“I am not a liar, nor am I unfair.” He waved his hand at her. “I will relieve you of your contractual duties. I will pay you another full two weeks. Just do not complain when the contract goes to someone else. I still need someone to play a role of an obedient wife. Image is important.”
“Fine,” Sierra agreed. She waited as Seth went to get the contract papers. She sat on the couch, her legs crossed as he looked for a pen. The pen was put on hold though, and Seth’s face went pale.
Right across, tossing a key up and down in the air with two men at his sides, was Shadow Wilkins.
“One. Twenty three.” Shadow was unimpressed as he went through Seth Monard’s safe. He had taken Stethos and Lance, his two best men, to pay him a visit. He did it the easiest way possible, with a key. After speaking to Charles Monard, it was easy to attain an extra key to the mansion. Lying on the ground Seth laid with a gag in his mouth. Shadow moved over to Seth, removing the gag. “You don’t have close to what I need.” As he thought.
“You said I got a twenty-four hour extension for Sierra!” Seth reminded him.
“No, Shadow said the debt received a twenty-four hour extension, not you,” his man Stethos said. “That’s our bosses nice way of saying he won’t kill every Monard out there yet for the money.”
Seth moaned. “Fine, take anything in the house!” Seth Monard’s calm demeanor had finally been broken. Shadow looked at his men. With one word, they could ransack the house for valuables, maybe get another fifty thousand. “I’ll take this money, Seth Monard, and one more thing. Then your debt moves down to four hundred thousand.”
Seth nodded his head anxiously. “Whatever it is, take it.”
“Sierra.” Shadow watched his eyes. “I have plans for that little vixen.” He stared over by the door, watching her. He didn’t bind her but left his men to watch her. “Give her to me.” He had little doubt Seth would give her up, but the little weasel was turning his head away. “What?”
“I can’t do that,” Seth confessed. “If I do that, you can’t lay a hand on her. The owner can’t have sexual needs fulfilled.”
“Ah. I see. All those restrictions for the good girls.” Shadow glanced toward her. “Fine then. You stay owner, but give her to me until after the baby is born.”
“Baby?” Seth questioned. Sierra tried to yell, but Shadow’s men covered her mouth.
“I need an heir to hold my position in the Renegade,” Shadow informed him. “I’m good at the job, but responsibilities are important, so I think I’ll just take Sierra for that.”
Sierra bit into Lance’s hand. “The contract is a month at a time!” Stethos took the initiative and recovered her mouth.
“She is right,” Seth said as he curled up into a ball, “but I can get another virgin if that’s what you want. That’s why you wanted Sierra. As many as you want, our name is trusted and known as kind.”
Vicious. Buying virgins because he thought it would save his life? More women like Sierra, unknowingly throwing themselves into a wolves den. “Nah.”
“Okay, okay!” Seth moaned. “Sometimes there are special clauses hidden in contracts. Most people don’t check them, but our lawyers always put them in. In case of emergency, I should be able to hold her for a year without continued consent if it concerns debt. Just check the fine print, there has to be something in there.”
Sneaky little fucker, Shadow thought. He grabbed the contract and looked down at the fine print. When picking contracts, lawyers were supposed to explain everything. There would be something in that mess that would make it plausible not to . . . “Ah, I see.” Shadow looked over toward Sierra, struggling wildly. Seth had pushed his buttons. Refusing to pay, treating him like payment was a ‘small matter’, and the way Monard wanted to lie on contracts to get more women. “This solution will do nicely.” He placed a fake smile on his face as he put a pen in Seth’s mouth to sign. “You have something in there I can use. I just need you to initial the conversion for her to pay off debt.”
“Okay. Bottom right, second page,” Seth muttered with the pen in his mouth. “Will you undo these binds before you leave?”
“Sure,” Shadow agreed as he held up the contract. “There we go. This ensures she is standard fair property now, all the restrictions removed.”
“Yeah,” Seth agreed. “Outright property, use her however you wish.” He spit the pen back out. “Now will you free me?”
