Proposition 1

by Leann Ryans

  Proposition #1

  A Virgin Auction Romance

  Leann Ryans

  Copyright © 2020 Leann Ryans

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Proposition #1, Illicit Deals Book 1

  This book is intended for an adult audience.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1. Cadence

  2. Leo

  3. Cadence

  4. Leo

  5. Cadence

  6. Leo

  7. Cadence

  8. Leo

  9. Cadence

  10. Cadence

  11. Leo

  12. Cadence

  13. Leo

  14. Cadence

  15. Cadence

  Epilogue

  Thanks

  Hired for Heat

  Other books by Leann Ryans

  The Legion Omegas series:

  The Omega Prize

  Saving the Omegas

  Winning his Omega

  The Legion Omegas Omnibus, Books 1-3

  The Hired Series:

  Hired for Heat

  Hired to Protect

  Hired to Breed (Coming Late 2020)

  Alpha Barbarians:

  Raider’s Treasure

  Bear’s Honor

  Verik’s Price

  Autumn’s Rescue (Sep 2020)

  Omega Market:

  Used

  Flawed (Aug 2020)

  Banned by Amazon:

  The Alphas’ Captive

  Women of Time Collection:

  Maid in Time (July 2020)

  Single Books:

  Omega, Suppressed

  AudioBooks:

  Hired for Heat

  Omega, Suppressed

  When your brother’s life depends on you paying his debts, you find a way to do it. Even if it means selling the only thing of value you have left.

  Yourself.

  1. Cadence

  My brother isn’t a bad kid. He isn’t some wannabe gang-banger thug. Michael was still in high school, got good grades, and never caused problems.

  He just got in over his head. An act of desperation by someone pushed to the edge.

  Because we were desperate.

  Everything was crumbling around us, and we were running out of time.

  It started when Daddy died. Even though he was a soldier, we never thought it would happen to us. Sure, he was in Afghanistan, but things like that happened to other people. Daddy was never in real danger.

  It was a rude awakening for me and my brother, and Momma never was the same after those people showed up at the door. She smiled and tried to pretend for us, but she was a ghost of the woman she had been before. Even at twelve years old I could see it.

  When she started losing her memory, I hated myself for thinking it was a good thing. She started laughing like she used to, and the haunted look in her eyes faded. We didn’t realize what was going on until she stopped in the hallway one day and stared at the picture of Daddy, Michael, and I.

  She asked me who that man in the picture was.

  It wasn’t too bad at first, and it was chalked up to long-term stress. It was a couple years before it started to affect her day-to-day life, and we had to consider that it may be more than that. By the time I finished high school, we were in trouble.

  She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.

  Momma struggled to make ends meet on her own once Daddy was gone. She did everything she could, but once she started forgetting things at work, they let her go. She’d been an administrator at the hospital, and the job was too complicated for someone who would forget if she’d brushed her hair that morning, much less if she sent in the supply order.

  I picked up a waitressing job while still in school, and once I graduated, I found a second one as an assistant at an office. Michael tried to get a job too, but as Momma got worse, someone had to look after her. I didn’t even like her being alone while Michael was in school. If no one came home to tell her to eat, she would completely forget, and there had been a few times when she tried to fix dinner and almost caught the house on fire because she got distracted.

  We couldn’t afford to put her in a home no matter how many times she begged me to so I could ‘have a life.’

  “Sell the house, put me in a home, and go have fun!”

  She didn’t know I couldn’t sell the house because she didn’t remember taking out a second mortgage on it. One I was struggling to pay because the interest was so high and the house wasn’t worth enough after years of neglect and a falling market.

  And now I had to find a way to bail Michael out of the trouble he was in.

  I don’t know what he was thinking. Or how he even found these people. He was a nerdy kid who spent his time online or with his nose in a book whenever he wasn’t helping Mamma. He wasn’t a drug dealer.

  Yet he managed to get himself tangled up with the local mafia.

  He got the idea in his head that he could make some money while still being able to keep an eye on Momma by running drugs. He thought he’d pick them up from point A, deliver them to point B at the designated time, and leave with a bag full of cash.

  The problem was that people like the ones he was trying to work for had enemies. Enemies that were watching when some skinny high-school kid picked up a package he wasn’t able to defend.

  Michael told me he didn’t know what was in the backpack, or who the men were that attacked him. There had been four of them, and luckily he’d gotten away with only a few scrapes as they taunted him and had a good laugh.

  But now Michael was responsible for however much that backpack was worth. His phone was blowing up, and we couldn’t wait for them to decide to make a personal visit.

  I wasn’t going to let him try to handle it alone. He meant the best, but his naive idea had landed us in hot water, and I couldn’t trust him to be smart enough to get us out of it.

