Author Page
Category:
Romance
ISBN-10: 1942336039
ISBN-13: 9781942336037
Calen is a good man from a bad family. He’s worked hard for success, but something’s missing…or rather, someone.
Calen is the son of an Irish mobster, but he’s rejected his legacy and has made a name for himself as a club owner. After years of hard work, he has the life he’s always wanted. Almost.
Then his father asks him to take a meeting with a rival crew. It’s too important to say no. Reluctantly, he drives out to the middle of nowhere to meet them. There to negotiate for reparations, he sees an innocent girl being held against her will—someone who looks very familiar.
Unwilling to leave the girl to a fate worse than death, he demands she be included as part of the deal. Maia is forced to stay with Calen for her safety, but she soon finds out he has ulterior motives for protecting her.
This title is available Feb 16th, 2015 on most online retailers.
Excerpt
Prologue
The driving beat of the music was starting to make Calen’s head pound. He put a weary hand over his eyes, trying to block out the noise and flashing lights of his newest nightclub.
It didn’t work.
All he wanted was to go home. He hadn’t been here long, but his interest had nosedived after Liam and Trick had left. It used to be the height of his ambition to sit at his own personal VIP table, watching the beautiful people spend their money on his overpriced booze and dance the night away. But the satisfaction of living out this fantasy had faded some time ago.
Liam might be right. Calen needed to find another challenge. Liam wanted him to open a club at the Caislean, the Tyler brothers’ flagship hotel here in town. The Caislean chain was starting to open hotels all over the place, but the brothers still took the most pride in their first property. So did he. Calen had helped them find the investors they needed to open their dream hotel, and he was also sentimental about the place. But right now the thought of opening another nightclub held about as much appeal as an all-tofu diet. It did nothing to enhance the arousal he should be feeling, given the determined blowjob he was getting under the table right now.
He was hard enough, he supposed, but nowhere near climaxing. He reached under the long tablecloth, and with a hand on her head, signaled to his lovely companion that she should stop and join him above table. He thanked her politely, and despite her pout, dismissed her as courteously as possible.
Calen had little respect for women who pouted, but in this case, it was helpful. It helped destroy the image he’d first had when he had spotted her. The brunette had been giving him coy and inviting looks all night. For a moment, in the dim light of the club, the illusion created by her black hair and green eyes had been convincing, so he’d waved her over to keep him company. But she’d only been an illusion—a poor copy of Elynn.
He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Calen couldn’t believe he was still fantasizing about his old university mate’s new wife. The fact he’d been doing so regularly since Alex had gotten married was making him crazy. And he felt like total shite about the whole thing.
He waved his manager over and told him to keep an eye on things, then got up to leave. He drove home to his penthouse, still deep in self-flagellation mode. He felt like calling Sergei, if only for the fact that he wasn’t the only one of Alex’s’ old friends to find his new bride a little too appealing.
Sergei Damov, Alexandros Hanas, and Giancarlo Morgese had been the first and only friends he had made in University. They had all attended Alex’s wedding a few weeks ago at his new Oxford estate and, if circumstances continued as they were, it would be the last wedding among his friends. Giancarlo had technically been married, but the best thing he could say about that disaster is that it had been brief.
With a sigh, he thought back to those early days at University in Edinburgh. It was one of the first times he’d left the country and, miracle of miracles, he’d done it with his father’s blessing. No one in the family had ever chosen to study abroad before. In fact, most didn’t bother with higher education at all. But he’d known from an early age that he wasn’t going to join the family ‘business’. He was determined to make his own way in the world, and stay clean doing it.
With his background, he’d had a hard time relating to any of the other people he’d met. Until Sergei. Perhaps friendship between the son of an Irish mobster and the son of a shady Russian magnate was out of the question under normal circumstances, but he and Sergei had felt a connection from day one.
Giancarlo and Alex drifted into their lives shortly after, and soon the four had become inseparable, despite the differences in their personalities. Alex vacillated between being a risk-taker and a control freak. Sergei was like him—easygoing on the outside but with a tendency for too much introspection. Giancarlo had been the steady one, at least on the surface. But still waters ran deep, as they said.
