Biker Rockstar Billionaire CEO Alpha (Hers to Keep Trilogy Book 1)

by Violet Blaze

  I took my long black tank off and wiped my lips off, balling it up and throwing it in the dark, dirty corner with my vomit. I didn't want it anyway; it smelled like Dash's blood.

  Dash.

  His cock had pushed my hips wide, filled me up and burst through every barrier I'd ever erected around myself. I was a virgin, sure, but I'd been masturbating for years. If I hadn't, his shaft would've torn me apart. He was hung like a fucking horse.

  “What's your last name, Kelly?” I asked her, putting my hands on my face again, trying to banish the memory. I'd been waiting so long … so long for that and this is what I had to remember it? I may never have sex again.

  “Langhart,” she said, and then she started crying again. “Where are we? What are we doing down here?”

  “I think these are … dog kennels,” I said as I picked at the metal drain with a dark purple fingernail that I couldn't see in the complete blackness. It weighed down on my shoulders like a wet shroud, heavy and menacing and damp. I thought of the pink dampness exploding from my brother's chest and I almost thew up again.

  “Dog kennels?!” Layla shrieked and then she started to sob, too. I wanted to slap her, her and Kelly both. Crying didn't help people, didn't get them out of terrible situations. I knew because I'd been in those situations before. Life was a sick, twisted mess and the only way to survive it was to fight back. “Are you serious, Laide?”

  Layla sounded like she was about to puke because I'd said the d-word. But somehow thinking of these cages as kennels made them seem less scary. Dogs had bigger hearts than most humans, and knowing that a dog had slept here softened the blow a little. Besides, if they were kennels, then they weren't built for the purpose of housing people which was a terrifying thought.

  “Girls, I'm going to be making some noise, okay? I don't want you to freak-out. Why don't you two … get to know each other or something?”

  “What are you going to do?” Layla asked, her breathing labored and laced with wild fear.

  I clamped down on my own and took a deep breath, running my hands up the chain-link until I got to the top corner. And then I started to feel around, to take in the size and shape, the places where the chain-link sheeting was connected to the bars, the way the whole thing was bolted to the ground, the cold damp cement wall behind me.

  If I had to gnaw my way out of this cage, I'd find a way to escape.

  And then I was going to kill Dash Buchanan and avenge my brother.

  Time was irrelevant in the dark, but based on my dry mouth and aching belly, I had to guess that at least a day had passed since I'd woken up in this shitty basement or wherever the hell it was. When I'd first started feeling my way around the cage, I'd found a single water bottle, but that was gone now and I'd had to piss in the floor drain and close my eyes against a horrid wash of humiliation.

  Whoever had put me down here was going to regret it—I wasn't called the Violet Assassin for nothing. Although … somehow I'd failed to take down a man who by all rights should've been an easy target. As I leaned against the wall and kicked the door for the thousandth time, my heart pounding in my throat, sweat dripping down the sides of my face, my leg muscles burning and aching, I thought about the moment I'd put the knife to Dash's throat.

  I could've killed him then if I'd wanted to.

  A strangled cry of frustration escaped me as I raged at the door with both booted feet, kicking and kicking. I was so upset by hours of zero progress that I almost missed the snap of metal in the corner. Almost.

  I pulled my aching legs back and got on my hands and knees, pushing at the place where the chain-link sheeting had come loose from the bar.

  This was it, the only chance I'd get.

  I snatched my dirty tank from the back corner, and tied it as tightly as I could around my head and neck to protect my skin from the sharp metal.

  “What's going on? Why are you so quiet, Laide?” Layla asked.

  I ignored her.

  “Laide?”

  Pushing my way beneath the metal proved tricky. The space was tighter than I would've liked, the links stiff and unforgiving. I gritted my teeth against the pain of it scraping down my back, shredding me up, making me bleed. At least my leather pants somewhat protected my ass.

  And then I was out and breathing heavy, hot warmth dripping down my spine. Half of it sweat, half of it blood. I didn't care. I was grabbing my sister—and Kelly—and getting the fuck out of there.

