Page 53 of Ruthless Ambition
Chapter 13: Angel
At work, I felt safer until I remembered that I had potentially had my key taken from my purse here. Trying to concentrate on the contract in front of me, all I could think about was the fact that someone had been in my house. I had no idea who it could be. I was relatively well liked, unless your name was Onyx Santo or any of his hateful friends.
Pulling a notepad toward me, I decided to make a list of potential suspects. The police had said the person probably knew me. Did that mean “know me” as inknewof me or knew me intimately? My stomach turned as I thought about the latter. The first person I wrote down was Dave from six years ago.
Which was far-fetched. I mean, the guy didn’t know me, and it wasn’t exactly my fault the Devils had caught him that night. I’d even tried to help him by calling the police. I hadn’t asked them to assault him.
As soon as I wrote his name down, I crossed it off.
Dave was not a possibility.
Carl was written down next. He was an ex-boyfriend, and he was okay on paper. We had dated during my final year of law school, but when it came to preparing myself for the bar, he had told me that I was too high maintenance, and we had ended our relationship. High maintenance and me in the same sentence at the best of times was laughable. I wore sweatpants and baseball shirts; the only time I was in a suit was at work.
Did Carl hold a grudge? Unlikely. He broke up with me. Carl got crossed off the list.
Sasha and/or Clark were my next entries. Clark, I didn’t think so, but then he was now agentless, and I hadn’t bothered answering his call when Officer Baldwin had picked him up from the bar. Would he hold that against me? I hoped not, but I didn’t cross through his name.
His wife, Sasha? She was definitely capable, and she did not hide the fact that she disliked me immensely. I could totally see her slashing my tires, but putting lingerie on my bed? That was too subtle for her.
What if they were working together?
I laughed to myself as I thought about the extremes my brain was willing to consider. I was now envisaging them both dressed in black, tag teaming each other as they moved through my house like ninjas.
They both got crossed off the list.
Leaning back, I thought of all my clients and who may have a grudge against me. Clark was my first client loss, the others were happy with me, and as I kept everything professional, I knew there were no underlying resentments. Or I hoped that I knew, but even small grievances didn’t warrant breaking and entering and leaving underwear on my bed.
I was assuming it was a man. But what if it were a woman? Maybe a disgruntled wife, girlfriend, or ex of one of my clients. Again, I was stretching it to think I had any sort of impact on their relationships.
Players’ lives were dictated by their team and their coaches. I was an agent; I negotiated deals and contracts. For some of my clients, I had input into their branding, but my role was to advise, not dictate.
So current clients were off the list.
I only had current clients; only Clark was a previous client.
Rubbing my forehead, I thought hard. What about the players who wanted me to represent them, but I turned down? I had plenty of them. I had been doing this role for eighteen months. I had seen more than I signed. Had I unknowingly made it personal with a player whom I didn’t sign?
Calling up my list of unsigned clients, including the ones that Onyx stole, I had thirteen names.
Running through the list, I eliminated half of them easily. There were three guys who my attention kept returning to.
One basketball player and two footballers. The basketball player, I had set up an initial meeting with, but he was such a misogynistic prick I had never followed up on our meeting. I wrote his name down. Even though he played on the West Coast, he made the list.
The two footballers. One had been signed by Onyx, and the other one had such a high social profile I didn’t think it would have been possible for him to sneak in anywhere.
I heard someone speak in the hall outside, and looking up, I saw Onyx with his back to me as he spoke to his PA. She was talking fast, and then she stared past him to look at me. His PA was an older lady and genuinely nice. I think she tolerated him as a parent indulges their bad-tempered child. Onyx turned to look at me over his shoulder, and his eyebrow cocked before he turned his back on me once again.
I thought about what the police said.
Was he my duck?
Never. Maybe.No.
I wrote his name down.
Staring at his name for a long time, I found myself go to cross it out many times, but each time, I hesitated.
He didn’t like me. I lost no sleep over it as the feeling was mutual. But this? Dead flowers? No, he would have to think me beautiful first. Slashed tires? I thought about it. I could definitely see him doing that, but to me? He didn’t like me, but I didn’t think he cared that much to have that much rage toward me.
