The Billionaire’s Prize: Taken & Tempted
by
Kristi Avalon
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover Design: Kim Van Meter
Editor: Mary Ann Chulick
The Bodyguard’s Prize: Taken & Tempted, Copyright © 2014 Kristi Avalon. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Dedication
For my wonderful readers who have waited patiently for Cade’s story.
My thanks to Kristine Thompson, best brainstorming partner EVER. Jamie Denton for steering me in the right direction and answering my law questions. Mary Ann Chulick for your prized editing skills. Rhonda Helms for the cold case file suggestion. Erin McCarthy for arranging our vacation that rejuvenated my writing spirit. Eddie Columbia and Barbara Satow for listening to my frustrations of writing a romance during one of the most difficult and sad times in my life.
You’re the best writing friends a girl could ask for! The Story Sluts rock.
Table of Contents
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
EPILOGUE
About the Author
Chapter 1
The stack of cold case files sat abandoned on the corner of Kylie Graham’s desk, its victims screaming from the dead for justice she’d vowed to deliver. If only she could escape her secret obsession to focus on her studies, so she could complete her final semester before graduation and begin her career as a paralegal.
Kylie blinked, and her scratchy sleep-deprived eyes began to water. She wished she hadn’t stayed up late watching the Investigative Discovery channel. Again.
Clenching her fingers around the thick probate law tome lying open, her handwritten notes littering the margins, she fought the urge to snatch the binder. Filled with hundreds of newspaper clippings, photos, eyewitness accounts and crime scene logs she’d collected over the years, the scrapbook offered salvation from her exhaustive studying for final exams. Within its fingerprint smudged, glue covered pages she could delve into unsolved cases from the past, some personal, others that had captured the nation. It had been her long held fixation.
Until two months ago.
A cold bead of sweat trickled down her spine. Even though the ancient window air conditioner just moved hot air around the stuffy campus office, a chill settled in her bones.
Several months ago she’d accidentally stumbled across a paper trail that led to cold-blooded murder. At the time, she’d landed an internship with cutthroat defense attorney Scott “Skip” Deluca. Not her dream internship, but one that would look good on her future resume. On her first day Mr. Deluca had handed her a client’s file, requesting she look at the original court ruling five years ago and familiarize herself with the details. Her duties entailed drawing up and filing paperwork confirming Bruno Ramos’s upcoming parole hearing. Deluca stressed that his client would not spend one more night in prison. And she’d better make sure of it.
The pressure wasn’t what had bothered her. The further she investigated the case from years earlier, a certain detail stuck out. If the leading witness, a bounty hunter named Jacob Soren, hadn’t met an untimely death during the trial, Bruno Ramos might have served twenty to twenty-five years. Not the mere five for serious drug trafficking offenses.
Another question nagged at her. Why would a high profile attorney like Skip Deluca represent a suspected drug kingpin? One of the best lawyers in Las Vegas, in his glory days Deluca had taken on some influential touchstone cases that altered Nevada state law. Kylie had looked up to him. But the more she learned about Bruno Ramos, and the deeper she investigated the mysterious events surrounding Jacob Soren’s death, her admiration turned to dismay. Determined to bring to the firm’s attention a possible hit ordered by their client, she offered her findings to Deluca. Two weeks later she found herself on the sidewalk in front of his building, a recommendation letter in hand, along with a firm directive to keep her mouth shut. Or else.
Too bad threats didn’t faze her once she’d caught the scent of a potential cold case that needed solving. The further she investigated Jacob Soren’s death, the more proof she uncovered. Including an eyewitness testimonial from Maria Sanchez, the sweet immigrant motel housekeeper who had helped Kylie piece together events that pointed to a methodical killer.
Remembering the work she’d poured into the potential cold case, her conscience twisted in frustration. If only she hadn’t handed all her carefully collected evidence over to Cade Soren. The second son of Jacob Soren, Cade had dismissed her paralegal skills, demanding her notes to give to his legal team. She’d complied, expecting to help with the case she’d already built on her own. Instead, he’d shut her out.
She’d called. Left messages. Emailed him.
No response.
The door to her office sailed open and banged against the wall.
Kylie shot to her feet and whipped around. Dominique Havens, her best friend, charged toward her wide-eyed and waving a tablet.
“Have you seen the news?” Dominique’s dark skin looked glossy under a sheen of perspiration. Her lyrical Caribbean-flecked British accent usually mesmerized Kylie, but now Dominique’s voice struck an alarming chord. “Here, watch this.”
When Dominique shoved her tablet into Kylie’s hands, a news feed played on the screen. “I’m standing outside the Blue Cactus Motel,” the female reporter said, her tone unusually excited for a news anchor. “Behind me you can see the police are investigating the gruesome crime against employee Maria Sanchez, found dead this morning in room thirteen.”
