Captive Beauty
Natasha Knight
Copyright © 2017 by Natasha Knight
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN-13: 978-1982084806
ISBN-10: 1982084804
Contents
About This Book
Inspiration
Prologue 1
Prologue 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Thank You
Salvatore: a Dark Mafia Romance
Dominic: a Dark Mafia Romance
Also by Natasha Knight
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About This Book
Cilla
The Beast had Belle.
Killian Black has me.
How I got here doesn’t matter, even though he says it does. Says it was my choice. He doesn’t get it, though. It wasn’t ever a choice for me.
And now, he’s changing the rules.
The agreement was one month. For thirty days, I’d be his. He’s no longer satisfied with my body alone, though. He wants my soul, too. Wants every part of me. And even though I can pretend I’m safe when I lie beneath him, this man does something to me. Something wicked.
A thing that will break me.
Killian
People suck at consequences.
Cilla made the choice. She offered the deal. I just took her up on it. So what if I changed the rules half-way in? I’m not apologizing for it.
See, Cilla and me, we’re the same. She’s dark. As dark as me. Something happened to her. Something bad. It damaged her.
But it’s not a hero she seeks. It’s an avenging angel. A dark knight. That, I can do. I’ll slay her dragons, but it’ll cost her, because in return, I want everything. And I’ll take it.
She’s mine.
Author’s note: Captive Beauty is a standalone romance. Think Beauty and the Beast, but twisted and dark in the best, dirtiest ways.
“And there was a time when I stood in line
For love, for love, for love.
But I let you go oh, I let you go.
And he fell apart with his broken heart
And this blood, this blood this blood
Oh, it drains from my skin, it does.”
~ The Lumineers, Gale Song
Prologue 1
Cilla
He’s watching me. I know he is. He has cameras everywhere. Why wouldn’t he have one here? In this, the “special” room? He told me he likes to keep an eye on his things. And that’s what I am. A thing. A possession.
His.
Fucking his.
And today I fucked up.
Today he’ll take it out of my skin.
I shudder with the thought. With the knowledge of what I know is coming.
I’ll fight him. I wonder if he expects me to. Wants me to, even. All I know is I can’t submit to him. I can’t let him break me.
But I am breaking. Little by little.
I wonder if that’s why he took me.
This is a game to him. My life is a game.
I hug my knees to myself. This room is so cold, unlike the others.
I pull the blanket up around me, as much for the cold as for protection. It’s not like I can hide my fear. He knows. He knows the real truth. Knows everything now.
My dress is torn and I’m barefoot. He took my shoes away when he put me here. I guess the heels could be used as a weapon. As if I could somehow manage to overpower him.
I try to swallow but the lump in my throat makes it impossible. I’m scared and I hate it. I don’t want to admit it. Not even to myself.
Tears wet my eyes but before they have a chance to fall, I cover them with my hands and rub them away. I don’t want him to see my weakness. He gets off on it.
I did this. I pushed him. And I can survive this. I fucking have to.
It’s when I’m giving myself that ridiculous pep talk that I hear his footfalls in the hallway. Hear his voice, muffled so I can’t make out what he says. Probably dismissing Hugo, his fucking henchman. Like he needs one.
Every hair on my body stands on end when he slides the key into the lock. When he turns it. And when he pushes the door open, it takes all I have not to crumple. Not to cave.
It takes all I have to stand and ready myself for battle against this beast of a man.
Prologue 2
Kill
She claims I took her, but that’s not the whole truth.
I gave her a choice. She made it.
Someone needed to be punished. It didn’t need to be her. She chose this. Chose to be here.
Well, okay, not right here. Not like this. Standing against the far wall, her pretty, jade eyes wide with fear, the delicate skin around them pink from tears.
She’s scared.
And she should be.
She knows what’s coming.
I warned her and she fucked up.
I take her in, pretty in pink. Pretty Priscilla. Even with her hair a mess. Her mascara a black smear across her face. Her dress ruined. She’s scared shitless, but she’s defiant. I like that about her. Like her fire.
It makes my dick hard.
I close the door but don’t bother locking it. No need. She’s not walking out of here tonight. I’ll be carrying her when I’m through.
When I take a step, she makes a sound, something like a frightened little rabbit would make if they could make sound. Her hands are flat against the wall behind her. It’s like she’s trying to melt into it.
“I guess we were always going to end up here,” I say.
