The Token 9: Chet Sinclair: A Billionaire Dark Romantic Suspense Read online

  I can't take in her words.

  Rape.

  Chet in the same sentence as that word is not real.

  My hot, super-dominating, used-to-be-wonderful boyfriend? This doesn't happen to people like him.

  It happens to people like me.

  I open my mouth, but Faren says, “Chet inherits his mother's estate, the entire thing, in five months. As near as I figure, somehow you’re putting something in jeopardy.”

  I don't care about anything right now but Chet. “He—oh my God.” My voice sounds as if it's being squashed by a car compressor, a squeak instead of a squall.

  Faren slowly nods. “Nobody's more shocked than Mick and me. However”—she looks out the window, her eyes the same color as the pewter clouds then turns to me with her serious face—“I think we’re the first people he's ever told.”

  It doesn't surprise me. Thorn is the only one who knows my entire sordid tale. Excavating the past isn’t always cathartic. Sometimes the grave of memories holds rot that never fades. Some corpses need to remain buried.

  I stand suddenly, tipping over my cold coffee, the epiphany threading through my brain.

  “Oh my god,” I whisper.

  Faren stands too, clutching her handbag. “What is it?”

  “Any bitch who could rape a boy—any child…” My voice trembles, and I clear my throat. Faren holds my hand with her bad one. “Is not worthy of believing.”

  “Fucking exactly,” Faren says. Tears run down her pinched face.

  “Go, Kiki. Ask him. All he can say is the truth. Chet's messed up. He isolated himself on purpose.”

  “To protect himself,” I say.

  Faren shakes her head as if unsure.

  “Like me,” I say.

  “Just like you,” Faren agrees.

  “We're more alike than I ever realized.”

  Faren gives me a one-armed hug that practically breaks my neck.

  “Thank you,” I say against her collarbone.

  “I knew he was good.”

  So did I, but somehow, I didn't listen to my instincts. I've messed up so badly.

  We pull apart and Faren drops a few bucks on the table to cover the coffee and horrible service.

  I smirk through my tears. “Cheapskate.”

  Faren ducks her head. “Hard habit to break.”

  Don't I know it.

  EIGHT

  Chet

  I burst through the heavy front door of my father's estate.

  The butler stumbles, his hand torn away from the bronze knob.

  “Sir!” He’s not at all troubled by my entrance but what might be chasing me.

  “Claude,” I say, shifting my eyes first left then right. “Where is Clarice?”

  He holds his hand over his heart as though he’s keeping it from jumping from his chest. He stands, straightening the lapels on the ridiculous outfit Clarice makes the staff wear.

  Claude's eyes grow wary. “Mr. Sinclair, I am not sure of her exact whereabouts. Would you allow me to try to ring her?”

  The house is almost twenty thousand square feet of opulence. It necessitates an in-house intercom system.

  “No.” I whip my hair back with my hands, and water droplets splatter on the imported travertine marble flooring.

  I don't want Clarice anticipating my entrance.

  I stalk past Claude, who backs away. Smart man. I jog around the first floor, knowing she's here.

  I can practically smell her.

  On the second floor, I slap open the solid mahogany library doors and stop dead in my tracks.

  It seems I've interrupted a meeting.

  Rylan looks up with startled eyes, like an owl caught in a trap. He and Clarice's heads part from where they were nearly pressed together.

  Clarice smiles and Rylan's mouth pulls into a grimace.

  “Isn't this cozy,” I say loudly.

  “Mr. Rylan, leave us please,” Clarice says.

  Betrayal flows through me and I do my utmost not to reveal it. Rylan scoots out from around the desk, tucking a slim envelope inside his briefcase with a snap.

  “What are you doing here, Rylan?” I ask curtly.

  He opens his mouth to reply, but Clarice answers, “Just some seasonal updates. Boring, really.”

  Not from where I stand.

  Rylan passes me, and right before he does, he gives me a full look.

  One of warning.

