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

by Violet Blaze

  “Why don't you tell me, Dash? You're the one that just paid five fucking million dollars for your new whore. Don't you think this expensive pussy has a right to know why she's worth so much? You seemed pretty close to your new friends, so tell me—who are they and why do they give a fuck about me?”

  “My daddy sold you up the creek,” Dash snarled, getting up in my face. Layla just stood there looking confused as hell, a little bit shellshocked. “That's why. And although they may not like him, they need him for all their bullshit dirty work and backroom dealings. What they don't do, however, is trust him and you know what? Neither my dad and his crew nor TSR trust me. So we need to go, and we need to go now.”

  I licked my dry lips and Dash noticed the motion, moving into the kitchen and getting two bottles of cold water from the fridge, offering them up to Layla and me.

  The first sip was like heaven, this cool trickle down my throat that almost brought up those tears I was finding so hard against. I tilted my head back and drank deep, the woman in the purple dress staring at me with the unnerving expanse of her facelessness.

  “TSR … that's the they?” I asked as I finished the bottle and tossed it onto the floor. Dash picked it up which I found odd, putting it in a recycling bin under the cabinet.

  “Can't look like we got out of here in a hurry,” he explained as he took Layla's next and tossed that, too. “And yes, TSR—The Sovereign Revolutionists—are the they and honey, they ain't nothing to be messed with. We need to blow this joint right here and shack up in my condo.”

  “Why would your condo be any safer than this?” I snapped, gesturing at the eclectic room around me. “If these people are so fucking high brow that they think they can just buy kidnapped girls to use as sex toys”—Layla cringed at this and gave me this terrible look that I ignored—“then why shouldn't they know about all your other properties?”

  “It was purchased under a trust with money I earned with the band. I'm not saying they couldn't find it if they tried, but if we play our cards right, they won't bother to look.”

  Dash and I stood there in his living room, right next to his airbrushed coffin couch and stared at each other. I trusted him to get us out of that nightmare, and he did. I let him fuck me up on that roof—even after I'd stabbed him—and he didn't retaliate against me when he could have. Why should he lie now?

  “If we go to this place with you,” I began, bending down and slipping the sweats over my feet. I noticed Dash's warm amber eyes watching me, a flare of heat sparking behind his irises as I stood up and slid the pants over the generous swell of my hips. “If we go, then you answer all my questions?”

  It felt ridiculous making demands on him when technically, he was the one that had just pulled our fat from the fire, but I felt this horrible sense of powerlessness, this betrayal of everything I thought I knew about the world. My reality was tipping onto its side and I needed to be in control of this one thing.

  Dash grit his teeth, but then he flicked his tongue across his lower lip and nodded.

  “I owe you that, at least,” he told me as he paused near a black lacquer dresser and pulled out some denim and a spare leather jacket. He gave those to my sister and gestured at a row of boots near the front door. “Grab some shoes and get dressed. Can't ride barefoot or in a damn dress.”

  Dash grabbed two sets of keys from a peg near the door, tossing one to me.

  “Come on,” he said, his closed off and unreadable. “I'll give ya a quick lesson and we'll get out of here. If I had a car, I'd give that to you, but we need to make do with what we got. Hopefully you're a quick learner.”

  Adelaide Vaughn was one smart fuckin' cookie, managing to drive my second ride—a big ol' bagger from Buchanan Bikes called the Country Cross-XX—over to my building without dropping the bike. Impressive considering she told me her experience was limited to a quick ride about an empty parking lot with one of her brothers.

  My condo only has a single parking space, but we squeezed both bikes into it and headed up the elevator to the thirtieth floor. Nobody talked, but I guessed there just wasn't much we could say until we got inside and had a moment to decompress. Lord only knew that I could use one—that and a beer and maybe a shower.

  Fuck.

  Being inside of Adelaide Vaughn was so damn good that for a few minutes there, I almost forgot where we were and what we were doing. But now that it was over, I felt like I needed to rinse the darkness of that place off of me.

