Highest Bidder (A Bad Boy Romance)

by Mia Carson

  “Brianna,” she whispered her little sister’s name. “What?” she snapped when she answered.

  “Harley? Please don’t hang up on me!”

  “I’m not sure why I shouldn’t. It’s been a long day and I’m tired. I’m going to bed now.”

  “No! Please don’t. I’m in trouble,” her sister cried. “Please.”

  Harley chucked her pillow across the room as she sat up. “You’re always in trouble. That’s what happens when you hang out with those bastards. I’m not bailing you out again. If you need to crash here, fine. You have a key.”

  “Harley, I’m in real trouble this time, and not with the cops. With Ricky.”

  “That asshole you’re dating?”

  “Yeah, him.” She sniffed hard, and Harley’s chest tightened. She was used to these calls from her kid sister who’d hung around with the wrong crowd since she was sixteen. For four years, it had been a constant back and forth trying to get her onto a better path, but Brianna always wound up back with them. Harley knew there were drugs involved, and maybe even worse, but she never asked for more details and Brianna never gave them. “Please, I can’t talk long, but it’s not good.”

  “Just leave,” Harley said firmly as she clambered to her feet. “Walk out right now. I’ll come pick you up.”

  “He’ll just come after me again. I owe him money—a lot of money. I screwed up big time, Harley, and he won’t let me go…won’t leave me alone… I fucked up. God, I fucked up. I’m so sorry!”

  “Brianna! Where are you? I’m coming to get you right now.”

  “No, I just…I don’t know why I called. Never mind—forget it, all right?”

  Harley snatched a pair of jeans and t-shirt off her floor. “Don’t you dare hang up! Where are you?”

  “At his club,” she whispered. “Harley, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Just text me the address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She hung up, finished dressing, and grabbing her purse, darted out of the apartment. Her shitty old truck sat parked alongside the curb, and she clambered into it as soon as Brianna texted her the address of Ricky Delugio’s underground club, Seven Deadly.

  Harley had steered clear of there until now. Her sister did what she wanted, and Harley wouldn’t get dragged down into that world of drugs and booze and whatever else he had his hands in. The man was bad news. Half his businesses were illegal, but he still managed to keep the doors to his club open.

  Harley floored it through the busy streets into the heart of the Vegas strip. Her fingers tapped against the steering wheel as she waited for pedestrians to move out of her way. When she neared the club, she parked in the first open spot on the curb and ran to stairs that led down to the main club. The underground part was where other things happened, things Harley had only heard rumors about. She searched the shadows for her sister, but she wasn’t outside the club.

  “Damn it.” She drew out her phone and called Brianna, but it wasn’t her sister’s voice that answered. Her blood ran cold at the man laughing on the other end.

  “Hello, big sister.” She knew without hesitation the man was Ricky. “If you’d be so kind as to follow my man inside? I’ll buy you a drink. We have much to discuss.”

  “And if I refuse?” she muttered as a large man twice her side appeared out of a side door and leered at her. “If I don’t join you for a drink?”

  “Then you can say bye to your sister. You’ll never see her again.”

  “Wait! All right,” she yelled and ran towards the leering man. “I’m on my way.”

  The man opened the door and Harley’s stomach twisted as she followed him inside. The door slammed shut behind her. She had no choice except to follow the man, find her sister, and get the fuck out of there before the situation worsened. She considered calling the cops, but a mocking voice in the back of her mind told her the cops would never reach them in time. She and Brianna would be dead and buried if she tried that, and no one cared about either of them. They had no family, and Karen was Harley’s only friend. Her work would assume she had quit. No one would miss the Smith sisters.

  Harley feared Ricky, unlike her sister, and wished Brianna had stayed away from the bastard. There were other rumors about Ricky floating around the strip, and now was not the time to test if they were true.

  The hallway ended at a large lounge with a bar in the center, but the only occupants were four other men shaped like the one who was sent to fetch her and a taller, leaner man with dark hair, beard, and mustache. Beside him, parked on a stool, her shoulders hunched and makeup smeared from crying, was Brianna.

  “Bri!” She hurried toward her sister, but one of the hulking men yanked her back by her arm and held her by his side. She punched and hit him, but the man beside her sister grabbed a handful of her hair and tugged it hard, making her cry out. “Let her go!”

  “Stop fighting,” the man drawled. “Let’s talk about this calmly and no one will get hurt.”

  Brianna whimpered as he tugged again, tears leaking out of her eyes. Harley stilled and held out her hands. “There. I’m not fighting, now let her go.”

  “Certainly.” The man released his grip, but Brianna stayed on her stool. Her watery grey eyes searched for Harley, and she whispered through her blubbering, but Harley couldn’t understand her. “Here, wipe your face. You look awful.”

  Brianna took the handkerchief the man offered her and scrubbed at her face with a shaky hand.

  “Whatever you’re doing in this club, I don’t care,” Harley said, struggling to steady her voice. “She’s finished with you, clearly, so let me take her and you’ll never see us again.”

