by M. S. Parker
Collide Vol. III (Club Prive)
Alpha Billionaire Romance
M. S. Parker
Belmonte Publishing, LLC
Contents
Copyright
M.S. Parker’s Club Privé
1. Bryne
2. Dax
3. Bryne
4. Dax
5. Bryne
6. Dax
7. Bryne
8. Dax
9. Bryne
10. Dax
11. Bryne
12. Bryne
13. Dax
Also by M. S. Parker
About the Author
Acknowledgments
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Belmonte Publishing LLC
Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC
M.S. Parker’s Club Privé
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M.S. Parker’s Club Privé Kindle Worlds
Chapter One
Bryne
I never considered myself to be one of those people who had a temper or made rash decisions. Even if something looked impulsive – say, losing my virginity to a guy I barely knew – chances were, I'd thought about it beforehand. And I didn't get angry easily. Sometimes I snapped at people or raised my voice, but I wasn't the sort of person prone to shouting matches or violence.
But right now, all I wanted to do was find Dax and hit him.
Hard.
When I'd woken up alone less than an hour ago, I wasn’t surprised or upset. That just seemed to be how he did things. If we were in some sort of relationship that extended past sex, it might've been an issue, but we weren't, so it wasn't. Then Carrie called to ask if I knew where Dax was because he hadn't gone home last night.
Now, I was mentally cursing him as I pulled my curls back into a messy bun. Not only had he not gone back to his place, he wasn't answering his phone or responding to any texts, and his mom was worried. And since I was the last person to see him, Carrie wanted to talk to me in person. Which meant I was about to meet Dax's mother with wet hair while wearing yesterday's clothes.
Needless to say, I wasn’t in the best of moods when I went out into the brutal cold to wait for my car. Carrie had already contacted the on-call family driver, but I still had to wait a couple minutes before he arrived. My teeth were chattering, and my hair felt like ice as I climbed into the backseat. As we began to move, I let myself start to think about all the things I'd pushed aside while I showered and dressed.
Things like Carrie and Dax's mom being worried that he was in trouble. The sick feeling I got in my stomach when I thought about him not wanting to tell me about the mutual friend he and Cleo had gone to meet earlier this week. The gut reaction I had to his friends at the shop.
I didn't know if Georgie or those other guys had anything to do with where Dax was or why he wasn't taking his mother's calls, but they were the first people I thought of when Carrie said that she was worried.
No, that was a lie. They weren't the first who came to mind. Cleo was. They'd hooked up in the past, and no matter what he said to me about it being over, she clearly hadn't accepted that. I didn't want to consider her being a factor because I didn't want to think that he could've gone with her willingly. At the same time, I seriously doubted she could've forced him. I didn't see Dax being the kind of guy who got intimidated by a gun or knife.
Unless she hurt him, and the reason he wasn't answering the phone was because he couldn't.
I wasn't sure which was worse. Thinking that he could've gone with her because he wanted to, or thinking that she'd hurt him badly enough that he was unable to answer his phone. I supposed he could've had another meeting that he didn't want to talk about, but that wasn't a good option either.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. I’d felt great when I woke up. Okay, a little sore considering the sex Dax and I had last night hadn't been even close to gentle. My nipples were so sensitive that the pressure from my bra was almost painful, and the low throbbing between my legs reminded me both of how hard he'd driven into me, and how much I’d been stretched by his delicious cock.
“Dammit, Dax,” I muttered as I pulled out my phone to see if he'd responded to my voicemail or text. Still nothing. “Answer your damn phone.”
“Did you need something, miss?”
I jerked my head up, startled. I'd forgotten I wasn't actually alone. While there was a partition that could separate the front from the back, providing some privacy, I hadn't asked the driver to put it up, and now he was giving me a concerned look.
“I'm fine,” I lied. “How much longer?”
“About ten minutes,” he said. “It's only a couple miles to Mrs. Manning's office, but the traffic will cost us a few extra minutes.”
It was only now I realized that he wasn't taking me home. While I fully intended to get my own place, I'd been in the city less than a month. Since my new-found uncle and his wife didn't mind me using the guest room in their loft, I was taking my time deciding where I wanted to live.
I'd never been to Carrie's office, and if the circumstances had been different, I would've been intrigued. As it was, I could barely manage basic curiosity about the place where my aunt was practicing law, despite how interesting I found the subject.
She was a divorce attorney before she and Gavin met. Now, she worked against human trafficking. I'd asked how she did that since she was a private lawyer and not a prosecutor like her friend Dena, and she'd explained that she dealt with the civil side of things. Getting solicitation charges overturned so former sex workers could apply for jobs without criminal records. Filing lawsuits against pimps and others who owned or used slaves in order to seize their assets and have them distributed among the victims. She occasionally did other types of lawsuits where people were being taken advantage of, often free of charge. I was already planning on discussing helping fund some of those cases with the inheritance my great-grandparents had left me but hadn't had a chance yet.
