Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (73 page)

S
tandalone Stepbrother Romance
:

Score: A Stepbrother Sports Romance

Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance

Cockney: A British Stepbrother Romance

Crude: A Stepbrother Romance

S
oldiers of Fortune Series
:

Heat

Burn

Scorch

Roar

A
ubrey Irons enjoys writing
about bold, sassy, and intelligent women and the dominant, cocky, and quite typically forbidden alpha males who love and lust for them; gripping stories, happy endings, and enough heat to keep things extra steamy!

In the real world, Aubrey is kept plenty entertained by her own tattooed Marine husband, their precocious and adorable three year old, and one
very
ill-behaved puppy.

“
L
ooks like a storm’s coming
,” My brother grumbles, looking up at the dark clouds rolling down over the New York skyline in the distance. He cracks his knuckles loudly and I wrinkle my nose.

“Gross, Logan.” I hate when he does that.

“Sorry,” He grins. Quinn rolls her eyes at me as if to say “yeah, tell me about it” and leans back into him.

The smile that crosses my face isn’t altogether dissimilar from his, which makes sense considering we had the same mother. The thought makes me smile even more, watching him and his soon-to-be bride snuggle against each other in the cold of the March afternoon.

Yeah, cold, slushy and grey, with rain on the horizon; heck of a day for a ground-breaking ceremony.

But for once, things are actually
good
. I mean, everyone’s here in Long Island City for the start of construction on the new headquarters for the Archer World Health Foundation, and we’re all, well,
good
. Hell, my brother and Javier are even talking, which is sort of mind-blowing given the history there.

“Hey.”

Well, everything is
basically
good.

I turn, keeping my face the neutral stoney blankness I always do around him; “Hey.”

Bryce nods, his chiseled jaw and his piercing blue eyes about as neutrally stoic as mine. Silence descends between us. This is pretty much about the extent of our conversations over the last year; ever since-

Well, since we stopped all that.

“You know,” He arches an eyebrow at me, as if reading my thoughts; “Someday we may even have a real conversation again.”

I want to grin. I want to crack a smile because that’s just
what
he does to me. But I can’t do that. I have to stay stoic and cold; I have to let this die, no matter how long it fucking takes.

“Yep, someday.”

Bryce nods again, his bright blue eyes looking
right
into mine; so deep that I wonder if he can tell how much effort it’s taking for me to keep up the bitch attitude I’ve kept around him for the past year. He clears his throat; “So, where’s, uh, what’s-his-fuckin-name.”

Don’t take the bait, he’s baiting you.
And of course, it’s working.

“
Hugh
couldn’t make it.” I say icily, my mouth small and my eyes narrowing at him. He grins; of
course
he grins.

“He wanted to, really, he just had something come up.” I am
not
telling Bryce about my breakup. For one, because I’m over it anyways, but also because it’s got
nothing
to do with him.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
I've been through this a hundred freaking times in my head, and we're past this. What happened was a long,
long
time-

Ugh. I need to extract myself from this conversation.

Bryce makes a fake-pout face; “Aww, shame. I
really
wanted to meet the guy.”

“No you didn't.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I set my jaw; “I have to go,” I say, turning to push away from him.

“Yeah, I hear three feet from wherever I’m standing is the best spot.”

I feel his hand on my elbow, and I whirl around, quickly pulling my arm back; “People are watching, Bryce,” I say quietly, my eyes looking everywhere but his.

He rolls his eyes; “They’re watching a backhoe dig frozen dirt, and besides, we’re just talking.”

“Not anymore.” I turn before he can say anything else, and I can practically
feel
his damned grin at the back of my head, but I push my way through the small assembled crowd anyways.

“You alright, kid?”

Literally anyone else in the world who called me that would get a knee to the groin. Logan gets a pass; “I’m good, just tired; little stressed.”

“Yeah, Bryce is good with that sort of thing.”