  “How about introductions before we get down to business?” He picked up two glasses and a bottle of whiskey from the bar. “Shall we?” He nodded towards a table in the corner, and Harley followed slowly, eyeing her sister closely and doing her best to comfort her without words or a warm hug. “Now then, a drink for you and a drink for me.”

  Harley slid stiffly into the booth and accepted the glass he offered. She shot it back and coughed as the harsh liquor burned a path down to her stomach, doing very little to soothe her nerves.

  “My kind of woman,” he observed and shot back his glass as well. “Ricky Delugio is at your service.”

  “I know who you are, thanks. I know all about you.”

  “Ah, yes, I’m sure you do. You are Harley Smith, twenty-four, older and only sibling of my dear, sweet Brianna. Such a pity you didn’t take me up on any of my offers in the past. You would’ve done well for me.”

  Harley had ignored Brianna every time her sister brought her another offer from Ricky to join his ‘enterprises,’ as he called them. Part of her wished she had said yes, if only to keep a better eye on her sister. “And how do you figure that?” she asked.

  “That drive in your eyes, the strength I see in your face…yes, you would’ve done very well, but alas, you have chosen a different path.”

  “Just let me take my sister, please,” she begged. “She’s all I have left.”

  “I do not keep people against their will.” Ricky poured more whiskey into both their glasses. “I do not, however, let anyone run away from me when a debt is owed.”

  “What debt?”

  Ricky savored his second glass of whiskey. “The debt your sister owes me.”

  Harley glanced at Brianna, and she hung her head. “You loaned her money?”

  “Oh no, it’s much worse than that, I’m afraid. There’s the issue of a messed-up shipment she was meant to procure, but it appears it has been lost—or so she says. And that is only one of my problems. The second is much worse and much more costly. You see, I have several important investors in the city, and I’m always on the lookout for new ones. Your sister was meant to entertain such a gentleman for the evening, but things did not go as planned.”

  Harley choked on her whiskey, slammed the glass down, and leaned across the table as anger exploded in her. “You gave her to
some man for a night? She’s not a fucking prostitute! I thought she was your damn girlfriend!”

  “And as such, certain expectations are to be upheld. After all, she does work for me and should know no woman is exempt from her duty when called upon. Her relationship with me means nothing in that regard; business is everything.” Ricky stood slowly, and Harley gulped, too scared to move an inch as he leaned in, barely an inch from her face, and stayed there. The stench from his whiskey-soaked breath disgusted her, and her lip twitched as he reached up and ran his fingers down her cheek. “Your sister cost me a large sum of money for both her screw-ups, and I’m afraid I can’t let her go until she either works off her debt or I’m paid in full.”

  “And how much is this debt?” Harley looked at her sister again as she shrank on her stool. For a second, she stared at her twenty-year-old sister but envisioned her at five years old, getting in trouble.

  Their lives hadn’t been easy, and Harley had done her best to keep Brianna healthy and on the straight and narrow so she wouldn’t follow their parents, but after all her hard work and years of fighting, she had lost the fight. Her sister was just as screwed-up as their mom had been before she disappeared from their lives.

  Ricky grinned and grabbed Harley’s chin. “She owes me three-hundred-thousand dollars for the shipment she cost me in her folly, plus the chance at landing a deal that would change my empire in this city forever. A deal that would have brought in millions in revenue.”

  Harley choked as she tried to pull back, but Ricky held her fast. “I don’t have that kind of money!”

  “And therein lies my dilemma. You either pay me back or she will work for me until the debt is paid. How she works off the debt will depend on how reliable I believe she still is.”

  “And how long will that be?” she spat furiously. “You can’t keep her. I won’t let you.”

  “If you think you’re going to call the cops on me, please do. Quite a few are on my payroll and your sister will disappear for good,” Ricky warned, his voice like steel. “Now, let’s discuss your means of paying me back.” He released her, and she sank into the booth as all the fight slipped from her body. “Unless, of course, you want your sister to work for me for the rest of her days.”

  Ricky sauntered to the bar and Brianna, running his fingers down her bare arm as she shivered and tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go. “She is a pretty thing. It’s a shame to have her waste so many of her young years.”

  “No, you are not going to keep her. I’ll get the money somehow,” Harley rambled as she leapt out of the booth. “I’ll get it to you. I just need time.”

  “I am not a bank or a loan shark,” Ricky announced loudly. “You do not have time. I want my money, and I want a chance to close this deal again.”

  Harley shook her head frantically. She had a little over five thousand tucked away in savings, and there was a small amount of money left over from their dad’s death, but it was only a few thousand. Three-hundred-thousand dollars. Short of robbing a bank, there was nothing she could think of that would give her that much money.

  “Stop thinking so hard, my dear. It looks painful.”

  “I need time. Please, give me more time.”

  Ricky moved away from Brianna, and a strange hunger burned to life in his eyes as he neared Harley. “You are a pretty thing, aren’t you? An older version of your sister.”

  Harley closed her eyes when he reached out a hand and ran it through her long strands of hair. “I appreciate the compliment.” She bit her tongue before she said anything worse.

