On a regular basis, I didn’t handle clients. In fact, in the last five years, they were the first couple I had to meet personally at this level of entry. They broke the rules, Jacob Cole broke the rules with them, and it left only me as someone I trusted to handle their case. Each person was assigned a handler. Now that the business had grown, we had this in place to protect ourselves. Jacob Cole was their handler, contact, and their games with his weaknesses cost him his life. I was done with their shit. For the last six months, Malcom Lanier had become desperate and demanding of Cole.
Neither of those were good for business.
Jacob Cole was a long-time employee of my organization. Decent man just trying to provide for his woman and her five kids—none of which were his. Too bad he went soft with the Lanier’s. He could be a pussy-whipped motherfucker at home to his whore of a wife, I didn’t give a shit. But in my business, kindness was weakness. There would be no kindness—ever.
Since I felt no one could be trusted to handle the maintenance level the Lanier’s required, I decided it was time for them to meet the man behind their every hope and dream coming true.
The cards were in my hands, and I think they might have forgotten that tidbit.
The pretty little thing in front of me would soon learn that too.
Torryn Lane McAllister, Kennedy Lanier’s little sister and only family left alive besides her husband, happened to walk in at the wrong time. Normally, I would disentangle my association and organization from a client like the Lanier’s. Except they came to us on the word of a repeat client. A client who had never given us a single bit of trouble during any of the three transactions we made. When someone trusted you with their future and millions of their dollars, it made you pay attention when they referred someone to your specialty.
And my business was certainly unique.
With my frustration at an all time high toward the Lanier’s, combined with the sexy voice and those innocent eyes of Torryn, my instincts screamed to take her. So take I did.
There was another thing that tied her to me, but it just happened to be something to work in my favor in a greater game I had unfortunately been playing for far too long. Torryn McAllister might be the key to winning that situation over forever. Only time would tell, and time was something never in short supply.
Guiding her off the door, I opened it and she slid in. “Way to cooperate, Collateral,” I said, slamming the door and moving to the other side to sit with her.
Yes, I knew her real name. Actually, I knew everything about her, her sister, and her brother-in-law, not that she would find out though. In my line of work, knowledge was always the key, so I knew as much as I could about every client even if I’d never once spoken to them. Her name was something she would give me on her own, just like her body. It was only a matter of time until I had her under me.
Getting in, I noticed she wasn’t buckled so I reached over and pulled the belt making sure I brushed against her tits enough to make her uncomfortable. By the flush and fire in her eyes, she got my point.
“Safety first. Always protect the collateral in any contract,” I stated before turning around and nodding to Garrett in the rearview mirror.
“To the Carol Lane house?” he asked, thinking I would take her to one of the many secondary properties I owned.
“No, to the Manor,” I stated, watching as Torryn’s eyes grew big, not that she had any clue what the Manor was. Garrett paused eyeing me cautiously, knowing I had never let anyone, including him, inside my home. It was the one place that was off limits to everyone.
He didn’t question me on it though. He knew better. Everyone knew better. Everyone except Torryn that is, and my cock grew.
“The Manor? Look, Mr. Blake.” She rolled her shoulders back and kept pushing her fear down. I found it rather amusing so I let her continue. “I don’t know you, but I’m not going to your house, which I’m assuming is this manor place. There will be no sex room where you hide me away and you keep me as some sex slave. Nothing is happening between us. I’m, as you say, your collateral. So the Carol Lane House will be just fine for me to pass my time under your watch.”
I laughed, her continual challenge was amusing. Garrett pulled out of the Lanier’s driveway, ignoring our passenger with skilled precision.
“You seem to misunderstand your place. You don’t get to make the calls here, I do. I find you entertaining, Collateral. I think you’ll be a true addition to life at The Manor. As for a sex room, you read far too many romance novels and watch too many movies. I’m not here to wine you, dine you, or give you immense pleasure. This is to insure your sister and her husband hold up their end of a deal.
“As for what I could do to you, well, you should know I don’t make love, I don’t have sex, I fuck. And, Collateral, I will fuck you because I want to, but it won’t be about you, your pleasure, your wants, although I can assure you that in me getting mine you’ll certainly get yours. Since you’re concerned with how you’ll pass your time, let your mind think of all the ways I can work your pussy because that, I assure you, could be the best part of this entire transaction, Collateral.”
She gasped but I watched the way her jaw ticked. The minx was rolling over thoughts of sex with me in her head or how to cut me in my sleep. Either way it was driving her wild.
This was good. Challenges were part of my world, and overcoming them was half the fun.
I wouldn’t be giving her hearts, flowers, or a damn thing to write home about, but fucking with her head before actually fucking her would definitely make this whole situation much more pleasurable for me. The rest of the drive passed with her trying to hug the door to put more space between us, and me wondering how I could spend the next few weeks fucking the woman I made collateral in a contract that would never see a court of law.
Stay on your toes, Torryn. I’m a powerhouse.