“Currency exchange has her at two hundred forty thousand.”
“I can get more women under more contracts to make up the rest of the difference.”
Mm. Shadow held the contract and brought it over to Sierra. He wasn’t going to hide what he did for a living from her. She would need to understand just how serious he had been or she might do something foolish like Raine’s wife. “Now, now, Sierra. Look at this.” He grabbed her chin. He waited until her eyes submitted and looked at the contract. “Do you see it?” He pointed to the small font. “You’re as good as currency in an exchange, but do you see how?” It took her seconds to understand, but when she did, he could see the horror in her eyes instantly. “Yep.”
Shadow dropped the contract, pulled out his gun and shot Seth right through the head. Her scream echoed through the halls. “You are only eligible if the owner is dead, Sierra. I wanted to kill the bastard anyway, so it wasn’t a big waste.” He continued to hold onto her chin, waiting for her to look back at him.
This was risky. Sierra had worked with the Monard family, and she was clearly not completely submissive. If he wanted an heir, he should be choosing someone else, but within a week? There was no one better.
Shadow still needed to be careful. She couldn’t know how much she had actually got under his skin, or she’d have power over him instead. “Sierra Jenkins, you’re stuck with me for a year. The baby afterward belongs to me. If you please me well, then I will let you stay with it. If not, then I’ll either let you go or kill you. So you better play nice.”
Ignoring the woman who was ready to buckle from the shock of it all, he went over to Seth and undid the binds. He did keep his promises after all. “Take whatever looks valuable from the house,” he told his men. “It won’t be enough, but it will help lighten the Monard debt.”
“How much is Seth Monard worth, boss?” Stethos asked.
Shadow looked behind him at the dead man lying on the floor. Usually when payment became life staking, a large amount was taken off with the loss of life too. However, he was no loss. Any kind of man that could give Sierra away didn’t deserve to live. Had it been anyone else, she could have wound up dead. Injured. He couldn’t stand the thought of that happening to her. He could kill a man dead, but he’d never be the kind to rip the wings off of butterflies. “He was worth nothing in the end.”
When Shadow was in his limo returning home, he made the calls to the higher end of the Monard family. He kept it on speaker phone, these kinds of calls usually caused dangerous yelling near his ear drum. “From what we got, I’ll call it two hundred forty nine thousand by tomorrow, or you can count on trouble.”
“That’s it? Seth didn’t even deserve to use the family name. What lessened the debt?”
“Contract slave of his for two hundred fifty thousand plus his vault and possessions. It’s still two hundred forty-nine thousand dollars short,” Shadow informed them.
“He should have been at least a hundred thousand himself. What went wrong, I even gave you the key.”
Ah. Shadow had a feeling about that. Sierra was sitting across from him in the limo, only her hands bound. He saw her glance toward him and then away. “He wasn’t worth anything, be happy I didn’t tax on more for dealing with that weasel.”
Now the yelling he expected to happen occurred. There was no love lost in that family. They cursed and threatened him if he started to help the Dmitri’s in revenge. “I am a business man, pay me the money you owe me and I go away. Cross me and you won’t be that lucky. No one screws over Shadow.”
“We w
ill pay,” the voice said begrudgingly. “No more blood spilled on the family, no more shame, but don’t think this is over. You will get yours! Everyone has a weakness.” They hung up on him. Shadow didn’t care. Simple threats once again. They meant nothing.
Besides, he was much more interested in the woman across from him than the little debt now anyhow.
How. Five minutes longer, only five minutes. Seth had agreed to terminate the contract. She wouldn’t have been able to be sold as a good! Sierra didn’t know what to do. There would be no help. For a whole year, she would be conceiving and carrying a mafia billionaire’s baby.
She wanted to run and hide. Her body should have trembled. Shadow was not a sweet man, he was a ruthless killer. Yet, when he touched her. Touched her with his own hands, it didn’t feel evil, it felt good. When he was holding her against that wall. When he was holding back on taking her. It was like . . . he had a heart.