She has no response apart from the sudden trembling of her body. She wraps her arms around herself. I can even hear her teeth chatter. She’s too proud to beg though. Beg me for mercy. I respect her for that. But I do like the idea of her on her knees at my feet, clinging to me, pleading with me to spare her this one thing.
I slide off my suit jacket and hang it over the back of the chair. I watch her reflection in the mirror as I take off one cuff link, then the other, and set them both on the table. I’m rolling up my sleeves when I return my attention to her. Her eyes slide to my forearms. My hands.
“I know, Cilla,” I say.
She looks up at me.
“I know everything.”
1
Cilla
Six Weeks Earlier
I’m not paying attention when I step off the elevator on the sixth floor of my brother, Jones’s, apartment building. My phone just ran out of charge and I’m digging in my bag for the battery pack. The scent of curry coming from 605 is as familiar as the sound of the television playing too loud from 602, and the baby crying in 601.
Jones and I have a standing dinner date the first Wednesday of every month. Apart from that night, unless he needs something, we
don’t see each other. I left him a voicemail earlier to meet me in the lobby, but he wasn’t there so I had to come up to get him. At least the rain had let up when I’d made the dash into the entrance, but from the sound of water pelting the window at the end of the hallway, it’s picked up again.
When I reach his door, I hear the sound of talking. I don’t recognize the voice, but it’s deep and scratchy, like a man who has been smoking for a long time. I wonder if Jones forgot about our dinner and, before the warning in my head registers, I knock on his door and call out his name, making some comment about how he’d better not stand me up.
But my voice trails off at the end of my own sentence. That’s when I know something isn’t right.
“Jones?” I ask a little more quietly as I lay my hand flat against the damaged wood.
The door opens a crack.
“Oh, there you are,” I start, relieved. But then I see his face. The look in his eyes. There’s a bruise forming on his right cheekbone and his lip is cut. I tilt my head trying to process. “What—”
Run.
He mouths that single word as a hand closes around the door, pulling it wide. A hulking man appears behind him, grabs me by the arm and hauls me inside. He thrusts my back against the wall and clamps his hand over my mouth.
“Fuck. Cilla. I’m sorry, I’m so—” But Jones doesn’t have a chance to finish his sentence because one of the two men in his apartment knocks the butt of a gun across his temple and Jones crumples to the floor.
I think I scream, but the sound is muffled by the big, meaty hand covering my mouth.
The man who knocked my brother out looks down at him, shakes his head once before turning his gaze to me. I cower, realizing then that I’m clawing uselessly at the arm of the one holding me to the wall.
“Wrong place, wrong time, honey,” he says, and the next thing I feel is a sharp pain at the back of my head. Lights explode in my vision before I feel myself slide down the wall and fall over, my eyes closing.
2
Kill
“What the fuck is this?” I’m sitting behind my desk watching the two figures on the monitor. They’re passed out, lying on the floor in the basement, hands bound behind their backs. The girl’s eyes are covered with a blindfold.
Hugo, the man in charge of the clowns who fucked up tonight, is shaking his head, watching the same monitor. “She walked in on them. Saw their faces. They got scared.”
I look at him, tilt my head to the side. “They got scared? What is this, fucking amateur night?” Hugo opens his mouth to answer but I put my hand up to stop him. “Never mind. Did you recover the bag?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, that’s something.” I turn back to the screen. “Who is she?” It’s only supposed to be that idiot Jones down there.
Hugo opens her wallet and hands me a driver’s license. Priscilla Hawking. Jones Hawking’s sister. I check her birth date. Twenty-four. She’s his kid sister.
I peer at the face smiling at me from the license then back at the screen. She’s passed out, and somewhere in transit, must have lost one of her shoes. She’s still got her coat on but it’s unbuttoned and her skirt’s ridden up to expose one slender thigh.
Jones’s body shifts a little. He’s waking up. I watch as he slowly blinks his eyes open and turns his head a little, surveying the ceiling. An instant later, he shoots upright. I smile. He knows where he is. Why he’s there. But then he sees his baby sister there, still passed out on the floor, and he starts crying like a fucking baby himself.
“Should I head down?” Hugo asks.
I almost forgot about him. “No. Give him a minute to appreciate his circumstances.” Because tonight, Jones is going to learn a valuable lesson.
I get to my feet. Hugo follows. I unzip the duffel bag my men retrieved and take a rough inventory of its contents. “All here?” I ask Hugo without looking at him.
