Billionaire On Fire: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (6 page)

Billionaire On Fire Volume 2

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Cam

"
Engine
One, Truck One, Ambulance Fifty-Five, apartment fire on Jackson and Halsted.
Residents trapped on the upper floors."

"Let's go, guys!"
Mike yelled as he raced to the truck and swung himself up in the driver's seat.
Danny and I were in next as the guys raced for the truck knowing we'd need the
ladder. We hit the street and Mike cranked up the siren as we sped toward our next
call.

I was quiet on the ride as I
thought about what Victor had said up in the bunkroom, and wondered if he
really did have something connecting me to CSC. I tried to come up with an
explanation for it in case he did, but all of my ideas fell flat. There was no
way to explain to the guys I worked with that I had more money than all of them
combined, and it would be even harder to explain why I'd hidden it from them
for so long. The best option would be to keep the business undercover and not
have me connected to it in any way. I needed to talk to Leo as soon as
possible.

We arrived at the call and
found the entire building engulfed in flames as residents screamed from the
upper floors that they had no way out.

"Raise the ladder!"
Chief Riley yelled at the guys from the truck. "Newsome, Connor, get the
hose ready to go in. Kelly, you're lead!"

"Gotcha, Chief,"
Mike said as he prepped his gear and got ready to take the door while Danny and
I hooked up the hose.

The heat of the fire had
blown out the lower windows and the flames were climbing the building. I knew
that the inside was getting hotter by the second, and that if we didn't get
those people out, it was highly likely that the floors would collapse and send
them tumbling down to their deaths.

"You ready, Kelly?"
I hollered from behind my oxygen mask and got a nod as Mike raised his axe and
busted in the front door. He leapt backwards as the flames shot out and I hit
them with a blast of the hose.

Above us, the guys from the
truck were climbing the ladder as they waited for it to reach the edge of the
building. As soon as it did, they began transferring people from the open
window in a bucket brigade fashion that soon had the stranded residents down on
the ground. The children stood huddled against their parents' legs as their
tears left tracks in the soot on their cheeks.

Mike led us into the building
and pointed toward the inferno raging in the corner.

"Hit it, guys!" he
yelled as he began to vent the lower rooms calling out in case anyone had been
left inside. It didn't take long for Danny and I to bring the flames under
control on the ground floor, and the guys on the ladder worked it from above.

The problem came when Mike
climbed up to the second floor yelling, "Fire department! Call out!" It
was there, in a small studio apartment in the back corner, that he found what
looked like the body of a young woman badly burned but still alive.

"MEDIC!" Mike
screamed over and over until the paramedic climbed the stairs to check out what
he'd found. They quickly assessed her injuries and loaded her up on a backboard
carrying her down to the ambulance and whisking her off to the hospital. After
canvassing the rest of the second floor, Mike came back down and helped us
break up the walls.

"Hey, man," he said
as he looked at me.

"Don't say a word,"
I said as I swung my axe. "Not a fucking word."

He nodded and we worked with
only the sound of the water flowing from the hose outside and our axes hitting
the walls as we tore the building apart.

#

Nobody
said
anything to me once we got back to the station when I took Tesla out to the
yard to play ball. I stood there throwing the damn tennis ball thinking about
what had happened and how close to home the situation had been. My eyes were
dry, but my chest was tight, and I felt the weight of the world bearing down on
my shoulders.

More than anything, I wanted
to talk to Alex. I wanted to feel Alex's body pressed against mine and her lips
moving under my own. I wanted Alex. I pulled out my phone and stared at the
screen for a long time before I scrolled through and found her number. I
debated whether I should call or not and then hit the dial button and waited.

"Hey, Cam, what's
up?" she said and I could hear the smile in her voice.

"Nothing much, just
bored out of my skull," I said smiling back.

"Oh, so I'm your fall
back for mind numbing boredom? Good to know," she laughed. I could hear
noise in the background.

"You sure you're not
busy?" I asked.

"No, I'm just helping
Liz with a project she started but couldn't finish on her own," she
laughed as I heard running water in the background.

"Uh, okay?" I said
as I picked up the ball that Tesla dropped at my feet and chucked it halfway
across the yard. I watched as she tore off to find the ball in the dark yard
and smiled when she did.

"Liz started dying her
hair and got stuck because she couldn't reach the back strands," Alex
explained. "So now I'm here playing stylist as we try to even out the
peacock blue highlights she attempted to put in. It's a mess!"

"You girls are
nuts," I laughed as I imagined Alex trying to apply highlights to her
friend's head.

"Indeed we are,"
she laughed with me. "Look, can I call you back? We're at a crucial point
and -- Liz sit down and wait! God, she's my best friend but she's a major pain
in the ass!"

"No problem, call me
back if you have time," I said as Tesla wandered around holding the ball
in her mouth, a sign that she'd had enough catch for one night. "And be
careful!"

"I'm trying! Talk to you
later!" Alex laughed before the line went dead.

I put the phone back in my
pocket and wished I could be there to witness the chaos. I just wanted to be
near Alex again. I shook my head and looked down at Tesla.

"I'm nuts, girl," I
sighed. "Just flat out nuts. And I'm not sure what I'm going to do about
that, so if you've got any ideas, throw them my way, would you?"

Tesla dropped the ball and
barked once as she headed for the station door. I sighed as I picked up the
ball and tossed it in the toy basket before heading inside.

"You okay?" Newsome
asked quietly.

