Jacked (Trent Brothers #1)(23)
“You’ll consider?” he said with an air of annoyed arrogance. “I’ll need more assurance than that.”
I considered wringing his fat neck. I think he sensed it too, taking another half step backwards. Why I even gave a shit about some random girl plaguing my thoughts was enough to piss me off. Still, that random girl with killer blue eyes, sexy mouth, and fire in her veins that was roaming around in my head was enough to keep me from making other mistakes—ones that would be far more detrimental to my health. Maybe I owed her one. I made my final decision right then. “You meet my demands and I’ll meet yours.”
“You will?”
I nodded, hating this predicament. “But my team… You see about giving that extra cash to all of them instead of me and you’ll get my compliance. But all of the footage of the blonde doctor has to disappear—completely.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “One hundred percent compliance? No arguments or making things… difficult?”
I nodded again, feeling as though I was making a deal with the devil.
Harry seemed to mull that over before finally giving in with a nod and an extended hand to shake. “Okay, fine. Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll see what I can do is not enough.” Not for Erin. Shit. “Not one hair of hers gets aired.” I didn’t want him to get any shady ideas. I didn’t trust him at all, but my options were limited. “I want that in writing.”
Harry nodded, which was enough for me. I was halfway down the hall when my captain barked out my name. I waited, reluctantly.
Cap just eyed me for a few seconds, nodded his chin with that fatherly silence, and gave me a meaningful pat on the shoulder. Enough said.
I heard Brian Sidell’s big mouth echoing down the hall, already making plans to win tonight’s betting pool, which instantly ticked me off again. He used to be one hell of a great friend before we started this nonsense with the production company filming us. Then things changed, and not for the better.
As soon as he came through the door, grinning like a choirboy who just got his first peek up a girl’s skirt, I wanted to shoot him. He was carrying not one but two United States Postal Service mail bins.
Unf*ckingbelievable.
Hill, too? And Ramirez?
Two, four, nine, ten, eleven. No way. No f*cking way.
I watched each of the men that made up the Philadelphia Auto Theft Task Force carry in mail bin after mail bin filled with fan mail. Why the hell women all over the country were writing to us was beyond rational comprehension.
Sidell dropped his bins on the long table by the wall. “Clear the tables, ladies. Trent’s got a monumental haul today.”
I took a deep breath to control my anger.
Sidell waggled his eyebrows and gave me a few hard slaps on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Trent. Don’t look so glum. You don’t want to wrinkle that pretty face of yours. Your legions of fans would cry.”
I growled, reining in my desire to beat the shit out of him. Instead of spending his time trying to figure out how he f*cked up the stop last night allowing that Nissan to slip out onto the Schuylkill Expressway, he was strutting around without a care in the world, letting petty shit fill the void.
Sidell’s rig was right there, in position. He should have rammed the vehicle and stopped it. We were all within range and ready to intercept, but instead we all watched as the car slid right on by.
Another mail bin was dropped onto a desk. This was the beginning of a half-hour’s worth of complete torture, with me as the star whipping boy. I might as well climb up on the cross now and take it like a man for what they would dish out on me. And adding to that annoyance was Brian Sidell’s cheerful demeanor. I was just about ready to explode.
“Marcus has one more,” Captain Paul “Cap” Woods said, slugging another bin on the table.
Not you too, Marcus. His six-foot-eight-inch frame dwarfed the mail bin in his hands, making me feel short at six one. My best friend looked like the black man’s version of the Grim Reaper, with a wide jaw and a death stare spooky enough to scare the piss out of most felons. His hands alone were like catcher’s mitts, capable of palming a suspect’s head like a basketball but also able to hold his ten-month-old baby daughter as if she were a tiny, precious jewel. One of those mitts snagged my copy of the hot sheet.
“Here we go,” Marcus muttered as he slid into the chair next to me, seeming just as tired of the game as I was.
Brian wasn’t wasting any time. He dove into the bin that contained several boxes and larger manila envelopes, fishing around as if he were mixing them up. He grabbed one and sniffed it. “This one smells like gash stink. Must be more wet panties for Trent.” His exaggerated facial expressions were beyond irritating.
It was all a joke—being on television every Sunday night, the false notoriety, the unwanted attention, the lack of focus—everything.
“Cap, boys need something better to do with their time. This has to stop,” I groaned, feigning a stretch. At first it was fun. We all got a kick out of opening up the few packages and letters that were addressed to me and the rest of the task force, seeing the slutty array of bras, underwear, and the group’s favorite—naked pictures of all sorts of fangirls. But now the shit was getting old.
“Oooh, I wonder what’s in this one, Trent,” Brian Sidell teased, squeezing a manila padded envelope. “Got your f*cking name on it too, just like the rest. You don’t mind me opening it? Chick even drew hearts on it. Must be f*cking love.”