“All the men I work with are killers. Hell, I’m one too. But I trust them with my life each and every day. And my boss trusted Vaughn to make sure his wife’s kidnappers never have the chance to hurt her again. Considering Brecken is head over heels in love and ridiculously protective of his wife, that says a lot about how much he trusts Vaughn. And you know what? Vaughn looks at you the exact same way as Brecken looks at Hadley.”
I finally got out of my seat and paced the floor. “He does?”
“Like you hung the moon and stars in the sky.”
“What if I’m not strong enough to deal with what he does?”
“Vaughn is more than his job. He’s the man who hunted Bellamy down because he’s the one who found the body of a dead girl left in an alley. He isn’t here for money. He’s here to get justice for a girl who has nobody else looking out for her.”
I turned towards Sera in stunned surprise. “He never told me. I thought he was going after him because he was being paid to do it. Why did he let me think the worst about him?”
“Because he’s a dumb shit whose pride wanted you to accept him at his worst?”
That sounded exactly like the way male logic would work. “But he’s my dumb shit.”
“And also because he really does get paid to kill people sometimes,” she added wryly.
“Yeah, I’m gonna need some more time to wrap my brain around that one.”
“One thing I’ve learned in this life, we never have as much time as we think we do. Especially, not in Vaughn’s line of work.”
Thinking about the danger he was in at that very moment put things in perspective for me. I’d already fallen in love with Vaughn Westbrook. I just needed him to come back so I could tell him.
Chapter 11
Vaughn
“The guards are sticking to their schedule like clockwork. No deviations so far.” Gaige’s voice came through the wireless comms unit in my ear. He’d busted ass to get into town so he could have my back while I took Bellamy down.
Not only was it one of our rules, but it allowed me to leave Whit and Devon—the third member of the team Brecken sent—on Carissa’s parents. I’d kept them under surveillance to ensure I was aware of their every move. Although I’d disabled her phone as soon as I’d discovered they’d blocked my number, I wasn’t willing to risk them discovering where she was and trying to take her from me. Or worse, giving Bellamy her location. But he wasn’t going to be a problem much longer.
Bellamy’s security was good, I’d give him that. The walls surrounding his estate were ten feet tall and closely monitored by guards. At night, attack dogs roamed the property. A direct approach from any direction would be swiftly detected. But there was one major oversight—they hadn’t planned for a sniper attack. Or, at least, not from a distance at which I could take a shot.
I’d found the perfect firing position fifteen hundred meters from the property. It was a tough distance to shoot from, but my MK21 Precision Sniper Rifle chambered for .338 Lapua Magnum rounds was more than up for the task. My longest recorded kill with it was a full hundred yards farther out than I was from where I expected Bellamy to be within the next hour.
A hilltop on a nearby secluded property offered me an elevated vantage point that gave me a broad view of my surroundings. It also provided me with the opportunity to eliminate Bellamy from the farthest distance possible, which improved the odds of me getting the shot off without being discovered.
Waiting for him to step out onto the balcony off his bedroom to smoke his cigar, just like he did every night, was harder than it should have been. I’d been trained to be patient, to stalk my target for days on end if need be. But it was damn difficult to keep my mind on the task at hand when I kept thinking about how Carissa had reacted when I’d told her what I planned to do to Bellamy tonight.
She’d flinched away from me, as though I’d punched her in the stomach. I’d seen the tears filling her eyes before she’d shifted away from me. Her whispered plea to stay safe was more than I expected, but the way she’d sat there—curled into a tight ball, looking devastated—was what stuck with me. If I’d have been able to keep the truth of myself from her forever, I would have done it, just so I never had to hurt her the way I had. But when Bellamy turned up dead, she would have figured it out anyway. So I had no choice but to let her know the kind of man I really was, and run the risk that she’d decide she couldn’t live with it.
“Eyes on the prize,” Gaige breathed out. “The guards are moving into position for Bellamy’s exit.”
