Royally Treasured (Royal Sons MC Book 4)

by Elle Boon

  “I’ll handle her,” Cosmo warned.

  King knocked on the cabinet by his head where he’d been leaning, watching everyone, not missing a thing. “Excuse me, but when the fuck did you two become Pres?”

  “Oh, you two are in trouble.” Ayesha smirked.

  “Ayesha, get your fine ass over here, now,” King barked, snapping his fingers.

  Duke saw a little shiver work its way over his brother’s woman. What he wouldn’t do to have the same kind of relationship as they had.

  “Yes, Sir.” She hurried to his side, sliding under his arm, a grin spreading over her face.

  “Hmm, we’ll see how much you say that later.” He tugged her in front of him. “As for you both, I ask the questions, you answer. Feel me?” King waited.

  “I walked out of the club after telling Cosmo I’d see him later. I heard a commotion down the side alley. That’s when I saw two men dragging Lennox, only I didn’t know it was her at the time. I took one of them out with a knife, making them drop Lennox. I shot the other with a gun. Big problem though, it had a silencer on it, which leads me to believe this wasn’t some small time thug shit. About that time Cosmo came out the back.” Duke finished telling King, explaining how both women were clearly drugged.

  King released Ayesha. “Stay right there.” He kissed her hard and fast.

  Ayesha gave him a salute, but Duke saw worry written on her features. Since her sister had been taken in by a man who’d pretended to be a young boy, only to be a man intent on selling her into sex trafficking, she knew what could’ve happened.

  “Lennox, did they say anything to you? How’d they drug you?” He squatted down to her level, no longer as gruff.

  Lennox’s chin wobbled, but Duke didn’t step in, knowing this was King’s place.

  “King, I don’t know. I was at the DJ booth working when I felt a tap on my shoulder. The next thing I know I’m being ushered outside. I knew I didn’t want to go, but my body was moving even though I didn’t want to. I know that makes no sense, but these two guys were on either side of me, telling me to shut up or they were going to gut me right then and there for my organs. I thought they were crazy even as my legs were moving.” Her voice cracked.

  With a nod, King motioned for her to continue.

  “I tried to tell them they had the wrong girl. When we got outside, I think they realized they had actually nabbed the wrong one. I remember angry yelling, and someone hit me in the stomach.” She put her hand over her abs.

  Duke sucked in a breath, feeling like a failure. “You didn’t tell me you’d been hit.” Fuck, if he’d known they’d touched her...hell, he was in a murderous rage at the thought.

  “You took them out, Duke. What else could you do, go back and kill them again?” King asked.

  “Did you really kill them?” Lennox asked.

  He shrugged, not willing to say yes or no. He hadn’t taken the time to check for pulses. His blade had sailed into the throat, hitting the carotid artery he was sure, of one of the bastards, while the bullet had hit the other in the chest. That latter fucker might have been alive. However from the amount of blood, plus Duke’s accuracy in shooting, he doubted it. “Wait, back up a minute. You said they knew they’d nabbed the wrong one and said something about organs. What do you know about that?” Duke looked at Cosmo’s girl.

  The little Asian had the most startling green eyes he’d ever seen, letting him know she was only part Chinese. Her English was almost perfect, which meant she was either brought up in America or she’d been raised around someone who made sure she spoke it. A minute ticked by and then another. Duke took a deep breath, patience not one of his virtues.

  “Cosmo, I know you feel like she’s yours to protect, but in this, you can’t shield her if she doesn’t tell us the truth.”

  Dai-tai sniffed. “They are from my country. I escaped them when they tried to sell me to the government. They lied. They said I was part of the Falun Gong practitioners. Do you know what that is?” she asked.

  Duke and the others shook their heads. Hell, he, and the rest of the MC believed in God. Most of them were of the faith that all good men and women went to heaven and had a strong belief of a higher being. Yet, to say any of them were big on going to Sunday service...nope, he wasn’t one of them. Of course their mother wouldn’t be too happy since she was a bottle Catholic. Hell, truth be known, King, Duke along with his twin Luke, and their sister had been brought up in the Catholic faith, but once their mother had died, their father didn’t take them to Sunday service anymore. Not that his faith had wavered, he just didn’t want to go to church alone. Now their church was when King called a weekly meeting with the MC.