4
Torryn
The heat in the car was stifling and as much as I wanted to get out, this fear gripped me not wanting to know what the hell The Manor was. All that ran through my mind was the Bates Motel with all kinds of creepy ass stuff I never wanted to know about. Murder, mayhem, and blood, no thank you. Then to be there with this man was not a good scenario. How did I know he wasn’t going to chop me up? Hopefully being his collateral would halt him from taking a machete to me.
Every time I moved closer to the door of the shiny car, he made it a point to scoot that much closer to me giving me no space to think. It was like a twisted game to him. Like he wanted to scare me and bend me to his will. He knew nothing about me, especially my determined personality. If he thought I’d break and succumb to him and his games, it wasn’t happening.
The phone in my back pocket was missing because I couldn’t feel the hard plastic against me. Shit. “We need to go back. I left my phone and purse in my car.” The words tumbled out on their own.
“Too bad for you.” His casualness of me having no communication with the outside world pissed me off. There was no way I could go with this man and not have some way to get in contact with my sister.
How was I supposed to talk to her? Find out what the hell was going on. I needed my phone.
I glared, meeting his smirk, which I was coming to find out I hated just about as much as the man himself. “I need my phone.” He might have the upper hand right now, but I refused to hold back.
Onyx looked forward at the driver whose dark hair was the color of midnight. There seemed to be some sort of silent communication going on, and I was getting a bit sick of all the damn secrets.
“No, you don’t. Anything you need, will be provided.” He stressed the word need making me wonder what he determined as a need versus a want. How depraved would I be for my duration?
“Provided? What, is The Manor some kind of hotel?” I asked as my anxiety continued to climb.
He chuckled deep down in his chest. One thing I had always hated was others laughing at my expense. In high school, dealing with it was easy
because my sister was always there to fall back on. As the years passed on, my backbone got stronger, yet it still bothered me.
“No.”
My fists turned my knuckles white under the pressure. If I could hit him and not have a broken hand, I would have done it in a heartbeat.
“Collateral, you’re going to be one hell of a time.”
A huff came out. “I have to go to work.” Yes, it was a full-out lie, but grasping at straws never had rules. He couldn’t know I had been fired.
Onyx held up his cell phone. Update on the sister: Fired today from her job. The gasp stole my breath away. “How did you know that? Why did you look into me?” Fear was building inside me, but I refused to let him shake me.
He pulled the phone back down and swiped it off to black. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“No, that just happened today, and you didn’t even know me until a couple of hours ago.” I reached for the handle of the door noting we were going pretty fast down the road. If I were to get out, who knew how much I’d get hurt or killed.
He tisked. “I’m disappointed in you. Here I thought you loved your sister and wanted to help her. Pity.”
Pity? What man on this planet, who looked like he did, said the word pity like they were in some movie? The urge to smack him came back full force.
Immediately, the guilt hit me in the gut, and it hit hard. My sister was all I had and no matter what, I couldn’t disappoint her. As much as she had been there for me, taken care of me, letting her down wasn’t an option. No matter what I had to face to help her, I’d do it. “Fine, I lost my job. But I need to find another one to pay for my apartment and bills. I can’t stay locked up in your ivory tower,” I gave him honestly.
As the panic was running through me, I hadn’t been paying close enough attention as we left my sister’s. Leaning over just enough to check the time, we had been in the car over an hour. My sister lived in a suburb outside of Philadelphia, with the direction we went, we were closing in on Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Why would we go this way? Everyone knew that was Amish country, and this man was far from religious or Amish.
I looked to him, that damn mysterious smirk was back. “Yes, you are going to be a fun toy.” Rage boiled up in me, but then he gripped my arm hard and pulled me to him, fierce and determined, our chests colliding with the seatbelt putting pressure from the way he moved me. “Get one thing straight. I don’t give a fuck about your life outside of the now. Your apartment will be gone. Your shit will be gone. You will be here for the duration and when you leave, I don’t give a fuck what happens to you.” His words slithered down my spine and wrapped around my stomach, despair setting in. “From this moment on, you’re my toy to play with. You’ll do as I say, eat what I say, and shit when I say. Life as you know it is over.”
My breathing was ragged and when he released me, I gripped the area on my arm that his hands were on, like my touch would wipe his away. Then I moved as far away as the seat would allow.
The tears threatened, but I fought like hell to keep them at bay. He didn’t need to see them. He had me, and all I was to him was a toy to play around with for the next few weeks. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did, square in the chest. One thing though, I refused to let him know it, see it, or even sense it.
Never had anyone ever treated me like a disposable object, and that’s exactly how I felt sitting in the car with him. Slapping over another coat of armor on my backbone, my mouth stayed shut the rest of the way.
We pulled off the main road and onto a back road. Keeping a mental tally of where we were going was completely difficult. Part of me thought that Garrett went a few different turns more than he had to, throwing me off. The car turned and cascaded down a long driveway with lamps to light the way in the dark.