If my life continued to be this crazy, I doubted free time was anywhere in my near future. While I was thrilled to be the romantic lead in an amazing off-Broadway production just weeks after moving here from DC, I couldn't deny that everything was happening so fast that it was making my head spin.
And that wasn't even taking the whole Dax thing into account.
“We're here, Miss Bryne,” the driver said as the car came to a stop. “Would you like me to stay nearby to take you to rehearsal?”
Shit. Rehearsal. I'd completely forgotten about it. Fortunately, today was all about costume fitting, so I wasn't missing anything this morning.
“I can come back at eleven-thirty if you'd like.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That would be great.”
I gave him a smile before I climbed out of the car, but my heart wasn't really in it. Now that I was here, the reality of the situation was setting in. I wasn't even sure how much I was supposed to be worrying. It wasn't like he was my boyfriend. If I'd had a regular rehearsal today, I doubted I would've been able to call off or even arrive late.
That didn't, however, mean that I would've been able to concentrate, so I was extra glad that I wasn’t expected to do anything today that required any sort of concentration. I was also pretty sure that I had the least complicated costume, which meant I shouldn't have to
be there too long. My limited experience with the theaters in DC had been enough to know that this wasn't how practice schedules usually went, but I wasn't going to complain. It made things a bit easier.
Well, as easy as this could be.
Since Carrie's law practice consisted of only her, the office was fairly small but nice. When I walked inside, a petite, dark-haired woman was at the coffee maker. She turned and gave me a wide smile.
“You must be Bryne.” She held out a hand. “I'm Zoe Masters, Carrie's assistant.” After we shook, she added, “Carrie's waiting for you in her office.” She gestured toward the door directly behind her.
“Thank you.” I gave a light rap on the door, and it opened a moment later.
Carrie looked tired as she stepped aside to let me in, and I didn't think it was the pregnancy. My guess was, the worried-looking woman sitting a couple feet away was the reason for my aunt's exhaustion. Even without the obvious connection, I didn't need Carrie to tell me that I was looking at Annabeth Prevot. Dax had the same dark hair and similar enough features for the relation to be obvious.
“Annabeth, this is my niece, Bryne.”
As she raised her head, I saw a pair of eyes that were a little bluer than Dax's, but close enough to make my heart give a painful twist. She managed a weak smile.
“So you're the girl who's been spending so much time with my Dax.”
“I am.” I wondered how much he'd told her about me, but this wasn't the time to ask. “You still haven't heard from him?”
Annabeth shook her head. “It's not like him.” She gave me a hard look. “I'm not naive. I know that Dax isn't an angel. But he's always been protective of me, especially since my accident.”
“Accident?” I asked, then remembered Carrie telling me about Dax's mom getting hurt at work, then her company firing her.
“It's a long story,” Annabeth continued. “But anyway, Dax has been great, taking care of me. That's why it doesn't make sense that he isn't answering my calls or texts.”
I had to admit, she was right. It didn't make sense when she put it all together like that. I'd seen how protective he was with me, and I knew his mother was way more important to him.
“So when you woke up this morning, Dax was gone?” Carrie asked.
The blood rushed to my face, and that earned a soft chuckle from both women.
“It's okay, sweetie,” Annabeth said with a better smile than she'd given me before. “I might be a mom, but I'm still a woman. I know how girls look at him, and I'm not foolish enough to think he doesn't look back.”
“We were at a hotel last night, and he left before I woke up,” I said, not wanting to think about all of the women he'd looked back at. According to something Carrie had said once, he was five years older than me, and I was pretty sure he'd started having sex younger than nineteen, so there were definitely more women than I cared to count.
Annabeth's expression said that she didn't approve, but before I could worry that she was directing it at me, she said, “I taught him better than that.”
I wasn't about to tell her that it wasn't the first time he'd done it. I steered the subject in a different direction by bringing up what I hadn't wanted to say over the phone. “Is it possible he's with Cleo?”
Annabeth's eyebrows shot up. “That girl who went to jail for assault?”
I tried not to let her see how much it hurt that she knew who Cleo was. Dax said they hadn't been serious. Judging by the look Annabeth gave me, I wasn't fooling anyone.
“The incident took place near the shop,” she explained. “I saw an article about it in the paper, and when I asked him, he told me he knew the girl. I thought she was in jail.”
“She got out a few weeks ago,” I said. “I actually met her very briefly. They went to see a mutual friend the other night. Could that be where Dax is?”
Annabeth let out a string of soft curses, and I saw the same intensity in her eyes that I'd seen in Dax's, increasing the likeness between the two of them.
“Do you know something, Annabeth?” Carrie asked.
“No,” she said. “But if that girl is involved, it can't be good.”
Well, that wasn't what I wanted to hear.