  “In China, if you are part of that religious sect, the punishment is imprisonment. Prisoners have been known to come up missing and dead. Many family members have claimed their loved ones were killed by the government for their organs, saying their family wasn’t guilty but that they were poor, and they met a need. Namely that need being an organ. My family...they were very poor. We were poor as I grew up, but I worked. Always worked even as a child. I helped provide for my family since I was five.” She sat up taller, her five feet two inch frame ready to take on the world, like she’d had to do that exact thing for a long time. “My grandmother passed away two years ago. She was the only one who—cared about me. My mother hated me, but since I worked, and she didn’t, I tho...thought she at least cared.”

  Cosmo ran his hand down her back. “Just because family is blood doesn’t mean they love you. My brothers here aren’t blood, but they’re more my family than my real ones. I’d give my life for them any day.”

  “Tell me how you came to be here, specifically in one of our clubs,” King ordered, his voice soft but filled with steel.

  A tear fell from one eye, then the other. Duke could tell Cosmo wanted to pull her into his arms, but his best friend stayed where he was. Behind her, a steady presence.

  “My uncle and brother,” she spat the words out like they were foul tasting before continuing. “Wang Wei and Wang Lei came to my room and told me I had to come with them. As they were the men of the house I was brought up knowing I was to do as they say without question. When I stepped outside I saw a government truck and knew something wasn’t right. I tried to ask what was going on, but I was backhanded and then knocked unconscious. I woke up in the back of the truck with my hands and feet shackled together, and my clothes had been removed. A hospital gown had been given to me to put on, but with my hands and feet secured, I couldn’t do it. I...it was humiliating to sit there with five guards watching while I struggled to dress. They said it didn’t matter since I wouldn’t live long anyhow. I didn’t understand what they meant.”

  Ayesha’s sniff drew their attention.

  “What’s wrong, Ayesha?” King asked, turning to look over his shoulder.

  “King, she needs a hug, not an interrogation,” Ayesha said.

  “No, he is right. I have brought danger to all of you. Let me go and I’ll disappear. The men who bought me...they made me come to America. No, that is not right. Sorry.” She rubbed her hand across her brow.”

  “Here, do you need a drink?” Ayesha got two bottles out of the fridge, handing one to Lennox and then one to King, nudging him with her hip. “Give her a drink, King. She looks like she’s about ready to pass out. Have they seen a doctor?”

  Fear washed over Dai-tai’s face. “No. No doctors, please.”

  “My dad is a doctor. He can look her over. I’m fine. Whatever they injected me with seems to have mostly worn off of me, but I’m not as small as she is,” Lennox offered.

  Duke muttered, then remembered what she’d said before. “I do not only growl, mutter, and whatever else you said I do, dammit.”

  At Lennox’s raised brow, he turned away, grabbing a beer out of the fridge. “Want a beer?” he asked.

  Several yeses was the response he got. Two females and two males. He ignored Lennox and Ayesha’s responses, getting three bottl
es out, another one for him, King and Cosmo. “Ayesha, you ask your old man if you can have a beer. You two can’t have a beer because we don’t know how it’ll affect you after you’ve been drugged.”

  “King is not the boss...fine, whatever,” Ayesha mumbled.

  “Duke, we’ll be talking about your issue with Doc later. For now, I agree about the no alcohol for any of the ladies.” King took a long pull of the beer, still crouching in front of Dai-tai.

  “So you were taken away from your family and put in some government holding, then sold before being sent to America, then you started working for my club. Fuck, I don’t follow.” He took another drink. “Anyone following?”

  Cosmo’s phone rang, making him curse. “Hold that thought, brother. This is my security firm.”

  King got up and took a seat, pulling Ayesha onto his lap. “You’re in trouble when we get home.”