  “This is … a hell of a lot nicer than your other place,” Adelaide said as I unlocked the door and she stepped inside, her borrowed boots loud against the black and white tiled floors. “Why do you even stay above the bar anyway?”

  I laughed, but the sound just made Layla jump.

  “Well,” I started as I closed and locked the front door behind me, “I don't want my father—or anybody else for that matter—knowing I've got somewhere to go if shit goes down.”

  “You were expecting a night like tonight then?” she asked as she entered the living room and looked around at the flatscreen mounted on the wall, the leather and velvet couches, the sliding glass doors that lead out to the balcony. This place had fabulous views of the Strip, the mountains, and downtown Vegas. Sitting out there on a warm night with a beer and a beautiful woman was a pleasure I couldn't resist on a good day. Right now, it was almost impossible to think of anything else.

  “I'm gonna have a beer—either of you want one?”

  “We haven't eaten in days,” Adelaide said, her voice dark as she tracked behind me, following around the breakfast bar and into the kitchen proper. “But yeah, I'll take a beer.”

  I got several out and set them on the counter, popping the tops one by one and handing a bottle over to Adelaide. She took it, but her sister just stood stoic and silent behind the couch, staring at the floor, her eyes glassy and almost vacant. She was definitely not cut from the same as her younger sibling, that was for fucking sure.

  “What do you want for food? I don't keep anything here but booze. I'll order something for you.”

  “A meatball sub,” Adelaide said, and there was this crack in the angry mask of her face that made me feel like the world's worst asshole. I fucked her tonight and I loved it. Looking at her now, I just wanted more of that, in a dark room, away from the world. I wanted to make Adelaide Vaughn mine, but not because of some awful drugs and a seedy auction house; I wanted her to want me the way a woman wants her man. “Soda. Hot wings. Pizza. Order it all; I could eat this entire apartment I'm so fucking hungry.”

  She took a deep breath as I pulled up a local pizza joint on my phone and started putting together a delivery order with their app.

  “Can I at least call my parents and let them know we're alright?”

  I pursed my lips and shook my head, and Layla made this god-awful sound and slid to the floor, her back to the leather couch as she put her head between her knees and pressed her fingers to the tattoo behind her ear.

  “But there's some liquid soap and Aquaphor in the bathroom if you want to take care of those.” I pointed at my own TSR tat and Adelaide stepped forward, reaching up and running her fingers along my neck.

  “You have one, too?” she asked, prodding at the edge of my hairline and stepping back. I lifted my head to look at her, dressed in her leather jacket and my sweats, her face still covered in makeup. Most of it was smeared by now, leaving nothing but red smudges around mouth. But her eyes were still shadowed, her lashes thick with mascara. “Why?”

  “Listen, I will tell you whatever you want to know, but take a breather first, okay? Let's get some food, have a drink. Don't you want a fucking shower, Miss Vaughn?”

  “Why? To shower off all that sex?” she asked, breathing hard, looking like she didn't have a damn clue what to think about the whole situation. “Because I just got branded by some secret organization that you happen to be a card carrying member of?”

  “Don't shower then,” I snapped, hitting send on the order and tossi
ng my phone on the counter. There were dozens of texts from every one of my band members, my manager, my dad, his secretary, Laura. I ignored them all and took my beer over to the couch, sinking down into the cushions with a sigh.

  The concert, the stabbing, the sex with Adelaide … and then all that fucking trouble to find her. She has no idea how hard it was for me to get into that action, no goddamn idea. I'm not saying I had it worse than her, but fucking fuck, I just need a moment.

  We easily could've died in there tonight. Hell, we still might if any of the higher-ups at TSR decide there's something about my interaction with Adelaide that they don't like.

  “Layla, honey, I need you to get up.”

  “He raped you, Adelaide, and now we're … we're sitting in his apartment and we're not calling the boys and getting the fuck out of here? I don't understand. I just … I want to know what's happening, what happened. Where were we? What was that place? Why us?”

  “Layla, listen to me: we are going to figure this out and things are going to be okay. I promise. What I need from you right now is to stand up and sit down, drink this beer and try to relax.”