  Is he here as my friend or enemy? Isn't he the man who just explained to me a loophole in my mother's estate that was the size of the Grand Canyon?

  Yes.

  Then why would he be here in parlay with my abuser?

  I narrow my eyes at Clarice, elegant as always in her slim black pants and a top so icy blue it matches her eyes.

  I stalk toward her, and she steadies herself on the desk with her fingertips behind her.

  I don't say hello. I don't even try to pretend to be civil. “You said something to Kandace King. What was it?”

  She tips her chin back to look up at me, flirting from beneath her nearly translucent eyelashes. As if that were possible. “I said several somethings to Miss King.”

  I slam my fist on the desk, and an antique inkwell stutters at the edge before tumbling to the floor and shattering. Clarice jumps, and I move close, hating the smell of her and every image it brings to the surface.

  The sense of smell is the strongest memory trigger, and all my memories of her are vile. Nauseating. Fear curdles like milk and makes my gorge rise.

  “Now, Chet,” she replies soothingly, “I think we're playing in a different field now. With Chloe's pregnancy, there is no need for you to slum for your... needs.”

  I whirl away before I choke her. I speak to the other side of the room. “Tell me what you said to her.”

  I hear her move toward me, and I stay where I am, shaking with unquenched rage.

  She molds her front against my back, slipping her palms around to cup my pecs and laying her cheek between my shoulder blades.

  My heart thuds with thick insistency. Sweat beads my upper lip and my palms go slick. My breaths come short and hard.

  Basically, my stepmother has brought on a panic attack so vicious, I'm helpless as she moves against the back of me.

  “I told her the truth,” she says softly, her hips shifting in a disgusting subtle gyration. “I told her that you and Chloe were to be married. That her services, however titillating, were no longer required.”

  I gasp, so close to hyperventilating my vision narrows. My face flushes and grows warm. Heat floods me, rising to my gut.

  “Besides, it keeps you close to me,” she says. Her hand slides to my cock and gives it a painful squeeze.

  One of practice.

  I suck in a mournful breath as memories sear me. Even as my prick grows hard beneath her touch, the one thing she can't take from me is my body's memory of her attentions. I take her hand off my dick and turn.

  I let that roiling heat find its target and don't hold back. I throw up in her face.

  All the misery of my childhood becomes a volcano of bile.

  Clarice screams, inadvertently getting some of my puke in her mouth. She cries out, swiping at today's breakfast of energy bar and whiskey and I choke out a little extra, spitting it at her feet.

  My chin rises and I stare at her, wishing for her death.

  She's still trying to wipe my vomit off her face and finally gives up. I'm fascinated by a little chunk of something stuck in her once-perfect hair.

  “Don't ever touch my cock—or me—again.”

  I turn around and walk away. Calm.

  Better.

  I'll find Kandace and we'll make this right.

  I don't know what to do about the baby. I just know I have to find the only woman who's ever mattered to me.

  She's all that's left.

  *

  K.

  “Goddamn, Sam!” I yell at my car, slapping the steering wheel.

  I know my car is technically a
n inanimate object, but it won't start, and I don't do stalled.

  Shit.

  I pop open the door and get out, crossing my arms. Finally, with a mighty huff, I place the toe of my shoe against the door and slam it shut.

  Dammit.

  I walk away from the car, my clean getaway foiled because of mechanical bullshit.

  I’d left Faren with the plan of me leaving Ax's place and driving straight to Chet's. But my damn car won't start. I mean... what the hell? It's a 2012, for eff's sake. I stomp up the low concrete incline of the parking garage underneath the Crawl. The ceiling only has a six-foot-five-inch clearance, and it gives off that feeling of being locked in. I pause, cupping my elbows as I glance around all four corners.

  I look over my shoulder at my uncooperative Fiat.

  A door slams, causing a hollow echo inside the parking garage.

  Forget this.

  The tapping of my heels is loud as I make my way to the yellow arm that allows cars in and out of the garage.

  The huge garage door is closed.