The last time he had seen any of them had been at Alex’s wedding. Giancarlo had to leave early after the ceremony, but he and Sergei had stayed on till the bride and groom had shared their last dance. Then he and Sergei had left the reception together to mourn the end of Alex’s bachelorhood by getting completely wasted. After drinking half a bottle of vodka, Sergei had admitted how sexy he found Elynn, and Calen had incoherently agreed. They proceeded to try and drunkenly pinpoint exactly why Elynn had affected them the way she had.
In a fog of alcohol-induced intuition, they’d eventually decided it was because of the innocent sensuality she exuded. Between him and Sergei, and before his recent marriage, Alex, the three men had fucked hundreds of beautiful women. Giancarlo’s tally had been more modest, but he’d always said it was about quality, not quantity. As for the rest of them, they’d had plenty of models, actresses, socialites, and club girls in their beds. But no other woman of his acquaintance had possessed that look of innocence waiting to be ravaged that Elynn would probably always have. Sergei had mumbled about knowing one other girl with that look, but he’d clammed up when pressed for more details.
Calen had been glad to learn he hadn’t been the only one to find his friend’s new wife attractive, but it was cold comfort now that he was back home in Boston. In reality, his dissatisfaction with life had begun before he’d attended the wedding, but it had gotten so much worse after he’d returned.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew he wasn’t in love with a woman he’d only met for a few hours. And he had no desire to see her again. He would never hurt his friend by making a pass at his new wife, especially since said wife was obviously completely in love with her husband.
That hadn’t stopped him from fantasizing about having what Alex had. He’d even started fantasizing about having kids. But he wasn’t about to have one without meeting the right woman first. But those kind of women—one like his friend had now—only came along once in a lifetime, if at all. And they didn’t come to men like him. Not to men with families like his.
Arriving at his empty penthouse apartment, Calen started a fire and then took off his suit jacket and tie. Pouring himself a large glass of his favorite whiskey, Knappogue Castle, he collapsed into his newest leather chair and stared broodingly at the fire.
The fireplace was a monster with an austere marble mantelpiece that dominated the large living room. It wasn’t one of those modern gas ones. It burned real logs, a smell he loved. The fireplace was the reason he’d bought the apartment in the first place. He spent more nights watching the fire than his 4K OLED flat screen, especially lately when he’d begun to wish he wasn’t sitting there alone.
He spent another hour trying to get drunk, but when he couldn’t even get a buzz, he gave up and went to bed.
Chapter 1
Three months later…
“What the hell are you talking about? I can’t take a meeting for you. You know I don’t get involved with your business. Not ever,” Calen growled into his phone as he threw on some pants.
It was past noon, but he had still been in bed when his father called. He’d gone to sleep well after dawn, having spent most of the night on his favorite new hobby, photographing fairies. Or rather, looking through security footage for one...
Colman McLachlan sighed deeply on the other end of the line. “Son, I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if I had another choice. But your cousin Darren is tied up. His wife broke her leg falling down the stairs. They’re worried she might lose the baby, and with all that trouble with little Darren, I can’t ask him to do this right now. I’m still at the hospital. They are going to run more tests, and I can’t leave them right now. You know how Darren can get. And there’s no one else I trust with something this important.”
Shit. He wasn’t especially fond of Darren’s wife, but she was hugely pregnant. A fall at this stage was a serious thing. Still, he had fought hard to maintain his independence from his family, and he wasn’t about to jeopardize it.
“Da, I can’t meet the Russians. We made a deal. I stay out of your business, and you stay out of mine. I have back-to-back meetings with my distributors all day today.”
“You can ask your manager to take those meetings. It’s his job. And you won’t be doing anything illegal. You’re just setting some final terms for the reparations they owe. It won’t take more than a half hour of your time.”
His father sounded so reasonable, but then he always did. Even at his worst.
Calen swore softly, realizing he had no choice. About a month ago, a small Russian crew under the Komarov umbrella had made the mistake of setting up an enterprise in a neighborhood run by the McLachlan family. They had taken initiative, not bothering to check with their superiors when they built a large meth lab on the ground floor of an apartment complex that was part of the McLachlan’s legitimate holdings. A few distant cousins had lived in the building, on the second floor. The fumes had poisoned their little girl. She didn’t make it.