Shoving all thoughts of Carissa and the future out of my mind, I ran through the details of the shot in my head. Distance, trajectory, power and direction of the wind—I went through it all. Step-by-step as I adjusted my breathing rhythm and waited for my heartbeat to slow. I was in my shooting stance, lying prone on the hill, with my finger hovering over the trigger when the French doors leading from Bellamy’s bedroom to the balcony opened. I waited for the flash of his lighter, the center of my scope aligned right between his eyes. When his hand started to pull away, the tip of his cigar burning, I held my breath and gently placed the pad of my finger on the trigger. Then I pulled the trigger back with equal force until the shot broke, careful not to move my perfect scope picture.
Exhaling my breath, I stayed on target for a few seconds before placing the safety back on again. Using the spotting scope, I assessed the accuracy of my hit and found Bellamy on the floor of his balcony with a quickly widening pool of blood under his head.
“Target is down. Time to get out of here.”
After Gaige’s confirmation, I removed the magazine from my rifle and opened the bolt to verify it was empty. Then I packed it up and headed out, stopping to survey my surroundings to make sure I wasn’t leaving any traces of myself behind. Once I knew I was in the clear, I headed down the hill and to the car Gaige had waiting for me.
“Nice shot,” he congratulated me as I slid into the passenger seat after placing my rifle case in the trunk. “It looks like our work here is done since the trafficking ring is dead, right along with Bellamy. You ready to pack up the house and head out of town tonight?”
A quick exit was our usual modus operandi, but the teasing tone in Gaige’s voice let me know he was fucking with me.
“Head to the Hastings’ estate.”
“Hastings, eh?” he chuckled. “As in Carissa Hastings? The girl you paid a quarter of a million dollars to take out on a date?”
“Shit!” I muttered. “You guys are worse than a bunch of gossiping school girls.”
“I had to get my information somewhere, especially when you were being so damn closemouthed about the girl,” he defended himself.
“Carissa isn’t just some girl. She’s mine.”
“Well then, I guess we’d better go set her parents straight so they don’t fuck with your Carissa again.”
Just that easily, Gaige was all in and ready to take my back as I broke some more laws. Then again, what was a little breaking and entering and some intimidation when we’d just assassinated Bellamy?
The drive to the Hastings’ estate only took five minutes, but our covert entry took ten times as long—even with Whit and Devon there to lay the groundwork for us. I didn’t want there to be any record of us being off my property, which meant we couldn’t go through the front gate. We also couldn’t be picked up on any of the security cameras, so Whit put them on a loop before we arrived.
“You’re good to go,” Whit said after he, Gaige and I had made it over the wall surrounding the property. He pointed towards a set of windows at the back corner of the house opposite of us. “Her parents are in the master bedroom. Both guards are currently at the front gate, and Devon is keeping an eye on them.”
“You sure you want to go in alone?” Gaige asked.
“Yeah, what I’ve got to say to her parents is between me and them.”
“Okay,” he agreed begrudgingly. “Whit and I will be just outside, in case you need us.”<
br />
I tucked my ear piece into my pocket. “I’ll holler if something comes up, but I’m pretty damn sure Carissa’s parents are no match for me.”
“Especially not when they’ve pissed you the fuck off,” he muttered as I headed for the house.
My anger burned icy cold as I approached the sleeping couple on the mattress in the master bedroom. I was beyond pissed the fuck off, I was enraged at the thought that these two were given the gift of Carissa and had almost destroyed her. I knew I didn’t deserve to have her in my life, but I would do whatever it took to protect her. These were her parents, they should have been willing to do the same. Instead, they’d accepted money from a human trafficker and tried forcing her into a relationship with him.
“Wake up,” I growled, aiming my M9 Beretta pistol at Winston Hastings’ head. “You miserable piece of shit.”
“What in the hell?” he groaned, rolling over to look up at me. “Who’re you?”