  “Oh, you should, dear. I don’t compliment many women. A fine piece, you are. You have quite a shape, and from the way your body trembles at my touch, I’d say you’re a virgin, too,” he whispered in ear.

  Her eyes shot open, and she stepped backwards. He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging in hard. “Let me go, right now.”

  “I’m trying to help you, dear. You see, I run a club beneath this one—a different club that caters to a crowd seeking…special entertainment, thrills you can’t find anywhere else in the city,” he explained quietly as he moved her across the room to a windowed wall. He nodded to one of the other men and the curtains drew back on the other side. “Take a look for yourself.”

  He spun her around to face the window. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but then her eyes widened and a strange sense of curiosity mixed with fear warred in her mind. “What…what is this place?”

  “This is my club for the best sin of all: lust. Everything you could think of doing is down there, but you…you would have a special place if you agree.”

  “Agree?”

  Harley couldn’t take her eyes off the naked woman displayed on a table in the center of a room while a large group of people looked on. Two men and two women circled her. She covered her surprised gasp when they touched her, kissed her, and spread her legs wide for everyone to see. Just as one of the men moved his hand up her thighs, Harley whipped back around, her face on fire and a fluttering deep in her belly.

  “What are you talking about? You want me…to do that?”

  “Oh no, you’re too new for that, and believe it or not, the woman on the table is a guest,” Ricky explained, watching the acts going on below with a wicked grin. “No, you would be part of a different event. An auction, to be exact. An auction of virgins.”

  Harley’s curiosity vanished as disbelief took its place. “You want to auction me off?”

  “Yes, and don’t look so horrified. Many young women come to my clubs to auction off their virginity, and many stay and work for me afterwards,” Ricky said, chuckling. “I, of course, receive a cut of the winning bids. It’s quite a lucrative business in a city filled with so many young, desperate souls.”

  “Why the fuck would I do that?”

  “Because the men who bid on these auctions are not ordinary men,” he explained with a sigh. “They are millionaires—billionaires even—all looking for a good time with an inexperienced, untouched woman. If you’re lucky, you could make all your sister owes me in one night.”

  Harley’s mind ran through the possibilities of what he was asking her to do. “You’re saying I would have to…sleep with this man?”

  “Only once, of course. If you are selected, you are his escort for the night and conclude the evening in one of my private rooms reserved for such an occasion. Who knows? You could make more than the money owed, and that, my dear, would be for you two to keep.” He lifted his hands as he spun around and glanced at Brianna. “A fresh start for you both.”

  “Just like that,” Harley breathed. “You would let us leave?”

  Ricky tilted his head side to side. “Unless you choose to stay and work for me,” he said with a wink. “Many men would be happy to gaze upon you and your blue-black hair.”

  Harley took a step away to ensure she stayed out of his reach. “What else do you want from me?” she asked sharply. “It can’t be this easy.”

  “Very thorough, aren’t you?”

  “What else do you want?” she shouted, losing it with each passing second as her choices shrank.

  Ricky’s eyes darkened and his smile faltered at her raised voice. He tugged at his silk jacket and cleared his throat. “This man I am keen to do business with is a local from the area, and I would very much like to have a chance at closing our deal. I would want you to succeed where your sister failed.”

  Hardly believing she was discussing sleeping with strange men, Harley forced herself to look him in the eye as she lifted her head. “Why not let me do that first and be done with it? Why can’t getting this man to close the deal be enough for you?”

  “Because Mr. Devois will not sleep with a woman he does not deem of value, and to deem them of value, he must see another man—or several—enjoy their company first. He must know how much was paid for the pleasure of their company. He is not particular about the virgin aspect, but he does expect high quality.”

  Two men.
Harley would have to sleep with two men to save her sister and herself from this evil bastard. She paced away from their staring faces and weighed her options. Most natives to Vegas knew how embedded Ricky was in the city and how pointless it was to try and fight against him. A small voice in the back of her mind told her to leave her sister to deal with the fate she’d dealt for herself, but when Harley closed her eyes, she saw their meth-addicted mother walking out the door and leaving them behind with a man unable to care for two young kids. Brianna was five when their mother disappeared and never came back. Harley spent her whole life proving she was not like her mother, and she wasn’t about to prove herself wrong now.

  “Deal,” she said as she turned around, squared her shoulders, and marched to Ricky. She held out her hand for his. “I’ll do the auction and I’ll take care of your Mr. Devois.”

  “Harley, no!” Brianna yelled and tried to jump off her stool, but one of the men dragged her back. “Harley!”

  “Shut up, Bri,” she ordered, her gaze locked on Ricky’s. “Do we have a deal?”

  Ricky took her hand as he laughed quietly. “Oh, we have a deal. I’ll send a car for you tomorrow evening around six. Will that work for you?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she shot back and wanted to yank her hand away, but he dragged her to his body, breathing hotly in her face.

  “Shame. I’d love to put a bid on you myself and see how harsh that fire in you can be when it’s unleashed.” He breathed her in, burying his face in her hair against the side of her head before he let her go. “Brianna may leave with her sister—but remember, girls, I have eyes all over the city. You try to run and you’ll get a tour of Vegas you never wanted to see.”