Calen had felt the same rage over her death that his father and cousins did, even if he hadn’t known her. She had been four years old, still a baby. The Russians had discovered exactly how badly they had fucked themselves shortly afterwards. He didn’t know how many had ended up dead at his family’s hands. The chemist and his boss for sure, right after the incident. He didn’t want to know if any others had followed. The Russians had decided against a full-blown war and had offered reparations instead.
Apparently, he was about to find out exactly what those reparations were.
****
Maia’s heart felt like it was going to explode out of her chest. She was running flat out, her energy reserves long gone. There was a stitch in her side and another under her breast that was making it hard to catch her breath, but she couldn’t stop. If they caught her, she was dead.
Pumping her already trembling legs harder, she scrambled down a ridge and across a muddy pit, praying that she had lost her pursuers.
She had thought she’d gotten so lucky today. Her boss had asked her to do him a favor. He was teaching an introductory Entomology class and he’d wanted live specimens for a demonstration. Maia had to check her traps for the moths she studied so she hadn’t minded making the trek out to the woods. She had found an assortment of beetles and walking sticks. Then she had seen a rare species of butterfly, a Long Tailed Skipper, flying overhead.
That species wasn’t normally found so far up north. Maia had been eager to take a picture of it so she could add it to the butterfly count. Her lab kept logs on the numbers of butterflies spotted each season in order to determine population numbers.
The dusky blue and grey butterfly had flown just out of the range of her camera lens. She’d doggedly pursued it, crashing through bushes and over fallen logs and uneven terrain. Her lab’s record keeping was strict. You had to take a time-stamped picture in order to add the specimen to the count.
The Skipper continued to elude her, flying over a ridge. Panting slightly, she climbed up the steep incline until she topped the rise and found herself at the edge of a small ravine. All thoughts of the butterfly promptly fled, even as it flew past the heads of the men at the bottom of the ridge.
Two men, one in a baseball cap and the other bareheaded, were dropping a partially covered body into a hole near the bottom on the ridge. Coming up above them, she had stopped short in shock, the air leaving her lungs. She’d been so stunned, she’d simply frozen like an idiot directly in front of them.
Both men had seen her almost right away. And she had seen them clearly, too. Neither was disguised. They weren’t wearing masks. The taller, more muscled one, was covered in tattoos. His shorter and fatter partner, the one closest to her, had some as well, but they were fewer. The fat man’s beady dark eyes had narrowed when they met hers. The giant behind him had shouted, and the heavier one had lunged for her. But he’d been too far away, and she’d dropped everything to run as fast as her legs could carry her.
At first, she thought she was going to get away. She was small, but fast—faster than the heavy man pursuing her. In junior high, she had set the record in the four-hundred-meter dash. Behind her, the fat man had chased her, and she’d quickly gotten ahead of him. But she wasn’t fast enough to escape his larger and fitter partner.
There were crashing noises behind her, but Maia’s heart was pounding almost hard enough to drown them out. All she knew was that she had to keep running. She was flying over the uneven terrain when she tripped the first time and went down hard. The knees of her jeans tore, and she could feel that telltale painful friction that told her she’d scraped herself bad enough to bleed. Ignoring the pain, she struggled to her feet and kept running up the hill near her car.
Suddenly, a large hand grabbed her, its weight enough to send her crashing to the ground once more. Then he was on top of her. The giant grabbed her by the calf, dragging her toward him. She thought she was too out of breath to scream, but she managed to do it anyway. Her attacker flipped her over violently, grabbing her by the legs and waist. She screamed again and kicked out as hard as she could. One of her kicks landed against his stomach, but the giant only grunted before hauling her close enough to backhand her with brutal strength.
Pain exploded across the left side of Maia’s face, and she crumpled to the ground like a broken marionette. The ground rose up to meet her, but she barely felt its impact. Inhaling dirt, her vision went momentarily black. Rough hands hauled her up, and she was swinging over the ground, back in the direction of the rough grave.
She turned her eyes to the man carrying her. He looked down at her without expression, his dark eyes flat and cold. The world swam, and the trees became a swirl of green and grey. One blow, and she was done fighting. The most she could hope for was to stay conscious.
“Please,” she whispered to her attacker through sore and rapidly swelling lips.
He ignored her as they came upon the fat man. She could still make him out despite the darkness encroaching on her vision. He was sweaty and out of breath. Bent nearly double, he rested his hands on his thighs before shooting her a look of hatred. But there was another emotion in his eyes as well.
