CHISELED (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (2 page)

Chapter Three

BRADEN

I swung open the
metal door to the basement of my mansion and slipped inside just before it
slammed shut behind me. It was designed to allow only a fraction of a second
for entry without a key inserted into the alarm safe by the entry. If the key
didn’t stay put the door didn’t either even if you knew the code to unlock it.

“Update,” I barked
as soon as I entered, dropping my black bag on top of the metal table that sat
by the door. I slipped my leather jacket off and draped it over the chair
before closing the distance between me and the various computer monitors on the
other side of the large space.

Hayden swung
around in her chair, one hand still on the keyboard as she typed away. “The
cops got the guy you stuffed in the trunk who was trying to pull off that car
jacking. They also picked up the asshole that took that little girl from school
earlier today.
 
Apparently after she
was dropped off back at home unharmed the guy who took her was delivered to the
police station in a bloody daze, left on the sidewalk.” She raised her eyebrows
at me.

I huffed. “Like he
didn’t have it coming.” I glanced at the monitor in back of her, taking in the
various street camera angels she had live at the moment. “What about the girl?”

She glanced at the
screen and hit a few keys, pulling up the live police feed. “The cops are at
her house now, the guy is being transferred to the hospital for medical
treatment before they charge him.” She paused. “Both of his legs are broken.”

I ignored the tone
in her voice. “But the girls okay?”

“She’s fine, I
intercepted a call she made to her mother. Her family is on their way to be
with her.” She pulled up a call log on another screen like she needed to prove
her point to me.

I nodded. “Good.”

“Is it?” She bit
her lip the way she always did when we were kids and she wanted to scold me
about something but knew it was probably a bad idea. “Braden, don’t you think
the way you’re apprehending these guys is getting more and more violent?”

I rolled my eyes
and turned around, heading back over to where my supply corner was. “Not this
again, Hayden. I’m dealing with rapists and murders here, excuse me if I don’t
want to give them a candy bar while I stop them from ruining yet another
persons life.”

“That’s not fair,
Braden, you know that’s not what I mean. But what was the point in spending all
that money on personal trainers and experts in all those crazy martial arts you
learned if you’re just going to beat the shit out of these guys anyway?” She
got up from her chair. “I feel like its getting out of control. I’m scared… I’m
scared that even when you find the guy who killed dad that you aren’t going to
stop.”

I slammed my fist
down on the table hard, cracking my knuckles. Anger overcame my body the way it
did anytime my little sister tried to talk to me about my father and what I had
witnessed that day, “Hayden, what was the deal when all of this started?”

She swallowed. “I
just don’t understand what the point is, it’s been two years and you’re still
no where near closer to the truth. What if you never get there? Are you going
to do this forever? Lurk around in the darkness saving people? That’s no life,
it’s a secret life.”

I grabbed some
rope and handcuffs out of one of the drawers and shoved them into my bag,
replacing the supplies I had used earlier. “When all of this started you
promised that you could leave emotion out of it. This is business, Hayden. You
aren’t my little sister when we’re doing this. You’re my informant, my eyes out
there. That’s the arrangement, now if you cant handle that anymore let me know
and I’ll find someone who can.”

She paused for a
second and looked into my eyes for something I probably lost a long time ago.
She sighed after a second and swallowed back down whatever else had been on her
mind. “Like you could find someone else to put up with you.” She slipped on a
pair of gloves and started to dusk my jacket and facemask off with a small
brush in case any spare hairs or fibers had gotten on any of the fabric. Being
cautious was key in this business. “Besides, you know I wasted four years at
Stanford getting my tech degree just to be your personal security system.”

“That’s what I
like to hear.” I made my way back over toward the computer center and glanced
at the monitor for updates on the girl I had saved in her house less than an
hour ago. Such a short amount of time but already her life was probably
completely turned upside down.

Maybe I should
have felt bad about leaving her there without a second thought but I didn’t, I
never did. I wasn’t there to make friends, I was there to do a job and get the
hell out after the threat was gone. Them knowing anything about me put me and
the few people who I actually cared about in danger.

Hayden came up
behind me and closed out the police report. “You need to get some rest. You
have a meeting first thing in the morning and you need to be on top of your
game, I don’t have to remind you how important Mr. Cunningham is to our new
project.”

“You got anything
else for me?” I asked her, running my hand through my dark hair. “I’m not ready
to call it a night yet.”

She sighed. “Of
course you aren’t but it’s time, the city is safe for the time being, Braden.”
But she exited out of a window way too fast and didn’t meet my eyes, the way
she did when she wasn’t being completely honest.

