The Billionaire's Prize: Taken & Tempted: (Book 3 Billionaire Bodyguard Series)

by Kristi Avalon

  Cade spread his arms. “How could I have helped that?”

  “You can’t.”

  Oh God. This was the end. The end of any hope she might’ve had for them. This was what she’d wanted, right?

  She shoved at his chest. “You don’t understand me at all.”

  “What? What don’t I understand?”

  She collapsed against the wall. “You wouldn’t get it.”

  Cade gathered her in his arms. “Then make me.”

  “Slone saw it. Why can’t you?”

  His muscles stiffened all over his body. “Tell me.”

  A racking sob seized her. Cade held her to him. Damn him, she didn’t want his concern. “I can’t handle the media,” she whimpered. “I can’t deal with the way they climb all over you, and everyone around you, no matter what you have or haven’t done. Hanging on your every word…”

  “What does that matter?”

  “Because my mother was murdered!” she cried. As if that explained her personal hell during those awful years. Still, Slone had somehow understood her private terror, and yet it hadn’t registered in Cade’s self-absorbed mind.

  Maybe that wasn’t fair, or reasonable, but that’s how she felt. He was exactly like her mother’s husband, his wealth and charisma shielding him from any fallout from his actions. Or inaction. Anger built like a steady tide of fire rising inside her.

  “What?” His voice came out in a scrape of a whisper. “She was… what?”

  “Murdered.” She inhaled despite the burning sensation in her lungs. “The case was never solved, but I know who did it. Even though I could never prove it.”

  In the heavy silence, she heard Cade swallow. “It never occurred to you to tell me this? To mention we had such a fundamental experience in common?”

  Why did he sound hurt? “I never talk about it. No one else knows except my sister, because we endured the torture together. It all played out in the glaring lights of TV cameras.”

  “Jesus, Kylie.” He raked a hand through his hair. “You should’ve told me.”

  “What was the point?”

  “The point?” From two feet away, she felt his temperature rise. “I bared my soul in front of you. I let you in, let you see things deep inside me that no one else has ever seen. You could’ve bothered to mention something as significant as your mother being murdered.”

  “The media tortured me. They made my father a villain, and by extension me, too. I was dubbed the child of a killer. We lost our respect in the eyes of everyone we knew. Friends became enemies. No one stepped in to help, God forbid we poisoned their pristine lives with our leprosy as our lives fell apart piece by piece.” That former helpless agony bubbled to the surface of her skin like a cauldron of acid, scorching her nerves. She balled her shaking hands into fists. “Because my mother married a rich man, they never questioned him. You never stop to think about how your actions affect the people around you. You just plow ahead however you want, and you have the media eating out of your hand. You’re just like him.”

  “I’m nothing like him,” Cade said, reaching out and tucking her against him.

  He withstood her combative fists. “You are. You’re all the same. Men with money. You think you can do whatever you want and no one cares. No one cares…”

  His coat muffled her sobs. “I care.”

  “Do you?” Her voice seethed from her chest. “How can you? You’re one of them. You’re like him.”

  “No, I’m not,” he growled. Despite her attempts to break away, he held her tight in his arms and refused to let go. “I’d never hurt the person most important to me. I’d never harm my wife.”

  The statement made her go still. The way he said the word wife rippled up her spine as if it carried great importance to Cade. But she didn’t dare trust it. “I’m nothing like that to you.”

  “You could be.” His chest lifted with a heavy sigh. “I want you to be.”

  She pulled away from him. “No you don’t. This was just some big adventure for you. A sidestep along the path of your life. Another headline.”

  He cupped her face in one hand. “Do you really believe that?”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “No, but…”

  “But, what?”

  “My sister is the only person I can love enough to lose right now.”

  The concerned grooves in his forehead cleared, and he touched his nose against hers. “That, I understand. More than you know. I will prove myself to you. Whatever it takes.” He exhaled a weighted sigh. “But first, we need to deal with Ramos.”

  “No, you don’t.” Once he released his hold, she shoved him away. “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “I know.” His gaze seared into her soul. “But I will.”

