Club Privé: Book V

  “Come on!” I growled, switching my attention to my right. Time had to be racing by. I didn’t know where Howard had gone to get Gavin, and that meant I had no way of knowing how much time I had before they came back.

  I twisted my right hand and felt the leather slip on my wrist. Hope flared so sharply inside me that it almost hurt. I rotated my hand back and forth, gauging just how far I could get. My skin burned from the friction, but I didn’t care. If I could get it only a little further, I had a trick up my sleeve that could make the difference...

  The door opened and I stopped. If Howard caught me trying to escape, things would go from bad to... who was I kidding? Things really couldn’t get much worse than this. My heart thudded painfully against my chest as I saw Gavin follow Howard into the room.

  “All right, what’s this big surprise that couldn’t wait...” Gavin’s voice trailed off as Howard stepped to the side and let him see me.

  I didn’t want to look at him, but if I had to go through this, I was as sure as hell going to make sure he looked me in the eye. He didn’t even try to conceal his shock.

  “What the hell, Howard?”

  Howard grinned and crossed over to the bed. He picked up one of the dildos. “She’s been quite the problem child, Gavin, and needs to be punished. I was going to do it myself, but I figured that she’s caused problems for both of us, so we should both get to enjoy ourselves. Maybe even take her for a ride at the same time.” He held out the toy. “I just want her ass first. Why don’t you start warming up her pussy?”

  Gavin didn’t take the dildo, but that didn’t make me think any better of him. After all, he was bigger than that particular toy. Maybe he wanted to do it himself. I glared at him, but he wouldn’t look at my face. In fact, he was staring at a spot to one side of my head, his expression blank.

  “What’d she do?”

  That was what he had to say? Anger boiled up inside me, proving that it hadn’t disappeared, only slept. “You fucking asshole!” My voice was rough.

  “I told you not to bother screaming.” Howard sounded vaguely chiding, as if I truly was a misbehaving child. He turned towards Gavin. “She’s been playing detective. Snooping around my business... our business.”

  “I see. And this is what? You getting in some fun before you kill her?”

  I wanted to keep yelling obscenities and insults at him, but the nonchalant way he was talking was making it hard for me to breathe. I’d known about his betrayal, but to see it in his face like this was so much worse.

  “I promised that if she was good, I wouldn’t kill her,” Howard said. He gave Gavin a sideways glance, as if measuring him for something. “I, or I should say, we have a client who could make good use of a naughty girl. He knows a thing or two about taming disobedient women.”

  “A client? Are we talking about ‘The Caretaker’?”

  Howard looked surprised. “You know about him?”

  What were they talking about?

  Gavin answered Howard’s question without looking at either of us. “I saw him mentioned in some papers a few weeks back and figured it must be the handle for your top client. I never found his real name though, or where he’s located.” Now he looked up at Howard. “If I’m sticking my neck out to help you here, don’t you think it’s fair you let me in on who he is and where you’re sending her? I don’t want to risk her coming back one day.”

  I felt sick. My body slumped down on the bed. He hadn’t just been playing me. He was willing to let Howard sell me. Gavin really hadn’t felt anything for me. Tears burned against my eyelids.

  Howard furrowed his brow, but nodded. “Fair enough. His name is Abdulla Mahaj, one of the richest people in Saudi Arabia. He’s more like a partner than a client, but you’ll learn more about that as you take on more responsibilities.” Howard glanced at me. “Shall we get started?”

  Gavin didn’t move or speak. I saw some emotion playing through his eyes, but couldn’t identify what it was.

  “Fine. I’ll do it.” Howard started to turn towards me, the flesh-colored toy in his hand.

  Gavin moved then, faster than I’d seen him move before. His hand went around Howard’s throat and he threw the smaller man across the room. I stared, open-mouthed, as Gavin crossed to Howard in just a few long strides and put his hand on Howard’s neck again. He picked Howard up and shoved him back against the wall, raising him high enough that Howard was on his toes.

  What the hell was happening?

  “Finally!” Gavin’s face was inches from Howard’s and he was practically spitting the words into the other man’s face. “You have no fucking idea how long I’ve waited to get that name, your precious Saudi connection, and I think you know why.”

  The pieces fell together in my shocked brain even as Gavin confirmed them.

  “He was the driver who killed my fiancée, and he was driving your Bentley.”

  Howard’s eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed, as if he wanted to say something, but Gavin wasn’t letting him.

  “For years I’d been looking for the car that killed her, but found nothing. I already knew it couldn’t have been you since you had a rock-solid alibi at the time of the ‘accident’. You were giving a business presentation in Manhattan that day and at least a hundred people saw you. It wasn’t until you approached me about opening the club together that I stumbled on something that changed everything.” He smiled, but not a nice smile. “That’s right. I checked you out. With all those barely legal women you dated, I knew you were a sick bastard, and I wanted to find out just how sick before getting into more business with you. Using the exact same software you helped me finance when we first met, I hacked into your computer. I went through some of your old emails, and imagine my surprise when I found an email from just before the accident confirming a meeting with your mysterious Saudi... and you offering him the use of one of your Bentleys for his stay. I dug deeper, and there it was, right in front of me: an email from him thanking you for the ‘clean up’. It didn’t take much deduction to figure out he was the driver who’d killed Camille, and you’d helped with the cover-up.”

