“It’s a beautiful city,” Charles said.
Freya didn’t respond.
She hadn’t chosen Seattle. Seattle had chosen her after the death of her mother. It’d suited her mood at the time. Dreary. Rainy. But it had become her home.
“Do you live here?” Freya asked. She needed to gather information. If no one was coming to save her, then she had to save herself. She had to fight back, at least.
“God, no.” Charles chuckled. “I visit on occasion. Yuri provides excellent services.”
Freya shivered and swallowed down bile.
She’d had a first-row seat to the kind of services Yuri offered.
Was that what would happen to Freya?
“I admire you, Janelle.” Charles turned toward her, his eyes gleaming.
Freya took a step back.
That look, the way he stared at her, it didn’t bode well for her.
“I’d like for you to be my wife. Marry me?”
Freya jerked, no less surprised by the question tonight than she’d been last time.
“No.” She shook her head.
“I’ll win you over yet. Good night, Janelle.” Charles’ smile widened.
Freya stood there, too shocked to move. He wasn’t serious, was he?
Charles rapped on the door with his knuckles and glanced back at her.
“Tomorrow night, my pet.”
What kind of sick joke was Yuri playing?
Charles stepped through the door.
Freya rushed after him, but before she’d taken three steps, the door slid shut and the soft snick of the locks engaged. Rage fueled her across the suite. She pounded on the door with her fist.
Someone was on the other side.
A human being was out there.
“Hey? Anyone listening? I know you’re out there. I don’t want to be here! Hello? Help? Anyone?”
She’d screamed herself hoarse three days ago when they’d brought her here, but it hadn’t done her any good then and it wouldn’t now.
Freya turned, shivering.
That man made her skin crawl.
Worse than Yuri.
Worse than the other one, whatever his name had been.
She had to figure out how to get out of here, or something bad was going to happen to her.
She had to think. To use her head.
Freya wasn’t dumb. She’d been on her way to rocking her PhD when Mom died. She was smart. And now she needed to use her brain.
She was in a cell. A room. With no way out or in that wasn’t controlled by her jailer. She had no phone, no TV, no Wi-Fi access, no contact with the outside world. Her father would not look for her. He wouldn’t see the point in expending effort, now that her mother was gone. To say that Freya and Michelle’s relationship with their father was cold was an understatement. It was practically nonexistent.
Freya crossed to the windows, staring out on a small, dark parking lot. The people down there had no idea she was a prisoner. The windows were tinted, as she’d already learned. Writing on them, hoping someone saw it, did her no good.
The muscles in her neck constricted, making it hard to breathe.
What if she never saw her father, her twin or her friends ever again?
Freya pressed her hand to her mouth.
Her roommate had likely reported her missing. Rent was already due. Had Freya been replaced?
What about the others? Did anyone care that she was gone? Was anyone looking for her? She’d missed birthdays, her first date with Jaxon, the girl’s trip.
She’d been looking forward to that date, too. Jaxon was...he wasn’t just another guy at the club. He was different, and she’d known after meeting him that she needed to be different, too. Which was why she’d kept things between them friendly. She hadn’t so much as flirted. Intentionally, at least. Now she may never get her chance.
The door whisked open.
She caught the scent of his aftershave.
She knew who it was.
Yuri emitted a kind of cold confidence that chilled a room. He was a natural mood killer.
Freya swiped at her cheeks. She wouldn’t let them see her tears. That monster didn’t deserve them.
“What do you want?” she asked without turning around. She’d cowered from him in the beginning, before she realized that Yuri wouldn’t lay a finger on her. She must have a high price tag, if he wasn’t willing to hurt her like he had the others.
“I thought we should have a little chat,” Yuri said. “You’ve met Charles.”
Freya swallowed. Yes, she had, and she’d seen her death in that man’s eyes.
Yuri Gabor was fascinated by people’s reactions. He loved studying them. The way a person looked, or didn’t look, at a crucial moment told a hundred truths.
Janelle Freya Thorburn, for example, was a woman near her breaking point. Oh, she had a fine fire in her, which made her the more valuable sister. Michelle didn’t pose nearly the same kind of challenge as Janelle, or Freya, as she preferred to call herself, did.
Freya was a beautiful woman, but it wasn’t her looks or that intangible quality that made her special. It was a combination of everything. Looks. Breeding. Intelligence. She was the whole package.
If Charles hadn’t been poised to pay, Yuri could have had another buyer interested in her. Not that human flesh was his forte. Fantasy fulfillment, that was the name of his game. And Freya could fill a mind with fantasies.
“Charles is a customer of special needs.” Yuri tilted his head the other way.
She was watching him, but it was her body language that was informative. Did she realize that hand was at her throat? She did that when she was nervous. Looking for pearls to clutch?
“Here’s how it’s going to go. Charles has asked you to marry him twice now, correct?” Yuri waited for an answer that never came. No matter. “He will ask you eight more times. Don’t say yes immediately. Give him time, but don’t antagonize him. It wouldn’t go well for you to push him too far.”