A very large black iron gate sat in front of us with large pillars that had concrete dragons perched on either side. Dragons had me curious. I guess I expected gargoyles, but I wouldn’t be asking him because in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter. And truthfully, deep in my belly, I didn’t think even gargoyles could guard or protect me from this man.
“Stay,” Onyx ordered, opening the car door and getting out.
“What’s he doing?” I asked Garret, not thinking that he’d actually answer me, but giving it a shot in the dark anyway.
“Opening the gate,” he answered frankly.
I raised an eyebrow in question.
Garrett’s eyes met mine in the mirror. “He trusts no one with the code to his gate.”
This shocked me because, from my understanding, these two were friends or partners or something. I mean he obviously wasn’t worried about this man turning him in for taking me. They had to have some sort of bond and trust between them. “Not even you?”
“No one.”
The gate opened as Onyx got back into the car. “Pull up to the main house. We’ll get out and then you can go. Leave the car parked outside the garage,” he commanded without a single acknowledgment of me, not even a glance.
“That was rude. You’re not gonna ask him to come in?” It rolled off my tongue before I thought better of it, but it needed to be said. There were manners, casual pleasantries, expectancies, and Onyx Blake gave not a single care to any of them.
His dark blue eyes turned to me. “No one goes in The Manor.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I fired back, “But it’s okay to bring me here. Someone you don’t know and use her as collateral?” Something wasn’t right here. The pieces of the puzzle weren’t going together, like all the straight edges disappeared leaving only the curved ones.
“Right,” was all he said before the car came to a complete stop. Looking out of the windshield, my breath caught, causing a weird sound to come from my throat. The Manor was a stone-covered castle, because house didn’t do it justice. It had three floors, windows everywhere that had a half-moon shape on the top and lights on every square inch of the place.
It was something that fairytales were made of and could be used as a prop for some Disney princess movie. The place felt warm and inviting, something that had not run off on the man next to me.
“You live in a castle?” I whispered as Onyx opened his door then turned to me.
His glare was dark, his presence intimidating, and his warning was clear. “This ain’t no motherfuckin’ kids story, and I sure as fuck ain’t no prince.”
That thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Looking at him, his build and stature, danger was stamped all over him; no, he was absolutely no prince charming. Instead of responding, I reached for the handle of my door, but it was locked.
“Come on,” Onyx demanded from the opened door.
I started to move over the plush leather. “You know, I can open a door and get out of a car all by myself.”
He gripped my arm, not hard, but getting my attention. “I want you out this way, you come this way.”
“Later,” Garrett called out as Onyx slammed the door shut, not giving me a moment to respond. Garrett reversed and pulled away like he was on fire and needed to get the hell out of there. But he never once questioned Onyx about what he intended to do with me, nor did he seem at all concerned with my well-being. What kind of men were they? What kind of business did they have? More so, what the hell did my sister and Malcom get themselves into? I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.
Onyx took off up the flight of stairs to the front door, and a sense of foreboding washed over me. I was really doing this, staying with this man I didn’t know, who had something my sister wanted and was going to live with him—here in a castle.
A chill raced up my spine and small bumps rose on my flesh as Onyx opened the door and ushered me through. My feet stopped in their tracks, like superglue was stuck to the bottom of them and there was no way I was moving.
My mind’s vision of a castle would be warm colors, fireplaces, nice, comfortable, fluffy furniture you’d want to sit in with colorful rugs and drapery, homey even. The Manor was none
of those things.
White. Stark white. Blank canvas. Void of color.
Everything from the top of the very high ceilings, to the walls, to the floor were white. Not a speck of color anywhere. The table in the foyer area had white legs and a clear glass top. There was nothing on it, and it looked sorely out of place out in the open.
A room off to the side was white as well. The table and single chair were white, but the top of the table was glass. I looked to my shoes wondering if I had dirt on them. Irrational yes, but my mom raised us to be mindful and respectful and my first instinct was to keep the floors clean. This place was sterile, clinical, and had the smell of bleach like a hospital.
Did this guy chop up bodies and needed to bleach the evidence? Fear was constantly rushing through me, and I couldn’t stop my mind from going to these dark places.
Onyx gave me a slight push on my back, making me step into the space more as he shut the door behind him locking it. The sound of the deadbolt was nauseating, a reminder that I was here and not going anywhere. Shit.
“Come, I’ll show you to your room.” Onyx, the only color in the room besides me, moved to the wide staircase that looked like it was cut from marble or something similar. The clack of my heels echoed like fireworks as we rose up the flights. Two flights exactly. Both floors, you guessed it—white. As hard as I tried to take more in, I couldn’t. The blank space was so void like the man in front of me, it took me off guard having absolutely zero personality.
It almost felt like one of those sanitariums they had back in the day where they locked up people. Creepy. I liked watching horror movies, not living in one.
The hallway he led me down was white with elegant crown molding on the top. No pictures were on the walls. No mementos or personal touches at all. Every door we passed was closed.
PowerHouse_Anti-Hero Game_Power Chain Book One Page 3