"Yeah, fine," I
nodded as I grabbed a soda and sat down to watch television with the guys. My
mind was a million miles away as I stared at the screen and thought about the
past, present and future.

#

The
next
morning, after I got off shift, I drove home and dropped Tesla off before I
headed to the CSC offices to find Leo. It had been an uneventful night at the
station, which had left my mind to wander. I wanted to know what information
Victor could possibly have and then I wanted to find a way to shut it down.

"Morning, Becky," I
said as I entered the office. "Leo in yet?"

"He is, indeed,"
she said. "Not a good morning, though."

"Why? What's up?" I
asked stopping at the desk.

"It seems Mr. Marini got
some bad news this morning and he had a bit of a meltdown," she sighed.
"I hate mornings like this."

"I'll see if I can't go
turn it around," I said. "Keep your chin up, Becky. It's bound to get
better."

"One can only hope,
sir," she sighed as she turned back to the ringing phone.

I walked down the hall to
Leo's office and noticed that several of the pictures that had been hanging on
the walls were now on the floor. One frame's glass was cracked, and I frowned
when I saw it was the shot of the state capitol.

"Leo, what the hell is
going on here?" I said as I walked into his office and found him leaning
against the floor to ceiling window with both palms pressed to the glass as if
he were single-handedly holding up the wall.

"Don't start with me,
Cam," he said in a voice that sounded more weary than angry.

"I'm not going to, I
just want to know what's going on," I said calmly. "C'mon, tell me
what happened and why you're so damn angry."

"The son of a
bitch..." he began as he dropped his hands and turned around to look at
me. His mouth twisted into an ugly grin.

"Leo, just tell me
what's going on and we'll work it out," I said.

"Richard Metzler wants
to sign a contract with us for security coverage during the election
campaign," Leo said.

"Okay, so what?" I
replied as I watched him start to pace in front of the window.

"He's demanding that we
limit our work to his campaign alone," Leo said running his hand through
his already messy hair.

"I still don't get what
the problem is," I said. "So, we only work for one candidate. What's
the big deal?"

"The big deal is that
Metzler isn't really giving us an option, Cam," Leo said. "He's
gotten a hold of our financials and he knows all about you."

"How the hell did he get
that information, Leo?" I asked as I felt the anger rising. "This was
the one reason why I had not wanted to move forward with this idea and now
you're telling me that it's turned out exactly the way I'd feared it
would?"

"I don't know how he got
it, Cam," Leo said as he moved away from the window and walked to his
desk. "I had the lawyers bury it so deep that it would have taken dynamite
to uncover it."

"Obviously Metzler has
the necessary explosives," I said bitterly. "Dammit, Leo. I never
wanted to go down this road!"

"I know, I know,"
he said as he dug through a stack of papers and pulled out one sheet. He handed
to me saying, "Look, we can make this work. We can just choose to work
with Metzler. The contract is unbelievably generous, and it'll get our name out
there for future business."

"What if I don't want to
do this, Leo?" I asked. "What happens if I say no?"

"Metzler releases the
financials and exposes us in the media," Leo said quietly. "I'm
sorry, Cam."

"This is fucked up, and
you know it," I said looking down at the sheet detailing the proposed
contract with Metzler's campaign. The amount of money they were willing to pay
us for security services bordered on obscene. I looked at Leo, "What in
the hell? This figure is more than we would have made from all four
campaigns."

"I know," he nodded.
"Can't we just take it and run with it, Cam?"

"What? And then be
another one of the companies that Richard Metzler bought off on his way up the
political ladder?" I asked. "Hell no!"

"Cam, we don't have a
choice," Leo pleaded. "We have to take the offer or we'll be
exposed."

"No, you've got it all
wrong, my friend," I said shaking my head. "We won't be exposed, I
will. And that makes all the difference in the world."

"Cam, I didn't do this
on purpose!" Leo yelled. "I really did think that making the move
into campaign security was a profitable decision!"

"But you didn't think it
all the way through and anticipate every possible outcome!" I shouted.
"You didn't think about my life at all!"

"No, I didn't!" Leo
yelled then backing down a bit he collapsed into his chair and rubbed his eyes
before looking up. When he did, I could see the anguish, "I didn't think
of you this time, Cam. That's true. But it's because for the past decade I've
thought of nothing but you. All day, every day. I think about how every
decision will affect you. How ever deal will affect you. What about me? When is
it my turn to think about me, Cam?"

"Leo, you knew the deal
when you took the job," I protested.

"I did, indeed," he
nodded. "But it's been ten years, Cam. At what point are you going to let
go of the memory and start living? Because until you start living in the world
again, I can't."

"Leo..." I said not
knowing how to respond to his raw honesty. He was right on some level. I had
been living a life closed off from the rest of the world as I tried to absorb
the enormous loss, but now I wondered if it wasn't time to open up a bit and
pull down some of the protective walls I'd built. I sank down into one of the
soft chairs that faced his desk and dropped my face into my hands.

"Cam, look, I've done
everything you've ever asked me to," Leo said quietly. "And I've
never complained, but now..."

Leo got up out of his chair,
walked around the desk and perched on the edge of it. He leaned forward and
rested his hand on my shoulder.

"But now it's time to
come out of the shell and start living again, my friend," he said. There
was sadness in his voice, but it was mixed with a bit of hope around the edges.
It was as if he thought that he could shock me out of my years of sadness, and
maybe he could.