  I’d been right. Sort of. Howard had been involved with Camille’s death. I just hadn’t realized that Gavin had known already.

  “The problem was, I’d gotten the information under less than legal circumstances, and the emails were vague enough that I knew that by themselves, they wouldn’t be enough evidence. I needed more, but I couldn’t find much else.” Gavin continued, “I knew I had to gain your trust and get the name of your Saudi guy. Unfortunately, you were good enough to keep your sex-trafficking business with Abdulla under wraps. I had no idea what you were really doing, what you were using me to do, finding women with your ‘desired personality traits’.”

  My stomach twisted as I realized what his words meant. He hadn’t known the truth. He wasn’t a part of selling these girls. Then it hit me. Howard had known I was in his office from moment one. What he’d said about Gavin grooming me had been a lie. Gavin might have been using Howard’s attraction to me to get closer to Howard, but he hadn’t been grooming me for Howard’s twisted enterprise.

  His voice was thick with disgust and contempt. “I’d thought you were a horny old bastard who liked them barely legal, but when Carrie couldn’t find any information about some of the girls, I got suspicious. A couple days ago, I did some more digging into your files, and this time, I struck gold.”

  I startled when he said my name, but neither he nor Howard looked at me.

  “I found the location of one of the girls. Wouldn’t you know, Melissa was in Miami, stashed in a cheap motel, far from your mansion. She was being prepared for a ‘shipment’. The digging also finally led me to your dark secret. It was right there in your files. Every single detail about all the women. Their locations, what you had them do for you. The only thing still missing was the name of your Saudi connection.”

  Howard looked furious, but that could’ve been because his face was starting to
turn red from lack of oxygen.

  “I flew into Miami early Friday and met up with Melissa. I had to warn her about your plans abroad for her. She had no idea, and told me everything. How you’d made her dependent on drugs and slowly introduced her to the degrading work of servicing your perverted clients. Now, she’s talking to the cops, the FBI, Interpol, and whoever else wants a piece of your ass.” The triumphant note in Gavin’s voice was impossible to miss. “I’m sure they’ll be coming for you soon, but I’m glad she didn’t have your partner’s name. He’s mine now.”

  Gavin had saved the girl that hadn’t shown up at the airport. The one that was supposed to be sent to Saudi Arabia. The news hit me hard enough to make me catch my breath. Even if he’d used Howard’s interest in me to try to get on the inside, I couldn’t hate him, not when he’d risked everything to rescue this girl. Saving her could have resulted in him never finding out the name of the man who’d killed Camille, but he’d done it anyway. The man I’d fallen for wasn’t all an act.

  “As for you.” Gavin’s voice lowered to a near growl. “I was going to just let the cops deal with you, but walking in here and seeing Carrie–”

  To my complete and utter shock, his voice broke on my name.

  “I’m going to break every fucking bone in your body.”

  I shivered, and not because of the temperature. I hadn’t known Gavin could sound like that.

  “You took one woman I loved away from me. I’ll be damned if I let you get away with hurting this one.”

  I was still trying to process what this all meant when Gavin’s body suddenly jerked and he cried out in pain. He staggered backwards, clutching his arm. Howard dropped to the floor, his bloody pocketknife in his hand. He reached behind his back even as he got his feet underneath him. Gavin took a step forward, then froze. The gun in Howard’s hand wasn’t big, but it would be enough to do the job.

  “Now,” Howard wheezed. “We’re going to have some real fun.”

  Chapter 8

  The gun was pointing straight at Gavin. “I was going to bring you into my business as a partner.” Howard straightened and steadied his gun hand. “I’d originally befriended you to keep an eye on you, but then I saw all of that potential and realized that we could do great things together. I was doing all right before you came along, but your software made finding women so easy.”

  Gavin looked like he was going to be sick, and I didn’t think it was because of the cut on his arm. I didn’t blame him. He’d just found out that something he’d created had been used to find victims for Howard and men like him.

  “I suspected you wouldn’t have the balls to do what needed to be done though,” Howard continued. “Then I saw you with Carrie and hoped that you were starting to do what I’d suggested you do months ago and sample the goods. That’s why I brought you here. It wasn’t just to make it worse for her, but because I needed to know that you hadn’t developed any real feelings for her. If you were willing to help me punish her, then I would know I could trust you, train you, make you my replacement one day. It seemed my faith was misplaced.”

  My heart was pounding in my chest but I didn’t want to let myself hope. Just because Gavin didn’t want to help Howard rape me didn’t mean he actually had feelings for me, only that he was a decent human being. What Gavin had said – it could’ve meant a lot of different things, and I didn’t have the time to try to figure it out now. I needed to stop listening to Howard talk and start working on getting free. I began to twist my right hand back and forth, the friction burning my skin, but I didn’t make a sound. What I did next was going to hurt a lot worse than this.

