Read The Lover's Surrender (No Exceptions) Online
Authors: J.C. Reed
The Lover's Surrender (No Exceptions)
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Cover
art by Larissa Klein
Developmental
editing by Shannon Wolfman
Inline
editing by Therin Knite
To all who love and
are loved:
Love is a
wild ride. Without the passion, we wouldn’t surrender and conquer what we never
thought could be ours. True love stories don’t have happy endings, because for
those who treasure it, true love never ends.
Treasure Your Love
- J.C. Reed
New York City
Stalking
wasn’t Danny’s forte. He was used to his men doing this job for him, watching
victims for endless hours, prepared to strike the moment those victims were
vulnerable.
Cushioned in the fake perception of safety.
However,
today’s victim was an exception. There was something special about the woman he
was observing.
Her brown
hair, long and curly, and her face, now tanned with freckles, reminded him too
much of a girl he had once dated. Brooke Stewart was in every way the carbon
copy of her elder sister Jenna, now dead.
Jenna had
been a good prostitute, he remembered, the way she could take his whole cock in
her mouth, and suck him to pleasure heaven. At least she admitted she was a
whore, as all women were, and whores needed to be shown the way.
Defeated
when they were taken.
Controlled
when they were too wild.
Too bad he
had turned her into a user, stealing his drugs when he was out of it. If she
hadn’t been so stupid as to take what wasn’t hers, she might still be alive.
The first
time Danny suspected Jenna had been stealing was when a bag of high-end drugs
had gone missing from his place. The second time it happened, it was time to
sell her, if only to make up for his lost revenue.
And sell
her good he did.
First came
his friends, and then he started to look for buyers. The money Jenna earned him
was good, way better than what he made as a small-town drug dealer. Back then,
in the beginning, she hadn’t even been aware of how easily he could spike her
drink without her knowing, and then invite five to ten guys a night to have
their way with her.
The bruises
all over her body, he explained, were there because she was too thin. High on
drugs, she didn’t even feel the pain. And what Jenna couldn’t remember never
happened, and the fragments of memories she dreamed were just a figment of her
imagination.
Danny
smiled fondly.
It had been
a win-win situation for the both of them, he remembered. In some way, she
started his career as her pimp. However, the real turning point came when one
of his richer clients wanted her. Not just for one hour or a night, but as a
possession, as a slave that he could keep in a cage—to do with as he
pleased.
Thirty
thousand dollars had been the price he had offered Danny. It sounded like a
good deal at first…until his client explained he wanted Jenna for a club he was
a member of. Needless to say, Danny began to think of Jenna as a long-term
investment. She could make him way more money as a prostitute, so he declined.
Weeks passed. He had almost forgotten about the deal when a bigger offer came
in.
One hundred
thousand dollars.
It was so
much money, Danny almost caved in on the spot, but he wasn’t ready to sell her
just yet. He figured if someone was willing to pay such an exorbitant sum of
money—more than three times the initial offer—he’d probably offer
more. It was a good thing he had listened to his little birdie, because the
next thing he knew he received an offer that changed his life:
One million
dollars for his girl.
Plus a ten
percent discount for whatever drugs they supplied to him. And the guarantee
that he had protection from the police.
But the one
condition?
Work for
the secret organization called ETNAD, an extensive elite club run by
high-ranked and rich individuals, and keep quiet about it. It was an offer too
good to be passed on.
Oh, how
good a businessman he was.
Oh, what a
time it had been.
Another
chuckle escaped his mouth, and he licked his lips.
It was the
beginning of a symbiotic working relationship with the ETNAD club. They had
made him rich beyond his wildest dreams, rewarding him for his consistency and
loyalty. They had made him the owner of a nightclub and given him the kind of
power he had always dreamed of.
Now, ten
years later, he drove four expensive cars, owned four houses, and had his own
men working for him. He made so much money that he could easily buy a small
island, and someday he would…once it was time to retire.
He was no
longer a cheap lowlife.
In all the
years he had worked for ETNAD, with the exception of a few he could count on
his hand, he hadn’t seen a single one of the girls he had provided again. He
never asked what happened to them, and he didn’t want to know. His lifestyle
was too grand, too exquisite to allow the kind of consequences that came with
being inquisitive. After all, when he sold the girls, they became the buyer’s
possession, their property.
But there
were rumors and clues hard to miss. Eventually, he found out that the girls
were raped, tortured, many of them killed for pleasure.
The shock
lasted all of a second.
He had
always guessed that with so much money involved, illegal events had to be at
play; that the motivation behind ETNAD’s diligence was to keep the clandestine
trade running smoothly.
It didn’t
take long for them to suspect Danny’s knowing about their little secret.
Danny
remembered that day all too well. It had been exactly five years, six months,
and ten days ago when they first asked him if he would be interested in taking
part in a private party.
It wasn’t
exactly a question, but a test.
What choice
did he have but to say yes, if only to please them and grow his already
prosperous relationship with them?
It wasn’t
so much the money he earned that instantly persuaded him to jump in. It was
their guarantee that he could do what he wanted and get away it. It was the
knowledge that they had the power and the connections to make everything
disappear. And when they prospered, his profits increased, too.
