Page 40 of Ruthless Ambition
Chapter 10: Onyx
The knock on the door made me look up, and even though I was on a call, I motioned for Neil to come in.
“Yes, that’s completely understandable,” I said as my little brother Gray was telling me why he’d walked off the practice field this morning. “But he is your coach, and although youarebetter than most of the offense combined, you still need to be a team player,” I reminded him as I tapped my pen off the desk. “No,” I waited. “No, Gray, I told Jett and I’m tellingyou, mix it up.” The twins were both volatile and both hot-headed. They were twenty, so it was allowed, but Gray’s temper was explosive, and as I listened to his fury, I grinned at Neil. “Oooh, thecword and it’s still morning,” I joked when he cursed. “You done?” I heard the grumble, and I straightened in my seat. “Go back tomorrow, eat humble pie, rotate your plays. I’ll get you signed, brother . . . do you doubt me?” When he said no, I heard his deep breath. “There we go. Now go to class and keep your temper when Jett bitches at you later, okay?”
After I hung up, I looked at Neil. “Make it quick.”
“You happy with this morning’s result?” he asked me calmly.
Pretending to think about it, I watched him. “Meh.”
“You’re going to push her too far,” he admonished me.
“But yet, she’s still here.”
“Can you stop the bullshit, both of you? You make it an uncomfortable place to work.”
He didn’t expect me to laugh, but I didn’t really care what he expected. “But then what would you spend your time worrying about?”
Neil stood. “A freshman? When the hell is he going to earn for this company?”
When I sign him up to a team early, but that could wait. “She said he has potential, we’ll see.”
“You’re both going to kill each other or drop dead from heart attacks.”
“Don’t be dramatic, a little healthy competition is good for morale.”
Neil’s huff of derision was loud as he headed to the office door. “The competition between you two isnotlittle, and it sure as heck isn’thealthy.”
I merely waited until he had left my office before I opened the email attachment with the contract for Ryan. I’d already done some digging on his stats from what had been published on his school’s newspaper and blog. He had potential, but I meant what I said in the boardroom: eighteen-year-old boys changed their minds as often as their mothers replaced their tissue boxes. He needed to be next-level good and consistent before I had the same level of faith in him as she did.
As I scanned through all the information I had found in such a short time, my gut told me there was more to this than she was saying. I just needed to know what. Looking up, I checked that the door was closed and then switched out my laptop. It was a different IP address than the agency’s, and I ensured it was pretty much untraceable.
As I ran background on the boy, I thought about her anger from this morning. Her outburst had been unfiltered and angry. Anyone else, I would have already fired them from my agency, but with her . . . why play into her hands?
The boy and his father were more boring than watching paint dry. As I continued to run checks, my phone rang, and as I answered, I saw Johnathan loitering near my office door.
“Morning,” I greeted Charlie.
“Morning. I got a stoned hockey player and what I thought was a puck bunny on my hands. Turns out she’s an underage kid. Looks like he passed out during his fuck, and she’s not been able to get him off, either way, for a while. Thoughts?”
My eyes narrowed on Johnathan, and I watched as he flinched and looked away. “Where are you?”
“Massachusetts.”
I knew exactly who he had in his hands. “Dump his ass in a cold shower; I don’t care if he drowns. Clean her up, take her to a doctor we trust, and then get her to sign an NDA.”
“Money?”
“How underage?” I asked. “Almost legal or enough to be a sex offender?”
Charlie snorted. “She’s sixteen.”
“Fuck me, it’s a day for teenagers,” I growled. “Parents?”
“Have reported her missing.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I hissed. “Get her the fuck away from him, take her phone, delete whatever social media she’s tweeted, posted, tokked, and burn the fucking thing if you have to.” I thought about it. “And his too. Find out where they were and who saw them. Apart from him being unconscious on top of her, is she hurt?”
