Crime Lord's Captive (Crime Lord Series Book 1)

by Mia Knight

  “You heard why he was there?”

  Lyla was glad her stomach was empty so she wouldn’t embarrass herself and vomit. She could see the guard's face in her mind, clear as day. He haunted her. Could she have stopped Gavin or would she be dead and buried along with that man three years ago?

  “I did what I had to,” Gavin said.

  Lyla couldn’t look at him. Before she witnessed the brutality in the basement, she ignored what the Pyres did in the dark because she could. When she saw what Gavin was capable of, his infidelity seemed trifling. She didn’t want to be around someone who could do that to another human being. She left, disillusioned and chilled to the core.

  “So you left because of what you saw in the basement, not the women,” Gavin said.

  “I left because of both. I don’t want to be a part of this life, Gavin,” her voice broke and she looked down at her trembling hands.

  “You shouldn’t have saw what you did.”

  Lyla lifted her head. “But I did. Now what?”

  Gavin’s silence made her heart race. In a sudden burst of anger that startled them both, she erupted from the bed. She rearranged the robe so it covered her adequately and fisted her hands at her sides as she faced Gavin.

  “I know what you do for work, Gavin, and I can’t stand it,” she said, voice shaking. “His face haunts me. I can hear his pleas in my sleep. You didn’t stop. You tortured him.” She had to stop because bile rose in her throat.

  “I needed to know if he was telling the truth.”

  Lyla slashed her hand through the air. “Slicing his throat would have been better than what you did.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “And I don’t want to!” she screeched.

  Gavin flinched, but showed no other reaction to her outburst. She could feel herself splintering into pieces. Watching the man she loved torture someone to death destroyed her. She left Las Vegas, a shadow of her former self.

  Her emotions were a tangled mess inside of her. This man incited so much in her—fear, lust, confusion, love. She hated that even after all this time, she cared for him. She loved Gavin with every particle of her being and she had never been the same since. Gavin stole her innocence in more ways than one. He branded her soul and no matter what she did, she couldn’t exorcise him. She clung to Jonathan because he was Gavin’s polar opposite. Did she really love Jonathan? She was grateful that he took her in, but what she felt for him paled in comparison to what she felt for Gavin.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, voice shaking.

  Gavin said nothing.

  “You have more money than you could possibly spend in your lifetime. Why risk the Pyre empire over a smaller revenue with so much risk?” Lyla’s eyes filled with tears. “How do you think I feel, knowing that the food I eat and the clothes I wear were bought through blood and murder? Why do you think I left everything behind? I would rather work forty hours a week, earn just enough to survive and have a clear conscience than—”

  “Don’t, Lyla. That blood’s on my hands, not yours.”

  “And that makes it better?” she challenged.

  He looked so remote. She hated it. Lyla took her life in her hands and walked towards him. His eyes tracked her every move and went heavy-lidded when she knelt in front of him. Moving slowly, she reached out and grabbed his hands. She cradled them in hers and looked up.

  “You don’t have to have blood on your hands, Gavin.”

  “You have no idea what’s at stake.”

  “Your life is at stake. What if they catch you? You could go to prison for murder!”

  “Won’t happen.”

  Lyla dropped his hands and rose with a sound of disgust. There was no reasoning, no compromising with him. “So arrogant and pigheaded.” She paced away and then turned back. “I don’t understand you, Gavin. I loved you. I gave you everything and find out you cheated the whole time. Not only that, you have this other life you don’t tell me about, that forces you to do things you wouldn’t have to otherwise. You can’t tell me it doesn’t haunt you. Is that where the other women come in? Is that where I come in?” She paused, but there was no answer. “What else aren’t you telling me? What else am I too stupid or young or naive to know about? What we had, Gavin, it wasn’t a relationship. It was a role, one you can have any woman fill.”

  Lyla wrapped her arms around herself. His eyes were trained on her, monitoring every nuance. “I want out,” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “I never told a soul and I won’t!”