I ignored his question and jerked my head towards his wife. “Get her up, too. I need both of you awake for this conversation.”
He reached over and shook her shoulder.
“Oh my God!” Victoria Hastings shrieked as she sat up and stared at me with her jaw wide open in shock.
“Alexander Bellamy is dead.” They both gasped. “In the coming days, information is going to come to light about his involvement in a human trafficking ring.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Winston blustered.
“No, what’s ridiculous is that you accepted three separate lump sum payments from the man over the last year and a half, totaling a million dollars. And yet, there’s no paper trail showing a legitimate business reason for those transactions. Which means the police are most likely going to come knocking at your door if they dig deep enough to uncover your financial connection to him.”
“Are you implying that my husband is involved in criminal activities?” Victoria squawked.
“No, I’m saying he tried to sell his daughter into a marriage to a human trafficker.”
“Winston?” She turned to look at her husband, and horror dawned on her face. “No, you couldn’t have.”
“It wasn’t selling her,” he tried defending himself. “Alexander offered me a reverse dowry of sorts, at a time when I was having a bit of a cash flow issue. You approved of his interest in Carissa, so I didn’t see any harm in accepting his money.”
“Our daughter isn’t chattel, Winston.”
“Like you did any better, forcing her at Bellamy at every turn,” I growled, shifting their attention back to me. “So here’s what’s going to happen now. Whatever Carissa wants, she gets. If she wants to go to Europe and spend the next two years with her friends, you’ll pay for her living expenses. If she wants to go to college, you’ll make sure her tuition is paid in full. In fact, you’re going to take that last payment Bellamy sent you and put it into an account for Carissa so she has control over her own future.”
“You can’t tell us what to do with our daughter,” Winston grumbled. “Or my money.”
“Oh, yes, I can.” I waved my gun between them. “She has no idea what you’ve done, and I intend to keep it that way. But if you ever do anything to make her unhappy again, I’ll destroy her image of the both of you. And once she knows the truth and doesn’t want to see you again, I’ll kill you.”
“Shut up, Winston, and do what the man is telling you to do. I’m not willing to die because you don’t want to give our daughter a little money to tide her over until her trust is released.”
“Fine,” he huffed.
It was done. Carissa’s safety was secured. All that remained was finding out if she wanted to stay with me or if I’d be forced to let her go.
Chapter 12
Carissa
“You’re back,” I breathed out when Vaughn walked through the front door. It had felt like the wait had taken forever, but he’d really only been gone for about ten hours.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Sera said, patting me on the back as she passed me.
As soon as the front door closed behind her, I rose from my chair and moved towards Vaughn. My gaze swept him up and down, looking for any sign he’d been hurt. But he looked exactly the same as he had when he’d left, only exhausted. I stopped a few feet away from him, feeling nervous all of the sudden.
“Are you okay?”
“Now that I know you’re safe from Bellamy? Yeah,” he sighed.
I hated knowing I was part of the reason he’d had to take another man’s life. But I was also in awe of the fact that Vaughn would literally kill to protect me. “I’m not sorry he’s dead, but I am sorry you’re the one who had to do it.”
“I wish you didn’t have to know about that side of me. The cold-blooded killer who made you flinch in fear.”
“Not fear,” I corrected. “Surprise, yeah. A little bit of shock, sure. But not fear for myself. How could I be scared of you when I know you’d never hurt me?”
“Thank fuck,” he breathed out. “Walking out of here thinking you hated me because of what I do was torture. But it had to be done because I couldn’t risk leaving Bellamy alive.”
“With him dead, what happens next?”
“That’s entirely up to you, Carissa. You can choose to go to Europe to be near your friends. You can live with your parents, who will be much more lenient with you from now on. Or you can stay with me.”
My stomach fell at the distant way he listed off my options. For me, there was only one choice, but I was starting to doubt he wanted the same thing. “What about what you want?”
