PROLOGUE
“I’m done,” Jayce McCarthy said to his boss. He was holding back everything that had been building for months. Years even. But this was the final straw.
“Jayce, come on,” Henry Morgan said. “No one believes it.”
“I don’t care. I can’t do this anymore. It’s wearing on me, and the crap with Levi and his girl is more than I can take. I’m not cut out for this shit.”
Henry laughed. “You’re being dramatic. McKayla is just trying to make Levi jealous. Everyone knows.”
Getting shoved into the wall by the rookie, then Levi getting in his face and telling him to leave his woman alone was more than a little dramatic.
Jayce McCarthy wasn’t a small man by any means, but his six foot two, two ten was nothing on the Charlotte Hornets center coming in at six seven, two-sixty.
Even if the rookie basketball pro weren’t bigger, stronger, and meaner, Jayce wouldn’t lay a hand on a player. They should know better than to do it to him, but sometimes the brass didn’t give two shits. Jayce wasn’t out getting the TV footage, just controlling it all from behind the scenes.
“It worked,” he said. “And it was the last offense to me. I’m tired of babysitting on top of it. I didn’t sign on for that. I didn’t sign up for scheduling his massages, getting his dinner, or making sure he went to bed alone at night and not with some strange woman he picked up in a bar.”
Henry winced. “I know, I know. It’s hard to get someone who is trusted and the guys like you on the road with them. You keep most of the young ones level-headed.”
Because at thirty-four they thought he was old. Maybe he was. At least for all-night binge fests, titty bars, and racing up and down the strip.
He outgrew that crap over five years ago.
“That’s someone else’s job now. I’m giving two weeks’ notice. I’m positive you can find my replacement fast. Many in the department are going to be fighting for it once they find out.”
Henry sighed. “You’re not wrong, but they aren’t you. Can’t you just reconsider?”
“No.” The burning in his gut and the sleepless, tension-headache-filled nights were playing too huge of a part in this also.
Everything he had worked for and wanted was ending.
It had to be this way. At least for now.
“What are you going to do?” Henry asked. “The brass isn’t going to like you leaving for another team.”
“It’s not your problem what I do,” he said. Jayce didn’t think he had it in him to go to another organization.
This was close to home. Though he didn’t visit as much as his family would like, or even communicate, he still wanted to be near if they needed him.
Didn’t seem they ever did.
His siblings were settling into life and he was out here fighting for every pat on the back that he should have outgrown decades ago.
“I won’t let anyone know for forty-eight hours,” Henry said. “I don’t want to see you go. Tell me what you need me to do to fix this.”
If he’d been asked that months ago, or a year ago, he’d have had a long list.
That his mouth refused to voice one complaint told him this was the right decision.
“I’m not changing my mind. You can find someone else to handle my job plus the other jobs that have landed on my plate in the past year.”
“You’re making a big mistake,” Henry said firmly, his patience running thin. Too fucking bad. Now they knew how he’d been feeling for longer than he cared to acknowledge.
“It’s mine to make,” he said and walked out the door, wondering if everything he ever worked for just blew up and there was no place to take cover.
1
UNDERSTOOD HER BOUNDARIES