Lust.
****
The blindfold smelled of oil and gasoline. Maia’s hands were tied behind her, looped to the rope binding her ankles together. Terrified, she cried silently. She had tried screaming when they had stuffed her in the van, hoping someone would hear her. But the blow that followed had taught her to keep quiet. And now she couldn’t hear any traffic noises close enough to make screaming worth it. Not that she could scream with the disgusting rag in her mouth.
Maia wasn’t sure why she wasn’t already dead. She had thought she was about to join the other body in the shallow grave out in the woods. But it wasn’t going to be that easy. No, she was pretty sure she was going to suffer horribly before she died. The way that porky little man had looked at her filled her with dread.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to calm down enough to think of a plan—any plan to save herself.
Chapter 2
Calen was fucking pissed. He still couldn’t believe he was doing this. He had rearranged his meetings and called in Mike, his head of security at the club, in addition to Jay, his regular driver and bodyguard, to go with him to the meet. That had been before Jimmy O’Donnell had showed up, courtesy of his father. The older man had been his own bodyguard growing up. Now he was high up in his father’s organization. The old man trusted him implicitly. Taking Jimmy along made a lot of sense, but he resented it. He hated the whole fucking situation.
And apparently this fucking meeting is in the goddamned middle of nowhere.
Dilapidated warehouses filled the skyline as his town car wound down one narrow alleyway after another. He hated the closed-in feeling the crowded buildings gave him. But he was careful not to let that show on his face. He had learned to control his facial expressions and body language a long time ago. Besides, it wouldn’t do to let Jimmy see he was rattled. He liked him, but Jimmy was loyal to Colman, not him. And Calen never let his father see him sweat, not even vicariously. Pissed yeah. But never rattled or nervous. It was one of the only lessons he’d learned from his father that he actually found useful.
“You’ll be fine. You’re a scarier-looking motherfucker than your old man.” Jimmy nodded approvingly from seat across from him. “Just make sure they don’t lowball you on the settlement. The more you get, the more little Mary’s parents get. They’ll want to have more kids someday.”
Calen idly wondered how much of a cut his dad was going to take, but decided not to make an issue out of it. And personally, he found his father’s rounder and jovial-looking face incongruously intimidating. Much more so than the harder angular planes of his features, inherited from his mother’s side of the family. By comparison, Colman looked harmless, but appearances were deceiving. It was like getting close to a friendly rabbit—when it turned on you and savaged your arm, it was always a complete surprise.
Not that it mattered. He was here. Not his father. “Don’t worry. I know how to play hardball,” he muttered, still staring out the window.
If he hadn’t learned how to negotiate, he wouldn’t own a dozen nightclubs right now. All clean operations. Mostly. Here and there he may have made a deal in the shady grey area, but for a man in his business, that was sometimes necessary. But Calen was satisfied he’d always colored inside the lines.
They finally pulled in front of the right warehouse. Gesturing to Jay to wait outside with the car, he and Jimmy made for the door with Mike at their heels. His security chief walked ahead of him, busily scanning the area for potential threats. Some habits were hard to break when you had spent a decade in the military and almost as long as a mercenary.
Mike had spent half his life in some of the most hellish places on earth and Calen had jumped at the chance to hire him. Though Mike worked at Siren at the moment, his newest club, he was in charge of security at all of them. He preferred to move between them as needed, so Calen was glad he was still in town until Siren was better established.
Following Mike’s lead, Calen stepped into the dimly lit interior of the warehouse. Smaller rooms branched off a larger central open space. Next to him, a set of metal stairs led to a walkway that was also surrounded by smaller rooms. Another set of stairs at the back led to the walkway and a windowed supervisor’s office that overlooked the whole room.
It was dusty. Calen could smell mold and the bleach that was presumably used to treat it. Scanning the room, his eyes took in a mostly empty space. At the far end, four men argued in Russian.
His grasp of the language wasn’t as good as when he and Sergei lived together, but it was passable. Two men were berating a larger muscled man while a third fatter one stood there, seemingly unconcerned with the shouting. Calen paused in the shadows by the door, gesturing to the others to stay quiet.
“I’m going to the toilet. Bring her inside,” the fat one ordered as he walked away to a staircase leading to a suite of offices visible on the right.