  Inhaling a trembling breath, she forced herself to find the inner calm that had helped her survive the worst times in her life. She needed to save her sister. She and Cade could solve their issues later. Or not.

  She nodded with firm resolve. “Take me to Ramos.”

  *

  Kylie stood in a dusty basement room beneath the Soren Security headquarters, staring at the man whom she’d vilified for months. She wished she could be cold-blooded and hateful toward him, but all she felt was pity.

  True to his word, Slone knew how to wrest an answer from a prisoner. The problem they all realized, and Adam had forewarned, was that Bruno was telling the truth.

  The God’s honest, tooth-spitting, blood-running, face bloated from a beating—Truth. He had no idea who Kylie was, or why they had him holed up in a basement cell getting the crap beaten out of him.

  When Slone raised his fist for the seventh time, Kylie shouted, “Stop!” Disturbed by the splatters of blood across the dusty floor, she held up her hands. “He doesn’t know what we’re talking about. He doesn’t know anything.”

  Slone arched an eyebrow. “How do you know?”

  “Daddy taught me how to read poker faces. This man is telling the truth.”

  Slone shook out his hand, covered in bruises, tooth scrapes, and blood. “I would’ve said it sooner, but I assumed the chief wouldn’t believe me.” He sent a sharp glance at Cade.

  Adam stepped forward. “From what we did get out of this garbage heap before we busted his jaw into a million pieces…” He exhaled as if he’d never thought the brutal line of questioning would work. “He’s been clean and sober as a judge since his release. Like I told you. It’s not him.”

  “Then who is it?” Cade demanded, shaking with fury.

  In spite of his determination to get the whole truth, Kylie saw him wince whenever he looked at the damage done to Bruno.

  “Bruno has a sister,” Adam revealed. “Lucy Ramos.”

  Kylie and Cade gasped at the same time, sucking half the oxygen out of the room. A dizzy sensation filled her head.

  After the shock wore off, Cade’s wrath quickly returned. “Bullshit. No way could a woman be capable of dishing out the hell we’ve been through.”

  With a shrug, Adam confided, “According to our bloody friend, she might be.”

  Cade’s jaw dropped. “How?”

  “Bruno? Care to share?” Adam asked the wounded man.

  Turning his head to the side, Bruno spat out a wad of blood and half a chipped tooth. “Fuck you.”

  “We don’t have to let you walk out of here.” Venom spiked Cade’s tone as he leaned over Bruno, casting a threatening shadow over the man. “So I suggest you cooperate and save yourself another broken rib.”

  Bruno cringed and hung his head.

  The silence dragged out so long Kylie feared he’d never reveal who was behind the attempts on her life. Or maybe he’d passed out?

  With several gurgles of effort, Bruno cleared his throat. “Check with cell mate…phone records…visitors…no contact with old ties.”

  Cade glowered. “You expect me to believe you cut off all communication with your drug trafficking cronies?”

  “No.” Bruno glared at him throug
h puffy eyes. “I don’t expect it. Proof is in my cell phone, back pocket. No calls from contacts. Not even my sister.”

  Cade did as Bruno suggested. Kylie could tell by the blank look on Cade’s face that Bruno had been honest. “This doesn’t prove anything,” Cade said. You probably have ten burner phones stashed in a drawer.”

  “When we found him, we tossed the place,” Adam said, offering eyewitness proof to back up Bruno’s claim. “No phones. No drugs. No weapons. No wads of cash.” He shrugged. “He lives in a dive, man. If he was back in the trade, we would’ve seen some evidence. There was none.”

  “He’s right,” Cade muttered scrolling through the phone before handing it to Adam to verify the findings. “Just a couple calls to his parole officer, and one from his lawyer.”

  “Skip Deluca?” Kylie asked, stepping into the interrogation.

  “Stupid, worthless gringo. Not my lawyer. He’s on my sister’s payroll. Always was.”

  Stunned by the admission, Kylie took a sharp breath. She reeled as information from the past several months swirled through her brain, each point connected by threads of logic that coalesced rapidly. The pieces spun in her mind like the wheel of a slot machine before hitting the winning combination across all spectrums.