But his words and this deal. To be good to him or he’d separate her from her own baby in a year. How despicable! He was an evil man, and he did not pretend to hide it one bit.
“You better not betray me,” he said out of the blue to her. “I will kill you. If you are already pregnant, I will kill you after it’s born. I know you are in good terms with the Monard family so do not think you can fool me.”
She would never betray him. Why her though? He could have gone out and bought any other woman he desired for this task. She wasn’t qualified for any of this. Then again, this wasn’t a simple contract duty anymore. This wasn’t being a polite and sweet girlfriend turned wife. She was his slave, no rights, forced to do whatever he wished. Then, carrying a baby solely for his heir. Not something he wanted, something he needed.
And wait, did he say already pregnant? Oh no, she didn’t even think about that. She was blindfolded and against a wall, and she didn’t know what sex was supposed to feel like. “Already?”
“Already,” he repeated. “Just in case.”
Jerk. Bastard. No protection and she hadn’t even been his yet. Not that Seth Monard demanded protection, he was willing to give away anything when it came to her. The thought made her stomach turn. If that was how the ‘good contractors’ were supposed to work out, how would Shadow Wilkins treat her? Frightening thought. He’d probably push her against the wall, probe her, take her whenever he wanted to within that huge mansion of his. The thought scared and yet, strangely excited her too. She was being forced into this kind of arrangement, why in the world was she . . . “what are you going to do me?”
“Hm.” Shadow’s hard exterior seemed to melt as he stared at her. “When we get home, you’ll find out.”
When we get home. He said when we get home, Sierra thought. Home. That look. It wasn’t the blank stare of a killer, it was that same look he had when he found out he was her first kiss.
“Lance is on your right, Sethos is on your left.” Shadow gestured to each man. “If and when you are allowed to leave my property, one of these men will be your personal escorts.” He glanced toward each of his men. “You are my top men.”
“Yes, boss.”
“If another man so much as lays a hand on her arm, kill him.”
“Yes, boss.”
“If you suspect flirting, I want to know when and who.”
“Yes, boss.”
“If either of you touch her in any way unnecessary, even a kiss, I will not hesitate to kill you either.”
Sierra looked to Stethos and Lance. Each seemed surprised by the last words coming from Shadow. Stethos seemed to have almost a smirky look on his face though.
“I wouldn’t dream of touching her, no worries, Shadow.”
At least she knew Shadow didn’t want to pass her around to his men, he was extremely possessive of her. As they pulled back up to his residence, Stethos and Lance got out first. Soon after, she was pulled out gentler than she had been placed in the limo. No doubt a fear that being too rough would land them in trouble with Shadow.
Shadow moved out and his hand took the place of Lance’s on her arm. Still not that rough. As they headed inside, her mind thought about what would happen. Would he be tired from their last escapade and the trials of the night, ready to sleep? Or would he bring her into the house, ready to devour her?
Once she was inside and the door was closed, she sat on the couch. No one came in to see her for several minutes. Nearly half an hour passed by before Shadow came back inside. He closed the door behind him and came over to the couch. “Sierra.”
Should she still call him master or not? “Yes, master?”
“No, drop that. Shadow is fine.” He patted his leg. “Come over here.”
Sierra moved from the couch to his lap carefully. “Yes, Shadow.”
“You know not to fuck around against me, right?”
“Yes, Shadow.”
“Good.” He gently touched her cheek. “I don’t just collect cash every day for Renegade. There are other things to my job, which you saw tonight. I kill people. I call the shots to break legs and arms. I’m not a gentle customer service man, and this is my business. This is the family business.”
“Yes, Shadow.”
“I won’t hurt you,” he confided in her. “If I ever go too far with you during sex, you just need to say ‘lighter Shadow’ or ‘stop Shadow’. You should not feel opposed to asking me for things, nor should you feel compelled to stay in the house unless I command it.”
That was an interesting twist to the conversation. Sierra nodded her head. “Okay.” He was going to be easier with her. She didn’t use Shadow in the end, to see if it was true. He didn’t seem to notice or care at all.
