Black Tie
Page 1
Black Tie
HOT Heroes for Hire: Mercenaries: A Black’s Bandits Novel
Lynn Raye Harris
Contents
About This Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Books by Lynn Raye Harris
Who’s HOT?
About the Author
About This Book
Abducted while on a business trip to Europe, Tallie Grant quickly realizes she’s a commodity to be sold—and there’s no way out. Determined not to surrender to the man who buys her, she’ll soon discover he’s not what he seems.
* * *
Mercenary Brett Wheeler has one task: infiltrate a human trafficking operation and get as much information as possible. But when Tallie takes her turn on the auction block, Brett risks his cover to free her—by bidding to win.
* * *
Someone watches from the shadows, determined to reclaim his thwarted prize. And when he does, Brett will need all his skills to find sweet Tallie again—before she’s gone forever.
* * *
HOT Heroes For Hire: Mercenaries, aka Black’s Bandits
Black Tie: Brett & Tallie
© 2019 by Lynn Raye Harris
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Prologue
Twenty years ago…
* * *
The boy huddled under a dingy blanket on the couch and tried not to cry. It was bitter cold in the trailer and had been for days now. The weather had turned overnight, and his mother didn’t have enough money to fill the propane tank or pay the electric bill. So he pulled on every shirt he owned—four of them—and his only two pairs of pants. He had two pairs of socks, both with holes, but he put those on his hands and feet. Then he curled into a ball and waited.
He sniffled and looked at the empty Saltine box. He’d long since finished them off and his belly rumbled in the silence. Where was his mother? When was she coming home?
He didn’t know. He never knew. He lied to his teachers when they asked and said she was working, but Mama didn’t have a job. Or not the kind he could talk about anyway.
He must have dozed for a while because the key scraping in the lock woke him. It was dark out. He held his breath and listened.
A tinkle of laughter reached his ears and hope soared. That was her. That was his mother.
He sat up but he didn’t push the blankets off. The door fell open and Mama tumbled through, a man coming in behind her, his big shape blotting out the light from the street.
“Baby,” the man said. “It’s freezing in here.”
“It won’t be for long,” Mama said in that throaty purr she reserved for the men she brought home. She reached out and tugged him toward her bedroom.
She didn’t call out for the boy, probably didn’t even know he was there. And the boy knew not to say anything.
If Mama took the man to the bedroom, they’d have money to eat. Maybe, if Mama took enough men to the bedroom, they could pay the bills and have light and heat.
The boy listened for a while, and then he didn’t. He put his head under the covers and waited. Eventually, he heard the heavy tread of footsteps echoing across the creaking floors. The door banged open. It did not shut.
He waited, listening for Mama’s voice. Listening for the man in case he returned. It was hard to hear anything over the pounding of his heart in his ears, but when he was certain the man hadn’t returned, he pushed the blankets back warily.
The door stood wide open, the interior of the trailer even colder than it had been before.
“Mama?” the boy called. Softly, because he was afraid. He was always afraid.
There was no reply. The man might have given her drugs and she might have passed out. Wouldn’t be the first time.
The boy stood, his legs aching with cold and cramped muscles, and tiptoed over to the door. He tugged it shut when he didn’t see any cars outside, then he went down the hallway to Mama’s room.
“Mama?”
She didn’t answer. She lay on the bed, but she wasn’t beneath the covers. The moonlight shafted through the broken blinds and across her body.
She was naked. The boy hurried over and tugged the blanket up to cover her. He’d known better than to take her blanket when he was so cold, though he’d wanted to.
“Mama?”
She didn’t move a muscle. There were dark spots around her neck. He’d seen them before, though usually it was only one or two. These were bigger. Almost like hand prints.
He poked at her. She’d be mad at him for waking her up, but he had to do it. He was scared and he needed to hear her voice.
But Mama didn’t wake. She didn’t stir.
It took him a long time to realize that she never would.
Chapter One
Avignon, France
* * *
Tallie Grant was used to people staring, but she didn’t like the way the man was looking at her. Her eyes often caused stares and comments from strangers. Sometimes she wore colored contacts to prevent it, but she hadn’t put them in today.
She wished she had.
She’d grown up with one blue eye and one hazel eye, and she was used to it by now. The stares. The questions. The comments and unsolicited opinions.
But she was working and she didn’t have time for rude idiots today. She quickened her pace as she strode through the flea market in Avignon. She was looking for a few very specific pieces for her clients and she didn’t need to get distracted. The sooner she found what she was looking for, the sooner she could fill the shipping crate she’d reserved with French antiques and head back home to Virginia.
