Adam

“Good morning, gorgeous.”

“Stop kissing my ass, Adam; we have to talk.”

“I like kissing your ass. Do you remember the time in the back of the truck …”

“I mean it, stop.”

“Somebody had a little too much to drink last night?” I ask.

“Thanks to you, yes.”

“I didn’t tell you to drink the whole thing, Ame. That’s on you.”

She has her coat off, and she’s wearing the jeans and the cashmere sweater I bought her. I knew she wouldn’t have warm enough clothes when she got here.

She was packed up and ready to go to Florida to take care of Jones, and there was no way I was going to let that happen. Jones is famous for his perverted ways, and his unwillingness to take “No” for an answer when he wants something.

That creep has been taunting me for years about getting injured and hiring Amethyst to come and be his personal love-slave nurse. I damn near took his head off once after a game when he said something to that effect.

He went to school near us growing up, and he knows she’s a sensitive spot for me. I try to keep my past quiet; the less dust disturbed, the clearer the air. The guys on the team know I used to date her. Some of them have hired her to help after an injury. They have no idea how important she is to me. It’s been important to keep that a secret to keep her safe.

Amethyst sits next to me with her back stiff and her hands folded in her lap like she’s at church.

“You’re right. I drank too much. That is my own fault, but I realize now why I did that.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know why you left me, Adam. I can’t take care of you with all of this bitterness in my heart. I won’t be giving you my all, and you need all the help you can get right now.”

I pretend to stab myself in the heart. “Ouch, damn, Ame. Tell it like it is, why don’t you?”

“I just need the truth, Adam.”

I lay still, staring into her pleading hazel eyes. I can’t tell her, but lying isn’t my style.

“Okay, I didn’t want it to go down like that. I really didn’t. The scout for the Redkings came to the house the morning after graduation and gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse with one special condition.”

“What condition?” she says quietly.

“That I break all ties with my past and be the kind of playboy quarterback that they wanted to catapult into superstardom. A nice guy with a steady girlfriend didn’t fit their image.”

With every word I speak, Amethyst’s face pales a little more, and her eyes burn with anger. Maybe I should have come up with something less incriminating for the NFA. It’s easier this way. Maybe she’ll hate them and not me.

“They told you it was me or them? How can they do that? It’s a professional career—not The Bachelor, for God’s sake. And what did your family have to do with you being a playboy or whatever it is they wanted you to be? Everybody has a damn family, why cut them out?”

That’s a good question. I should have been more prepared for it. Ame’s smart, and if there’s a hole in my story, she’s going to find it.

“They wanted me to dedicate all of my time to the game, and they said if I was always going home for holidays and visits, it would be harder to stay away from you.”

“Who are they exactly, Adam? I can’t imagine anyone with authority in the NFA making ultimatums like that. I know a lot of athletes, a lot, and I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“They don’t advertise it. A lot of deals similar to mine are made every season. They are the scouts luring in players, and they don’t want the world to know what they’re doing. Think of it like this, they want hot new players that women want to watch play as much as men. They don’t want them attached to a girlfriend or a wife when they’re young and new, so they stick the single guy phrase in the contract. They don’t want the world to know they’re tricking them into loving a new sexy player, so it’s written into the contract that the player isn’t allowed to talk about it.”

She’s shaking her head and standing up to pace. She always paces when she’s upset. It’s the perfect tell to know when I should leave the conversation or steer it away from the current topic. Only I can’t steer it away, and I definitely can’t leave.

“Why didn’t you wait for another team? Why didn’t you talk to me about it? How could you drop me and leave after thirteen years? You had dozens of teams interested in you. All of them couldn’t have had this stupid playboy clause.”

She stops at the foot of my bed and throws up her hands, frustrated with my flimsy excuse for leaving the best thing that’s ever happened to my life.

“Never mind, don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter anyway. You did what you did and now I know why. That’s what I asked for, and that’s what you gave me.”

“Don’t be like that, Ame. Come on now, sit down so we can talk some more.”

She looks away from me, and her fingers curl around the end of the bed. I watch the woman I planned on spending my life with twist in pain with tears that I caused, tears currently pooling in her eyes.

“Adam, I don’t think I can do this. I need to go. I have another job in Florida, and I can have the agency send someone to replace …”

“No. I don’t want anyone else. I want you. Look, I know it seems selfish, and I know I don’t deserve you, but please, stay. I’ll behave. I promise, no more flirting or innuendos. This will be strictly professional. I need to get better, and you know how to push athletes hard. I’ll never get back on the field without you, Ame. I’m begging you to help me. The minute I’m able to play, you can go, no strings, no guilt trips.”