“Tell me,” I
howled. “Now.”

“It’s late and
it’s nothing the police can’t handle.”

“I’m the judge of
what calls I do and don’t take.” I shoved the spare chair out of the way and
looked down at her with anger. “Tell me what’s going on, Hayden, or get the
hell out of here so I can look into it myself.”

She pulled the
window on the screen back up. “It looks like a mugging over on 23
^rd
but some bystanders have already called the cops I’m sure they’re already on
their way so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

I laughed
sarcastically and pulled a pair of fresh gloves over my hands. “Oh, yeah, I’m
sure the cops are going to rush over to one of the worst neighborhoods in town
to make sure everything is okay.”

“Braden,” she
called when I was halfway out the door.

I turned around.

“Be careful,” she
whispered.

I didn’t answer
and let the door swing shut behind me.

She was the second
woman that night I left confused and startled.

Chapter Four

ADDISON

“You don’t believe
me!” I practically yelled in my mother’s face.

My mother walked
around the end table in my living room and sat down on the sofa next to me. “I
didn’t say I didn’t believe you, dear, I just simply suggested that maybe you
imagined a few events of what happened. I mean, it would be perfectly
understandable if you did. You were in a state of shock after all.”

I threw my hands
up in the air. “Now you sound like Jerry.”

My mother puffed
out her heavily glossed lips and patted me on my knee. “Well, your stepfather
can’t go back to the office spatting stories about superhero’s who saved his little
stepdaughter from a murderer who was terrorizing her. He would be laughed out
of town by all the other detectives.”

This whole thing
had been a disaster since the second I called 911. Everyone seemed to think I
was in the middle of some breakdown and was having some kind of hallucinations
or something. Like I could have imagined what happened to me.

“He wasn’t a super
hero.” I rolled my eyes. “He was a real man, he was just in disguise! He
clearly didn’t want anyone to know who he was or what he was doing. It was … it
was… out of this world,” I finished breathlessly.

“Out of this world
is right,” my mother told me.

Unbelievable. What
was the point of having a hot shot cop for a stepfather if no one believed
anything I said when it came to things that were against the law? This man, who
ever the hell he was, had saved my life and he wasn’t even going to get credit
for it. The world needed to know about him, the world needed to give him all
the glory he deserved.

How had no one
broken this story yet? I can’t be the only person he’s helped, can I? No, that
would make no sense. How had he known when and how this guy would strike? The
cops didn’t even know he had been here but this stranger with a mask did.

“Come on.” My mother
pushed her long dark hair behind her back and stood up, smoothing out her
pantsuit. “I think it’s time we get you to the doctor for a check up.”

 
Leave it to my mother to be perfectly
dressed even when she had shown up hours earlier in the middle of the night.
She always looked flawless no matter what time of day it was and I always
looked like I had just woken up, much to her disapproval.

“I’m fine. Just a
little shaken up.”

“You heard Jerry,
it’s still a good idea for you to get checked out.” My mother pulled me up by
the arm and gave me a shove toward the hall. “Why don’t you go put on something
a little more appropriate and put those clothes in a plastic bag I told Jerry
we’d bring them to the hospital.”

I felt like a
child again being ordered around by my mother. I had thought I wanted people
around me but I had started to think I would be better off alone for a while. I
needed some time to process everything that had happened. It had been a
whirlwind since the cops showed up.

“Mom, I just need
a minute to myself, okay? Why don’t you go ahead and talk to the doctor and
I’ll be a few minutes behind you?”

She stared to
shake her head but I cut her off. “Mom, please? I’ll be fine. I mean the jerk
is in jail it’s not like he’s going to come back and snatch me up.” I gave her
a gentle shove toward the door.

“But what if… what
if you have more…. You know? Sightings of things?”

I tried my best to
not flip out on her. It wasn’t my mother’s fault she didn’t believe me. Most
people in their right mind wouldn’t. “Mom, I’ll be fine. If I’m not there 15
minutes after you then you can call Jerry and have him send out the search
team. I just need a minute to myself.”

My mother shifted
uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “What about if I wait in the car for
you? You just come on down when you’re ready.” She opened the door and stepped
out onto the porch. “I’ll just be right down here, see?”

“Mom! Go. I’m
fine, I’ll be right behind you. Love you!” And then I closed the door in her
face before she had the chance to fight me on it anymore. I appreciated the
thought of her but I just needed to breathe for a second.