  “He stole your virginity, Laide, and you've been saving it for so long.” Layla started to cry and even though I couldn't see the sisters behind me, it about broke my damn heart in two. Fucking Christ on a cracker. “It should've been me. I—”

  “I wasn't a virgin, okay?” Adelaide said and then I heard a rustling sound as both girls stood up and she helped her sister onto the black velvet love seat on my left. Adelaide sat down next to her and they both nursed their beers for a moment. “And he didn't rape me,” she added, meeting my eyes.

  We shared a long look, me and her.

  I could still feel the ice melting in her hot cunt, drenching my shaft with liquid, her arousal slick and tight around me. Could she still feel me? I sure as fuck hoped so.

  I chugged some beer.

  “What are you talking about?” Layla asked with a sniff, the look she was throwing sharp enough to cut. If she had a knife on her, I wouldn't be surprised if she tried to take my balls off. Well, at least she wasn't completely fucking helpless.

  “Dash didn't have a choice either,” Adelaide began and her sister rose to her feet, throwing her beer bottle at me. I had just enough to lift my arms and block it, the glass slamming into my elbow as I cursed under my breath and amber liquid spread across the floor in a puddle.

  “He didn't have a choice? It sure looked like he had one when he dragged us into that room and shoved his dick into my baby sister's mouth.”

  “They had cameras everywhere, Layla,” I said, drumming up memories of this girl from my childhood. When I was thirteen, Adelaide was nine. Guess that woulda made Layla around twelve. Would've made more sense to have had her as a playmate, but instead I spent all my time dragging my lanky pre-teen body around after a precocious spitfire of a girl with long dark hair and eyes the color of a sunrise. “They were recording every move we made. And the Play Rooms are not optional. There was no way for us to skip them completely and get out of there alive.”

  “So … obligation made your dick hard, did it?” Layla snapped, tearing her pale brunette hair out of her ponytail and stepping in front of her sibling when Adelaide tried to cut in.

  “Your sister is gorgeous; I ain't gonna lie about that.”

  “You're a fucking pig, and I know hogs, Mr. Buchanan. I was raised in a pen of them.”

  Layla spun toward her sister, tearing my leather jacket off her shoulders and tossing it aside.

  “You think we can trust him? Xavier Buchanan's son? Adelaide, I trust your judgment, but I think you are in way over your head here.”

  “No, sweetheart, you are,” Adelaide said with a long, drawn-out sigh. “I think you should take a shower while Dash and I talk this out.”

  “Seriously? So, now, you're like an expert on club business?”

  “Layla, this is … please go shower.”

  “Fuck you, Adelaide,” Layla said, her voice blurring with tears as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what? You want a minute with your rapist? Then fine.” She turned back to me, a scowl twisting her lips as she looked at me like I was worth less than dog shit. I tried not to judge her too harshly; she didn't know yet that her eldest brother had been gunned down. I did not envy Adelaide that particular task. “Is there somewhere I can lie down?”

  “Through the kitchen, down the hallway. It's the bedroom on the right,” I told her, listening to her wet footsteps slap across the porcelain tiled floor as she walked straight through the beer and around the corner. The sound of my bedroom door slamming made the headache I was nursing ten times worse. I gritted my teeth and cursed some under my breath.

  “There aren't any phones back there?” Adelaide asked and I shook my head, watching as she took a seat back on the velvet cushion and kicked her borrowed boots off, tucking her legs up and dragging a red and black striped blanket onto her lap. Seeing her sitting there all curled up like that ignited something deep and primal inside of me, this latent fear slithering down my spine.

  If I'd misstepped even once since I woke up in my apartment after she was kidnapped, something real fuckin' bad woulda happened to Adelaide Vaughn, maybe quenched that fire in her eyes, took away some of that raw, wild passion burning inside of her.

  “No computers?”

  “I barely come over here, so I don't keep most of the electronics in a safe, just in case. She can't crack safes now, can she?”