“I do have pet peeves, and it’s best that you learn them,” he continued. “Some will aggravate me, while others will make me kill you. Even if time has passed by and you feel like we are close enough that I cannot kill you . . . I will order one of my men to kill you. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“I hate liars. That is a number one rule I can’t stand, I hate liars. Tell me the truth, and it might save your life. No matter how small or big. Even telling me you stole an extra cookie from a cookie jar. See, I’m one of those people that see little lies as just a precursor to bigger lies.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are mine now.” Shadow kissed her gently on the forehead. “You’ve only been touched by me, and that’s the way it shall remain.”
Oh crap. Sierra felt her heart begin to race. What if someone wanted to get back at him and used her? Kissed her? “I’ll . . . try.”
Shadow gave her an odd look, like he almost understood what she was thinking. “If someone ever does anything against your will, I’ll kill them in the most painful way imaginable. That’s not your fault. I promise that I would not throw you out like trash if something happened against your will. I just want you to stay only for me. It’s a command, but it’s also a favor. Don’t betray me with anyone else.”
He did not want someone using her against her will, and yet he chose her to carry his child? This man. He made no sense. “Yes.”
“When the baby comes, it’s mine. Try and take it from me, and you know what will happen. Try to kill it, and you know what will happen. Right before it’s born, I’ll decide how to handle you.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Then tell me everything back.”
He wanted her to make sure she knew the risks of the arrangement. “If I touch another man willingly, you’ll probably kill me. If I lie to you, you might kill me. If I betray you in any way, you’ll kill me. If I become close to you, and think for a second that you might not kill me, you will order someone else to. If I try and take my baby away or hurt it, you will kill me.”
“Alright, then enough of that.” He pulled her closer against him. He didn’t move for several minutes. “Seth Monard had to die, he mistreated you. If he had given you to anyone else, you could have been dead. After tonight, with you, I couldn’t risk that happening. He would do it whenever he was in a j
am, just use you like you were nothing.”
His true colors. For one brief moment, those eyes. There they were again. How could someone so evil be so . . . gentle? All the words, all the fright he tried to put inside, she saw it. She shouldn’t have seen it, but she saw it.
When she lost her virginity and swore he must have felt something, Sierra had believed it was in her head. Those eyes weren’t lying though. Everything he said was simply an act.
He was madly in love with her. No one could say those things, and yet look like that. Hold her so close. She was almost positive, but she needed one more test. “I would have been freed. Seth was about to free me from my contractual obligations.”
His eyebrow wrinkled, surprised to hear her say that. “Well . . .” He put his act back on. “I won’t. I need an heir, and I don’t turn my back on decisions. Besides, you were part of the payment.”
“I can’t perform well,” Sierra added. “I don’t know anything. I can play a dutiful wife and mother while you have others on the side if you wish.”
“I don’t want others.” He grunted as soon as he said it.
Bingo. She had him. “You do not wish others to share your bed?”
She watched his adam apple rise as he swallowed. “Just don’t betray me. I don’t want to have to give the order to kill you.”
“I won’t, Shadow.” She wouldn’t. Sierra’s knight in shining armor was actually full of darkness, and she didn’t care. Her heart went out to him like no other. He must have meant to save her from Seth, not knowing the contract was almost done. He wouldn’t turn his back on her now. It would be too hard without revealing his true intentions. Without appearing weak to her and his men. That, and he wanted her. He wanted her, perhaps, as much as she wanted him. “How could I ever betray the man who stole my first kiss?”
Sierra didn’t tremble as she felt his hand start to undo her shirt. She just felt herself relax more into him. As she did that though, he stopped. Hesitating once again. He threatened her life with no trouble at all, but when it came to feelings, he tried to hide them so hard. He was afraid of falling even deeper into the abyss she had found herself in with him.
Mafia Billionaire's Baby: A Night in Shadow, Part 1 (Mafia Billionaire Shadow Series) Page 3
