Nerds Are Freaks Too Read Free

two of them.
    Extremely private when it came to his personal life, Leo
gripped the steering wheel even tighter. Roxanne had him so turned inside out
he wasn’t behaving like himself.
    There was a long pause on the other end and then Marcello’s
baritone voice drifted through the receiver. “No problem, boss. I can shuffle
Mr. Lloyd around. Any phone calls you would like me to pass on to you?”
    “No.” He knew Marcello was fishing for information.
    “See you tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
    “Same to you,” Leo replied automatically. He doubted he’d be
able to really enjoy anything for quite some time. He’d made sure of it by
alienating Roxanne.
    * * * * *
    Only five blocks from his parents’ home, the Halsted Boxing
Club was so far removed from the shiny, spotless gyms most hip Chicagoans
flocked to. Truth be known, many locals barely knew the club existed since the
brick building still resembled the public bathhouse it once housed during the
first half of the nineteenth century.
    The interior wasn’t much of an improvement. Converted into a
boxing club in the early 1950s, Halsted remained dark, dank and smelled worse
than the inside of an old gym bag. Leo wouldn’t want it any other way.
    The place kept him grounded, reminded him of how far he’d
come from the hard-headed fourteen-year-old disciple of the No Mercy Graffiti
Masters. To this day, Leo still marveled over the fact he hadn’t ended up
behind bars or living on a park bench, still breaking into train yards. But
he’d straightened his life out—or had it straightened out for him by the
gym’s owner.
    Salvatore Cipriani had caught him defacing the front of the
building with a Papadopoulos original. Instead of turning him in to the cops,
he’d marched Leo down to his father at the family restaurant and told him to
get one last look, because Cipriani now owned Leo’s ass, lock, stock and
barrel.
    The crotchety, third-generation Sicilian hadn’t been
bluffing. He put Leo to work fixing what he’d damaged. What should have only
been two days, Leo’s punishment lasted two months as Cipriani had him repairing
or repainting practically everything.
    But by then, Leo didn’t care. He was so hooked on boxing he
was making up excuses to stick around. Thankfully the old man took pity on him
and opened a spot for him on the youth boxing team. One single act of charity
had led to half a dozen amateur boxing titles and a four-year academic
scholarship from the USA Boxing Association, which he’d used to attend
Northwestern University.
    He’d paid his debt, but Leo received far more in return. He
attributed his strict personal discipline, his successful career,
multimillion-dollar fortune and even Roxanne to boxing.
    As his thoughts turned to Roxanne, Leo developed a mental
hard-on. What’s new? He’d been in lust with the curvaceous brown-skinned
beauty since the moment he’d laid eyes on her outside the college bookstore
several weeks into their freshman year, and secretly in love with her by the
time they’d graduated.
    Now he’d gone and ruined a perfectly good friendship by
allowing his one-eyed monster to lead, instead of his head. After all these
years, why had he decided to finally walk the line?
    Simple—her rare sexual confessional had turned him on.
    “Great job, dumbass,” Leo muttered, retying the drawstring
on his dark-blue athletic pants.
    “You’re here early.” Salvatore Cipriani’s gravelly bark
followed Leo as he set himself up under a speed bag. The club’s owner had just
hobbled out of his tiny office, carrying a mug of God knows what in one hand
and a folded newspaper in the other. He glanced over at two guys sparring in
the club’s center ring and snapped, “Keep your hands up, Rodney, unless you
want your head to take the place of your ass.” Without missing a beat, he
turned back to Leo. “What’s wrong?”
    Leo rolled his shoulders. Sometimes he hated how well the
old guy knew him. “I came in to