  When the people called him again asking where he was with their drugs, I’d taken the phone. I wasn’t stupid, I knew they were going to make us pay for losing their stuff, I just needed to know how much we were talking about and if we could work out a deal. We’d set up a meeting to talk face to face.

  The man sitting behind the mahogany monstrosity of a desk looked like your stereotypical mob boss from any movie. Old, short, round. Wearing a pinstripe suit, complete with fedora, and a cigar hanging from his lips.

  The two goons beside me matched the meat-head description, with nothing but muscle between their ears. Intimidating in their cheap MIB suits, but useless without exact instructions.

  I kept my chin level and my breathing even, not willing to show the tension coiled inside me. I’d already run the numbers and figured if I took on a few more hours at the diner, I could come up with at least a thousand by the end of the month. If he owed more than that, then I’d have to hope they were willing to work with me on payments.

  “So, tell me who you are again?”

  His eyes traveling over me wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. Young, slim, blonde; I worked my assets for tips daily.

  “I’m Michael’s sister.”

  “That new kid that disappeared with our bag,” Meathead Number One supplied.

  Keeping my gaze focused on the man behind the desk, I ignored the goon on my left and straightened my shoulders.

  “He was attacked by
four men on his way to deliver your bag. I’m here to work out a deal to cover whatever he owes you for it. He’s just a dumb kid, and we don’t want any trouble.”

  The man’s heavy eyebrows lifted, the only sign that he had heard me as he continued to stare. He remained silent for a while before he leaned back and steepled his hands in front of him.

  “So, your brother gets jumped, loses our product, and yet you’re the one here trying to work out a deal to pay us back? What kind of man is he?”

  My brows drew together as my lips tightened.

  “He’s not. He’s still a kid and I’m responsible for him. I just need to know how much he owes you to make this even so we can forget about each other.”

  His head dipped, chin resting on his chest. His steady gaze was unnerving, but he at least seemed to be considering what I said.

  Turning his attention to Meathead Number One, he leaned forward and placed his arms on his desk.

  “How much was in the bag?”

  “Twelve kilos.”

  I had no idea what that meant. I’d been a good girl, far too busy to get involved with recreational drugs like some of the other kids at school. The only thing I knew was they used to buy what they called dime bags of pot that cost ten bucks.

  “As noble as your intentions may be, I have a feeling you don’t have an extra twenty-two grand lying around, so how do you plan to pay me?”

  The air rushed from my chest, my eyes widening before I could control my response. That amount was so far past what I had considered that my mind went blank.

  Twenty-two thousand dollars.

  That was almost half of what we owed on the house. It was about how much I made in a year at my office job. It was double what we owed in medical bills for Momma.

  The man waited as I gaped, mouth opening and closing as I tried to get my brain to string words into sentences. Eventually I gave up and bowed my head, sucking in deep breaths to keep from breaking down in front of these men. I could feel my hands trembling at my sides.

  The door opened behind me, but I was too focused on trying to get myself under control to look up. A couple thousand dollars I could have figured out, but twenty-two was not feasible.

  I couldn’t leave my brother to whatever they would do to him, though. With the reputation these men had, I wouldn’t be surprised if they put a bullet in his head and forgot about him.

  He was a kid. He’d never done anything like this before. How did he get trusted with something worth that much?

  The longer I thought about it, the angrier I got. They would have seen he wasn’t capable of defending himself, much less something with that much value, yet they gave it to him anyway.

  When I looked back up, there was another man standing behind the desk, but I ignored him. My glare focused on the one still seated. The one responsible for allowing this situation to happen.

  2. Leo

  “Why the hell did you trust a kid you don’t know with that much? Shouldn’t he have had a trial run first? What the hell were you thinking?”

  When I walked in I ignored the woman standing across from my father’s desk, figuring she was one of the many that worked for the family, but when she raised her voice at him she caught my complete attention. No one who worked for us would dare speak to my father that way.

  She was a little thing, about six inches shorter than me, with pale blonde hair that went down to her hips. Her dark eyes flashed with anger as she stood glaring at the most powerful man in the city, her plump lips pinched together.

  Glancing down at my father, I could tell he was amused. He could be a hard man to read, but the quirk of his eyebrows let me know he didn’t see her as a threat. She was nothing more than a kitten hissing at a lion.

  “He said he could do it. We took him at his word. That was his trial run. If he was one of our regulars he would have had at least triple that.”

  I could see her grinding her teeth, her fists clenched at her sides. I had no idea what was going on, or who she was, but the girl had spirit.

  My eyes trailed down her slim figure, taking in the prim outfit she wore. A white button-down blouse, buttoned all the way to the top, almost hid the gentle swell of her breasts. Her pastel pink pencil skirt hugged hips that my palms itched to grab.