I freeze, quickly trying to swallow the lump that forms in my chest; “Uh, what?” My whole body goes rigid as I study Logan’s face for a sign that he knows the truth.

Of course he doesn’t.
I’d be disowned or something, and Bryce would probably be head-first through a high-rise window.

Yeah, relationships with that hanging over its head do
splendidly.

Logan shrugs; “You know, I mean he’s good at helping with things like stress; getting you to slow down, stripping it all away.”

I groan and turn away to hide the guilty blush on my face. Yeah, Bryce is good at stripping
everything
away from me; inhibitions, baggage…

My panties.

Jesus, relax
.

“Yeah, he’s-”

I’m still searching my brain for something to say, when something catches my attention; something crossing the grey morning sky and silently approaching the groundbreaking ceremony.

That’s funny, I didn’t know there were any news stations covering this with helicopters.

The helicopter is coming in low;
very
low, actually. Fast too;
really
fast. And then suddenly, I’m not thinking of anything to say anymore, because I’m too busy wondering why the heck guys in black are rappelling out of the copter.

There’s a flash of light and then suddenly a bang goes off. There’s a feeling of weightlessness, and after that, I’m not thinking of anything except why I’m falling.

People are running and screaming as I hit the ground, and I’m trying to figure out why I’m even there in the snow, and why there are security guards with guns-

Except they’re not security guards at all.

Oh my God
.

An explosion rocks me, and I’m screaming as I watch Hudson double over next to me. Hands snag around my body and start yanking me away, and I’m twisting to fight only to see that it’s Bryce with a hard look in his eyes.

It’s like slow motion as I turn back and scream as I watch men in black swarm over Logan. He’s roaring like some kind of animal and throwing fists left and right, but there are six of them that bring him to the ground. I’m screaming at Bryce, trying to wrench myself from his grasp, but he holds me tight; so tight that I can only watch as a black bag goes over my brother’s head before they start dragging him away towards the chopper.

And I’m still screaming.

…Still screaming.

A
single
, glistening drop of rain trickles down the outside of the window of the hospital room. It stutters and then speeds up, hitting other droplets along the way as it meanders down the glass before falling away from my view. My eyes focus instead on the grey metal of the city beyond, my brow knitting and my teeth grinding together.

The room behind me is still the expected chaos in the aftermath of something like this, and my back isn't turned because of callousness, it’s because I need to remember to breathe.

And I need to let the rage build. I need to steel my frame and close my eyes and let the hurt and the pain inside boil and bloom into something else; something I can work with. I learned a long time ago where blind rage and anger gets me, and it's nowhere good, and nowhere productive. I need to focus the rage right now; I need that fuel. It’s the alchemy inside that’s going to turn that into something focused; something I can use.

Because this shit ends
right now
.

This time, we're a shade past the pale; they've taken things too far this time. Letting Benson and his Blackriver shit-heads off after the whole thing with Javier and Chelsea was a mistake. We turned our backs on the wolf; we let our guard down.

And now we're paying for it.

I grit my teeth as I take a final calming breath and turn around;
He's gonna be fine; they're both going to be fine.
I repeat it twice in my head, feeling the rage and the hurt spike inside as I look over the scene in front of me. My family in pain, my friends suffering. Yeah, this ends now.

Hudson’s going to be OK. I mean the guy's a fucking brick-house, and the doctors pretty much said as much after they took the bullet out of his side and patched him up. Of course, and rightfully, that doesn't mean Reagan isn't still still curled up next to him in the hospital bed, crying and holding his sleeping form tight.

Quinn is- well, I'd say she's a mess but it's nothing you can see on the outside. She's as quiet as I am, sitting in a chair across the hospital room with a frozen look on her face that honestly looks a hell of a lot like mine.

You picked a good one, Logan.