Twenty minutes
later I still hadn’t caught it. I kept overthinking everything that had
happened. Was everyone right? Had I just imagined that a man in a black mask
with green eyes had come into my room in the middle of the night to save me?
Could I really have apprehended that man all by myself in my state of shock?

It seemed
unlikely. But was it more unlikely than a super fast and strong man in a
costume and altered voice doing it? Nothing about it made any sense and it had
started to drive me crazy.

I slipped down
from my bed onto the floor and hugged my knees to my chest. Could I really have
a mystery hero running around my brain that doesn’t exist? And if so then what
the hell was the wrong with me?

I ran my hands
back and forth over the carpet until one of my fingers brushed against
something lodged under my bed. I grabbed the fabric in my hand and pulled it
toward me, turning it over in my hands.

It was a black
glove.

I hadn’t imagined
him at all. He had been there.

He had saved me.
That settled it.

I had to find him.

Chapter Five

BRADEN

The door to my
office swung open and my childhood best friend, Trent, came bursting in. He
clutched the side of his stomach and slammed the door shut behind him. “She’s
coming… she’s coming… she’s… she’s really worked up.”

I snapped my
computer shut and sighed. “My mother?” I was expecting her at any moment since
I had released the one remaining security guard I had kept on this morning.
Running around the city fighting crime was a little challenging when you were
always trying to ditch overgrown men who attracted attention the second they
entered a room.

Trent shook his
head and glanced toward the shut door. “Your mother? No! Hayden! I had to run
past her on the steps just to make it up here in time! You did something wrong…
you did something to upset her.”

“What else is
new?” I rolled my eyes and glanced at my tablet behind my desk. The girl from
last night still hadn’t checked into the hospital to get looked at, nor had she
gone down to the police station to make an official statement according to
their databases. What the hell was she waiting for?

“No, it’s worse than
usual. Just act natural when she gets in here!”

I scoffed. “Trent,
when are you going to stop being scared of Hayden? We aren’t kids anymore. You
know she’s not going to put you in a headlock and steal your lunch money,
right?”

A shade of red
formed in his cheeks. “I’m not scared of her! Besides, how many times do I have
to tell you that I was sick that day?” he grumbled.

I laughed and
closed out of the databases I was accessing illegally. “You can say it as many
times as you want I’m still not going to believe it.” I clicked on the browser
that brought me to the cities traffic cams and started to shift through the
busy streets of LA. I had shown up too late to catch the mugger last night. By
the time I got there all that was left was an elderly woman standing confused
in the middle of the street. I’d made it my mission to hunt the scumbag down,
if there was one thing I hated it was when a piece of crap like that got away.

It happened more
than I liked to admit.

But they never got
far. The more they ran, the harder I hunted.

And I loved the
hunt.

The door snapped
back and my little sister stomped into the room like she was running away from
a fire, her light hair sticking up and blowing in every direction, a fierce and
hungry look plastered in her eyes. Trent was right; she was more worked up than
usual.

Trent leaped over
to the couch in the corner of my office and draped his arm casually over the
back of the arm. “Oh, hey, Hayden, I didn’t know you were in yet.”

She shot him a
glare. “Please, Trent. Like I didn’t see you shove past me as you ran like a
bat out of hell up here.” She kept her gaze on him a few seconds, enjoying
watching him squirm.

I push the tablet
away from me. “Good morning, sis.”

She dodged her
head back around on me, locking her death glare on me. “Don’t you good morning
me, you big idiot!” She threw a huge folder down in front of me. “You know
what’s in here?”

“Nope but I have a
feeling you’re going to tell me.” I winked at her then grinned at Trent but he
just shook his head, not wanting to mess with Hayden when she was in this
state. Ugh, where had this guy left his balls?

“Save your charm
for some girl dumb enough to buy it, Braden.” She shook her head back and
forth. “You fucked up, you fucked up badly. That little mission you pulled off
on Hudson last night? The girl you saved is an absolute lunatic! She hasn’t
even gone to the hospital yet!”

Hayden was the
only person in the world I would tolerate talking to me like this. She got a
pass because she was my kid sister… to an extent.

“That hardly makes
her a lunatic.”

“Oh, no, what
she’s doing instead makes her a lunatic! She’s writing to every newspaper and
magazine who will listen about the mystery man in the black mask and glowing
eyes who saved her from an intruder last night!”

“SHE WHAT?” Trent
screamed from the other side of the room. “Oh crap! THIS IS A DISASTER! She
knows! She knows who you are! She’s figured it out! Every news crew within an
100 mile radius will be here at any moment!” He leaped up from the sofa and
looked out the window. “What the hell am I going to do? I can’t go to jail!”