But this man unnerved her, probably because she’d first seen him at dinner last night when she’d been sitting at a sidewalk cafe. He’d stared but he hadn’t said anything. To see him again, here, when she’d been talking to a vendor about a Louis XIV cabinet was somehow unnerving.
She wasn’t unaccustomed to international travel, and she’d certainly encountered her share of odd people along the way. She should stride up to him and ask him what he wanted. That would probably shock him and he might go away if he knew she was onto him. Her eyes notwithstanding, French men were sometimes a little too bold in their appreciation.
Still, there was something about the scrutiny that unsettled her. Probably it was just the remnants of her conversation with her mother last night.
Mary Claire Grant was a perfectionist in every sense of the word. And Tallie wasn’t quite perfect enough. This was her first solo trip to buy for her mother’s interior design firm and Mary Claire was micromanaging every single detail.
“Don’t pay too much, Tallulah,” she’d said when Tallie told her about an exquisite Normandy desk she’d spotted.
“I know, Mother,” she’d replied, hating that her mother always called her by a name she thought old-fashioned and pre
tentious. She’d been Tallie since she was in diapers. Her older sister, Josephine, unable to pronounce Tallulah, had always called her Tallie. It stuck.
Except for her mother, who’d stubbornly gone back to calling her Tallulah after Josie died in a car accident last year. Tallie swallowed the sadness she still felt when she thought of her sister.
Josie’d had so much going for her. She’d been bright and beautiful and very talented. Josie had been the true heir-apparent to the design business, the one with all the right ideas, while Tallie struggled to please their mother with her own designs.
Josie’s designs were always received with delight. Tallie’s were nitpicked to death until Mary Claire was satisfied. That hadn’t been Josie’s fault, though she’d always told Tallie that her drawings and idea boards were already good without their mother’s input.
God, she missed Josie. They should be here together, perusing the markets of France and discussing all the treasures they found.
Tallie shot a look over her shoulder, trying to see if the man was still there. Still staring at her as he pretended, badly, to look over some linens on a table.
Relief rolled through her as she failed to spot him. She got her fair share of attention from men, though Josie had always gotten more. Tallie was five-two if she was an inch. Five-five in heels. She had no boobs to speak of. She was an A-cup, for pity’s sake.
Josie had been five-eight like their mother and generously proportioned in all the right ways. Tiny waist, big boobs, curvy hips. Tallie didn’t have much in the way of hips either.
She did have a pretty face, though. And hair that somehow always looked fabulous—or so her bestie said. But Sharon loved her and always told her she looked amazing, so how much could she be trusted?
Tallie finished up at the flea market, purchasing several items that she carefully marked in her notebook. A bedroom set, a mirrored cabinet, a cabinet with elaborate carvings that someone could use in a dining room.
There were chairs and sofas and silver and dishes. Bronzes, paintings, linens, and figurines. The crate would be full in another day or two and she would arrange for shipment. Then she would be on the way home.
It was starting to rain when she hailed a taxi for the ride back to the hotel. She’d worn a jacket today but the rain was chilly and she didn’t feel like walking. A taxi pulled to the curb and Tallie opened the door to climb inside.
She shook the rain from her blond head and patted her face with the scarf she’d wrapped around her neck that morning as she gave the driver her hotel’s address.
“Oui, mademoiselle,” he said, but the car didn’t move. She consulted her notebook again, determining which market she’d hit tomorrow. But still the driver didn’t accelerate.
Tallie started to ask him what the problem was when the front passenger door opened. The man who’d been watching her earlier plopped into the seat and slammed the door.
Tallie’s heart beat hard for a moment. She reached for the handle, reacting on instinct rather than any overt evidence of danger.
The door didn’t budge. The car suddenly accelerated, throwing her back against the seat.
“Stop the car,” she yelled in French and English both—but the driver ignored her.
The man who’d climbed in beside the driver turned and gave her a hard, evil look. He snatched her purse from the seat beside her before she could react, taking her identification and her phone with it. “Shut up. Now,” he ordered.
Panic filled her. Tallie grabbed the door with both hands and tried to open it. She didn’t care that they were rocketing down the street at a speed that would probably kill her if she jumped. She only wanted out.
But the door didn’t open. “Let me go. Please,” she begged.
The man ignored her. They both did.
“She will bring a high price,” the passenger said in French. “And we will get a huge bonus, my friend.”
“Maybe we could sample the goods before we turn her over, eh?”