  My luck though, it'd never been good.

  The door at the top of the steps opened, spilling excruciatingly bright light down a set of rough wooden steps. My night vision killed, I darted into the dark gaping space to the right of the door, aware that in about a second somebody was going to flick the overhead lights on and blind the girls.

  I wasn't going to be one of them.

  I ducked down in the corner, made myself as small as I could and shut my eyes, waiting for it.

  Brightness clawed its way through my lids and Layla screamed.

  “Would you shut the fuck up?” a man asked, sounding exasperated, the sound of his boot kicking the chain-link a familiar requiem to me now. Son of a bitch. I cracked my eyes and blinked as quickly as I could into the light. “Where the hell is this other cunt?”

  I didn't wait for him to turn around and see me, shoving to my feet and grabbing a half-full beer bottle from a metal worktable. My boots were loud as I threw myself as fast and hard as I could across the pavement, slamming into the suited man from behind and knocking him to the floor. Apparently I didn't need my beer bottle because his head cracked on the cement with a sickening sound that would've made me throw up again had I had anything left inside of me.

  “Laide!” Layla was screaming.

  “Shut up!” I barked back at her, the sound of Kelly's weeping echoing around the basement. I didn't have time to examine the room as I rifled through the man's pocket for keys, but it looked like I'd been right—there was a massive bag of dog kibble sitting directly next to the door of Layla's cell. “Where are your fucking keys?” I whispered as blood oozed from around the man's head and my sister started to cry again.

  The man didn't have any keys.

  “Fuck.”

  I rolled his body over and rifled through his jacket, looking for a gun, a knife, anything that I could use to defend myself.

  There was nothing.

  I stood up as footsteps sounded toward the door, and ran back over to the steps, crouching down low and waiting until I saw a pair of slacks and expensive loafers come into view.”

  “Angler?” the man asked a split second before I reached up with both arms and hauled myself under the railing and behind a second suited goon. With everything I had, I shoved him with both palms and sent him stumbling down the short flight of stairs. “What the fuck?” he cursed as he feel to his knees and spun on me, lifting up a gun and pausing as an arm came around my neck and hauled me straight off my feet.

  “Relax, don't shoot. They're no good if they're full of holes.”

  My fingers clawed the flesh off the man behind me, digging through his hairy arms with a wild vengeance, but I'd completely lost the ability to breathe at this point. I was hungry, thirsty, disoriented. Honestly, that was probably the reason they'd kept us down here like this, just long enough hurt but not long enough to cause any real harm.

  I slammed my heeled boot down on the man's instep, kicked back for his balls, but darkness was eating up the edges of my vision and before I knew it, I was out and waking up hours later in a room fit for a queen.

  My hands shook as I sat up and tried to stop the room from spinning around me.

  “Shower and put this on,” a woman said, standing not three feet in front of me. I hadn't even noticed her until she'd spoken. That's how out of it I was. I blinked up at her, surprised to find her wearing a red cocktail dress and a face full of makeup. Her rouged lips were turned down at the corners in annoyance. “Are you deaf? Go get in the shower, wash your hair, shave your legs, then put
this on.”

  Without even registering what I was doing, I was reaching out and taking a purple silk evening gown from her fingers.

  “What the … fuck …” I started, but I had bad cottonmouth and my lungs and throat felt like I'd breathed in a nest of hornets. The pain was excruciating.

  I dropped the dress on the floor and curled into a ball on the bed; my boots were missing.

  “Goddamn it,” the woman said, bending down and picking up the wad of silk, brushing it off like the floor of this glamorous suite was just too filthy for words. I was too confused to even make sense of the room around me. One minute, I'm on the roof of Dash's apartment losing my virginity. The next, my brother is spraying pink blood and dying next to a dumpster. Then, a basement and dog kennels. Now, a lavish room with a king-size bed covered in shimmery black brocade and a woman who wouldn't be out of place on a catwalk in Milan. “Why do I always get the fucking druggies?”