“What the fuck is this, Viktor?” one man in a suit spat out as the fatter man disappeared.
The muscled man shrugged. “Timur wants to play with her a bit before he kills her.”
Timur. Calen recognized the name.
The other man sighed while the first one continued. “How much did she see?”
“Enough,” Viktor replied.
“Will she be missed?”
Viktor shrugged again. “Probably. She has a Harvard student ID.”
Calen’s ears perked up. What the hell was going on? Why did they have a Harvard student? If one went missing, it would make the news. Why take the chance?
“Is she worth anything?”
“Doesn’t look like she has money. Maybe to the right buyer, but Timur won’t take the chance of letting her live.”
The other man nodded, and a fifth man came down from the office. He and Viktor went out a door near them. It presumably led outside because he heard a door slam and then Viktor came in carrying a small bound girl over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. He pulled her off him to display her to the other men.
A thrill of recognition passed through Calen as he got a better look at the petite frame and orange-gold hair of the prisoner.
She was too far away to be sure, but he was almost convinced he’d found his fairy.
****
The crying girl had been shoved out of sight into a side room as soon as he stepped out into the brighter light in the center of the warehouse. He walked confidently to the men, emotionless mask intact.
“Gentlemen. I am Calen McLachlan. I believe you are expecting me,” he said coldly.
“Yes, please sit down,” the man in the suit said. “I am Peter. I represent the Komarov family.”
“Why isn’t Timur Komarov representing the family?” he asked flatly.
The men shifted in surprise, eyeing each other across the table.
“I speak for the family. Timur is...busy,” Peter said cautiously.
Calen took a seat and sat down in a deceptively relaxed pose. “Tell him to finish fuckin’ pissing himself and get out here.”
Peter and the others looked at each other again. Apparently the Komarov heir didn’t do business much. Whether or not it was because he wasn’t trusted remained to be seen.
Calen could tell that they didn’t want to agree. Even Mike was probably wondering what the fuck he was doing. He could feel Jimmy’s eyes boring a hole into the back of his head, but he knew the old man wouldn’t give any sign he thought Calen’s request odd. Jimmy had also taken a few lessons from his old man.
He crossed his arms and waited. He wanted Timur here, with him. As long as he was in sight, the fat fuck wasn’t in the side room putting his greasy hands on his fairy.
****
Timur was a pompous stupid bastard. He didn’t live up to his father’s cutthroat reputation. Neither did Calen, but unlike the piece of shit in front of him, he wasn’t living like a blood-sucking tick off his father’s largess. The man stank of sweat and lust.
For the most part, Timur was paying attention, but periodically his eyes would shift to the side room where the girl was, like he simply couldn’t help himself. But it was to Calen’s advantage to have the enemy in front of him for assessment. And what he saw was mostly weakness and greed.
Peter was easier to deal with. He was a straight shooter that had been ordered to satisfy his demands…within reason. The McLachlans were older and more established in Boston. His father kept more neighborhoods in his iron grip than the Russians, and the docks were his. The Russians moved shit only with his father’s grace. Calen was in a stronger position, and Peter knew it.
“One hundred,” Peter said after twenty minutes of downright nasty negotiations.
“My price is two,” Calen replied, inflexible.
Peter shifted, betraying his discomfort while his men whispered in the background. The Komarov had probably set a fixed ceiling somewhere in between one and two hundred grand.
Calen went in for the kill, switching to Russian, “But I will settle for one fifty and the girl.”
“What girl?”
“The one you just brought in. I want her.”
The Russians fell silent. Then Timur started shouting bloody murder. The men behind him shifted nervously. Jimmy moved closer to Calen’s back while Mike flanked the Russians, keeping the larger Viktor in front of him.
Peter’s professionalism shone brightly. He, like Calen, didn’t move. He switched to Russian as well. “Your grasp of our tongue is very good. You honor us with your skill.”
“Thank you, but flattery won’t change my mind. I want the girl,” Calen continued in Russian.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Peter said, glancing sideways at Timur, who had quieted down after his initial outburst.
Not as stupid as he looks, Calen thought, shooting Timur a look before shifting his attention back to Peter.
“Then we’re done here. There is no deal. There is no more looking the other way at the docks, either,” he bluffed.