  Gavin ran his hands through his hair. “God, you’re a piece of work.”

  “And you aren’t? You’re hot, cold, hot...” Her voice faded away when their eyes locked. A shaft of heat burst in her belly and spread low. “Fuck! I hate you!”

  “Is that why you don’t want my hands on you? Because of what you saw me do?”

  “You were so cold. Emotionless.” She shivered and tried to shake away the awful memories. “You can turn your emotions on and off. That’s why you were able to cheat on me and come home with a clear conscience. It’s why you’re good at doing the illegal side of the business.” She tapped her chest, trying to get him to understand her. “That’s not me.”

  No response, no flicker of emotion in his eyes.

  “I told you, this isn’t going to work,” she said, voice low

  “It will if you let me take care of it.”

  “By controlling what I do, where I go?”

  “It’s the only way I know to keep you safe.”

  “If you weren’t doing whatever the fuck you’re doing on the side, you wouldn’t need to ‘keep me safe!’ Don’t you see that?”

  “This is what my family has always done.”

  “And traditions are meant to be broken,” she spat.

  “I never let that shit touch you, not then and not now.”

  “The thing with Rafael... You can’t stop it from touching me.”

  “You won’t see him ever again.”

  She shook her head. “You can’t control that.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “By keeping me imprisoned?”

  “By putting a man on you,” he said slowly, “for your own safety.”

  “Now we’re back to square one. If you weren’t in the business, I wouldn’t need a bodyguard. I can’t live this way. It doesn’t matter how long I’m here. I know what I can and can’t live with.” Lyla shook her head. “I won’t.”

  Gavin got to his feet. Lyla couldn’t stop her quick retreat and noticed his jaw lock.

  “You think I’m a monster.”

  His voice was completely devoid of emotion.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” Lyla whispered.

  Gavin stared at her for a long minute before he walked out the door. Lyla stared after him, not sure what just happened. She felt as if she just avoided an execution. She was breathing hard and her palms were damp with sweat. Her cell phone rang on the nightstand, making her jump. She glanced at the screen and picked it up with a sigh of relief.

  “Carmen.”

  “Hey, girl. I’m heading to the mall. Want to keep me company?” Carmen asked.

  Lyla could tell from the whooshing sound in the background that Carmen probably had the top down on her convertible. “Yes!”

  “Be there in five.”

  Lyla dashed into the bathroom and made herself look decent before she rushed downstairs. She paused when she found Manny pacing.

  “Baby girl, we need to talk.” Manny’s eyes were troubled. “Gavin just left. What did you say to him?”

  Too much, too little. Lyla shrugged. “We’re not meant to be, Manny. I think he’s beginning to see it.”

  “I’m sorry that you saw what happened in Gavin’s basement.” Manny ran a hand through his hair. “It was business.”

  Manny did atrocious things in his time as ruler of the underworld. Lyla had no doubt of that. How was she supposed to feel about these men she care
d for? How did she reconcile the men she knew with the ruthless dictators that did what had to be done in the crime world? “I know it’s business, Manny, I just don’t want to be around it.”

  “He can shield you from it—”

  “Manny,” she said and squeezed his hand, “This type of stuff isn’t for me. I know.”

  “We’re not asking you to deal with it. You were never supposed to see—Gavin, the look on his face when he left...” He stared at her imploringly. “You have to fix it.”

  Lyla ignored the stab in her belly. She was well on her way to making Gavin realize that they weren’t meant for each other. Letting him believe that she thought he was a monster got her a gigantic step closer to freedom. She averted her eyes from Manny because she couldn’t stand to see him in distress.

  She squeezed his hand as a car horn honked. “I love you, Manny, but I’m not the one for Gavin.”

  “But you are,” Manny insisted. “I know it!”

  The honk came again. “I’m going out with Carmen. I’ll be back,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. How could she explain that she couldn’t condone the things they did? She didn’t see things in shades of gray like them. They justified murders by putting it under the label of business. She wasn’t that open minded and didn’t want to be. Her time away from Las Vegas solidified her beliefs. It was better to live a clean, uneventful, possibly boring life than to live on the edge.

