Hard Charger: Jake & Sophia: A Hot Contemporary Romance by Tracy Fobes

In many of Rockport Grove’s loans, in fact.  They said that if I didn’t find a way to pay that loan, it would go badly for me.”
    Jake had a sinking sensation deep inside.  This was bad.  Really bad.
    “Earlier today, they visited me again,” she continued.  “Said that if I allowed them to use my salon for dealing prescription drugs and money laundering, ‘the boss’ might go easy on me.  I refused.  Things got physical, and one of them punched me.”
    “Fuck!”  He put his hand on her arm.  “I’m sorry.”
    “They said they’ll be back,” she admitted, and then started crying again.
    He felt trapped.  “Tell me something about these guys.  Do you see them around town?”
    “No,” she replied, her voice trembling.  “They had heavy accents, though.  As though they were from somewhere over by Russia.”
    From Russia with Love.
    “We need to pay that money back,” he said, the apparent calmness in his voice at odds with the anxiety rolling through him.  “Quickly.”
    “I know.”
    “How do we pay it back?”
    “Win the lottery?”
    Jake frowned.  “Not funny.  What about a second mortgage on the salon?”
    She shrugged.  “It’s possible.  But that’ll take time, and I don’t have time.  They want their money now .”
     
    “So we need time, as well as money.”  He tightened his lips.  “We gotta go to the police.”
    His mom instantly put a hand on his arms.  Her eyes wide, she shook her head.  “No, Jake. Don’t go to the police.  They told me they’d know and would punish me if I did.  And anyway, the police are corrupt.  So is the mayor.  You’ll do nothing but make it worse if you involve the police.”
    “That can’t be true.”
    “It is,” she insisted.  Her lips parted, and Jake waited for her continue, but a long pause developed between them.  He stared at her, sensing she was about to drop another bomb on him.
    After almost a minute, she dropped it.  “The best place to go for help is the Guardians.”
    “WHAT?”  Shocked, he jumped out of his seat.  “You want me to go to the same motorcycle club that killed dad?  What the hell can they do?”
    She stood as well.  “Jake, they’re the only ones who can help.  In fact, your Uncle Martin is already aware of what’s been going on, and the club’s been trying to help.  He’s insisting on moving in with me until we get the situation straightened out.”
    He drew back.  “What’s Uncle Martin going to do, stand guard with a shotgun?”
    “Martin’s got the club behind him.”
    “So what?”
    “Both of us will be safer with him around.”
    He frowned.  “I don’t need him to defend me.  Or you.”
    “I don’t want you to defend us.  I don’t want you to get killed .  You’re my son.  You’re all that I have left.”
    He clenched his fists.  “I’d like to find these two goons who’ve been blackmailing you.”
    “You see?”  She threw up her hands.  “This is why I didn’t want to tell you.  I was afraid you’d go off half-cocked.   And here you are, doing exactly that.”
    “Don’t you ever keep anything like that from me again,” he warned her, his gut bubbling with a need to set things right.
    Frowning, she stood to put a pot of tea on to boil.
    “Sit down.  Let me do that.”  He shooed her back to the table, then got a mug out and dropped a tea bag into it.  He would take care of her first.  Then, tomorrow morning, he was going straight to the police.  Unlike his mother, he had faith in the men in uniform.  He’d been one himself, after all.

Chapter Seven
     
     
    Simon Koschei didn’t think of himself as a bad man.  Nor did he consider what he did evil.   No, he was just the avtorityet of a little organizatsiya that was helping a quaint old town drag itself out of the debris left by a hurricane.  At the same time, he was giving the pakhan and his bratki in Brooklyn a few new revenue streams.  Who could complain about that? 
    He