Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(257)

Because with that life and this girl, I don't know how I couldn't be.

We'll just stay right here, and exist in this moment of peace for as long as we fucking want to.

I close my eyes and nuzzle back into her, and I must doze off for a second, because I don't hear a thing before it happens. I don't hear them, I don't see them, and I don't even know that our little sanctuary has been intruded upon until I feel the cold metal of a gun press into my temple.

Yeah, then I'm wide fucking awake.

“Rise and shine, sweetheart.” Benson grins savagely as he leans over me; “Miss me, baby?”

Chelsea screams as she wakes to hands grabbing us. I roar and strain at the three men holding me down, fighting with every single ounce of my being as they tear her away from me.

This isn't supposed to happen like this.

The peace and the silence and the perfection isn't supposed to end here; not like this, and not yet.

Chelsea is screaming my name, shoving fists and heels and elbows at the men holding her. I'm lunging for her, but the men holding me back shove me to the ground and start to cuff my hands behind my back. It's the single worst feeling I've ever felt, watching them drag her away and knowing there's nothing I can do.

The feeling is helplessness, and it's almost overwhelming in its power over me.

I'm yelling; roaring like a wild fucking animal with every ounce of my soul as the one thing I've ever cared about - the one girl in the world I've ever love-

Chelsea.

Arms haul me up, and I'm still roaring when Benson steps in front of me and grins; “Sleep tight, sweetheart.” He brings the butt of his gun down on me, and the whole world goes dark.



“You’ve been a bad, bad boy Toro.”

Jesus, I’m getting tired of hearing that one.

I slowly open my eyes, wincing at the pain in the side of my head and the blinding overhead light lancing through my vision. I'm in a cement room, with a mirror on the wall in front of me and a window on another. I blink and turn to look through the window at an open warehouse of some kind, cement and windowless, with walls of electronics to one side, racks of weapons on another, and tables full of sleazy, roughneck guys playing cards or just shooting the shit.

Oh, right, I remember this life. Welcome home, asshole.

I realize I'm cuffed to a chair, and as I glance wildly around, ignoring the pain in my head, the voice comes from behind me; “Whose side are you on, Javier?”

Benson.

“Fuck you.”

My former peer, my former comrade in arms walks around my chair until he's standing by my side. He grins darkly through his piggy face, his arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the cement wall behind him.

“You're a brother, you know. You're a Blackriver brother; part of the family.”

I snort and look away; “The hell I am.”

Benson shakes his head and pantomimes clutching at his chest; “Oh, it hurts, Javier! Baby don't say those things!”

“I've stopped all that.”

“You never do, Toro. No one just leaves the family.”

I can feel the rage building inside of me as I flex my muscles and grit my teeth; glaring daggers at this man who I'd kill with my own bare hands right now if I could; “You left me to die, pendejo; I think that voids our contract.”

Benson's lips curl into sneering smile; “Nah, we still own your ass.”

“What the fuck do you want, Benson?”

I was terrible in Blackriver. I was a drunk, a gambler, disorderly, and had a major problem with authority. I also probably spent more time at boxing matches and whore-houses than I did actually shooting anything. They can't possibly want me back-

Fuck.

And then, like a curtain being lifted on a magician’s stage, I know exactly what's going on here. They don't want me at all. After all, what good is a disobedient, washed up criminal?

They want her.

Benson is a snake, and he sees the lights go on behind my eyes and chuckles; “Smart boy, Toro.” He winks at me before going over to the mirror in front of us and knocking on the glass twice. The reflection turns to see-through glass as the lights come on in the room behind it, and I'm instantly growling and straining at my cuffs.

It's Chelsea, sitting in a metal chair similar to mine. Her wrists are cuffed to the arms, there’s a blindfold across her face, and big aviation headphones clamped around her ears.

Jesus Christ, she must be fucking terrified.

I'm straining and raging against my restraints before I even know what I'm doing; screaming her name and slamming the chair against the ground as I see red flood across my eyes. This scene is horribly familiar, and that's what cuts the deepest about it. Because a year ago, the man chuckling in front of me was me, the man in this chair was Logan Dempsey, and the girl across from me was Chelsea's fucking sister.