“Looks to be.”
I’m fingering the slit in one of the bricks. “Tampered with.”
“He probably took a few hits but we got him when he arranged the sale.”
That’s how we found out it was Jones who’d stolen the bag. He tried to sell my coke back to one of my own men. Fucking idiot.
But Jones’s little stunt comes as a good lesson for me too. It reminds me that just because people fear you, doesn’t mean they’ll keep their sticky fingers out of your shit.
Tonight, I’ll make an example. Remind everyone what happens when you get greedy enough to steal from Killian Black.
I zip the duffel and glance again at the monitor. The girl creates a complication.
“Let’s go.”
Hugo follows me into the elevator and we ride it down to the main floor. The doors slide open and we step out into the nearly empty room. A girl is dancing on one of the stages and the manager sits watching her. She must be auditioning. I look over at her. Pretty, young, good looking, with a nice set of tits and a tight ass. She needs a little work in the dance department though.
Hugo and I head to the door leading to the staircase where two men stand sentry. They open the door when they see us approach and Hugo follows me down. For as luxurious as things are above ground, they’re that primitive below. But the basement, it’s not anywhere anyone wants to be.
My steps echo off the walls and the guard standing outside the door straightens.
“Open it,” I tell him.
He does. The two inside still instantly, both turning toward us, the girl blind from the cloth covering her eyes. She may have seen the faces of the idiots who kidnapped her, but she hasn’t seen me. Doesn’t know who I am unless her asshole brother told her.
I enter with Hugo close behind me. He closes the door.
Jones is blubbering, fucking crying again, his words are coming out so fast, I can’t make sense of them.
“Shut the fuck up.” It’s Hugo and he’s moved to stand behind the kneeling man. He presses the barrel of a gun to the back of Jones’s head.
Jones quiets but for the fucking sniffling. “Jones, don’t be a pussy,” I say, leaning against the wall, my eyes on the girl. She’s quiet, hasn’t said a word, but her head snaps in the direction of my voice the moment she hears it. She’s on her knees too, but I’m guessing it’s because her balance is off with the blindfold and her hands being bound behind her back. I know she’s pretty from her driver’s license picture, but in person, even with the blindfold on, she’s striking, with high cheekbones and plump lips I’m not sure she realizes she’s biting.
“Did you tell her what you did?” I ask Jones, not taking my eyes off the girl.
“I didn’t do anything. I was just…I found…I accidentally—”
Hugo mutters something and smacks him on the side of the head. It’s not a hard smack but Jones shuts up.
“You accidentally found a duffel bag full of coke?”
“Y…yes, sir.”
“And then what?” I ask.
“I…I was going to bring it back.”
“Do I look like a fucking idiot?”
“Please don’t hurt me! Please. I made a mistake. I—”
“Please don’t hurt you? What about your sister here? Should I hurt her instead?” Fucking coward piece of shit.
Jones shakes his head. “It’s all there. I was going to give it back.”
“Really? After you made arrangements for a sale?”
He takes in a deep breath, realizing I know.
I step toward him. “I have eyes and ears everywhere, understand, fool?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My brother made a mistake,” the girl suddenly says. “He’s not a fool.”
Her comment makes me chuckle, but she’s not making a joke. Her voice is soft and I know she’s trying to act like she’s calm, but I can see the pulse at her neck pounding.
“No? Because all evidence points to the contrary.”
She’s quiet, perhaps thinking how to reply. “Please don’t hurt him.”
; That strikes me. Please don’t hurt him. Not please don’t hurt us.
“Should I let him walk out of here scot-free?”
She swallows, exhales a breath. She knows I won’t do that.
“Just…” She’s shaking her head and tears have wet the blindfold and her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Her apologizing makes me hate Jones even more. “Help her stand.”
Hugo takes her arm and raises her to her feet. She stands on the foot with the shoe, then shifts to the one without it. I step toward her and even though she can’t see me, I know she feels the shift because she backs up and stiffens, her face turning upward, searching for me.
“Priscilla Hawking,” I say, trying out her name. I want her to know I know exactly who she is.
She visibly shudders.
I move closer, then to her side, slowly behind her, eyeing the ropes that have cut into the skin of her wrists. I lean in and inhale a subtle scent of perfume beneath the acrid one of fear.
“Are you scared?”
She goes rigid. I know she can feel my breath on her neck.
“Answer my question.”
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