  My face tightens with confusion. Wait a damn minute. I whirl around.

  Ax and that fucker Shepard are twenty feet from me.

  Adrenaline beats the shit out of me, and I prime to run. But I've got on skyscraper heels.

  I kick them off.

  Shepard's eyes go to my feet, and a smile widens across his face.

  Prick.

  “Kik,” Ax says slowly, “we have a situation here.”

  I nod, my eyes rabbiting around for a burrow to dive into. “We sure do.”

  “I know you've done some nosing around in the apartment and found some shit you shouldn't have.”

  Some of your drug stuff.

  My nervous eyes flick to Shepard. I rake him over and yup, he's just as scary as when I first saw him with Juliette.

  His wife.

  But no longer. “I don't know anything, Ax. I need some space. I was just leaving.”

  “That's where you're wrong, Kik.” His eyes harden, holding mine. He holds up wires. They look as though they've been torn out of a car.

  My car.

  “You're not going anywhere, Kik.”

  NINE

  C.

  I'm tearing through a shower after a ten minute teeth brushing and a small meal of leftover Chinese, still feeling the after burn of whiskey.

  I'm not picky about consumption at the moment. But I'm fed and ready to investigate where Kandace is.

  Ready to see her.

  I'll figure out the fallout with Clarice later and find out what Rylan's up to, if anything. And finally deal with Chloe.

  Dean's intel places Kandace in the vicinity of the Crawl. At least, that's what his illegal tracker on her car says.

  It's Clarice who scared off Kandace.

  I slap the wall of my shower, and a shampoo bottle tumbles the floor. Hot jetted water hits me from the dual shower heads, and I groan at how inept I am when it comes to anything to do with Kandace.

  She's so pure in her honesty. I should have known immediately she wasn’t running solely of her own volition.

  Instead, I panicked, behaved like a psycho and now she's convinced that's what I am.

  The truth is so much more.

  Broken.

  Emotional.

  Depraved.

  I'm all that. I'm also the man who loves her. Only I can convince her of that.

  And if I did manage to get Chloe pregnant, though it was the last thing I ever intended, I'll take care of the child as I was never taken care of. I will never bring an innocent life into this world and abandon it.

  I straighten, jerking the water tap to off.

  I get out, suit up and leave my house of luxury. It might not be mine that much longer anyway, I speculate cryptically.

  Every decision I make from here on out involves my looming fortune. I turn and look at my mansion.

  It seems very empty without Kandace in it.

  I slide into my Porsche and don't look back.

  *

  K.

  “Mother of God, did ya have to slice and dice me, Kik?”

  I cross my arms, trying not to feel guilty. “You were all cloak and dagger and shit, and you had fancy-pants Frenchie over here skulking around and looking all badass, so yeah!”

  Ax takes the cold washcloth, colored with his blood, from his face. My scratch marks adorn his skin.

  “I'm sorry, but you could have just said, ʻHey, Kik, need your help with something.ʼ”

  “We did not know your level of cooperation,” Shepard interjects in a softly accented baritone, unlacing his hands and swinging them to his sides.

  Okay, I can admit when a voice is sex personified but wow, this guy.

  This guy.

  “Well, it's always zero when two guys come at me after booby trapping my car. Duh.”

  “Duh?” Shepard asks, his inky brows connecting.

  “Don't ask,” Ax says wearily. “That one's not easy to translate.”

  “It means if you were any more stupid, I wouldn't have to speak and you could keep the other tools in the drawer company, bucko.”

  Ax puts his face in his hands with a groan, and I lean back as Shepard leans forward. His finger lifts a single ringlet from my wrecked hair as his dark gaze runs the length of my features.

  I fight the urge to squirm.

  “My patience is not limitless, Damon.” He speaks to Ax, but it's my face he looks at. He lets my hair drop.

  I back away from him with a shiver. I have radar for violence, and this dude's on it.

  He notices my disquiet and smiles, smoothly crossing his legs.

  So no more insults.