Chapter Two
Dax
I didn't like New Jersey.
Sure, there were plenty of nice people in Jersey, and I was pretty sure there were nice places too. I just never saw any of them.
Like right now, I was in a real shit-hole of a place, wishing I was back home where I belonged. Georgie, Force, Little Eddie, and the new guy whose name I still didn't know were here too. Booker North – the reason we were freezing our asses off – was back in New York.
I stomped my feet to warm them up and tried not to be the first person to say what I thought was pretty obvious. The coke supplier we were supposed to be buying from wasn't coming. Booker's cousin had set the whole thing up, saying he had a supplier who was sitting on five hundred kilos he wanted to move.
Except there was nothing here. No supplier. No coke. Nothing.
“Mother fucker!” Georgie lost it first, screaming the obscenity.
Another string of curse words followed while the rest of the guys and I tried not to look like we were sitting around with our thumbs up our asses. Georgie was a hot-head, but he was Booker's second, or whatever the hell he was called in their gang. He was the one in charge of this job, so he was calling the shots.
I wasn't in the gang, but I worked at the shop that was going to be part of the new drug dealing business Booker was adding to the stolen parts and money laundering they already did. I looked the other way for all that shit, and they let me do my own thing, but Booker decided that I needed to be a part of this. All day I was trying to figure out exactly why, especially since Georgie could be a real bastard when it came to me. Booker had even sent Cleo to threaten Bryne if I didn't go along with it. It wasn’t until the new guy started running his mouth about how he was on his second strike and if he got caught he was fucked, that I figured it out.
Once I was a part of it, moving the dope across state lines, hiding it in the car and motorcycle parts, it'd be harder for me to turn them in without getting into trouble myself. It was one thing to work at a business that had some shady shit going on. It was something else to actually be involved in said shady shit.
“What're we gonna do, Georgie?” the new guy asked.
Georgie ignored the question as he pulled out his phone. I glanced over at Force who shrugged. I could tell the other guys weren't really comfortable with me here, but they weren't about to argue with either of the bosses. That was a good way to end up dead.
“Booker.” Georgie paced as he talked. “We're here but there ain't nothing or nobody here.”
While Georgie's side of the conversation became silent and then random noises of agreement, I took the time to look around. The warehouse was dirty and dark, making it hard to see much, but I was pretty sure it was completely empty and had been that way for a while. The air smelled stale, like a garage that'd been locked up for a long time. The floor was covered with all sorts of shit, but I didn't see any new-looking footprints or any sign that anything had been moved recently. I was no detective, but that didn't sit right with me. Something was wrong.
“Listen up, bitches.” Georgie came back over. “Booker's gonna call his cousin, see if we can find out where this motherfucker might be keeping his shit.”
“Then we go get it, right?” The new guy again.
Somehow, I didn't think that was all there was to it.
“By any means necessary,” Georgie said.
Shit. He'd heard that once on TV and used it whenever he planned on doing something stupid. Stupid plus coke equaled shit hitting the fan, and that was all it took to get me to talk.
“Booker really wants us stealing from a coke supplier?”
Georgie glared at me, but his phone rang before he got a chance to say another word. “Yeah.” After a minute of listening, he glared at me and sai
d, “Dax doesn't think that's a good idea.”
Fucking traitor.
Georgie held out his phone, and I took it. “Dax here.”
“You questioning me?” Booker's voice was cold.
“Do you want us to steal coke from your cousin's supplier?” I figured I'd better know exactly what I was disagreeing with before I did it. Georgie was no stranger to exaggeration.
“And if I do?”
I chose my words carefully. Most people believed Booker was responsible for the mysterious disappearance of the guy who used to own the shop and his two sons. I wasn't going to argue otherwise.
“I'm looking around here, and it doesn't look like anyone or anything's been here in a while.” I took Booker's silence to mean I should keep going. “I'm thinking the supplier was trying to set your cousin up or something. Might be a good idea to take some time to plan rather than going in guns blazing.”
I didn't have to tell him that would be Georgie's style. Everyone knew it.
“Put Georgie back on the line.”
Booker's tone didn't tell me shit about what he was thinking, but I didn't ask. I'd either made my point, or I hadn't. Either way, Booker would make the call, and Georgie would follow it. He wasn't dumb enough to get one order and give another.
When Georgie hung up, he was pissed. “Booker wants us back so we can come up with a plan to go after the dope.”
“So we're not doin' it tonight?” Force asked.
“No.” He glared at me, and I heard what he wasn't saying. He'd wanted to go, but Booker had vetoed it because of my input.
I refused to apologize for it. If Georgie led us into something blind, someone would get hurt, probably even dead. I might've kept a little distance from the guys, but I didn't want them killed. Not even Georgie. This way, we'd all get back in one piece, and if Booker still wanted to pull some stupid shit, it'd at least be with a plan.