“You,” he answered, erasing all my doubts. “That’s all I want. Just you.”
“You have me,” I whispered.
A huge grin split his face and his eyes lit up with joy. Gone was the emotionless man from moments before. My Vaughn was back.
“Thank fuck,” he groaned, closing the gap between us and picking me up to carry me through the house to his bed. We’d barely made it into his room, and he was tearing at my clothes. My hands were shaking as I did the same with his, desperate to get him naked.
Once all our clothes were scattered across the floor, Vaughn sank to his knees. He lifted my leg up and placed it on the mattress, spreading me open for his touch. I couldn’t look away as his dark head bent towards me, his lips heading straight for my clit to suck it into his mouth.
“Please, please, please,” I chanted as he flicked my clit over and over again, heightening my need.
He knew exactly what to do to drive me crazy, having learned every inch of my body over the last few days. As my stomach started to tighten, I rubbed my pussy against his face, trying to get him to touch firmly enough to make me come. He took the hint and gripped my ass as he licked me harder. The pleasure became almost too much, and my orgasm crashed over me as he let me fall to the bed on my back.
“This pussy is mine,” he growled against my wet flesh.
“I’m the only man who will ever lick it.”
His tongue flicked at my clit and then swept down to dip inside me.
“Ever touch it.”
His tongue was replaced by a finger. Then two, as he twisted and turned his wrist, stretching me.
“And ever fuck it.”
He stood at the edge of the bed and wrapped my legs around his hips. His cock nudged at my entrance, the tip replacing his fingers. Before I could tighten up in fear, he drove inside me—going deep with one powerful thrust.
“Owwww!” I screamed, feeling like I was being ripped in two.
I tried to push Vaughn, but he caught my wrists and held them above my head.
“I’m so sorry, beautiful.”
He kissed the tears away from the corners of my eyes, holding still while I adjusted to the feel of him inside me.
“I told you that your monster dick wouldn’t fit.”
He circled his hips slowly, shifting his hard length inside me. “And yet here I am, filling you up.”
He released my han
ds and pressed kisses to my lips, jawline and neck.
“I think the pain is mostly gone,” I whispered, wiggling my hips to move on his dick. “Oooh, that feels good.”
One of his hands moved to my chin, tilting my head up so he could look in my eyes. “You’re completely mine now, beautiful. And I’m never letting you go.”
“You better not, because you’re mine too.”
“Damn straight I am,” he growled against my lips. He devoured them as he levered his hips backwards before he drove his dick in deep again. The pain was gone, leaving only pleasure in its place.
He pulled out of me, and I whimpered in need. Tightening my legs around his hips, I dug my fingers into his ass as he pumped in and out of me. I knew I was going to be sore tomorrow, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t, not with my pussy clenching around Vaughn’s dick as my body tightened in need.
“Come for me,” he groaned. “I’m so fucking close and I don’t want to go without you.”
His hand slid down from my neck, over my breasts and between my thighs to stroke over my pussy. Then his finger circled my clit as he swiveled his hips, grinding deep inside me, and I flew apart screaming his name. His cock continued to pump inside me as I writhed underneath him. Hard and fast, he filled me over and over again until he sunk deep and held still while he came.
“Thank you for giving me such a precious gift, beautiful,” he whispered in my ear after collapsing next to me on the mattress.
“Mmm,” I murmured, too worn out to speak.
“Stay right there,” he instructed me, as if I was going anywhere anytime soon. He kissed down my spine as he crawled off the mattress and headed towards the bathroom. I heard the sound of running water before he was back again, swiping a cool washcloth between my legs.
“That feels good,” I sighed.
“I should run you a bath.”
“Later. I want to lay here with you for a little while first.”
“Whatever you want, beautiful. Just let me finish cleaning you up first.”
It finally dawned on me exactly why he was using the washcloth on me, and I jerked up to a sitting position.
Sell Your Soul (Body & Soul Book 3) Page 6