He didn’t have the ability to make that call, but the man in front of him didn’t know that. Standing, he turned, noting with satisfaction that both Jimmy and Mike were stone-faced, backing his play even if they didn’t understand what was going on. He ignored the hissed argument between Timur and Peter.
“Two hundred it is,” Peter called after him.
Calen turned around. “Now it’s two hundred and the girl.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. Our guest is unable to...leave us,” Peter said in an apologetic tone.
Calen smiled and walked back to the table. He leaned over it and braced his hands on the surface. “Your people cost me family. Now I expect you to reimburse me. I’ll be taking the girl with me. I can assure you, I will keep her close. She won’t be a problem. Why don’t you bring her out here.”
Peter and Timur began to argue again, but Calen waved them into silence.
“I give you my personal assurance—and my father’s—that you will not hear from her again. Whatever your reason for extending your hospitality to...” he paused and gestured to Viktor.
“Maia,” the muscled man eventually growled, crossing his arms.
“Yes. Whatever your reason for keeping Maia here, it’s now moot. She will belong to me and my family. You won’t hear from her again. Now bring her out here.”
It took a lot more arguing, but Calen refused to budge. Eventually Peter nodded in resignation, and Viktor was sent to get the girl. Timur was nearly apoplectic, but Calen didn’t care. He’d won. Two hundred grand for Mary’s parents and Maia for himself.
He stepped back, his body tensing slightly as the girl was brought out. She was wearing jeans and a black puffy coat that was dirty and torn. She was still gagged, and her hands were still tied in front of her, but her feet were unbound. Calen walked closer to her as she stared at everyone with wide eyes, trembling in the larger man’s grasp.
His insides twisted as he saw her more closely. It really looked like her. His fairy. The one he’d spotted that night in his club.
Only once in real life had he caught a glimpse of the girl he now referred to as his fairy; she’d been, walking past him in the hallway at Siren a few weeks ago. She had looked so out of place. She was small, with curves proportional to her frame, and that night she’d been wearing a loose, knee-length dress. Every other girl in the place had on something skintight and short enough to make a whore blush. But not her.
Her hair was such a strange shade—gold and orange. It had caught his eye right away, and when he lost her in the crowd, he’d looked for her in the club’s security footage for the night.
She’d only been in the frame for a minute, in the midst of a group of girls the cameras had caught better. But he’d seen enough. It had been her discomfort with the scene around her that had cemented his interest. That and her sweet fey looks. She looked like a wood nymph, or a Christmas elf.
Now here she was, still beautiful in a strange, unconventional way. Her fragile-looking nose was completely red from crying. Her features were dainty, with a little chin that was a tiny bit pointed and these huge eyes. Except right now she wouldn’t look at him, as if she had suddenly realized that looking at them directly would make her chances of survival worse.
Calen couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to touch her. She flinched as he touched her small cheek, but he didn’t stop.
“Hello, Doll,” he said quietly in English, trying to comfort her with his steady, even tone.
Startled, she looked at him for the first time. He was careful to show no reaction as he saw her eyes. They were remarkable, a blue-green close to teal. At least what he could see of them. One of them was swelling shut. He lowered his head.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered in her ear. “Take my property out to the car,” he said more loudly, gesturing to Mike.
The girl’s eyes flared in fear and surprise, and she whimpered slightly. Her eyes went glassy as Mike took her by the shoulders.
“That bitch won’t be worth jack shit on the street. She won’t earn piss,” Timur hissed in Russian. “Too skinny and ugly. No one will pay to fuck her,” he continued, not acknowledging the fact that he’d clearly been planning on fucking her himself—while he cut her to pieces, if Calen remembered his reputation correctly.
Calen didn’t answer as Mike guided Maia out of the warehouse. “I’m not planning on selling her,” he eventually replied in English. “I have other plans for her.”
Chapter 3
Maia didn’t know what to do. She thought about running, but the large man who looked like a boxer had her firmly by the shoulder. He’d tried to put her in the car, but she’d struggled until he’d stopped trying. He scanned the area for something—cameras, maybe—and propped her against the car.