  Duke couldn’t hear what she said back to his brother, his focus on Cosmo and the conversation going on with the other man.

  “What do you mean the tags I put on them are in the Pacific Ocean and seem to be moving in opposite directions at a fast speed?” Cosmo stopped speaking for a few seconds. “Send me a satellite image to my phone. Yes. That’s fine. No, keep tabs on both for another twenty-four hours and then do occasional pings. Check back in twelve hours.” He hung up, sliding his finger across the screen of the phone, lips moving without saying a word. “Motherfucker,” he growled.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Her luminous green eyes shone brightly. If Duke hadn’t been head-over-ass for Lennox, he’d have wanted to soothe the little thing. He had a thing for wounded women, and this one was definitely that. Luckily for Cosmo, he already had his hands full with one woman he had wanted since she was way too young and innocent for him.

  “King, Duke, can I talk to you both in the other room?” Cosmo asked, looking at his phone then at them.

  “No, this is about me.” Dai-tai stood up, teetering back and forth. She’d have fallen if Cosmo hadn’t grabbed her.

  “I decide what you know and what you don’t, Bellissima. Now sit before you fall,” he ordered.

  She shook off his arms. “You do not own me.”

  Her words were tough, but they didn’t come out nearly as firm. Cosmo lifted one hand, running the back of two fingers down her cheek. “No I don’t, but I do protect what is mine, and you, my feisty little firecracker, are mine until I figure out who tried to take you tonight and in the process tried to kill me and my friends. Until then, you will do what I tell you, or I’ll put you over my knee and spank that sexy little ass of yours.”

  His words seemed to confuse and, if Duke didn’t miss his mark, turn Dai-tai on.

  “Before any of that happens, tell me what you found out. Might as well just tell the entire group. I have a feeling we won’t have any peace if you don’t.” King tugged on Ayesha’s hair, the same blissed out feeling he’d witnessed earlier when King gave her an order appeared on her face.

  “I put a tag on the sumo who tried to kill me along with the one I pulled Duke’s knife out of. Both men most definitely were not moving on their own. However, it seems they are both moving at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction in the Pacific Ocean.” He turned his phone toward King and Duke. “See these two red dots.” He pointed toward the moving beacons. “Those are our dead guys. So they’re either really good at driving speedboats dead, or their friends have decided they’d make really good shark bait. In my experience, dead dudes don’t go out on a cruise. That means who ever cleaned up their mess would’ve alerted their boss, which means they’ll be looking for their quarry. They’ll also be looking for those who took out their guys.”

  King sighed. “Who hired her?” he nodded at Dai-tai.

  Duke pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “I’ll call Hawk and find out. Did you come in off the street or what?” he asked, putting the phone on speaker.

  “I’ve never done that type of thing before. I...I was promised a chance at freedom when I left my country. He promised me he’d help. I was so stupid.” Sobs shook her.

  Cosmo snarled, his eyes glaring at Duke and King, both of them raising their hands in the air. Neither of them had said or done anything.

  “Hey, calm down. You’re not stupid.” Cosmo soothed, but his words only seemed to make the woman cry harder. He looked at Ayesha, then Lennox, but neither woman made a move. Finally, he bent, lifting her up and then sat with her in his lap. “Stop it, you’ll make yourself sick. Listen, we’ll figure this out. Tell me, us how you ended up at The Club.” The Club was the name of the establishment they owned in LA. It was a higher class strip club where men of all walks of life could go, enjoy good music, top notch alcohol, and dancing. In the back, they could get a lot more, and they had a private club in the basement. Of course, not many knew about it. Only exclusive MC brothers and the old ladies were able to get in, and that was for their play and pleasure.

  “When I was taken into custody, I found out my family had sold me. They lied and said I had converted to Falun Gong for money. I was slated for my first donation. Most prisoners only survive two maybe three donations. When they die during imprisonment, the government lies and says they fell ill, or makes up some other excuses. They fill the dead’s body with cotton or other elements because once the donor dies, they take every viable organ they need. I saw it with my own eyes. The horror they do is unlike any you can imagine. I was there six months as they put me through testing, sending out my samples to various labs. Skin grafts, blood, and tissue samples. They even took my eggs.” She shuddered.