I know that look; it's rage, it's fury, and it's revenge. Is she upset? Is she broken, and shattered, and terrified about the fact that men with guns dragged away the man she loves? Of course, but that look says exactly what I know it says; she's ready to walk into hell itself and tear the devil apart with her bare fucking hands to get him back. Jesus, like those two haven't been through fucking enough already.

We're getting him back, Quinn; I swear it.

Chelsea sits next to the bed rubbing Reagan’s back while Javier paces the room, swearing and muttering under his breath. If we weren’t in the situation we were in, I could almost smile at how insanely similar he and Logan really are; both on a hair trigger and ready to jump in with both fists swinging. Javier turns again on his heel, swearing in Spanish as he looks at Hudson resting in the hospital bed, and he shakes his head furiously.

And then there's
her
.

Peyton is quiet in the corner of the room, but I know that kind of quiet. It's the calm before the hurricane, the lull before the tempest. God, I fucking miss that look-

Stop it
.

I'm letting the emotion of the moment and situation cloud my eyes, and I shake my head to clear it. That chapter is closed, and it needs to stay that way. But that
look
. She's roaring inside, I can tell. She's ready to tear someone’s fucking head off to get back the one blood relation she's got in this world.

There's a knock at the door, and a secret service guy pokes his head in the door and nods at me before ducking back out. Major Lawson storms in, his face grim and cloudy as he nods at his patrol and closes the door behind him. He turns back, catching the bottled fire in my eyes as he surveys the room; “This ends, now.”

Reagan looks up at the sound of his voice and smiles bravely through the pain on her face. We all try and push through the pain. This is a family, however fucking weird a family it is, and one of us has a hole in his side, and the other one is gone.

They stole part of our family, and that shit is just not going to fly. I nod curtly at the Major; “Done. Let's go take these assholes out right now.”

“It's-” The Major slowly shakes his head, his face grim; “It's not that simple, I'm afraid.”

“Simple?” Quinn’s voice is like gravel as she looks up from her corner of the room; “It’s
exactly
that simple. We send in everything you've got and get him out of there.”

“Quinn,” The Major’s face is tight, and he looks even older than he usually does; “You know I help whenever and however I can, but my power is not omnipotent.” His jaw tightens as he looks at her; “Believe me when I say I
want
to, but I can't just send the U.S. Military into another country to drag someone out.”

“The hell you can't!” Her words are like shattered glass, and I can tell by the strain in her face that she’s barely keeping it together right now.

“Quinn-” Chelsea starts to move towards her sister, but Quinn shakes her head furiously, tears stinging her eyes. The brave front is crumbling, right here.

“No! We
go get him
!” She narrows her eyes at the Major, anger flashing through her face; “You're saying the American government won't go rescue one of it's own citizens in trou-”

“Quinn, Logan doesn't exist.” Major Lawson's voice is steady, and his words drop like a shroud over the room; “None of you do, or did.” He sighs and looks towards Hudson and then me; “You
know
that. It's the price you paid for changing your pasts when William brought you back.” He shakes his head; “I mean you're
here
, you pay your taxes through a mesh of shell organizations and all that, but for all intents and purposes, you
do not
exist; not really.” He looks at Quinn, setting his jaw and closing his eyes for a second; “
That's
why I can't send in the cavalry.”

She starts to collapse then, but he's got her even as I move towards her. She's screaming, hitting his chest, but he's holding her tightly; every inch the father figure her own father asked him to be before he passed.

I look up, and for a moment, my eyes lock with
her
; with Peyton. And right in that moment, I see her start to crumble. Her face is still drawn and emotionless, her fists clenched at her side, and her shoulders square and back. But a single tear breaches the rim of her eye and starts to trickle down her soft cheek.

Fuck this. Enough is enough. My family is broken, wounded, hurt, and stolen around me, and watching Peyton’s normally iron-cast resolve crack in front of me is the final straw. It's the last thing I can abide.

I know I'm going to say it before I do, but I still get a shock when I open my mouth; “Fine.
I’m
going, then.”