  She reached for my bare ankle and tugged me forward, dropping my comatose body onto a plush Persian rug that covered the floor. I tried to kick her as she grabbed me, but my legs weren't responding and I could taste chemicals on the back of my tongue again. I'd been drugged for the second time in two days.

  “Get. In. The. Shower.”

  She stared down at me as I struggled to sit up, and then hauled off and kicked me as hard as she could in the stomach with the pointed red toe of her high heel.

  “Useless slut,” she snarled, moving away and leaving me there on the ground. I heard the click of heels on a tile floor, the sound of running water. “What are you on, hmm? Heroin?”

  My head lolled as the woman came back and bent down, tearing my cami over my head and reaching behind my back to undo my bra. Whatever I'd been drugged with this time, it was ten times worse than the last batch. I felt like I had zero control over my own body.

  “You girls bring this on yourselves, you know,” she continued, stripping me naked as I sat there and debated on what to do. If I was at full strength … half strength … even quarter strength, I could take this woman out no problem. But like this? I couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag. “You gamble with your lives, your health, your body, until it's too late.”

  The woman put an arm around my waist and forced one of my own around her shoulder, hauling me up to my feet. It wasn't a kind gesture though, not by a long shot. As soon as she got me into the bathroom, she threw me in a sprawling heap onto the tiled floor of the shower. The shock of pain in my knees was enough to make me gasp. Coupled with the warm water on my back, I blinked like I was coming out of a coma.

  “Wash yourself good and shave with this. But try anything funny and I will shoot you.”

  The woman threw a pink and white plastic razor at me and then stood up, sliding the long slit of her dress open and flashing me a small silver revolver.

  Shit.

  I needed to get my hands on that.

  I slumped against the wall and closed my eyes.

  “You have about thirty seconds before I call one of the boys in here to wash that chunky body of yours for you. And trust me, you don't want that—they can be very thorough.”

  Without looking up at her, I grabbed the razor and started to shave nonexistent hair from my legs. I'd just shaved yesterday, but I wasn't about to waste my breath arguing something so stupid. What was even happening right now? Hard as I tried, I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

  “Where am I?” I managed to slur as the bitch in the red dress glared at me like I'd done something to personally offend her. She ignored my question as I moved onto the next leg and pretended to shave that, too.

  “You should feel privileged to be here,” she said, and that was that.

  I finished showering, washing my purple-black hair, scrubbing the makeup from my face.

  “Wash your vagina thoroughly,” she barked, a command that made my entire body go rigid and my frantic heartbeat pick up speed. There was only one reason she'd want me to wash down there and that was if she expected somebody to see—or more likely touch—it.

  “Where am I?” I asked again, breathless and dizzy, the cuts on my back burning in the water, my leg muscles cramping, my stomach empty and aching with hunger.

  “That's irrelevant now. You're up on the Block tonight, but you'll have a good life. It's better than letting you waste it on the street.”

  “I'm not a drug addict,” I said, spinning to face her, slipping on the wet tile and falling to my knees again. I was recovering but not quite fast enough. “Where's my sister?”

  “You'll see her on the Block. Now get up, dry off and blow-dry your hair.”

  “The Block?” I asked, but the bitch was done talking, shutting off the water and throwing a fluffy white towel at me. It was strange, to be a prisoner amongst so much luxury.

  The Block.

  That was a mystery I was struggling to figure out as I rose to my feet and put my hand on the wall to keep my balance.

  “That purple hair …” the woman tsked, keeping a safe distance from me. “I wanted to dye it, but Niles thinks it'll make you stand out. I think it cheapens your look, but I suppose that's why I'm not the Auctioneer.”

  The Auctioneer?

  I dried off and dressed in the fancy purple thong and lacy bra that the woman had given me along with the dress. There was a garter belt and thigh-highs, too, but there was no way I was putting those on.

  “Are you stupid? All of it,” she commanded as I watched her rest her hand on her thigh, within inches of that gun. The way she was looking at me, I was positive that she really would shoot me with it.

  “I have no idea what these are,” I snapped, shaking the stupid things at her. “If you want me to wear them, you'll have to put them on yourself.”