  Lyla rushed out the front door, desperate for fresh air and time away from the Pyre men. Sure enough, Carmen’s convertible top was down. She would have been windblown, but her hair was done in a slick, kick ass braid. Lyla slid into the passenger seat and they were off.

  “Anything exciting happen last night?” Carmen hollered.

  “No!” Lyla shouted back. She wasn’t in the mood to talk about Gavin. “What are we shopping for?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Carmen sped towards the city and kicked on the radio which spat out old school tunes. Lyla sang along in an effort to forget Gavin’s expression as he walked away from her. Why the hell did she feel so guilty? She was being honest. She didn’t want to live that way. It would kill her slowly but surely. The people of Las Vegas had questionable morals. When you grew up in a city of illusions and sin, it was hard not to be able to justify almost everything. But murder? No. Gavin was too volatile. She couldn’t handle him and honestly, never had. He wasn’t meant for her, she just had to convince Manny of that.

  She and Carmen shopped hand in hand. Lyla was distinctly aware of the fact that she had no money and wondered how she could access her bank accounts and then shrugged that off. It wasn’t worth looking into, not when her life was so out of sorts. Plus, she had a sneaking suspicion that Gavin took care of it.

  Although Carmen loved beautiful and well made things, she would rather be gifted with things than pay for them herself. She took pictures of what she wanted and sent them to Vinny in a not so subtle hint, even though she could whip out a credit card and pay for it herself.

  “You’re happy,” Lyla commented, examining her cousin who modeled lingerie in a mirror.

  “Of course,” Carmen said without hesitation. “Vinny loves me, I get to do what I want and you’re back.”

  “I’m back temporarily,” Lyla said.

  Carmen snorted. “Girl, don’t think I didn’t see the way Gavin looked at you last night. Stop fooling yourself. The man is gone over you. You could ask him for anything and get it in a snap.”

  “He’s in temporary lust with me,” Lyla corrected.

  Carmen turned to face her and Lyla had to admit her body looked amazing.

  “Lyla Dalton, you need to get your head out of your ass.”

  Lyla blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Gavin Pyre can have anyone he wants. Capisce?”

  “Yes,” Lyla agreed.

  “Then why would he look for you for three years and then take time away from work to dance with you last night? He’s been taking you to his clubs so everyone will know your face and give you whatever you want. I’m gonna tell you something, cousin, and I don’t care if you believe me or not. I haven’t seen Gavin with anyone since you left. I know that doesn’t mean a lot to you, but he could have replaced you and he didn’t. You are the only woman he claimed, the only one he lived with. That’s huge. I know you don’t trust him, but if you talk to him, like, really, talk to him, you might be surprised what he’s willing to do to get you to stay.”

  Lyla didn’t tell her cousin that she already committed herself to a year. There was no sense in getting her hopes up. If she had done as much damage this morning as Manny implied, her one year commitment might be void.

  “I’ll wait outside,” Lyla said, rising.

  Carmen gave her an impatient huff, which she ignored. Lyla made her way out of the shop bustling with Playboy bunny type women, strippers and male oglers. The mall was teeming with people. Lyla narrowly avoided a collision with a reckless senior in a wheelchair and ambled over to the restrooms, texting Carmen as she went. Lyla used the facilities and was in the middle of wiping her hands with a paper towel when the door burst open. She looked up and had a fleeting glimpse of two Hispanic men before they were on her. Lyla tried to scream, but one of the men covered her mouth with a cloth soaked in something. Lyla couldn’t breathe. She fought against her attacker, but her head was spinning and then everything went black.