“Maria?” Kylie’s whisper scraped past her throat. “My Maria Sanchez?” The woman who’d given her testimony to Kylie, knowing it might put her in danger. Maria, who’d recently been granted citizenship. Maria, whose young children depended on her meager income from her job at the motel. Maria, who’d done the right thing by helping solve a murder she’d witnessed. Kylie’s hands shook as she held the tablet. Tears filled her eyes. “Please, no, not Maria.”
Dominique glanced at her with fierce concern. “This proves you were on to something. Someone wants to keep your cold case frozen in the past.”
Horror sliced Kylie’s insides. Guilt crushed her chest until she couldn’t breathe. “This is my fault. Oh, God, Maria is dead because of me.”
Dominique’s eyes held terror of their own. “You could be next.”
Weak with grief, Kylie gripped the back of her chair. She looked around the cramped office she shared with Dominique and their academic supervisor Professor Carlton. The stacks of books, the aged scent of cigarette smoke lingering in the wallpaper, the hum of the useless air conditioner were all familiar yet nothing grounded her in the present. Legs unable to support her, she landed hard on the edge of her desk.
Taking her shoulders, Dominique shook her gently. “This is serious, Kylie. The people who killed Maria may be after you. The news broadcast aired an hour ago. What if they come to the university?” Fear shimmered in her black eyes. “What if they come to the house looking for you?
My baby girl is there.”
That knowledge chipped away the layer of unreality that had settled over her, and the full force of this threat burrowed into her like salt ground into an open wound. Forget about her own safety. Kylie feared more for the repercussions that might impact her best friend and an innocent child. They hadn’t asked for this frightening exposure or the consequences Kylie hadn’t foreseen.
“I don’t know what to do.” Kylie’s voice shook as she admitted the truth. Then she jumped when her phone buzzed on her desk, the vibrations rocking her like an earthquake. She answered with dread. “Hello?”
“Kylie. It’s Cade Soren.”
Now he calls me? “Cade, it’s a bad time. I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t hang up.” The bark of his order caught her off guard. “I got your messages, sorry I didn’t keep in touch. Where are you right now?”
“I-I’m in my office at the university,” she said, embarrassed by her hiccup. She’d never shown vulnerability in front of strangers. Since the age of sixteen she’d learned to hold her head high in the face of frightening circumstances.
“Are you safe?”
“I think so. I don’t know.” Fresh tears increased the pressure behind her eyes. “Maria. My witness in your dad’s case. She’s dead.”
“I saw the news. Are you in a public place? Do you have people around you?” Cade was all business.
She glanced at Dominique then at the open door, hearing voices echoing in the hallway. “I guess.”
“Stay put. I’m sending someone.”
She blinked. “Someone…who? For what?”
“One of my bodyguards. He’s bringing you to Denver.”
Cade Soren was part owner of a billion dollar bodyguard business that assigned security personnel to famous people and government entities throughout the United States and all over the world. She hadn’t even thought of that. Not that she needed his help, or a bodyguard—yet. “Do you think that’s necessary?”
“Yes. I need you.” His words made her pulse throb. Except when her father was dying, no man had ever said he needed her and meant it with the complete sincerity that she heard in Cade’s voice now. She melted a little. “You’re the best link I have to my dad’s case,” he continued. “You’re dedicated and passionate about it. You can help me solve his murder. I need you safe.”
Oh. “Right, of course.” This wasn’t about her personal well being, but preserving her as part of the facts. A living breathing bridge between a cold case and the hot new evidence she’d provided him.
“I remember you’re a student at UNLV. Where do I send the helicopter?”
“Helicopter?” she choked.
“It’s already hovering over the campus. All I need is a specific location.”
The man didn’t waste time. But holy smokes, a helicopter? She described exactly where she was on campus. She swallowed. “Are you really coming to get me?”
“This is good news.” Dominique sighed in relief. “You should get out of Las Vegas.”
Muffled sounds came from the background on his end before he returned to the line. “Transportation will touch down in five minutes. A man named Slone Rowan will meet you on the ground behind the quad. You can trust him, he’s one of our finest. The helicopter will take you to a private airstrip, where my jet will fly you from Vegas to Denver.”
“Okay.” All the sudden, the ramifications of this rash agreement flashed in her mind. “Wait. I need to go home first. I have to pack. I have important things, clothes…stuff I need—”
“I’ll take care of it. Whatever you need.”
Dominique grasped Kylie’s arm and shook her head no. “You shouldn’t go home.”
“I can’t let you stop at your house,” Cade said at the same time. “You’re a potential mark. Too much of a risk.”
Hemmed in on both sides by respectable logic, even though her heart raced thinking of leaving everything behind, she looked into Dominique’s liquid black eyes and nodded to her best friend. “I really like having my own things,” she told Cade, “but under the circumstances—”
“The helicopter just touched down. If you don’t meet Slone out back in five minutes, he’ll storm the building. And trust me, no one wants that. I’ll see you when you land.”