She sighs, and the tears she’s been fiercely trying to hold at bay spill down her cheeks. She turns her back on me and walks out the door without a glance back. Exactly what I did to her six years ago, except I didn’t want to do it at all, and she does.

Every minute away from her has been painful. I thought over time it would lessen, but nothing could fill the void in my heart. I tried all kinds of women—glamorous rich women, trashy poor women, and every type in between. I couldn’t drown my pain in alcohol for fear I’d become addicted like my brother, and drugs were out of the question for the same reason—in addition to regular drug tests by the NFA.

For two years, I followed the rules. I made public appearances with different women every chance I could, and I became proficient at playing the playboy role. That’s not me though, far from it.

I constantly thought of the life I gave up with Ame to play football and questioned my decision to help my dad. My finger hovered over the call button on my phone a million times over the years, but whenever I thought it was over, another fucking death threat would show up on my doorstep, literally, on the steps outside my house.

When Dad was in the black, I was relieved. I planned a trip home to see my family and to try and beg for Ame’s forgiveness—only to find out the sharks were in bed with the Mafia.

A black envelope showed up on my doorstep one crisp fall morning. Casey opened the front door, and a man in a suit hand-delivered her the envelope. She brought it to my office.

She explained that a man had instructed her to hand-deliver it to me and told her to relay the message, “It’s not over.” Inside the envelope was a dead black rose and five photographs timed and dated that morning of Amethyst exiting her apartment, boarding a plane, one from two rows back in the plane, and one more of her arriving at her next job in Texas.

I thought I would vomit when I read the card with the photos. It said, “The money keeps coming or she goes.”

I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. They were following her so closely, and I knew what they were capable of when I got to the fifth picture in the envelope.

One year prior, an NBA player’s wife had been murdered, and the case was never closed. The details were never released, and when I slipped the picture of Ame in the plane to the bottom of the pile, I knew why.

In the photo, Neil Callaway’s wife lay decapitated in a ditch half-buried under the earth, dressed in a white dress suit. The papers, magazines, the news, social media, and television specials plastered pictures of what she was wearing when she was last seen.

Her body was never found, and Neil was never the same again. He retired and six months later, he tried to commit suicide.

It all made sense when I saw the picture. Neil had been a gambling addict, and his wife ended up paying his debt. There was no way in hell I was letting that happen to Amethyst, so I kept my distance. I paid the damn money for two more years.

The urge to follow her and bring her back is overwhelming. The only thing holding me here is this fucking brace on my leg. I don’t yell for her, because I know her. It wouldn’t do any good. If there’s anything I know for sure about her is that when she’s upset or emotional, it’s best to leave her alone and let her breathe.

Giving her space is the hardest thing to do right now with all the risks surrounding her. I grab my phone and text Grant to make sure he knows that she’s leaving unexpectedly, and that she’s upset. He’s FBI, so I’m sure he doesn’t need the heads up. He watches her around the clock. If he sleeps, his partner takes over. The phone rings immediately. “Sir, she hasn’t left the hospital; she’s in the waiting room down the hall from your room.”

She didn’t leave? That’s good news. Maybe she’s thinking it all over, and she’ll be back.

“And sir.”

“Yeah?”

“He contacted her this morning. He was asking around at the bar next to her apartment last night, and he knows where she is.”

“Fuck. Damn it, Grant, you were supposed to keep this from happening. He’s probably already here. As soon as he knew I was her next job instead of Jones, he probably came straight to Virginia.”

“It’s being handled. I have two extra men on her all the time. A new security system is being installed in the guest house right now, and I’m going to insist on being her driver from now on.”

Grant is good. It sounds like he’s got this under control. As in control as he can be with a psycho killer following Ame around.

“Good. Change all the locks on the doors and put whatever security system you’re installing in the guest house into the main house, too. Oh, and tell Casey to let Lady stay in the guest house with Ame.”

“Got it. She met her this morning. It appeared random; she wasn’t suspicious.”

“All right, don’t let her leave the hospital in the Rolls. I want you to drive her home. Somebody could have been messing with it in the parking lot. Are you sure you’ve got enough eyes on her? This job just got a lot more complicated, Grant. I won’t have anything happen to her. I mean it,” I say, my voice vibrating with anger and worry.

“Yes, I’m on it. Things are tight, and nobody’s touching her.”