  Chapter Nine

  Lyla’s head throbbed and her body ached as if she had the flu. Lyla opened her eyes, tried to sit up and found out that her hands and feet were bound and she had a strip of duck tape over her mouth. There was a sheer red cloth over her eyes and she lay on a dirty, lumpy mattress in a concrete room with one window. Unadulterated panic filled her as she remembered the attack in the mall bathroom. Who were these men and why had they taken her? Lyla held her bound hands up and saw a plastic tie cutting into her skin. There would be no getting out of this. Lyla looked around the barren room and focused on a small window high up on the wall. Even if she managed to get to her feet, she wasn’t tall enough to see outside.

  Lyla heard the echo of voices a moment before the door slammed open. The Hispanic men who attacked her in the bathroom stood there. One of them swaggered in with a cocky grin while the other hung back, expressionless. They were dressed in basketball jerseys and low riding shorts that showed off their underwear. They couldn’t be older than twenty-five. Punks. Wannabe gangsters. The fact that they didn’t bother to conceal their faces made her stomach curdle with anxiety.

  “Had a nice nap?” the one who entered the room asked. “I was hoping you were still asleep so I could wake you up the way I want.”

  He gave her a lecherous look that made her shuffle backwards until she hit the wall. Her useless hands twitched in front of her as she waited for him to make a move.

  “You don’t look like Pyre’s type,” he said.

  Even though she suspected that Gavin had something to do with this, the confirmation made her body go icy with fear. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.

  The cocky bastard sat on the edge of the bed. Without hesitation, he reached out and squeezed her breast through the thin material of her dress. Lyla screamed through the tape and tried to knock his hand away with her bound hands, but he jerked her hands above her head. Before she could move away, he lay beside her and dragged her on top of him. His hands went under her dress, clutched her bare ass and mashed their crotches together. He moaned and bucked, bouncing her on top of him like a depraved animal, his hot breath fanning her face.

  Lyla struggled, but she couldn’t do anything with her hands being held over her head and her legs bound together. This couldn’t be happening. He dry humped her while his partner watched from the doorway with a blank look on his face. Lyla screamed into the tape as the man beneath her thrust faster. She could feel the bulge in his pants, the thin material of his pants just stopping him from full penetration.

  “Hurry the fuck up,” the other man said, leaning against t
he doorjamb.

  “You like that, bitch?” the man beneath her panted.

  Lyla screamed profanities as he went faster, pumping his hips so hard into her that she knew her thighs would bruise. Lyla looked away as the man came in his pants, grunting and then going completely lax beneath her. Shuddering and afraid of puking with tape over her mouth, Lyla rolled and landed on the dirty concrete. She used her bound hands to push herself into a sitting position and looked at the remote man standing by the doorway, watching her as if she were nothing. Beyond him she saw that they were in what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Where the fuck were they? Were they still in Vegas? It was easier to focus on that rather than the man panting on the bed behind her. She felt as if there were spiders crawling over her skin. She shuddered and fought the plastic tie around her wrists even though she knew it was pointless.

  “Fuck, I needed that,” the man on the bed said and pulled a phone out of his pocket and dialed.

  They all listened to the phone ring as he put it on speaker. Lyla closed her eyes and tried to control the urge to hurl.

  “Who the fuck is this?”

  Gavin’s voice on the other end of the phone made her head snap up. Painful relief burst in her chest.

  “You don’t need to know who it is. All you need to know is I have your girl,” the man on the bed said and winked at Lyla.

  “Let me talk to her,” Gavin ordered.

  The man on the bed rolled with a squeak of rusty springs. He gripped her face and ripped the strip of tape off her mouth. Lyla’s face burned but she didn’t make a sound. Did she still have lips?

  “Lyla?” Gavin snarled.

  “Gavin—” she said through throbbing lips.

  The man shoved her carelessly. Her back hit the wall hard and she moaned. She looked up as he stood over her with the wet spot on his pants obvious.

  “Got your attention, Pyre? Your chick is a great lay.”

  “You touch her, even one finger, I’ll murder you with my bare hands,” Gavin said, voice so chilling that her captor stared at the phone for a couple of seconds before he walked over to his partner and handed the phone over.