The movement placed him too close. Heat rolled from him. His breathing was steadier now, but she could feel the violence he had not finished using.
“Alex.”
“Olivia.”
The way he said her name had always been a problem. Low. Precise. Like a warning he had learned to enjoy.
She tipped her chin upward.
“If you think being larger than me gives you the right to decide where I go, you have learned nothing in three years.”
“And if you think walking into danger proves you’re independent, neither have you.”
“That sounded almost like concern.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Good. I would hate for us to become confused.”
For the first time, his expression cracked. Something hot and humorless moved through his eyes.
They had been good at this once. The cutting words. The space between anger and attraction neither of them acknowledged. Olivia had told herself distance would dull it.
Distance had only taught her how accurately she remembered the shape of his mouth.
A vibration broke the moment.
Alex’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
He withdrew it without moving away from her. The light from the screen sharpened his features.
Whatever he saw erased the last trace of warmth.
“What?” Olivia asked.
He turned the phone toward her.
The photograph had been taken outside a brick apartment building she did not recognize. Ben Morgan stood beneath the awning wearing a gray sweatshirt and headphones, one hand raised as if someone had called his name.
The timestamp read 10:47 p.m.
Fourteen minutes earlier.
Beneath the image were six words.
TELL CARTER HIS DEBT IS DUE.
Olivia read them twice.
“My father?”
Alex put the phone away. “Now do you understand why the police are not our first call?”
“No. I understand someone wants us to think my father is involved.”
“Your father is always involved.”
“That is not evidence.”
“It’s experience.”
The contempt in his voice flared her temper.
“Whatever happened between you and him does not give you the right to make accusations.”
“Whatever happened?” Alex repeated. “You really did stay away too long.”
Footsteps sounded at the near end of the corridor.
Alex moved instantly, placing Olivia behind him.
She stepped back around him.
He shot her a look.
She ignored it.
The footsteps belonged to Coach Mark Davis. He appeared in a dark suit with his reading glasses still tucked into the front pocket, looking more annoyed than surprised to find his captain bleeding in a restricted tunnel.
“Tell me,” Coach Davis said, “that the blood belongs to a malfunctioning vending machine.”
Alex said nothing.
The coach looked at Olivia. “Ms. Carter.”
“Coach.”
His gaze moved to the dead security camera, then the locked door.