Stunned by the suddenness of it all—leaving her normal, uneventful life with nothing but her purse, laptop carrier stuffed with study materials, and the clothes on her back—she pushed away from the desk. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Logic, organization and consistency created the environment she thrived in. Kylie was happy within her orderly world, diving into cold case files for a taste of excitement in between her paralegal studies. She adored uncovering the motives behind murder and mystery, watching the endless unfolding of the human drama from a safe distance.
I’m not supposed to live it.
The darkness she’d always pursued on behalf of truth and justice had suddenly turned around and was now hunting her.
Straightening her glasses, Kylie faced her friend. She said in a shaky tone, “It looks like I’m going to Denver.”
Compassion stamped Dominique’s features. “This is the best thing.”
“What about you?” Anxiety sent needles of worry through her. “Will you and your daughter be okay?”
“If you’re a threat to these people and you disappear, so will the threat to me and Jayda.”
Always the voice of reason. Kylie released a sigh. “I’m so sorry this has affected the people I care about. I won’t apologize for trying to find justice for a victim, but I never wanted my interests to impact anyone else.”
Dominique offered an encouraging smile. “Your interests, as you call them, keep hope alive. If anything ever happened to me, I’d want you to find the truth. I’d haunt you myself.” Then she muttered a phrase in Caribbean dialect that supposedly warded off evil spirits. “The Creator made people like you for a reason. Never doubt that.”
Kylie edged away slightly, uncomfortable with what she considered a faint variation of voodoo. She wasn’t anyone special. She wasn’t particularly religious. She didn’t speak for the dead.
Something deep in her marrow drove her to seek clues that others missed, to find answers to questions no one else thought to ask. She couldn’t help her nature.
Dominique squeezed Kylie’s hands then nudged her out the door. “Find justice for Maria.”
With that mantra ringing in her ears, Kylie readjusted her full laptop bag across her shoulders and moved stiffly down the steps. When she exited onto the first floor she heard the heavy whomp of helicopter blades, the impressive transportation awaiting her.
Kylie owed Maria—and for God’s sake the woman’s children—a positive outcome. How could she live with herself if she didn’t pursue justice?
Cade deserved the same. On behalf of his father.
For all these reasons and a deep, driving personal need to make things right, she walked out of the building toward a future that held no guarantees.
*
Shoulders weighted by the heavy sense of responsibility, Cade Soren hung up the phone and wondered if he was overreacting. His gut had told him to bring Kylie to Denver where he had the manpower to protect her, so he’d followed it.
Because the last time he ignored his gut instinct, his father ended up dead in the back alley of a seedy motel.
At the time, he’d believed what the police told him. Cause of death was a bounty hunting search gone wrong. No one had responded to Dad’s call for backup. If only Dad had let him join the chase. The remorse over not protecting his father or preventing his loss still pounded stakes of guilt through Cade’s chest.
Two months ago he’d met Kylie Graham at a coffee shop around the corner from his building. He couldn’t remember if she worked at a law office, but she’d mentioned her boss at the firm had funded her excursion to Denver.
That encounter changed what he’d assumed about Dad’s death.
Ho
nestly, he hadn’t wanted to sit down with her, definitely hadn’t wanted to discuss his father’s death with a complete stranger. He’d recently finished a media blitz tour from coast to coast, gaining traction for his company in important circles, and returned exhausted. He recalled her impressive intellect, but he hadn’t been in the mood to be impressed.
Thinking back, he also recalled that her passion had intrigued him. An intense fire fueled her drive to connect pieces of information others missed, and he knew this girl was going places. He respected that. She was different from the women he’d met over the past several years. Used to keeping company with the upper echelons of society, he’d grown tired of models with eating disorders, exotic dancers with daddy issues, celebrities newly out of rehab, and women who thought their beauty could land them a rich guy. He’d found Kylie incredibly refreshing and intriguing. But at the time he hadn’t been in the mood for intrigue either.
To his surprise, her earnestness about solving the mystery she’d uncovered eventually chipped away at his cool reserve. Especially when she told him she believed the clues pointed to a deliberate killing, not a bounty hunting accident.
The revelation had floored him. He had finally managed to patch those old wounds inside him, had succeeded at moving on from the past and half-burying his remorse. Her exploration turned his father’s death into a cold case for murder. She’d ripped open the past, leaving him a mess inside.
So he’d asked for the folder with her clues and notes, telling her he’d take it to his legal team. Unfortunately, he never got around to it. He hadn’t been ready to unearth the truth surrounding the self-blame he’d carried all this time.
When she left him a message two weeks ago about a new eyewitness, Maria Sanchez, he’d pulled out the folder but still hadn’t taken the time to look through it as well as he should have.
Now he regretted his procrastination. One more addition to the stack of regrets piling on his conscience. When it came to his career or investments, he could handle anything. When it came to his personal life, he had no issues. But his dad was a whole different story.
The Billionaire's Prize: Taken & Tempted: (Book 3 Billionaire Bodyguard Series) Page 1