After a moment, the other two men came out. The younger, nicely dressed one came up to her and removed her gag. He was tall with chestnut brown hair and icy blue eyes. Heart pounding, she waited for him to say something, but he simply stared down into her face. Running wouldn’t help now. She wouldn’t get far if she tried. He reached for her, and she flinched involuntarily, but he just went for her wrists. He untied the rope that bound them, then rubbed the red marks the rope had left gently with his thumbs.
“My name is Calen McLachlan, and you belong to me now,” he said, his pale blue eyes boring into hers.
Unable to stop shivering, she looked up at him. “W—W—What does that mean?” she stuttered.
She never stuttered, but she was terrified.
“It means you come with me. You live with me. You do what I say, and you stay alive. Or you stay here and die,” he said, opening the car door for her and waiting outside of it.
Fear coursed through her veins like mercury. Freezing cold, her gaze darted all around, and her breath came out in pants. Calen looked over her head to exchange a look with one of the guards before extending his hand, but she shrank away from it.
“You have to calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. And I’m not going to let anyone else hurt you. But you can’t stay here. You have to come with me now, or I won’t be able to do anything for you. Get in the car. Please,” he added, still holding his hand out to her.
Maia gulped down air, trying to slow her breathing. She looked at the door of the warehouse and back to the open car door. What choice did she have?
She wobbled on unsteady legs. Calen’s hand was still outstretched, but she didn’t take it, making her way to the car door in a slow, painful walk. She hesitated there, meeting Calen’s eyes in humiliation and shame.
“I can’t sit there. I...” she trailed off and looked away, embarrassed.
Calen’s eyebrows sank into a deep V, but then his eyes widened as if in realization. There was the faintest trace of urine in the air. She was mortified, but she hadn’t been able to help it. She had been tied up for hours.
Calen pulled off his leather coat. “It’s okay. You can wear this.”
She hesitated.
“Seriously,” he said. “It’s okay. I have four or five of them.”
How many?
She gave him a funny look, but took the coat and wrapped it around herself. It fell well below her knees. Stepping into the car gingerly, she slid into the seat, favoring her right side. Calen followed her and the older guard climbed in after him while the one that looked like a boxer joined the driver in the front. Maia curled into the corner of the car opposite the men, trying to make herself as small as possible.
“What’s your name?” Calen asked. “Your full name.”
Maia licked her lips nervously. “Maia Elizabeth Dahl.”
“Doll? Your name is actually doll?”
“It’s D-A-H-L, but that’s why I thought you knew me. It sounds like doll,” she whispered.
“And you go to Harvard? What do you study?”
She looked at him nervously. How did he know that? Oh yeah, her wallet.
“Entomology. I’m a graduate student.” After a moment, she continued, “They kept my ID. My wallet.”
“All of your belongings, including your car, will be delivered to my people within the hour. We’ll have them moved to my place for you later.”
Maia watched him gravely. Was he serious? “Are you actually taking me home with you?”
“It’s the safest place for you right now.”
He switched to another language to address the older guard. Was he speaking Gaelic?
Maia sank into the seat and watched the two men interact. Whoever this younger man was, he was powerful. The older one was tough-looking with silver hair and an air of quiet menace, yet he deferred to Calen like he was talking to a young Michael Corleone.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
****
“Inform my father about my new houseguest and make sure the Russians return all of her things. I want them swept for bugs and toxins,” Calen told Jimmy as he watched Maia studiously avoid looking at them.
“Toxins? You think they’d cross you by poisoning her?” Jimmy replied in the same language.
His father insisted all of his top lieutenants and family spoke the mother tongue.
“I don’t know, but I don’t trust them. Timur is a crazy piece of shit. He might be stupid enough to take this personally.”
“Are you going to ask her why they had her in the first place?”
“Later. She’s in shock, and she needs a doctor. Some of the bones in her face may be fractured, judging by the swelling.”
Jimmy glanced at Maia. “Are you seriously going to keep her with you?”
Calen looked at Maia, too. She was huddled in his coat, probing at her swollen cheek with a shaky hand. But she wasn’t crying, and the trembling had eased to an occasional shudder. She was trying so hard to be strong. He had to admire that.
“If I have to.”
“If you want to keep her alive, you probably do.”
****
Maia stared at the parking garage around her. Calen was giving orders to his men, and the older one appeared to be leaving after a bit more conversation in Gaelic. At least she thought it was Gaelic. Her mother hadn’t spoken it, although she’d been half Irish. But her mother had been born in Florida, not Ireland, and she’d never had much interest in her heritage.
