Page 10 of When He Plays
A sharp knock sounded on his closed office door.
“You don’t have a meeting scheduled with anyone but me,” Charlotte noted. Her dark brows had snapped together.
“I’m expecting this visitor.” He rose.
“But no one is on the calendar for this morning.” Charlotte rushed closer to him.
The door cracked open.
Jake poked his head inside. “Boss? Got your message. You, uh, wanted to see me?”
Jake Brown. Twenty-two years old. A kid with one hell of an arm. So good that he had a tryout scheduled with the minor league baseball team in the area. A tryout that maybe Logan had arranged.
Logan motioned him forward.
Jake bounded inside. Nervous energy always rolled off the kid in waves. Except when he was pitching. When he was pitching a ball, the guy was dead steady.
Jake shut the door behind him. Bobbled his way to Logan’s desk. Jake’s blue gaze cut to Charlotte, then to Logan. “A-alone?” Jake asked. “Are we gonna talk alone, boss?”
“We will talk with my PA here.” Why not? “She was with me last night,” Logan said. “She knows what went down.”
Jake licked his lips. “I don’t know.” Low. He rocked forward. “Am I…am I fighting tonight?” Then his shoulders straightened. “Because I can win, I know it. I can get in that cage, and I can beat anyone I face. I can—”
“They’ll break your pitching arm, Jake.” Flat. “That will be the target of every opponent you face in the cage.”
Logan could feel Charlotte’s eyes on him.
But for the moment, he kept his attention on Jake and not his sexy spy. “They will aim for your arm, and it won’t be some clean break. They will go for maximum damage. They will rip tendons. They will shatter bones.”
With each word Logan spoke, the color seemed to bleed from Jake’s face.
Logan drove his point home. “See, the kind of men in that cage? They don’t want you to have a shot at succeeding in this life. They want you down in hell with them. Especially Morris. That prick wants to use and abuse, and he wants to destroy.”
Sweat covered Jake’s forehead. “My dad owes him money. I-I told you about what was going down to see if I could get an advance on my pay. That way, I could get rid of my dad’s debt. Not all of it, but, you know, start working it down. He…my old man drinks.” His hands twisted in front of him. “He always has. As long as I can remember.” A ragged breath. “But I’m good for the money, boss. You know I am. I will work nights, I will work weekends. You need a dishwasher, you need a valet driver, you need a handyman, you need a cleaner, I will do whatever it takes.”
“You’re not working nights. Or weekends. Your ass is getting to the tryout I have scheduled for you. You’re gonna pitch like hell on fire, and you’re gonna get snapped up by the minor league team. You’ll stay with them a time, and then you’ll be picked up by the majors.”
There it was. Because he was watching Jake so closely, Logan saw the flash of absolute hunger in his eyes.
Logan nodded. “You’ll be in the majors, and you’ll send me a ticket to your first game.” He walked from behind the desk. “Your dad is in rehab. He’ll be there for at least the next six months.”
“B-boss?” Then a hard, negative shake of Jake’s head. “He—he won’t go.”
“He’s already gone. I handled it.” Before he’d even gone to sleep the night before.
“He won’t stay. I’ve tried before. Over and over again, I’ve tried to get him help!”
“I got him there. He’ll stay.” Had it basically been a kidnapping? Yeah, but whatever. Like Logan worried about petty details. Those were the details that someone like Charlotte stressed over. Someone who followed the law every single moment.
His fake PA was currently way too quiet as she watched him and Jake.
“You have six months,” Logan told Jake. “Your old man has six months. You both have shots to get the kind of lives you want in that time. You focus on you. He’ll get treatment. You go for the majors.”
“I…” Jake’s face twisted. “I have to repay you.”
“Did you miss the part about my ticket? Because that wasn’t BS. I will be getting that seat. And it had better be a prime spot.”
“There has to be more. I have to do more.”