  “We're not drug lords, Kik,” he says.

  “What's the crap I found under the chair?” I counter.

  “A mild sedative, that is all,” Shepard replies, cool as a cucumber.

  “For who?” I look between them.

  “For the other victims of Roi's parentage,” Ax says. “For me, it's always been about them. I find the other girls, and Shepard gives them a new life, away from where they are if they need it.”

  “You're drugging them?”

  Shepard shrugs. “It is sometimes necessary.”

  I point my finger at The Shep. “You—quiet.”

  He captures my finger, and I try to pull it away. “Do not underestimate me, Miss King.”

  I look deeply into eyes that have seen horrible things. Haunted depths. “Not on your life.”

  He drops my finger.

  We commit silently to an uneasy truce.

  Ax gives a loud exhale. “I need you to help me find the rest of the girls.”

  My face scrunches. “I'm only going to ask one more time: who?”

  Ax grimaces, letting the bloody washcloth fall on the battered coffee table before his hands dangle between his knees. “Roi's other children.”

  My head swings toward Shepard. “What? Is this some kind of fucked up absolution?”

  Emotion ripples like wind over the black water of his gaze. “Oui.”

  “Will you help us find your other half-siblings?” Ax is so earnest, so him.

  I think of Chet. I think of all the other kids like me who deserve a chance.

  I nod. “I'm in.”

  Ax says something to Shepard in French.

  My head suddenly feels hot.

  Ax gives me a look of alarm. “Hey, baby, calm down. Head between your knees, head between those knees.”

  “I'm here. It's going to be okay.” Ax strokes my head.

  “You've got some explaining to do,” my muffled voice pronounces from my undignified position.

  “Yeah.”

  The smile's back in his voice and my heart's lighter.

  Now I need to see about Chet.

  *

  I pull up to Chet's mansion.

  A laugh escapes. I can't believe I'm here.

  I gaze at the immaculate gardens I've only seen at night. They're harsh in the light of day.
Winter's kiss steals every bit of vibrant green. I inhale deeply, trying to build courage.

  A light drizzle begins to fall, and I summon fortitude from the center of me.

  I don't know if I can salvage things with Chet. And that hole in my chest grows.

  But what I do know is I'm going to make it right between us. I have to resolve his bullshit with Chloe.

  I have to tell him I know about his past. I have to tell him the truth about mine. Us being pulled to each other like magnets isn't all chance, it's more like a perfect fit of the past.

  I suck in a breath and step out of my car. I walk with leaden feet up the broad, flat marble steps of a home I'll never live in. A home that I can't believe anyone lives in.

  Why am I here?

  Nerves sink their teeth into me like a pit bull and don't let go.

  I walk on, and my hand moves to a one-hundred-plus-year-old bronze knocker. It has a family crest.

  German, if I'm the guessing type.

  I lift the icy metal and let it drop.

  I don't knock again. Maybe I can take off if no one comes.

  I hear stealthy footsteps inside. No such luck. Can't duck out now.

  The door opens, and the limo driver answers. He schools his expression of surprise quickly, but I've seen it. That fleeting look robs me of my dwindling confidence.

  “Miss King.”

  I nod stupidly. “Hi, Eugene.” Yup, that's me, just uncooly stalking Chet.

  But his smile is warm and it relaxes me.

  “Do come in. Mr. Sinclair won't be much longer.”

  I can't place his accent. I move through the door and try not to gawk at the richly appointed foyer and do an epic fail. It's unavoidable.

  Instantly I remember where I used to live and my chin dips, my gaze along with it.

  “Where are you from?” I ask my shoes.

  “Germany,” Eugene says.

  I look up to see him smiling. “What?”

  “No one ever inquires.”

  I always speak my mind. “Why not?”

  He inclines his head at me. “They do not care, Miss King.”

  Heat rushes to the surface of my skin. I hope my dusky complexion hides my embarrassment. “Oh.”

  “It is fine. You are a most unusual acquaintance of Mr. Sinclair.”