He was such a
pussy.

Hayden sighed
loudly. “Remind him why we told him again? I know he’s your best friend but
he’s not exactly the most trustworthy person in the world.”

Trent spun around,
appalled. “Hey! I’m trustworthy.”

I snapped my
fingers and brought them both back to attention. “Let’s focus here, please.
What’s the big deal? We’ve intercepted letters and emails from people I’ve
saved before, they always drop it eventually.”

“I did intercept
them,” she informed me. “But she keeps sending them. And…” She trailed off,
grinding her teeth back and forth against each other a few times. “She’s
claiming whoever this man is talks like a… a robot.”

Trent laughed from
the other side of the room. “So she looks loony is what you’re saying.”

But my sister
didn’t look so sure.

“Don’t look at me
like that,” I told her. “What was the point of developing that voice box in my mask
if I wasn’t going to use it?” I pulled the tablet toward me again and glanced
at the screen. No new notifications. Where the hell was this guy?

“That was only in
case of emergencies! The intention was to always get in and out of there
without being seen or having to communicate with them at all. Once the threat
is taken out what else is there to say?”

“And I did that
but sometimes circumstances change the actions you take. She was a mess; she
wasn’t going to call the cops for help without some kind of support. Once she
was stable I got out of there as soon as I could.”

Trent waved my
sister off, suddenly calm. “Don’t worry about it. She’ll forget about it or
think it was a fragment of her imagination once she realizes nothing is coming
of it. Just like the others.”

It’s a nice
thought but something about her made me worry she wasn’t like the others. She
didn’t seem like the type to give up on something or forget about it just
because no results were happening right away. She seemed… different.

“I doubt it,”
Hayden said. Her eyes were still locked on me. “According to the emails she’s
shopping around she has proof.”

My sister suddenly
had my full attention. “Proof?”

“Like a video?”
Trent looked horrified.

“Like a glove.”

Trent frowned. “A
glove?”

“Uh huh, according
to Addison Cooper this mystery man with glowing green eyes left one of his
gloves behind. She just can’t wait to show it off to anyone who will listen to
prove she’s not making this up.” Her eyes traveled down to my hands. “How could
you be so careless?”

She was right, it
was completely out of character for me. Two years and I had never made a single
mistake and here I go making two in the same night with the same damn woman. It
didn’t look good, especially if she could figure out where the glove came from
or get some kind of fibers off it.

“She’s just a
freaked out woman, she’ll forget about it.” I turned my back on my sister, not
wanting her to see the regret and anger on my face. I had fucked up, and bad. I
prided myself on not making such stupid mistakes.

“Her stepfather is
a cop.”

“A COP?” Trent
asked.

“Braden,” my
sister warned me. “We need to get that glove back.”

“Where have I
heard that name before? Addison Cooper? Why does it sound so familiar?” Trent
turned the name over and over in his mind, trying to figure out where he knew
it from.

“Braden,” Hayden
whispered.

“Addison Cooper…
Addison Cooper… Addison…”

“Braden!”

“I’ll take care of
it,” I barked, turning around to face them again. I grabbed my suit jacket off
the back of my chair and slipped it over my shoulders. “I’ll take care of it.”
I rounded the desk and started to make my way toward the door of my office.

“Where are you
going?” Hayden demanded from somewhere behind me.

“I’m going to get
the damn glove back.”

My sister leaped
around my body and threw herself in front of the door. “And how the hell do you
plan on doing that without letting her figure out who you are?” She stuck her
bottom lip out the way she always did when she was being stubborn. “It’s too
risky. You should let me go, she doesn’t trust men right now. After what she
went through last night she will probably scream bloody murder before you get
within ten feet of her.”

Trent puffed from
the other side of the room, forgetting about the name familiarity for the time
being. Hayden shot him a look but he just shrugged. “There’s no girl that
Braden can’t impress. A normal guy, sure, maybe he would have some trouble. But
Braden?” Trent leaned back and crossed one leg over his knee. “Please, he’ll
have that glove back in no time.”

This was true.
“The man does have a point.”

Hayden didn’t say
anything for a second then just shrugged and backed away from the door with the
same defeated expression she always got when I got my own way. “Fine. But be
careful and you better make sure your ass is back here by 4 for that conference
call!”

I waved her off
and headed out the door. “Yeah, yeah. Do I ever let you down?”

But I didn’t stick
around to hear her response.