  If she had been one of our employees, I definitely would have noticed her, and would have sampled the goods by now. Women never said no to me. I needed to know who she was, but I didn’t want to admit I didn’t know.

  “Look, I’m a nice guy. I’ll give your brother two weeks to come up with the money.”

  My father leaned back in his chair, fingertips pressed together in front of his chest. That was his signature move when he knew someone wouldn’t be able to meet his demands, but he wanted to seem generous.

  However much her brother owed, the way her eyes bulged showed she’d never be able to come up with it in two weeks. My guess was, even a month wouldn’t be enough.

  Skimming my gaze over her body again, I pictured what she would look like without the demure clothing as an idea began to form. She needed money, and I thought I knew how she could get it.

  “But! W—We can’t… I don’t…”

  Her chest rose and fell with the panic we could see on her face. She was trying so hard to hide the fear, but it’s easy to spot when you’re used to seeing it all the time.

  “Two weeks. Either I get my money, or I get your brother.”

  Another glance showed me the earlier amusement was gone. He was serious.

  The girl’s mouth snapped shut, her shoulders jerking back. She pulled in a deep breath before giving a sharp nod and turning to march out. The guards followed her from the room. They’d make sure she left the property and didn’t wander off into things she shouldn’t see.

  Coming around the desk to take the seat across from my father, I met his gaze and raised my brows.

  “That dumb kid that came in here wanting to run for us lost the bag.”

  My brows climbed higher. I remember him telling me about some scrawny boy coming in asking to work for us, but I didn’t realize my father had actually let him.

  “Lost?”

  “The Walkers took it. Whatever. His sister seems to have more sense than him at least.”

  I snorted. The Walkers were a new group in the area, working their way up and encroaching on our territory. We’d ignored them at first, but we were going to have to put them in their place soon if they were stealing our goods.

  “How much did you give him?”

  “Only twelve kilos.”

  So the kid lost about twenty-two thousand worth of goods. Not much to us, but that could be a significant amount to the average person.

  “What are you going to do to the kid?”

  “I can’t let him get away with it or the others will start getting ideas. He made the decision to come to us, so he’ll have to face the consequences.”

  My father could be heartless sometimes, but that’s how we’d gotten to where we were. You’re either the top of the food chain, or you’re prey. Still, with the small amount, I doubt he would have the boy killed, though the kid may wish he had by the time it was all over.

  Pushing thoughts of the woman and her brother aside, I focused on why I had come. I spent a couple hours with my father, going over plans and issues he wanted me to handle. By the time I rose from my seat, I was ready to stretch my legs and think about something else for a while.

  Before I left the office, Dad looked up at me.

  “Did you get the event figured out for next week?”

  “Mostly. There’s still a few things I need to set up, but the stage is prepared.”

  “I want twelve quality girls.”

  “Twelve? I thought we’d decided eight?”

  He raised a brow.

  “That was before we invited more people.”

  I resisted the urge to sigh.

  “I’ll get them.”

  He gave me a nod and went back to his figures.
<
br />   The old man never trusted anyone else to do the books for him, not even me, and keeping up with all our income streams took a lot of his time. He still got his hands dirty when needed, but he ruled by loyalty and respect instead of pure fear. If you take care of your men, they take care of you.

  Walking out to the front of the building, I noticed the two guards that escorted the girl earlier. I had a few girls I knew would be willing, but I was short a couple, and thinking of the one who stood up to my father reminded me of the idea I’d had.

  I walked up to the pair, both of them giving me respectful nods as I came to a stop in front of them.

  “What can we do for you?”

  “Did either of you catch that girl’s name earlier?”

  The one on the left grinned.

  “Was it Katy? No,” the other one shook his head before his eyes lit up. “Cadence!”

  “Last name?”

  I watched his face fall. With only a first name to go on it might take a while to track her down.

  “What was the brother’s name?”

  “Michael… Green, I think.”

  The man shrugged, but I had what I needed. Thanking them, I walked over to my car and climbed in, hitting the dial button on the steering wheel. By the time I pulled off the property, I was explaining what I needed to one of our people.

  “I need info on a Cadence Green. Early twenties. Has a brother named Michael.”

  There was a pause as the man worked, but it didn’t take long for him to start rattling off information.

  “Cadence Green, graduated from Swift High School, turns twenty-one in a couple weeks. Lives here in the city. Works two jobs.”

  “Where?”

  He rattles off the information and my brows raise. Someone her age is usually in college or working dead-end jobs and partying away what they make. She’s working two, and one of them sounds like a decent place, though the waitressing isn’t much of a surprise.

  “Message me the address of the diner. Do you have anything else?”

  My phone pings a second later before he replies.