  Jackpot.

  But before she could put words to her discovery, Cade moved closer to Bruno with a murderous gleam in his eyes. His fingers bit into the back of Bruno’s chair. “Are you telling me you never put a hit out on my father, Jacob Soren?”

  Erupting in a fit of coughing, Bruno winced in pain. His head rolled back and forth in a no reply. “Never met…the guy…‘cept in court.”

  “Lying sack of—” Cade lunged. He landed one brutal punch before Adam and Liam restrained him, dragging him out of fist swinging range.

  Kylie needed to end this now. “Stop. Everybody stop!”

  The sound of her voice pierced Cade’s fog of rage. He calmed down enough so his cousins could let him go. “What?” he asked in a coarse tone, breathing hard.

  Giddy excitement prickled over her skin. “If everything Bruno says is true… What if the woman Maria Sanchez witnessed at the motel with Jacob Soren was Bruno’s sister?”

  Light dawned on the men’s faces. Cade, Adam, Liam and Slone rocked back on their heels as if impacted by the same physical blow.

  She turned to Bruno. “What’s your sister’s name?”

  Bruno launched another disk of phlegm and blood that landed with a dull splat. “Lucy Ramos.”

  Thinking back to the sign in sheet Maria had spoken about in the initial investigation, Kylie questioned, “What is her relationship to Emilio?”

  Another cough rattled Bruno’s chest. “Emilio’s my nephew. Lucy’s son.”

  “And what wouldn’t a mother do to protect and defend her son?” Cade’s voice was soft with wretched awe. “My God, it all makes sense.”

  Although she couldn’t relate to that statement herself, which cut her deeply, Kylie nodded. “Lucy had to be the one who arranged the meeting with your father at the motel. They argued. Lucy must not have liked what your father had to say. So in the back alley she pulled a gun on him.”

  Liam set his hands at his waist. “With a couple Benjamins, we persuaded the store owner across the street from the motel to share what he had. He gave us the five-year-old footage from the shop’s security cameras.” He turned to Bruno. “What does your sister drive?”

  “Cadillac— my Caddy,” Bruno muttered. “I signed the title over to her when I was facing time.”

  “Black with twenty inch Gangster Chrome spoked rims? With the letters XXV on the license plate?”

  Bruno nodded.

  Adam crossed his arms. “Son of a bitch, that’s the car we saw on video peeling out of the parking lot after witnesses say shots were fired.”

  Liam’s eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “We never would’ve linked it to Lucy. All fingers pointed at Bruno.”

  Bruno strung together a few unaffectionate, unsavory terms for the female anatomy to describe his sister.

  Adam chuckled. “You two sound close.”

  “She took my car, my money, and my business from me. I’ve called her worse in Spanish.”

  “Wait.” Cade held up a hand. “She took over your business?”

  “The day Emilio died, she was all up in my face. After disowning me for how I lined my pockets, suddenly she wanted in.”

  Dismayed, Kylie said, “On the yacht, Antonio admitted that Ramos had paid him to keep quiet. We assumed it was Bruno.”

  “She’s been pulling the strings the whole time.” Cade let out a low whistle. “All the puppets that came after us led back to Ramos—but the wrong one.” He scraped his hands through his hair. “Unbelievable.”

  Bruno released an evil, sickening liquid laugh that visibly went up the spine of every person in the room. “You see it now? This is her payback against me, for Emilio’s death.”

  “Why?” Kylie whispered.

  “The kid wanted to hang around me and my guys, acting all tough, thinking he could handle the streets.” Bruno shook his head. “Lucy raised him to be a good kid, sheltered. Away from violence. I told him to go home, but he didn’t listen to nobody but the thugs he wanted to be like. Lucy couldn’t stop him either. The cops busted my ring to get to me, and found drugs on Emilio. So Lucy blamed me. He was sentenced two months before I was. Only nineteen, and too soft for prison. I knew he wouldn’t last a week. He didn’t.”

  “What does any of this have to do with my father?” Cade demanded.