  “Layla can barely stand to crack a nail,” Adelaide said, her honeyed gaze sliding to the side, lids drooping suddenly as she dropped her chin down and took a shuddering breath. “Tell me what happened with Maverick,” she whispered, lifting her head and then reaching up to unzip the leather jacket. Like a threat, Adelaide Vaughn removed her SR22 and laid it on her lap. There was no doubt in my mind that it was loaded.

  “He came around the back of the Hard Sell, between the dumpsters and aimed his weapon at me. I raised mine to fire back, and one of the suits shot him. I think it was the one I killed, but I ain't got the faintest clue. Could've been any of those stupid fuckers.”

  “Why didn't they attack you?” Adelaide asked and I sighed.

  Shit, this was a complicated situation.

  “They were working for my father, looking for you I think. He knew Weeping Bones was in town, and I think he was trying to make a point. My dad has resources now and it isn't going to take shit from the club. All they did was knock me around a little. Mostly, I passed out because you stabbed me in the fucking leg and I was bleedin' out.”

  “Didn't seem to stop you from getting plenty of blood to your cock.”

  Adelaide just stares at me, neither smiling nor frowning when she says that.

  “Yeah, well, like I told your sister—you are a very beautiful woman, Miss Vaughn.” I paused and stood up to grab a towel, something to clean up the beer on the floor. “You weren't really a virgin, were you?”

  “Of course not,” she scoffed, but there was a slight catch in her voice that made me think otherwise. Holy shit. Holy fucking Christ. “What was that place, Dash?”

  “That was one of TSR's favorite meeting places—a private business owned by the man running the auction, Niles Calhoun, aka the Auctioneer. Him and his wife—the bitch in the red dress—they run all sorts of events out of that place. They're exclusive, heavily guarded, secretive enough that they will kill to prevent the wrong people from finding out about it or making a scene.”

  “I witnessed that firsthand,” Adelaide says, shivering as I stepped back into the living room with some paper towels and started mopping up the mess with my boot. “Tell how the fuck they think they can get away with kidnapping girls and selling them like cattle? If the police or the FBI—”

  I laughed, but it wasn't a pretty sound.

  “You think the men in TSR don't have the resources to pay off the cops? The Feds? Sugar, you don't live in the land of fairy stories, do ya? You grew up in Weep
ing Bones; you know that nothing in this world is sacred.”

  Adelaide swallowed hard and took another sip of her drink, her purple hair frothing around her face in messy curls, her short straight bangs stuck to her forehead with sweat. As I stared at her, my eyes were drawn to her mouth, my brain pulled straight back to the memory of those lips wrapped around my cock.

  “They pick girls that nobody will miss—homeless, drug addicted, poor—and they … well, you saw what they do with 'em.”

  “You really spent five million dollars on me?”

  “I really did,” I said, grabbing the soggy pile of paper towels and tossing them in the trash.

  There was a moment there where I turned around and met Adelaide's gaze, the air between us crackling with a strange energy, but it broke as soon as the doorbell rang and there I went cursing again, praying my dead grandma wasn't watching from above.

  Checking the peephole, I found Cecil Brande, one of the building's night watchmen standing with a pizza box and several white foam containers with foil sticking out the edges.

  “Cecil,” I said as I opened the door and he carried the food in, depositing it on the decorative sofa table near the door. I slipped him a wad of cash and tipped his peaked cap at me. He paused for a moment when he saw Adelaide sitting on the couch and then smiled as he turned back to the door.

  “Enjoy your night, Mr. Buchanan,” he said, but I followed him into the hall and tugged the door most of the way closed.

  “Hey, Cecil,” I said, licking my lower lip and glancing up and down the beige and white hall on either side of us. There was nobody around, but I had to check. It mighta been four in the morning, but this Vegas. Ain't nobody cared what damn time it was around here. “I need to ask you a big favor.”

  “Of course, Mr. Buchanan,” he said, formal as always, tucked into his crisp uniform, his face deeply lined with years of hard work: military, police, and now, private security. Cecil had been around the block more than once. “If we get somebody sniffing around here lookin' for me or the girl I'm with, I want you to tell 'em everything you know.”