  “Organ trafficking? Are you fucking kidding me?” King growled.

  His anger made the poor woman jump and hide her face against Cosmo. “Yo, brother, tone it down,” Cosmo said, glaring at King just as angry as Duke was.

  “Sorry, man. I can’t wrap my head around this shit. Alright, so fast forward to how you ended up in America, please?” His arm tightened on Ayesha.

  “I met an American dignitary, one day. He said he’d help me escape. I was leery of course. Men don’t do things for nothing, but I was willing to do anything to get out of there. I watched a mother of three get carted off after only just coming back from donating a lung a month before. She never came back. They don’t come back and tell us anything or offer condolences to the children. When she didn’t come back after a week, we knew. Her children knew. They cried non-stop. Since they were not officially considered part of the religion, they took them away to be fixed. I don’t think they had any plans to fix them. If they weren’t killed outright, then they were probably placed in another holding facility. I heard one of the guards say my surgery was set for the following week and that I wouldn’t be coming back, so if they wanted to play with me...they’d need to do it before it was too late.” She jumped from Cosmo’s lap. “We, the women knew what play to them meant. I hadn’t suffered that fate because they hadn’t been given orders for me. My heart was being donated.” The words came out in a rush, angry yet resigned.

  Duke stared at the woman, then at Cosmo, and finally at Lennox and then back at the beautiful woman who’d already suffered so much. “They were going to be taking your heart? You don’t mean figurately, but actually taking it?” he asked, horror in every word.

  She nodded, her slim arms wrapping around her stomach. “Yes. That’s why the guards knew they could play. I would be dead in under a week. That night, when the lights went out, I was prepared for them. Since I was going to be die anyhow, I decided I wasn’t going to go without a fight, and I wasn’t going to just let them have their fun like a good little lamb.”

  “Good for you,” King murmured.

  It wasn’t lost on Duke the way King held Ayesha, or the fact his brother’s woman was watching Dai-tai like a mama watching her cub. She had a sister who’d gone through some shit, and Ayesha had come to the MC ready to face off against the devil himself to save Tiana.

  “Yeah, a whole lot of good it di
d me,” she said with derision. “They came in with a stun gun. I forgot they carried them for the ones who got out of hand. So nǐ hǎo shǎ of me. By the time I could move without every part of my being feeling as though it was being electrocuted, they were wheeling me down the hall in a wheelchair. That was when Dr. Jefferson saw us. He stopped them and asked what they were doing with me. They were scared of him because he was American. So when he ordered them to leave me with him, they did. The next thing I know, he offered to take me out of there, but said I’d have to follow his orders to the letter. Again, I never questioned anything he said. So nǐ hǎo shǎ.”

  Cosmo gripped her by the arms. “You are not stupid.”

  “You speak Chinese?” she asked.

  “Only a little. Mostly curse words,” he acknowledged.

  “Well, if I’m not stupid, then what do you call allowing myself to be put in a cargo hold with a group of other women, and then instead of going to the authorities when I arrived in America and demanding sanctuary, I was forced into a hotel with a handful of the same women who made it. We were stripped down, inspected like a piece of meat, then sold like cattle. I then was made to audition for my position, or I would have been killed like the girl to the right of me who refused. I didn’t refuse after her blood sprayed all over my freshly scrubbed body. Do you know why?” Tears welled in her green eyes, but they didn’t fall.

  “Stop,” Cosmo ordered.

  “No, you look at me like I am innocent, but I am not. I did what I had to in order to survive. I am not innocent. Dancing was new, but that was only because the man who bought me decided he was done with me. I had lost my appeal.” She raised her chin, holding herself upright.

  Cosmo punched his fist through the cabinet and walked out the door. The sound of his curses, Duke understood. The same rage filled him at the thought of what Lennox was hiding from him.