do the job of personal protection, but that was utter bullshit as far as I was concerned. I'd met plenty of women in the military who could take down a man twice their size and there’d been nothing soft about the women when they’d done it. The sheer fact that a woman would be underestimated by an opponent was gold as far as I was concerned.
"Who did you put on him?"
"Lenny to start. The client,"—Mike paused only long enough to look at the name on the file folder in front of him—"Archer, managed to ditch Lenny in five minutes flat."
I narrowed my eyes. No wonder Lenny had been avoiding me the past several days. Clearly, he and I would be having a chat in the very near future. "Who else?"
Mike's jaw hardened. "Tolliver."
"What the fuck?" I snapped. Tolliver was one of the senior members of the team and probably the most experienced aside from me. "Tolliver let a suit get the best of him?"
"Not exactly. He managed to stick with Archer for a couple of hours."
"But?" I prodded.
"But when Archer offered Tolliver twenty large to walk away, you can bet your ass he took it."
I was certain I hadn't heard Mike correctly. "What?"
But Mike didn't repeat himself so I knew I hadn't heard wrong. Every muscle in my body felt strung too tight as I climbed to my feet and pressed my hands down on Mike's desk. "Tolliver sold out?"
"Fucker called last night and said he was jumpstarting his retirement."
I was moving before Mike even finished his statement.
"Kick his ass on your own time, Nik," he called. "Besides, Tolliver is probably already on a beach somewhere sipping Mai Tais with hula girls."
If I hadn't been so pissed, I would've laughed at Mike's very dated and not necessarily politically correct language. I forced myself to return to the seat across from Mike.
"Needless to say, Hayes is pissed. I've got one last shot at this, Nik." Mike picked up the file folder and stared at it with a mix of despair and hope. The idea that the man whose information was contained within the folder was the difference between Mike and Amelia losing everything was almost too much to process. The knowledge that I was likely the only thing standing between them and financial ruin had a ten-ton weight settling in my belly.
"Nik, I know things are tough at home right now and I don't have any right to ask this of you—"
"I'm in," was all I said before I leaned across the desk and took the file folder from him and then hurried out of his office. I made my way back down to the first floor, but instead of heading for the locker room, I went straight for the ring. I tossed the file onto a chair and then climbed into the ring. I ignored the boxing gloves because I wasn't in the mood to play it safe.
"Who's next?" I shouted. My voice carried across the length of the building and everyone stopped to look at me. I began bouncing back and forth on the balls of my feet and waited to see which guy would take me up on my silent challenge. It took several long seconds before Johnny, the youngest and most recent recruit who was most definitely looking to make a name for himself, stepped forward and made his way to the ring.
Good, I’d get to work out some rage and put the cocky SOB in his place. I would go easy on Johnny, but I couldn't say the same for Archer.
Playtime was over.
Clifton Hayes's boy toy was about to get a harsh dose of reality.
Chapter 2
Jude
"Um, sir, excuse me, sir. I mean Mr. Archer… sir."
"You ever seen Murphy Brown, Simon?" I asked without taking my eyes off the screen in front of me. I could practically hear the laughter of the TV audience as the fictional Murphy Brown encountered yet another new, completely incompetent secretary reporting for duty, a running joke that had run the entire course of the series back in its day.
"Uh, is that a, um, band, sir?" Simon responded, his voice weak and shaky.
Hell, who had I pissed off in the HR department now to end up with the simpering assistant? As far as I could recall, I hadn't become desperate enough for a good hard fuck that I'd plundered any of the guys in that particular department. The mailroom, well, that was a different story. Oh, yeah, and there was Trent, of