The room goes still as every eye turns towards me.

“What?” Chelsea's shaking her head at me; “Going where?”

“After Logan. Fuck this and fuck Blackriver. I'm going in, I'm going to kill Benson with my bare hands, and I'm going to bring my-
our
brother home.” I look back towards Quinn and Major Lawson. She's wiping tears away from her eyes and nodding slowly at me. The Major has a grim looking smile on his face as he winks at me; yeah, he knew exactly what he was doing stoking this fire.

“I'm coming with you.” Javier's face is grim as he flexes, clenching his hands into fists.

“Same,” Chelsea says, stepping forward. Javier starts to open his mouth at her words, and I almost want to grin as she turns and shakes her head quickly, her mouth tight; “We're both coming.”

“I'm afraid not.” Major Lawson clears his throat; “Neither of you can, actually.”

“Better have a good reason why not,
viejo
,” Javier growls, fire raging in his eyes.

“It's the same issue only the opposite side of the coin.
You
exist; both of you do.” The Major says quietly; “More than that, you both exist and you both
work
for the Federal Government. You think it's OK for a CIA and a DEA agent to just go off to another country with guns and shoot people?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Chelsea's face is contorted with rage.

“I wish I was.” He says quietly. He turns to me; “Bryce, however, does not. For all intents and for our purposes, he's a ghost.”

I nod again; “Good, then it’s settled, and I’m going.”

“So am I.” Peyton breaking her silence, has me turning my head to glare right at her. Her hand comes up, and it’s almost unnoticeable as she brushes the tear from her cheek in one sweeping motion that has her pushing her hair back behind her ear; like that was the whole point of the gesture.

Jesus does this girl know how to hide the pain.

“The hell you are.” I growl.

“Wait, how could she go? She 'exists' too.” Chelsea shakes her head; “I mean no offense,” she says, glancing at Peyton.

“No, she doesn't.” I say quietly. It's a long story, and it's a story I don't need to go down right now. She’s the same as me; a broken past, and a chance at a better life as someone new. I glare at her; “But that doesn’t mean you’re fucking coming,” I say darkly.

She’s got that shadow across her face that I know, or at least
knew
, all too well. It’s that look of defiance, the look of cold resolve, the look of someone as broken as me who’s seen way more than they should’ve and come back from the edge anyways. That look on her face is like a twisting little blade in my side, and it tears me up inside because through all of this, she’s standing alone over there. Through all this shit, with the only family she’s ever had taken away from her, she’s alone; and deep down, I know she’s ok with that. A big part of me wants to get up and just go over there and protect her with everything I have and every part of me. But I know I can’t. We’re past that now, and there’s no going back. There was a time when it was me and her against it all, like two rocks standing tall against the winds and the rain; two broken souls finding solace in each other and finding healing for our scars within the other.

But, yeah, that’s all over now. And again, this is a girl who’s
fine
on her own; defiantly so.

“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t-”

“Bryce is right.” We all whirl at the sound of Hudson’s croaking voice. He’s wincing as he tries to sit up in his hospital bed as Reagan throws her arms around him and buries her face in his neck. He’s nodding, finding his words, and pushing the pain away; “There’s no way you’re getting involved in this, Peyton.” He grins, which is sort of more of a grimace at that point; “Because your brother would fucking kill us if we let anything happen to you.”

“I’m not a child.”

Hudson goes to say something, but winces instead as he sits back into the bed, grimacing. I shake my head; fuck this. If being the bad guy she wants me to be keeps her from harm’s way, fine. If being every inch the asshole she wants to pretend I am keeps her here and safe, I can deal with that. That piercing look of disdain and hurt in her eyes that she’s shooting me right now is nothing less than I’ve been dealing with for a fucking year anyways.

“You’re staying,” I say, louder than I mean to; “And that’s final.”

She jerks her head up and glares at me, and I’m steeling myself to ignore it when she whirls on her heel and storms out of the room.