  “God, I hate fucking drug addicts,” she said as she raised her dress and pointed at the garter belt. Fuck. I'd been hoping she'd come toward me, so I could have a chance at grabbing her. Instead, she directed me on how to put the lingerie on like she was speaking to a slow child—or maybe a monkey. “The dress, the heels, the jewelry. Keep going.”

  I slipped into the evening gown and a pair of purple stilettos that I could probably use in a pinch as a weapon. The heels were so thin and little that I could barely stand up in them, the drugs still swirling through my brain, making me wonder why I couldn't just be satisfied tending bar and living with Mom for the rest of my life. It sounded like heaven when compared to this.

  The woman continued to instruct me: blow-dry your hair, curl it, straighten your bangs, put these fake lashes on, this eyeliner, this shadow, this lipstick. It was exhausting, my hands shaking as I tried to apply the makeup to my face. If I messed up, she made me wipe it off and do it again. I wondered briefly what might happen if I kept messing up, but then decided that whoever she was, this bitch was better than one of 'the boys'. I'd seen what boys could do when they were being cruel and it wasn't pretty.

  “We're going to be late,” she finally snapped with a sigh. “Stand up and let's go. Try anything, and my offer still stands. I have no moral compass that points towards not killing you.”

  And that, I believed.

  The woman in the red dress led me out of the lavishly decorated room with its marble statues, oil paintings, and plush carpeting, and down a curving marble staircase that wrapped its way around a glistening chandelier.

  “I'm your handler for the night; you don't speak unless spoken to. Do you understand? None of these people are here to help you. If you start screaming—if you try to run—there will be consequences. Girls recovering from bullet wounds go for far less than ones that are whole, and believe me when I tell you that it's in your best interest to fetch a higher price. The more money you're worth, the more likely your benefactor will be to treat you nice.”

  If I could've screamed right then without getting shot, I would have.

  Auctioneer … price … benefactor?

  Tears pricked my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away. I wouldn't let anything happ
en to me or Layla. I just wouldn't. I'd do whatever I had to do to get us out of here.

  “Ingram,” a man said from the bottom of the stairs. He was just one of many, well-dressed and draped in an expensive tailored suit. His smile, his hair, the way he moved, it all radiated money. And he wasn't the only one—the entire room was full of them, men with slick urbane smiles that barely hid the thirst for blood underneath. It was like a sea of suited sharks in designer clothing and gleaming loafers.

  My skin broke out in goose bumps.

  “And who is this buxom beauty?” he asked with a low, genteel laugh, his dark eyes glittering like obsidian, his mouth this cut that seemed to chop his face right in half. When he reached up to run a finger down my jaw, I slapped his hand away and he raised his eyebrows. “So we have a wild one on our hands?”

  The bitch in the red dress—Ingram, apparently—laughed like a glittering hyena in her diamonds and stilettos, giving me a look that was less than approving.

  “Just another druggy that Niles had dragged in here for me to clean up.”

  “Hmm. She doesn't look like a druggy,” the man said, snatching my wrist before I could pull away and turning my arm over. “No track marks.”

  I slapped him as hard as I could across the face and then … he backhanded me, turning my vision to stars, sending me sprawling to my ass on the marble floor. I hit the ground with my palm, my wrist screaming in pain as I gasped and waited for somebody in the room to do something, anything.

  Nobody moved.

  Looking up, all I could see was Ingram in her bloodred cocktail dress amongst a sea of black and grey and navy suits, men with expensive watches on their wrists and drinks in their hands, looking down at me like I was nothing, like I was less than nothing.

  The drugs still swum in my veins and I was weak from hunger, from lack of water.

  A bigger, thicker man in a not-quite-as-expensive suit strode forward and hauled me up from the floor, not at all gently, leaving bruise marks on my upper arm when his meaty fingers dug into my skin.

  “Please refrain from laying hands on the merchandise, Mr. Dunham,” the man in the suit said blandly, waiting until my head stopped spinning and I found my feet before he let go of me and stepped away.