“Why the hell do you think I’d say yes?” Freya whirled around, hands clenched into fists at her sides, eyes flashing, lips drawn down into a frown. She was regal in a breathtaking way.
“Because I have your sister Michelle in my possession.”
“What?” Freya’s already pale face leeched of color and she gaped at him.
Yuri pulled out his cell phone and clicked on the link to the webcam.
“She’s comfortable and unaware of her situation.” He held out the phone.
Freya crossed the room toward him as though she were in a daze. She reached for the phone but he pulled it back.
“W-what do you want?” Freya’s voice went breathy and she sank onto the sofa facing him.
“What I want you to do is to play hard-to-get with Charles.” Yuri took his phone back and secured the screen. “He has an unfulfilled fantasy. You are his unwilling bride, who he must woo and break to his will. You play your part, make it good for Charles, and Michelle will never know that her life was in danger.”
“Let me guess. If I say no, you’ll hurt Michelle?”
“Only if I need to. And, should you not prove adequate, Charles can always have your sister.”
Freya stared at the mirrored coffee table, that sharp mind of hers twisting the problem, looking at it from all sides.
Yuri had enjoyed watching her at work, puzzling things out.
“That’s it, then?” Freya asked.
“Do we have a bargain?”
“My compliance for Michelle’s freedom?”
“Yes.”
“How will I know if you let her go?”
“You won’t.”
“Then I can’t agree. What’s to say you won’t use her, too?”
“My dear, Michelle is nowhere near your class and value. She’d be more work to clean up than she’s worth.”
“You’re a monster.”
“I’ve been called worse.” By the very people who’d used him, but that was not for he
r to know.
Once, Yuri had been in her shoes, and he’d turned the tables. He’d learned that he could own people. Watching them, being able to read their dreams in the lines of their lips, he’d known their price tags.
Freya wanted to protect her sister. The same sister she’d been looking out for her whole adult life. Now would be no different.
“I’ll leave you to think over your choices.” Yuri smiled and rose.
Pleasantries got him farther than brute force, at least some of the time.
Freya remained sitting while he stepped out into the private lounge.
Charles would crush her like a delicate flower. The man’s tastes were...messy. Charles thought he wanted a wife to train, to sculpt, to fix him, even, but Freya, or whoever the unlucky woman was he finally picked, would end up like the others Yuri had disposed of for the man. Still, it wasn’t his place to judge. Yuri simply set the price, and Charles paid.
“Sir?” Thomas was waiting for him at the top of the stairs.
“What?”
“Just so you know, there was an issue with Joe. It’s been taken care of.”
“Good. I don’t want to know.”
Thomas had come to his job after watching Yuri personally make the previous club manager pay for his mistakes. Mistakes that had almost brought the authorities in for a closer look. They could always trot out the line that what consenting adults did behind the closed doors of the Swan Palace was their business, but that would open them up to closer inspection. And that couldn’t happen. Not with their clientele, and not now.
Places like the Swan Palace were where Yuri sourced his actual customers. People willing to pay top dollar for what they really wanted.
They reached the second floor.
A new face stood at the stairs.
Yuri paused, looking the man up and down.
He wasn’t young and stupid like most of the idiots that came to work for them. He also wasn’t old and grizzled. The girls would like him. He was easy on the eyes. That skin tone made it hard to pin an ethnicity to him.
“Who are you?” Yuri asked.
The man glanced at Yuri, as though he’d just noticed him.
Circumspect.
Good.
That could come in handy.
“Jaxon Wilson, sir.”
“Welcome to the Swan Palace, Mr. Wilson.”
3.
Jaxon ducked into the alcove. The latest round of patrons in the VIP area of the Swan Palace were behind closed doors. Red lights above the rooms indicated they had a packed house. Tonight, it was just Jaxon at the top of the stairs. He didn’t know if that was good or bad, with only a few nights of work under his belt. From the regular patrons’ raised eyebrows, he assumed having one person on duty wasn’t normal.
Problem keeping reliable employees around? A direct cause and effect of the Ogden arrest?
Jaxon could wonder what the deal was all night, but his focus was still Freya.
But life was going on without her.
He glanced over his shoulder at the stairs leading down to the first-floor strip club.
He wasn’t supposed to use his phone up here. From the looks of it, the Swan Palace VIPs were everyone from law enforcement to government officials. If Yuri’s girls were servicing the heavy hitters in Seattle, no wonder it hadn’t been investigated.
That was a problem for someone else, not Jaxon.
He patted his pocket.
He needed to know what the email said.
With just him on duty, he couldn’t exactly take a break.
He had to know. Put him out of his misery.
Jaxon glanced over his shoulder, ensuring no one was coming up the stairs, then unlocked his phone. He’d felt the email notification in his pocket two hours ago, but it’d been busy enough he couldn’t entertain the idea of looking.
He tapped the Exam Results email and held his breath.
Going back to school after several years away to chase his tail on the MMA circuit had taken their toll. He just wasn’t as good of a student as he’d been before.
B — 88%
Jaxon covered his mouth.
Holy shit.
He’d been convinced he was going to flunk that exam, and instead he’d passed. And not by the skin of his teeth either.
