Raw Redemption (Crossing the Line #4)(25)

“No.” Ailish felt like she’d been sprinting, only to slam full speed into a brick wall. “I don’t want Henrik anywhere near my father. He can’t be trusted. One minute you’re his best friend and the next…you’re disposable.”

Erin reached out and patted the air above Ailish’s shoulder. “Henrik can take care of himself.”

God. She knew that. But she also knew her father better than anyone. Henrik’s team didn’t know the half of what they were dealing with. The morning couldn’t get there quick enough. Knowing Henrik could be facing her father right that very moment made Ailish twice as upset he hadn’t said good-bye.

“I’m ready to shake your hand now,” Erin said without preamble.

Ailish’s head came up. “What?”

Erin ran a hand down her ponytail, her gaze trailing over to a waiting Connor. “I couldn’t shake your hand earlier, but I think I can now.”

“Okay.” Ailish put her hand out and waited. It took a minute, but when Erin finally grasped her hand, Ailish was surprised to feel a sense of much-needed comfort infiltrate her breast. Especially when Erin laughed under her breath and squeezed harder, like maybe she was experiencing the same sensation. “I’ve made two friends in less than twenty-four hours. What do I have to complain about, huh?”

“Make it three,” Connor rumbled as he approached.

They walked back to the cabin in silence, but Ailish’s mind was anything but quiet. Erin’s earlier sentiment circled back to replay in her head. People like us—cons—we’ve seen how fast good things get taken away. We move on a different schedule than everyone else.

Maybe that was true. The connection she’d experienced with Henrik seemed anything but new. It felt...cultivated. Rich. She wanted to lie down and revel in her attraction to his rough-cut body, his deep voice, how he didn’t flinch at her lack of social skills, but seemed to appreciate them. Maybe even share them. And Erin’s words made sense on more than one level. Ailish herself fit right in with the undercover squad of criminals. They thought she’d been arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, having been pressured into transporting money and crucial documents for her father.

How would they react if they knew she’d earned her stripes as a potential future con by helping her father in more ways than one?

...

Henrik fell back against his corner of the ring. Perspiration poured down his face, chest, and arms, mingling with the red welling on his knuckles, before dripping onto the mat. Since his fight was third of the night, he couldn’t tell which sweat belonged to him and which belonged to the last contenders. There was a cut over his eye that seemed intent on blinding him with blood, but he swiped it with the back of his hand, ready for the bell to ring. Ring, motherf*cker.

Yeah, he couldn’t deny the fight felt good. Here in this place, a warehouse basement in Back of the Yards, men didn’t disguise their nature, so he wouldn’t bother doing it, either. When he’d boxed for the Chicago Police Department, participating in good-natured sparring and charity matches, he’d never felt satisfaction being declared the winner. There had been no retribution in the eyes of his opponents, as there was in this place. Men hell-bent on having the demons bashed from their skulls, night after night.

Maybe he was one of them, because every blow he landed, every blow he received, felt like a cleansing. A momentary blocking of everyone and everything he’d lost. Relationships. A career he’d spent a decade building. A family he’d embarrassed and dishonored by breaking his oath. Friends who looked at him the same way they looked at handcuffed perps. Most of all, his opponent’s punches gave him a split second of peace from thinking about Ailish. Not just her safety, although that alone was enough to paralyze him if he dwelled too much. No, it was more. It was knowing she’d eventually see a man who could so easily abandon his honor…and realize she could do so much better.

Wasn’t it ironic that his ticket to earning back his good name was to put the woman indirectly responsible for his downfall in danger?

Henrik scanned the crowd through one eye, his other having puffed up in the last thirty seconds. Bloodthirsty men laying odds, taking bets. Money and drugs exchanging hands. Dirty deals being made. If crime was a machine, this place acted as the control booth. When he’d first started coming here, they’d sneered and spit at him, hating him for having worn a uniform. He’d been the enemy. Now? They didn’t so much as flinch when he stepped into the ring. In fact, he’d become a favorite for never once hitting the mat. Yeah, he fit right in now, didn’t he?

If he got his badge back, would they loathe him once again? Instead of him loathing himself?

Not if something happened to the girl.

Ding ding ding. Henrik rolled his neck side to side, hearing it pop. The man with whom he’d already gone four rounds ambled into the ring’s center, using one hand to massage the other. With blood pouring from his nose and two swollen eyes, he was in far worse shape than Henrik, but fire still lit his expression. It took more than a few right crosses to put down a bare-knuckle boxer in this joint, and Henrik never let his guard drop for that very reason.

Just as they were closing in on each other, someone caught Henrik’s attention in the crowd. A man whose face he’d seen plastered around the precinct since his rookie year as a cop. Caine O’Kelly. Wearing a black turtleneck, the older man leaned forward in the front row, hands clasped loosely between his legs. He wore a smirk, but there was speculation in his dark eyes as he watched Henrik.