  “About Melissa – I’ll have one of my people in Florida do the dirty work. She might talk to the police now but not for long. I know a couple of people who’d love to have some one-on-one time with a piece of ass like her.” Howard shifted his stance so that he was angled away from me. “You two, I’m going to take care of personally.”

  Gavin clenched his fists and took a step forward, but Howard shook his head. “You really don’t want to do that.”

  The restraint was loose enough now. I gritted my teeth and applied pressure to my thumb. I felt the pop, and gut-churning pain ran down my arm. I gave myself a few seconds, knowing I needed to be fast once I got one hand free. I took slow, steady breaths as Howard continued to talk. He really did love the sound of his own voice.

  “I’m going to get a pair of handcuffs and you’re going to cuff yourself to that chair.” He motioned with the gun. “I want you to have a front row seat to what I’m going to do to your little bitch. When I’m through with her, I’m going to make sure you’re unrecognizable.”

  I closed my eyes and began to pull my hand through the loop, fighting back whimpers from the pain in my dislocated thumb.

  “It’s too bad, really,” he said. “Abdulla would’ve loved her, and he might’ve been able to find some uses for you too. He doesn’t fuck men, but he knows plenty of people who would like nothing more than to be able to abuse a rich American man. The stories he’s told me would make you sick.”

  “I’m going to kill you.” The words were flat.

  Howard laughed. “You’re not going to do anything to me. Not for your fiancée, not for yourself, and not for Carrie. You’re going to watch her die a slow and painful death, and there won’t be anything you can do to stop it.”

  The blood flow back down my arm and into my fingers was almost as painful as the thumb, but I’d gotten used to it enough that I could push it to the back of my mind. I popped my thumb back into place by pushing it against my chest, and then I reached up to the other restraint. They weren’t made for keeping actual prisoners, so from the outside, they were quick to release. It took only a few seconds to get my left hand and both of my feet free. I thought for sure Gavin or Howard would’ve noticed what I was doing, but both men were still focused on each other.

  “I’m not going to let you hurt her,” Gavin said.

  “And if you try to stop me, I’m going to shoot out your kneecaps.” Howard lowered the gun. “It won’t kill you, but it’ll be painful as hell and you won’t be able to run.”

  Gavin took a step forward and I knew he was going to rush Howard. I didn’t know how well Howard could shoot, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. I grabbed the first thing I could lay my hands on and swung it as hard as I could at Howard. The giant, heavy, and solid rubber dildo hit him in the back of the head hard enough to make him stumble to the side. I then shoved him as hard as I could and he fell back against the wardrobe. The sound his head made when it hit the wood was loud and satisfying. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  “Carrie.”

  Gavin’s arms were around me before I could react. He pressed me against his body tight enough that I almost couldn’t breathe, and I felt hope stirring inside me.

  “I am so sorry.” His face was pressed against my neck and I could feel the wet of his tears. “I am so sorry.”

  I closed my eyes and slid my arms around his waist. I desperately wanted this to mean that he felt what I felt, but I couldn’t give in to that, not yet. For all I knew, he could just be apologizing for getting me into this mess.

  He pulled back and put his hand on my cheek. His eyes were still shining with tears. “If he’d have hurt you, I never could have lived with myself.”

  “I’m okay.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it was the best I could do at the moment.

  He stared at me for a moment, then bent his head and took my mouth in a kiss so fierce that I gasped. He took advantage of my parted lips and slid his tongue inside my mouth. His hands ran over my body, reminding me that I was still naked, but I didn’t care. This wasn’t the kiss of a friend or a kiss of apology. His lips and tongue, his entire body, held the same primal need as mine. The need to know that the other one was alive and safe. I ran my hand down his arm, and he hissed, pulling back. I looked at my fingers and they were slick with blood.

  “You’re hurt.” My voice
came out a little dazed. My head was still spinning from that kiss.

  “And you’re naked.”

  I looked up at Gavin and gave him a half-smile. “You just now noticed?”

  His expression was serious, bringing me out of my lust-induced haze. Right. This wasn’t the time or place. He pulled off his shirt and held it out to me. I slipped into it. He was enough bigger than me that it actually covered everything important. In fact, it was longer than some dresses I’d seen.

  “I meant what I said.” Gavin brushed his fingers along my cheekbone. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if he’d...” His eyes narrowed. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  I wasn’t about to tell him what had happened before he’d arrived. Not now, anyway. I opened my mouth to lie, but the words died before they reached my lips.

  Gavin let out a cry of pain and looked down. Howard smiled up at us as he yanked his knife out of Gavin’s calf, raising it to strike again. I kicked out, knocking Howard away, but he rolled with it this time and came up with his gun in hand.

  “Move!” Gavin grabbed my hand even as I saw Howard raise the gun.

  My legs obeyed before my mind processed what was happening. I let Gavin pull me out the door and we ran down the hall. I heard a muffled sound of a gunshot behind me. The room was soundproofed all right. We headed straight for the stairs. Howard was shouting after us as we disappeared through the door. Fear was sharp and metallic in the back of my throat, and the sound of blood rushing in my ears was almost deafening.

  We ran into the main room and started to cut across. We were less than a third of the way across when Gavin stumbled for the first time. I grabbed his arm, trying to help him.

  “Go,” he said.