She tried not to look as freaked out as she felt when Calen finished his conversation and gestured for her to join him and the other two men at the elevator. Calen pressed his thumb to a glossy black pad, and the doors closed. They rode in silence, and Maia wondered where the hell she was. She’d only ever seen thumb print locks on television.
The elevator ride seemed much longer than it probably was. Holding her breath, she looked at Calen out of the corner of her eye. Please don’t let him be an axe murderer. Or worse.
The elevator doors opened directly onto the top floor penthouse, and Maia exhaled with a little whoosh. Beyond a small foyer, there was a bar on the left. It was stocked with gleaming glass bottles that caught the light. Across from it was a doorway. Beyond it to the right there was a spacious living room with a breathtaking view of the city. A massive fireplace dominated the space, which was filled with comfortable-looking leather furniture.
“I’ll show you to your room. I’m sending for a doctor. He should be here soon. You may want to shower while I find you some clothes,” Calen said when she didn’t move from the entrance. “I can show you around later.”
Filled with panic, she whirled to face him. “Do I really have to stay here?” she whispered.
His eyes flared with something that might have been sympathy. “I’m afraid so. For a while, at least.”
Maia stared at him. “How long is a while?”
He raked his hand through his hair and shrugged, looking tired.
“Days? Weeks? Months?” she asked.
Calen stood a little straighter but didn’t respond.
“Years?” she whispered.
He shifted his weight. “If it comes to that, we’ll find a solution that works...for both of us. Why don’t you shower?”
Maia followed him numbly, limping to a bright room done in grey and navy. It was a million times nicer than her shabby little studio apartment with its warped floors and windowsill that let in the cold during winter. Everything here was expensive and luxurious. Even if the impersonal decor made it seem more like a hotel room than where someone lived.
Calen showed her where the bathroom was and then left to find her something to wear. Maia stepped into the bathroom, which was well stocked with soaps and shampoos and fluffy navy blue towels. She shrugged Calen’s leather coat off, hoping like crazy she hadn’t gotten any urine on it. She had peed herself a little in the woods, during the attack. She’d been so embarrassed when he’d given his coat to her. But there hadn’t been any ridicule or pity in his eyes.
You belong to me now.
Had he been serious? Was he going to sell her? She didn’t think she would make much money as a prostitute, but she did look young. She still got carded for R-rated movies. There were a lot of sickos out there who wanted the illusion of a young girl. But Calen hadn’t sounded like he meant to do her harm. If he was going to prostitute her, why bring her back here? This was obviously his home.
If she was going to find out what he actually wanted, she needed to shower and get back out there.
Maia washed carefully. Her face stung, but she didn’t think anything was broken. Hopefully. She knew her eye was swelling but not too badly. The view in the mirror had shown her as much. Purple and green bruises dotted the left side of her face. When she took off her clothes more were visible on her body, many in the shape of fingerprints. As the adrenaline wore off, her ankle throbbed more and more. She must have sprained it in the woods, but she hadn’t even felt it until the warehouse.
Once she was done, she wrapped herself in a fluffy towel, not wanting to touch her soiled clothes again. She industriously began to wash them in the sink with shampoo and hung them to dry on the shower door. When she walked back into the bedroom, she limped to a stop. Calen was waiting for her, holding a pile of clothes in his hands.
“I don’t have anything that will fit you, but I brought you some of my belts so you can adjust some of this stuff. I called a doctor. He’s on his way. And you may want to wait to get dressed until the exam is done so I brought you a robe in the meantime. You should probably stay off that foot till the doctor takes a look at it. Are you hungry?”
Maia nodded, the move small and tentative.
“Why don’t we start with soup?” he asked, his hands out and open.
Soup?
As if on cue, her stomach rumbled loudly. Nodding miserably, she clutched the towel closer. He gave her a reassuring little smile and left the room. Slipping off the towel, she pulled on the robe. It must have been Calen’s because it was ridiculously large on her. Fingering the soft terry cloth, she climbed onto the bed, hugging a pillow tightly as she waited.
****
Would you like a free copy of the complete book in exchange for an honest review? Please contact me at contact@authorlucyleroux.com and let me know if you want an epub or mobi copy.
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