“Come on, babe. I’ll make it worth your while.” He stroked her arm. That small touch was all it took for James to explode. He walked over to the woman, name unknown, and banded his arm around her waist.
“This woman is mine.”
In other words, back the f**k off!
The woman in his arms tensed. The other women gasped. Her body pressed against his. James felt every supple curve, and her scent invaded his senses. He needed this woman more than he needed his next breath. Never in all of his life had he felt this way about a woman. The possessive need he’d witnessed in his two friends was the only thing he could compare it to. Yet, what he’d seen was completely different from how he felt.
He needed to know everything about this woman. She was his everything.
“Well, it was about time you came out to see me, James. I was getting a little worried that the police were going to come.”
James recognised that voice. The woman in his arms turned around. He got a really good look at her.
The blue of her eyes gave everything away. They were like the clear ocean of the Mediterranean. Her skin looked flawless and smooth. He’d been looking for a young innocent girl of eighteen. In his arms was a woman. A sexy, desirable woman with passion blazing in her eyes stared at him.
That woman was Prudence Star, and James knew he was in trouble.
Chapter Two
Dane waited for their footsteps to disappear. He couldn’t believe he’d been placed in the f**king BDSM club. It just goes to show the wealthy didn’t do f**k all right. He was risking his neck for this shit, and what for? To be told off by a guy who thinks he knows everything about the world. James Castleden was like the rest of them. They talked the talk but didn’t have the first clue in what real pain felt like.
He moved around the desk and logged into the computer. The passwords were a little tricky to get past. After a few tries Dane was able to get through. He’d made a promise, and he was going to see it through even if it meant breaking his word to the men who had gotten him out of hell. He logged into the messenger and wrote an email to the person he was paying to release the woman on the list. She was British, like him. Only he’d been the bastard to capture her and put her in the system in the first place. He knew her virginity was the only thing keeping her safe.
Glancing at the door, he named a price and place where to drop the money. Of everything he’d done since being on Dominic’s payroll, this was the worst. The terrified look in her eyes still haunted him. Since Lloyd Black’s arrest and Eugene being killed the selling had gone quiet. When he was working for Dominic he’d never had anything to do with the selling of women. He was there to pay off his father’s gambling debts, not because he wanted to be part of the crime going on all the time.
His father had asked him to become a monster. If he didn’t then their whole family was as good as dead. Dane had never liked to be threatened. He’d gone to Dominic’s house to tell him to back off. At the time he’d been twenty years old with a life ahead of him. He’d been at college and was preparing to go to university in the summer. His life would be away from his alcoholic mother and gambling addict father. He’d start a life away from London and away from all the shit.
His parents were not bad. They just didn’t try to be good or to give him the best start. He never blamed them. He’d learned at an early age to deal with the bad in life. Standing on the doorstep to Dominic’s house, he’d never anticipated what was to come.
Dominic had wanted him. To get through college and to make the money for his courses for university, he’d taken up fighting and not the legal kind. It was the kind that made decent money and was on the quiet.
What Dane hadn’t known was that Dominic had been watching him at his fights. The moment he knocked on the door he’d been caught. His parents had been picked up by some men. They were chained up in Dominic’s sitting room being tortured. Dane could still recall the pain and agony on their faces.
****
“So, the mighty son has returned. Come in and sit awhile. I was getting a little bored,” Dominic said.
“You son of a bitch,” Dane yelled and tried to charge at the man. The guards held him back. He managed a few steps before they pushed him to the ground. He cried out, the anger too strong to contain. Dane wanted to do some damage. He wanted to hurt something, anything.
“Now, now, behave, Dane. Otherwise this is going to go a lot worse for you.”
He was pulled to his feet and forced to his knees where a man slammed his fist in his face then kicked him in the stomach. Dane went over. Once he was down, blows rained down until he had no choice but to sit compliant and listen. No one had touched his parents. All the attention was on him.
“I’ve seen you in action, Dane. You’re a strong man. A fighter and someone I can use.”
“I’m not fighting anymore.”
There was another harsh kick before Dominic continued on.
“I made a lot of money out of you. That kind of cash doesn’t dry up that easily. Now, your father owes me a lot of money. He has a thing for cards and women. I provide that.”
Dane knew it was no good to interrupt him. He stayed on the ground without fighting with a foot pressed on his back. His body was on fire. Every part of him felt like it was being broken and shattered apart. He didn’t know how long he could last with this much pain.
“Please,” his father said.
He closed his eyes unable to watch the blow that landed on his parent. “What do you want?” Dane asked. He couldn’t bear to see his family in pain. They may not have given him a brilliant start, but they were still his family.
“I want you on my team, son.”
The term son made him wince. There was nothing fatherly in what Dominic wanted from him.
He shook his head.
“No? Is that what you’re saying to me, boy?”
Dane kept his eyes closed. He couldn’t think, and he needed to.
“Well, that is not good.”
Seconds later he was pulled up, and he looked Dominic in the eye. There was nothing good inside him. Dane saw that immediately. He was evil, and from the look of it, he liked doing bad things to people.
“You make a choice, son. Either you become mine and do as I say, or I will kill your parents and everyone you’ve ever cared about, and I’ll make you watch while I do it.”
There was the sound of crunching bone and the shrieking of his mother.
The fight left him. Dane looked into Dominic’s cold dead eyes and knew his future, the one he wanted more than anything, was gone.