“No. Unmarked and unspoiled. That’s what they want. Besides, we’ll have plenty of money for whores when they see this one. She’s unique.”
The driver made a noise. “Not where it counts she isn’t. Stupid rich men. If I had that kind of money, I’d not spend it buying a woman.”
“Be glad they do or you’d be driving a taxi for real.”
The two men laughed. Tallie watched the city speed by. And then she started to cry.
Chapter Two
The gathering of men in a crumbling Venetian palazzo was exclusive, the clientele wealthy beyond the average person’s wildest dreams. Brett Wheeler took in the glittering chandeliers made of glass blown on the island of Murano, the mirrors on the walls, the rococo carvings and gilded statues that ringed the room with its black and white terrazzo floor, the tiles set almost like a chessboard, and felt a wave of disgust flow over him.
He didn’t have the kind of wealth that should land him in this crowd, but he wasn’t Brett Wheeler tonight. He was a Texas businessman with too much money and no morals. And he was here to buy a woman.
That’s what they were all here for. The sale of female flesh. The men who’d gathered were the kind of people who thought they were entitled to whatever they wanted. However they wanted it.
“Another Scotch, sir?” a uniformed waiter asked in accented English as he made the rounds of the tables.
“How about a bottle of water, buddy?” Brett drawled.
He’d had three Scotches, all dumped discreetly when he was able to do so. Of course he’d had a few sips for show, but nothing to impair him.
“Yes, sir.”
The waiter disappeared and Brett let his gaze wander over the room and the men who were milling about with champagne and stiffer drinks. Assholes, all of them.
Brett almost wished he was still holding a glass of Scotch so he could have a sip. These men made him think, uncomfortably, of things in his life he’d rather forget.
He nodded to a German businessman, who nodded back in polite acknowledgement.
It had taken months of work to get this far.
Ian Black, Brett’s boss, had carefully built his dossier as Carter Walker, Texas oilman and real estate magnate. Carter had a wife and a mistress back home, but he was bored and looking for something a little more exciting.
The women were supposed to be here willingly—not that he believed it was true—their bodies bartered for a share of the money that would help them pay off debts for their families or for themselves.
For the few who might have come willingly, Brett understood that kind of desperation. The depths to which your life had to sink in order to be willing to do anything to survive. He’d been that desperate once.
He hadn’t had to sell his body for money, but he’d known others who had.
He pushed those memories away and kept searching the gathering.
He would bid as part of his cover, but winning wasn’t his objective. His objective was to learn as much as he could about the auction, and the others like it that took place in exclusive venues such as this one.
To note who attended. Who bid. Who won.
And to be invited back for another event where he could learn even more.
Black Defense International worked around the globe, on many causes, but Brett knew that the subject of human trafficking was one of Ian’s hot buttons. Just like it was one of his.
Not for the first time Brett wished he was miked, but everyone here had to pass through a very thorough security scan. He had earpieces because Carter Walker wore hearing aids—and he only had them in case something went wrong and he had to make contact. They were so small as to be invisible anyway. But if anyone asked, that’s what they were. He had his phone as well, because real hearing aids were controlled through it, but any attempt to make a call would be intercepted.
It was that kind of a gathering. And it should be, considering some of the men he saw lingering in the ballroom. They were prominent businessmen, government officials,
sheikhs, magnates, and mobsters. Ostensibly here for a charity event, though everyone in the room knew what they were really here for.
Brett swallowed a wave of disgust. Why these men should want to buy women for their personal playthings when they could just as easily get all the free pussy they wanted, with the kind of money they possessed as an attractant, was beyond him.
But here they were, ready to pay exorbitant sums for the right to own a woman’s body.
The waiter reappeared. He opened a cool green bottle of San Pellegrino and poured it into a cut crystal tumbler. “Here you are, sir.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Brett said, deepening his accent as he did so.
He was a Texan, but he’d spent enough time away from Texas that he’d finally lost most of the drawl that had marked him for so long. Still, he could call it up when he needed it.
Tonight, he needed it. He’d almost worn a cowboy hat with his tuxedo, but he’d felt that was carrying it a little too far. And it was too identifiable. Nobody would forget a man dressed like that.
Just like he wasn’t going to forget the sheikhs in their turbans and flowing robes.
A beautiful woman in a sparkling dress glided out onto the stage that had been placed at one end of the ballroom. Her hair was red, but not a natural red—he’d bet his last paycheck on that. She had long pink nails and big eyes that were accented by thick eyelashes—also fake. She took the microphone in her hands and caressed it suggestively.