And so his
first attendance became one of several invitations that now came with the job.
Oh, how
much he wanted to do it again. To relive the memories.
He prided
himself on how powerful he felt. To know that it took almost nothing to kill
someone, like a wild animal could kill its prey without any consequences. To
have the power to decide over life and death. To know that nothing could touch
him.
But then,
he had slogged hard for his money.
Yes, there
were times he felt sorry that Jenna was gone. After all, she was the very first
of many whores who worked for him. Drug addiction aside, she had been a good
girl, and naïve, the way only a fifteen-year-old could be. Foolish as she had
been, she had been in love with him. There was never a doubt she would have
done anything he wanted.
However,
business was business. Love had no place in a world ruled by money, sex, and
power. And power was something he now lived for. That Jenna was killed was just
a part of a business transaction—a sacrifice that had been necessary to
ensure his lifestyle. After all, only the fittest survived, and he was as tough
as one could be.
It had all
started with that one girl, Jenna. Brooke’s sister. What an irony that it would
end with Brooke.
When he
first saw Jenna’s younger sister a little over three months ago, he couldn’t
believe that Brooke was the same girl he had met ten years ago—the very
same woman, who brought a hell of a lot of trouble to him that year, when she
escaped ETNAD.
Of course
he knew she’d fight to get justice for her sister, knowing that Danny was to
blame for her death. But how the fuck did she dare go against him? How did she
dare run away from him, after he worked so hard to get where he was?
He balled
his hands as unwanted memories began to flood his mind.
Now he
wished he had been harder on her.
If he had
done his job right, then Brooke would never have escaped his claws after ETNAD
had her abducted. He wouldn’t have run into trouble with his boss. And when
Dante was angry, that was never a good thing.
So, when he
stopped his car in front of Brooke’s building and saw that her lights were
switched on, he smiled. She was there, all alone. Waiting for him. Or not
waiting, but surely she could feel his presence, maybe even feel apprehension
at the knowledge that she couldn’t get away from him.
A ringing
noise disrupted his train of thoughts. He picked up his phone, his eyes not
leaving the woman he was watching from inside his car, which he had
conveniently parked in front of Brooke’s building.
“What’s the
status?” the voice on the other end asked as a means of introduction. Danny
recognized the voice immediately. It belonged to one of the many low-ranked
guys working for ETNAD. He didn’t call them friends because Danny had none.
During the hard life he had lived, he had learned to only trust himself.
“Good.
Couldn’t be better.”
“And the
envelope?”
“Delivered.
By now Brooke knows that Dante is out and has turned away from her boyfriend.”
“Did anyone
see you?”
Danny
frowned. “Since when do I play courier? Obviously, one of my men made sure it
got delivered.”
Or, more
precisely, his cousin Barrow had.
“She’s
here, all alone in her apartment, you know?” Danny’s voice rose with excitement.
“I could strike this instant. Now that she’s all alone, I could go up. It would
be easy. Just give me the order and I’ll take care of her.”
“No need.
Dante has plans for her, ” the other voice said. “He wants you to focus on
Mayfield first.”
“Mayfield’s
already been taken care of. I think we should take her now.”
“She isn’t
the problem.”
What the
fuck? Danny held the phone away from his ear to curse, then returned, quiet and
calm.
“She
escaped. And she knows too much. How can that not be a problem?”
“According
to Dante, she isn’t.”
Oh Dante.
How he
hated that arrogant motherfucking asshole known as Nate. But, in spite of his
annoyance with his boss, Danny didn’t dare reveal his true thoughts.
“What does
he need the bitch for anyway?” Danny asked instead. “The first job is done. I
was able to separate her from Mayfield. She doesn’t trust him, so I can easily
get to her now. In a few hours, I’ll call the police, and Mayfield will be
accused of killing the girl I took care of yesterday. Now would be a good time
to take Brooke away. This is my professional opinion.”
“Not now,”
the guy on the line said stubbornly. “Dante’s order. He wants you to focus on
Mayfield, and nothing but Mayfield. Make sure he gets arrested tomorrow. How
you do it is your problem. As for the girl, you had your chance at the club.
Dante knows about your failure, so he’s changed his mind about Brooke.”
Danny
balled his hand into a fist.
Failure.
He hated
that word.
Yes, he had
been so close to her at the club. She’d already been drugged. And then her
asshole boyfriend had appeared and ruined his plan.
Stupid whore.
It was all
her fault.
He spat on
the floor at the knowledge that the little whore had escaped.
“I’m
getting there,” he whispered. “Do I have permission to enter her boyfriend’s
premises?”
“Yes.
Whatever gets the job done,” the voice continued. “As soon as Mayfield is out
of the picture, and Dante has access to the company’s money and is able to
transfer it to an offshore account, he’ll disappear. He expects you to tie up
all loose ends until then and take care of his problem. And then, only then,
can you take care of the girl.”
Danny
looked up at the window, the thin curtain doing nothing to hide the silhouette
of a woman. He knew it was Brooke, all alone up there and clueless. He knew
because the moment his cousin had finished interrogating her as part of a fake
investigation, Danny had called him, and ever since he had been following
Brooke everywhere she went.