  Bruno lifted a shoulder. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  Adam and Liam each grabbed hold of one of Cade’s arms in a preemptive move. Which was fortunate for Bruno, since his words incited Cade to instant fury.

  Kylie approached Cade and rested her hand on the center of his chest. Beneath her palm the knotted muscles began to uncoil and relax. She lifted onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

  Red and bloodshot, his eyes blazed down at her with vivid blue fire, and she saw another emotion lurking there. The deep, intrinsic pain of senseless loss. She knew it well, and compassion constricted her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “It’s okay, Cade. It’s all going to be okay. You promised me that, remember?” she whispered, assuring him as well as herself. “This isn’t Bruno’s fault. To find the answers you need, we have to go to the source.”

  Hesitating, as if he didn’t trust himself at first, he gradually folded his arms around her. He squeezed her tight and bunched her shirt in his fists, like a drowning man clinging to a flotation device, alone in a vast sea of tumult. She melted into his tall form, hugging him back.

  In the next second, she jumped at the sound of a phone ringing. She pulled back, though Cade didn’t release her entirely, as though she provided his only tether to the last vestiges of hope.

  Adam stared down at the phone vibrating in his hand. He darted a glance at Bruno before hitting a button and holding it up to his ear. “Hello.”

  All eyes centered on Adam. His cheeks hollowed and he nodded. Cade shifted from foot to foot, his body tense.

  Adam arched an eyebrow and sent Kylie a cautionary glance. “Uh. It’s for you.”

  Cade reached out. “I’ll take it.”

  “No.” Kylie gently but firmly set her hand on Cade’s wrist, easing it down to his side. “I’ve got this.” She lifted the phone. “Hello?”

  “Welcome back,” said the female voice on the other end. Instantly, Kylie’s inner calm evaporated, replaced with an icy block of dread. “If you want to see your sister alive, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

  Chapter 12

  Cade paced with his arms crossed, feeling like a caged lion prowling back and forth behind bars. He couldn’t help the sinking feeling that he’d agreed to send Kylie on a suicide mission.

  Growing more anxious by the second, he reconsidered the hasty decision to call in reinforcements—which, after a thorough debate and by unanimous vote, ha
d brought Logan Stone to their doorstep.

  “Please hurry.” Kylie could barely stand still herself, rocking heel to toe impatiently. “Lucy Ramos gave me a set time and it’s running out.”

  Moving with swift but precise motions, Logan fitted the bulletproof vest over her shoulders. The weight caused her knees to buckle until she locked them straight. Slone stood behind her and helped tighten the shield around her torso.

  Cade hated watching them manhandle her. He’d nearly crawled out of his skin when she’d stripped from the waist up leaving her in only a bra for all male eyes to feast on her ample, perfect breasts. He fought the instinct to rip their eyes out.

  The breath wheezed from her lips. “It’s a little tight…across the chest.”

  Logan smiled wryly. “Someday an enterprising military contractor will create tactical gear that fits the female form. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “At least not in sufficient quantity to make it available on short notice,” Slone said. “Plus, most don’t have this handy addition.” He pointed out the squishy packets tucked into slits at the front of the vest, fake blood that leaked on impact to look like the real thing.

  “Right.” Logan checked the harness, nodded with satisfaction, and left Kylie to button her blouse.

  Good thing, Cade thought, wearing a dark frown. If Logan or Slone had attempted to touch her that intimately, he might’ve blown a gasket.

  “Easy, man.” Liam approached and set a hand on Cade’s tense shoulder. “They’re professionals. They know what they’re doing.”

  Cade tightened his arms across his chest. “I don’t care.”

  “You will when she walks out without a scratch on her.” Liam clapped his shoulder in rough, brotherly reassurance, which made Cade wish to God his brother was here. He never realized how much he relied on Trey to be his rock. Through this whole ordeal he’d had no safety net, no one to fall back on, no advice to guide him. No one like Trey who knew exactly what to say to help him keep it all together. But he respected Liam for trying.

  “Thanks.” He sent Liam a look of gratitude. “You’re a decent stand in for Trey.”