He skimmed the rest of the email. The instructor had included a couple notes, along with the breakdown of his results.
Jaxon was still struggling with the multiple-choice questions, but when it came to the essay portion—that saved his skin. All that firsthand experience was paying off.
“What are you doing?”
Jaxon turned, his stomach dropping through the floor.
Shit.
He stared at his boss, frozen to the spot.
No, this couldn’t be happening.
“Mr. Gabor, I’m sorry.” He shoved his phone into his pocket and stepped to the entrance of the alcove. Fuck. He’d landed this golden opportunity and now he was screwing it up.
The man, the one Jaxon had seen going to the upper floor, was behind Yuri.
“What are the rules?” Yuri scowled.
“No phones, sir.”
“Why do you think that doesn’t apply to you?”
“It does, sir.” Jaxon clasped his hands in front of him and stared at a spot on the wall.
“Was she worth it?” Yuri asked.
She?
Sweat broke out along Jaxon’s spine and he locked his knees.
He’d been certain Yuri didn’t know who he was, that they’d never laid eyes on each other. Did he know about Jaxon and Freya’s friendship?
“I’m sorry...sir?” Jaxon wasn’t going to admit he was here for Freya. Besides, the understaffing meant there were fewer people between him and the exit.
“The woman you’re messaging.”
Jaxon nearly sagged against the wall in relief.
“It wasn’t a woman, sir. My exam results were posted today, and seeing as I’m not getting a break, I wanted to check them. I should have waited until after my shift.”
Yuri frowned.
“Show me,” he ordered.
Jaxon could refuse. Freya’s picture, her contact information, plenty of incriminating information was on his phone. But if he refused, that would only imply guilt.
He unlocked the phone and turned the screen toward Yuri, keeping a hold on it.
He peered at the email, reading it rather than skimming.
“What are you studying?” he asked.
“Kinesiology, sir.”
“Interesting. You continue to surprise me, Mr. Wilson.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Keith will be going off-shift soon. I’ll need to rotate someone upstairs.” Yuri stared at Jaxon. “We are unfortunately understaffed. One of the girls can bring you dinner, on the house. You should have a few minutes to peruse your test results, away from the customers.”
“Whatever you need, sir.” Jaxon wanted to punch the guy in the face, but that wouldn’t get him closer to Freya. Being upstairs would.
“Keith will come get you.” Yuri turned and gestured to the small, narrow staircase tucked into the corner.
Jaxon didn’t allow himself to breathe until both men’s shoes disappeared from view.
Talk about a close fucking call
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
So much for being part of the backdrop. This marked two of his three nights working here that the owner and the manager had paid him special attention. Either this was a break he needed, or this was bad.
He’d need to get upstairs, look around, find Freya, and see if there were any security cameras. So far, he hadn’t spotted any beyond the main entertainment area. Upstairs, Jaxon was all the security on hand.
This whole situation was full of moral quandaries he wasn’t ready to untangle.
First thing, get Freya, then figure the rest out.
A handful of minutes later, a man Jaxon hadn’t yet met descended the stairs.
“You Jaxon?” the guy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Come with me.” The man, who must be Keith, thumbed over his shoulder.
“But what about the VIP entrance?” Jaxon gestured to the stairs and the tablet attached to the wall he used to verify people’s access privileges.
“Thomas is coming up. I’ve got to go, now.”
Right on cue, Thomas appeared at the foot of the stairs and waved Jaxon on.
There was something going on in the club, something unusual, and Jaxon was out of the loop. Whatever it was, it’d given him the opportunity to get closer to Freya. That was all he needed to know right now. Everything else could wait.
Jaxon followed Keith up the stairs.
Instead of another set of suites, there were only two doors attached to a waiting room area, complete with plush sofa and a coffee table.
“That’s the big boss’ personal suite.” Keith gestured to a door on their left, then a half circle desk filled with monitors. “This is where you’ll be.”
“I thought Thomas’ office was downstairs...”
Keith leveled a flat stare at Jaxon.
No one had said Yuri was the big boss, but when he walked by, people snapped to action in a way they didn’t for Thomas.
“Security feeds. You’re the back up,” Keith said.
Jaxon glanced over the set-up. This was where those dozen or so cameras on the first floor were routed. Interesting. There were no cameras on the second floor or up here. He’d walked the hall both nights he’d been stationed on the VIP floor and hadn’t seen a camera. That still didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
“Where’s the second floor? What about up here?” Jaxon peered at the ceiling, searching for something besides the sprinklers.
“There aren’t any.”
“What?” Jaxon frowned.
“Look, we both know what’s happening downstairs. No one wants that on camera.” Keith’s stare was hard. Unforgiving.
“What about—”
“Everyone who works here knows the deal.”
“I see.”
“Back to the monitors. You see something no one’s handling, radio downstairs. Floor security has the same feed.” Keith sat down. “Most importantly, right now at least, you listen for a beep. When you hear the beep, you press this button and it’ll open that door.”
Bad Boy Prince: A Modern Fairy Tale (Twisted Royals Book 3) Page 3